F*#k Transmedia: A Skeptic Reminds Us of the Limits

"Transmedia" storytelling is getting a lot of attention these days - especially from academics (guilty) and tech geeks.

But there are also lot of people (Old World storytellers?) who are suspicious of the term and fed-up with the claims for magical properties that attach to any work of fiction that is dispersed across multiple delivery channels.

The skeptics' view was recently expressed by game researcher Miguel Sicart at the Play All seminar and reported by game consultant Mathias Poulsen in an entertaining Nov. 27th, 2011 blogpost fittingly entitled F*#k Transmedia. Here's an excerpt from Mathias' post:

"Transmedia holds potential, but the potential is not in “transmedia”. The potential is in carefully selecting relevant tools/media, designing a framework for your users/community to interact with in order to facilitate desired experiences (as a side note, I think the most interesting examples of transmedia are build around the notion of “interactivity”, allowing users to play with the content). ”Transmedia” might be a perfectly fine choice in many situations, but why even think about what you do as “transmedia”? Why not think about it as a “fan-f*#kin’-tastic project creating a unique and engaging user experience”? It’s not transmedia that creates such an experience; it’s a team of creative content developers."