Latest news with #Bandersnatch
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Crypto for Advisors: When Crypto Meets Netflix
Last week was Consensus Toronto 2025. If you couldn't attend, CoinDesk has you covered! Listen to amazing global thought leaders, sharing their insights on pertinent topics surrounding the digital asset space on day 1, day 2 and day 3. You can also read the extensive editorial coverage. In today's Crypto for Advisors, Shivani Phull from Pixelynx explains how Black Mirror is leveraging blockchain as part of evolving fan content and engagement. Then, Eric Tomaszewski from Verde Capital Management answers questions about the appeal of these products to next-gen investors in Ask an Expert. Thank you to our sponsor of this week's newsletter, Grayscale. For financial advisors near Boston, Grayscale is hosting an exclusive event, Crypto Connect, on Thursday, June 5. Learn more. – Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option How Black Mirror's on-chain experiment is paving the way for the future of entertainment monetization. Traditional storytelling is hitting its ceiling. The passive, one-way consumption model that has defined entertainment for decades is increasingly out of sync with the expectations of digital-native audiences. And now, with the rise of new technologies, the entertainment intellectual property (IP) is entertainment intellectual property, or IP, is being fundamentally reimagined. Black Mirror has never been afraid to challenge the status quo. In 2018, the series broke new ground with Bandersnatch, an interactive episode. It hinted at a deeper shift: from stories we watch to stories we shape. That shift is accelerating. Members of Gen Z and Gen Alpha have been raised in worlds like Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite, where user-generated content forms the foundation of the experience. These audiences don't want to passively consume; they want to participate, shape and own the narrative. Traditionally, IP holders made money through licensing, syndication, product placement and box office sales. But generative AI is disrupting this model. With tools like OpenAI's Sora or Runway, anyone can spin up derivative content, posing both a threat and an opportunity. For IP owners, the challenge is clear: either lose control of the narrative or lean into new models that protect and expand it. Enter blockchain. Blockchain brings the missing layer of structure. It allows for: On-chain IP verification — using blockchain to prove who owns creative content, making it secure and transparent. Composable rights — content can be broken down into smaller parts that others can build on, remix or combine with new creations, allowing for microlicensing. Community ownership and participation rewards — fans can hold tokens that give them access to exclusive experiences and benefits as the project grows. Tokenized incentives for creators and fans — digital tokens are used to reward people for contributing, collaborating or being active in the community. This format unlocks new paths for storytelling, where fans are stakeholders shaping narratives with their favorite IPs, not just spectators. Banijay Rights, the global sales arm of content powerhouse Banijay Entertainment, which handles distribution for Black Mirror, has partnered with Pixelynx Inc. and KOR Protocol, a blockchain-based IP infrastructure and entertainment company based in Los Angeles, co-founded by iconic DJs Deadmau5 and Richie Hawtin. Led by visionary CEO Inder Phull, Pixelynx helped bring the Black Mirror universe on-chain in a way that's interactive, compliant and community-driven. Their latest initiative is a token inspired by the Nosedive episode, where fans link their socials and wallets to earn a reputation score. With more than 300,000 sign-ups, top participants unlock exclusive experiences and rewards, offering IP holders a new way to engage and reward their most passionate fans. The future of entertainment lies in embracing this shift through new frameworks that provide clear guardrails for IP usage, that preserve integrity, protect rights and enable value to accrue to fans and creators in a fair and transparent way. This marks the beginning of a new era for IP: one defined by protection, participation and sustainable monetization. By making IPs interactive, tokenized and on-chain, rights holders aren't just experimenting—they're sketching the blueprint for Storytelling 3.0. - Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option Q. What does "ownership" mean in the age of Web3, and how is it different from traditional investing? A. Ownership in Web3 is not just about holding an asset. More so, it's about participating in a system. With the Black Mirror token, owning the token means having a say in governance, gaining access to exclusive ecosystems, and building a digital form of identity that has the ability to grow in value over time. Unlike passive stock ownership, this is participatory. You are a stakeholder, not just a shareholder. Q. Can reputation-based tokens create economic value from behavior and is it sustainable? A. Yes, but it's nuanced. Black Mirror token gamifies trust because your on-chain actions and social interactions can earn tangible rewards. As a financial advisor, I'd caution that while this is exciting, it introduces performance-based risk. That being said, it reflects the direction of where young digitally native investors are heading. Q. Could these tokens act as a new form of "digital yield" for younger investors? A. Absolutely. Instead of fixed income yield, this is engagement yield. The more active and credible you are, the more awards you could potentially earn. It could be whitelisting access, platform discounts, or possibly token-based income. This is a new incentive model in some respects. When speaking to a client, I frame it as a form of behavioral finance in motion. With the right level of risk and time allocation, it becomes an asset that pays in influence and access. It's also a way to acknowledge that fulfillment and value look different to each person. Not every return is financial. - Eric Tomaszewski, financial advisor, Verde Capital Management Unknown block type "divider", specify a component for it in the ` option JP Morgan to enable clients to invest in bitcoin. Robinhood to acquire Canadian crypto firm Wonderfi. The U.S. Senate voted 66-32 to advance its landmark stablecoin legislation, the GENIUS Act. Digital Assets: Month in Review, with Joshua de Vos of CoinDesk delivering a monthly column on the crypto markets and ETF/ETP flows. 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The Herald Scotland
