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How did games become part of transmedia storytelling?
Games entered transmedia through an overlap of three practices: games developed forms of interaction distinct from books and screen media; companies built recognizable properties across multiple formats; and audiences moved between those formats, bringing their own interpretations and activities with them.
That history is not simply a progression from a film or book to a game “tie-in.” The 2018 collection Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling, edited by Dan Hassler-Forest and Sean M. Guynes, considers games alongside novels, comics, television, advertising and fandom. Its approach connects the creative work of building a storyworld with the industrial logic of making and extending a franchise. Games belong to that larger media ecology, rather than being only merchandise attached to another work.
The terms used to describe these practices vary across scholarship. A useful distinction is between adaptation and transmedia extension. An adaptation translates a story or property into a different medium; an extension uses a medium to add a new perspective, experience or element to the larger world. A film based on a game may adapt its material without adding to the storyworld. A game set in an established world may instead offer a new episode or viewpoint. A single franchise can do both.
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What can a game add that another medium cannot?
Games can make a storyworld something players act within, not just something they watch or read about. Their particular contribution may come from interaction, choice, exploration, rules or the practices involved in playing. Which of these matters depends on the game: the presence of a franchise’s characters or logo alone does not establish that the game expands its world.
- Adaptation: the game retells or reworks material from a book, film, comic or other source.
- Additional story: the game contributes an episode or information not presented in the other installments.
- Parallel viewpoint: it lets players encounter familiar events or settings from a different perspective.
- Brand extension: it uses a property in a game without necessarily adding meaningful narrative material.
These categories can overlap. A game might adapt an established premise while adding its own locations, events or player decisions. The question is not whether the game is “transmedia” in the abstract, but what it contributes and how that contribution relates to the other works.
How do games and other media move between one another?
Movement across media goes in both directions. Games can adapt stories that began elsewhere, while a game-originated property can later be translated for film or other formats. The 2024 study by Aleynikova and Lapina-Kratasiuk examines the Tomb Raider franchise’s movement from gaming platforms to the big screen over 1996–2013. It offers a bounded case for thinking about transmediation: a story or property changes as it crosses media, rather than simply being copied intact.
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That case should not be mistaken for evidence that a particular adaptation was commercially successful, or that all adaptations expand a storyworld. Each medium has different ways to present information and involve an audience. The useful comparison is what changes in the translation, what is retained, and whether the new work adds a distinct experience or narrative element.
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How do franchises give audiences different ways in?
A game can be an audience’s first encounter with a larger fictional world, even when the franchise began elsewhere. In Victoria Lagrange’s 2024 study of reception and narrative comprehension in Bill Willingham’s Fables franchise, a survey of 58 participants found that most first encountered the property through the comics, while a significant number entered through the video game. Many participants explored multiple parts of the franchise and expressed interest in further narrative exploration.
This is evidence about that particular study and its small sample, not a general estimate of how people discover franchises. It nonetheless illustrates an important point: an installment does not have to be the first one produced to serve as someone’s entry point. A game can lead a player toward comics, just as a comic, film or television series can lead someone toward a game.
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Can players create transmedia worlds, too?
Transmedia world-building is not limited to official releases planned by rights-holders. Kellynn Wee’s 2024 study of Dungeons & Dragons play cultures in Singapore examines how players use transmedia techniques and sustain a shared imagined world through play. Wee uses the term “soft canon” for a way of valuing emotionally resonant details without requiring every participant to agree on every event in the world.
This shifts attention from a franchise’s published texts to the social practices around them. Players may develop, share and remember details together, making a world meaningful through participation. The study concerns specific communities in Singapore; it should not be treated as a universal description of tabletop role-playing or all player groups.
How can you tell whether a game meaningfully expands a franchise?
When comparing a game-led property, a film-led franchise with game installments, or a participatory tabletop world, consider the same questions without assuming that each case works the same way:
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| Question | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Narrative function | Does the game adapt existing material, add a story, offer a parallel viewpoint or mainly extend the brand? |
| Medium-specific contribution | What do play, choice, exploration or social activity make possible in this case? |
| Continuity authority | Who decides what counts as canon, and do player-created contributions have official standing? |
| Audience pathway | Which installment can serve as an entry point, and what might lead people to other parts of the franchise? |
| Industrial structure | How do ownership, franchise strategy and business models support or constrain expansion? |
These questions help separate world-building from simply placing the same characters or branding on several platforms. They are comparison prompts, not a universal scoring system: the scholarship on franchise economics, audience reception and community play addresses different kinds of evidence.
Where could games and transmedia go next?
The future is shaped by interacting forces rather than a single predictable trend. The World Intellectual Property Organization’s overview of the global video game industry identifies hardware and software innovation, digital transformation, business models, intellectual property and player experience as important dimensions of industry change. Together, these affect what kinds of games can be made, how shared properties are managed and how audiences encounter them.
Transmedia scholarship is also broadening. A 2026 review, 20 years of transmedia research: Definitions, methodologies, and fields of study, describes a field that has expanded beyond fiction and identifies gaps in its themes and methods. That points to questions for future study, not a reliable forecast of which franchise, platform or business model will dominate. The direction of the field will depend on how creative choices, commercial arrangements and audience practices meet.
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