Netflix is trying to increase its horizons in developing new interactive movie features

In the past 3-5 years, the basic streaming of movies has reduced and developers are adapting a new way to show their work by having an interaction with their audience. It has reached to a scale today where people have reduced the use of television and are using more Over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar. Many more OTT channels have made their place in todays era. With the new upcoming shows and movies, there has been seen an inclination towards interactive movies.

Interactive movies are coded in such a way that they follow a continuous tree pattern where every situation has two or more options to choose for the further story. These interactive movies are also called movie games which have a 101 interaction with the viewers. They are pre-programmed movies which are well scripted so that the viewers can choose their preferred story and the pattern they want to build in the movies. 

Earlier the concept of interactive movies was not common even though it started back in 1974. The first movie game was Nintendo’s Wild Gunman. Later on, it was followed by many more interactive movie games but all of them were animated. With the advancements in technology, the developers started to use fully digitalized characters and scenes. At the same time, a video game developer company in California, Telltale games, made a video game called The Walking Dead and used the new digitalization technology for it. Telltale Games gained immense success for it.

Netflix partnered with Telltale games for a new future of interactive media. Netflix made a highly complex software where the viewers could choose their own story. The viewers became fully active in movies. The line between games and these movies have started to reduce. While watching a movie, viewers can choose their own adventure and can change the plot of the story. Till now Netflix’s first big project under this concept has been Black Mirrior: Bandersnatch in 2018 and it came out to be a huge success. There are several other movies like You vs. Wild, Puss in Boots: Trapped in an Epic Tale and Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile. So now they have been trying to expand its range to different genres like comedy, romance, horror and many more.

The future of Netflix includes more interactive programming. This will allow the audience to have a control over their story. This will interest them to unlock different possibilities and all the different endings. Netflix is trying to experiment and discover new achievability. To engage more people with the new technology.