Lionsgate Partners With Telltale Games To Create New Format Blending TV And Video Games

Telltale Games and Lionsgate are partnering together to create a whole new kind of content. [...]

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Telltale Games and Lionsgate are partnering together to create a whole new kind of content. Lionsgate today announced that they have invested in Telltale Games, and together the two companies will create a new form of entertainment that blends video games and television, called "Super Show."

Lionsgate brings its television expertise, having produced hit shows like Mad Men and Orange is the New Black. Telltale Games brings its critically acclaimed, narratively-driven style of video games, as seen in The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series and, The Wolf Among Us, and Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series.

The new "Super Show" format will blend the two together, featuring both interactive and scripted content.

"A 'Super Show' episode combines one part of interactive playable content with one part of scripted television style content," Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner tells EW. "Both pieces, when combined together, are what make an actual Super Show "episode." As we've been developing the series, we're using both mediums in concert to deliver our story. Developing both aspects simultaneously is key to utilizing this new medium. Both parts are first class citizens during the writing and design process. It's not an interactive series with a show, or a TV show with a game, but a story integrated in a way that only Telltale can do. For us it's a very natural evolution of the interactive story telling expertise we've pioneered."

Telltale has made its name by producing high quality games based on existing intellectual properties. Bruner says, with the cost and risk involved in creating a "Super Show," they've decide to debut the form with their own original IP, but that using it on an existing property isn't out of the question in the future.

"Our first Super Show is an original IP we've developed in collaboration with a world-class creative partner who's just as excited about the format as we are," Bruner says. "Producing this kind of content is also a much deeper investment for us so it's been important that we own or co-own the IP we develop as Super Shows. As we move forward I certainly can imagine building future Super Show series based on existing IP when it makes sense."

According to Bruner, Telltale has lofty goals in mind for the "Super Show" format, ones that may challenge both the definition of a video game and a television show.

"Our goal is to create products that have a legitimate chance of winning both a Golden Globe and a Game of the Year. This means both aspects of the productions must be first class work."

Bruner does say that the development of "Super Show" content will not replace the production of their traditional episodic game series, but that the two will be developed simultaneously.

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