AF7620 Chap.8 Web3, Transmedia and Story Worlds
Web3, Transmedia and Story Worlds
From reading the web to owning a piece of it
The Web3 lecture tells the history of the web as a history of economies. Web1 was the information economy, built on open protocols from the 1970s and 1980s such as TCP, IP, SMTP and HTTP; it was open and inclusive, but open source is hard to monetise.
Web2 was the platform economy, whose business model built proprietary, closed platforms on top of those open protocols; some of these companies became the most valuable in history, and users pay for free services by trusting models that sell their data.
Web3 promises an ownership economy: open protocols again, but collectively owned through tokens, independent of traditional organisations, and valuing user ownership of data and permissionless access.
The mechanics behind the promise
Web3 applications run on blockchains, decentralised networks of peer-to-peer nodes, or on hybrids.
Many protocols rely on cryptocurrency tokens as an incentive for anyone who helps create, govern or improve a project. A decentralised autonomous organisation replaces the pyramid of chief executive, management and staff with a network of users, developers and miners.
The lecture pairs this with the semantic web and AI as two further cornerstones, and asks bluntly whether we own anything at all, using the market for non-fungible tokens, where avatars, collectibles and art led aggregate volume in early 2022.
What games already learned
The strongest evidence in the lecture comes from games. In the past, players paid developers and publishers cash for items.
In the newer model players stake and vote in a community organisation, earn rewards by playing, and value no longer accrues only to the developer. The lecture draws five lessons for storytellers: empower players, stay open, build a system that rewards, manage relationships in every direction between business and consumer, and design.
Its closing line is that the more digital entertainment changes, the more it stays the same.
Multimedia, crossmedia and transmedia
The transmedia lecture separates three terms that are often confused. Multimedia is one story in many forms on one channel. Crossmedia is one story across many channels.
Transmedia is one story universe told through many stories, many forms and many channels, where every platform contributes story found nowhere else, fans take part and add their own, and every piece forms one coherent world.
The lecture also traces a progression from pushed media through extended and adapted media to experience in media.
Five tensions a story world must balance
Spreadability against drillability: material has to travel easily and still reward fans who dig. Continuity against multiplicity: the story stays the same on every platform yet can offer new viewpoints.
Immersion against extractability: the audience enters the world and can take parts of it away, such as characters. Worldbuilding: a complex world that can hold many stories. Seriality against fragmentation: the story arrives in pieces and the audience assembles it.
The second class exercise applies all of this: given a film showing in cinemas, propose four more channels that reach, engage, deepen or extend the story, and say why.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Information, platform and ownership economies
- 02
Blockchains, tokens and decentralised organisations
- 03
Do you own anything, really?
- 04
The shift in value from publishers to players
- 05
Five lessons from games
- 06
Multimedia, crossmedia and transmedia
- 07
Transmedia from pushed media to experience
- 08
Spreadability, continuity, immersion, worldbuilding and seriality
- 09
Visual IP, narrative IP and the route to merchandise
Worked example · free
Extend a cinema release into four channels
- 2Give one channel that reaches new audiences.
- 2Give one channel that engages existing fans.
- 4Give one that adds a new aspect and one that extends the story.
Key terms
- Ownership Economy
- The lecture's name for the Web3 model, in which users collectively own open protocols through tokens instead of trusting a closed platform with their data.
- Decentralised Autonomous Organisation
- An organisation run by rules executed in code and governed by its participants, replacing a top-down management hierarchy with a network of users and developers.
- Play-to-Earn
- A game model in which players earn rewards of real value for playing, so that value is shared with players rather than kept only by the developer.
- Crossmedia
- Telling one story across several channels, where each channel carries the same story rather than adding new parts to it.
- Drillability
- The depth of a story world that rewards fans who dig into details, the counterweight to material that merely travels well.
- Extractability
- The ability of an audience to take parts of a story world, such as characters or objects, into their own lives, for example as collectibles.
- Narrative IP
- Intellectual property whose value lies in its characters' backstories, personalities and world, and which can therefore expand across many media.
Web3, Transmedia and Story Worlds FAQ
Is transmedia just marketing?
No, and the lecture's definitions show why. Marketing and crossmedia repeat one story across channels to promote it, while transmedia gives every platform story found nowhere else, and the pieces add up to one world. A trailer on social media is promotion; a prequel comic that reveals a character's past is transmedia.
What is the difference between visual IP and narrative IP?
Visual IP draws its value from a character's look, such as a cute design, a distinctive style or strong colours, and aims at recognition and purchase, as mascots do. Narrative IP draws its value from backstory, personality and a developed world, builds emotional attachment, and is the kind that can spread across comics, film and games. The strongest properties combine both.
Why does a filmmaking course teach Web3?
Because distribution and ownership are changing alongside production. The lecture uses games to show value moving from publishers to players through rewards, community governance and user-generated content, and asks what a story property could learn from that. For a pitch, the practical question is how an audience could take part in the world rather than only watch it.
Assessment move
Draw your pitch's story world as a single circle and place the film at its centre. Around it, write four other stories set in the same world, each in a different medium, and label each with the principle it serves. If two of your four stories use the same principle, replace one.
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