Digital Library Keyword Archives
Transmedia Storytelling
- 3 articles or papers
The Mobile Suit Gundam Franchise: a Case Study of Transmedia Storytelling Practices and the Role of Digital Games in Japan
Nakamura Akinori Tosca Susana
2019 DiGRA '19 - Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix
The present study looks at the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise and the role of digital games from the conceptual frameworks of transmedia storytelling and the Japanese media mix. We offer a historical account of the development of “the Mobile Suit Gundam” series from a producer´s perspective and show how a combination of convergent and divergent strategies contributed to the success of the series, with a special focus on games. Our case can show some insight into underdeveloped aspects of the theory of transmedial storytelling and the Japanese media mix.
Overwatch as a Shared Universe: Game Worlds in a Transmedial Franchise
Blom Joleen
2018 DiGRA '18 - Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message
Transmedia storytelling implies that each medium is a device with the same storytelling capacity to equally contribute to a single coherent world. Specifically games become an issue when transmedial worlds rely on storytelling and the imagination, since they tend to disrupt the sense of coherence within transmedial worlds. Through a case study of the Overwatch franchise (Blizzard Entertainment 2016 – 2018), this paper challenges the notion of transmedial worlds central to the idea of transmedia storytelling. Based on Anderson’s notion of Imagined Communities (1983), it proposes instead to consider transmedial universes that include games such as Overwatch as shared universes that take into consideration various types of worlds, such as virtual worlds, by focusing on how the Overwatch franchise supports the connection between consumers.