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Thanks to Netflix, you will never watch this Black Mirror ever again
Bandersnatch gave the viewer the choice of what story beats would play out through numerous choices. It was not just a simple forked path but innovatively tracked the viewer across multiple watches, contained secret scenes to unlock depending on what choices were made, and displayed alternate endings depending on the user's own Netflix history. It was, at once, active and reactive. A well-thought-out execution for such an overt gimmick. Read more: Netflix and the films no one is actually watching The deletion is prompted by the streaming giant removing its Branch Manager engine, tech built to host and contain the interactive elements from outside the capabilities of Netflix's usual interface. But the bespoke nature of this tech and the little care Netflix has towards preservation mean that experiencing these works as they were intended becomes impossible. Archivists can scrape scenes and approximate how the title should be viewed, but the genuine article now sits in a locked vault of code somewhere in the basement of Netflix HQ. It's not just Black Mirror: Bandersnatch that finds itself being erased from time and space altogether – it is any title on the platform that uses the interactivity features Netflix was once so gung ho on experimenting with. Also seeing the chop is Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend, Minecraft: Story Mode, and Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal, among others. Whatever is available on Netflix comes and goes, dependent on ever-changing licensing rights and the tedious process of expiry and renewal, but these interactive titles are owned and distributed by Netflix. It has long been assumed that such in-house titles are a permanent addition to their library, yet the recent decision to completely remove them betrays such confidence and conventional wisdom. Read more: Trump film tariff proves Scottish film cannot afford to sell out to Hollywood This raises some questions about digital preservation in the streaming era. Unlike traditional films or television, which can be archived properly and redistributed without much fuss if available, these interactive titles rely on specialised software to function and, without it, are lost entirely. How do we preserve such things in an environment that is so ephemeral and so unconsidered by its own makers? The crux lies in the impermanent nature of digital media. Even titles produced and owned by major platforms are no longer guaranteed to remain accessible. For fans of Bandersnatch, this means that unless Netflix reverses course or releases the title in a different format, its unique narrative vanishes without a trace. The move may also signal a shift in Netflix's strategy. Interactive storytelling, once seen as an innovative experiment, appears to have been deprioritised. While Bandersnatch was a critical and commercial success, later interactive titles failed to generate the same buzz. By sunsetting the Branch Manager engine, Netflix is definitively closing the book on this chapter of its history. There is a stark difference between the Netflix that once greenlit Bandersnatch and what arose after. Bandersnatch was produced in a streaming environment where money was thrown at the wall to see what would stick, where experimentation was encouraged, where notable auteurs like Martin Scorsese and David Fincher were given endless pots of money to make what they wanted, and where the platform was eager to differentiate itself from traditional television. Mindhunter, David Fincher's psychological serial killer series, was cancelled by Netflix due to financial issues (Image: Netflix) Netflix has now peaked in popularity, and its user base has declined for the first time in recent years. Focus on proven hits like Stranger Things, and the illusion of an endless stream of content to retain subscribers, regardless of quality, is now a safer and more financially sound direction for the waning giant. Film preservationists have long worked to rescue decaying reels collecting dust in warehouses and obscure forgotten releases from the abyss of history. Digital media has fixed a lot of the traditional problems associated with archival practices, but as seen here, it also presents new and unaccounted-for challenges. Some argue that piracy becomes a form of preservation in these cases. If corporations won't maintain access to their own works, fans and archivists must take matters into their own hands. But do archivists have to break the law to do what is for the greater good? For now, viewers hoping to revisit Bandersnatch or similar titles are left with few options – unofficial recordings, fan archives, or the slim chance of a future re-release. Bandersnatch remains a ghost in Netflix's servers – a relic of a time when the future of entertainment had the door open to more possibilities. Its removal is a reminder that in the digital age, nothing is guaranteed to last. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Engadget
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Netflix is bringing back 'Star Search' as it continues to expand into live TV
Star Search , a reality competition series that's featured a shocking number of musicians and comedians before they were famous, is coming back as a Netflix show. The streaming platform announced that it's bringing Star Search back as a live show with interactive elements, building on Netflix's expansion into live TV and events. Like the original, the new Star Search will focus on "emerging performers in music, dance, comedy and kids' acts," Netflix says. The company didn't share who would host or judge these acts, and doesn't have a premiere data as of yet, but Netflix did claim that the new Star Search will be "more interactive than ever." Past seasons of the show allowed the at-home audience to rate each performance before their scores were read live on air. It's not hard to imagine Netflix rigging something similar inside its own apps. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. Reality competition shows are a dime a dozen in 2025, particularly on Netflix, but Star Search is notable for the sheer number of famous people who competed on it. Like American Idol, not many of them actually won, but it's rare to see a competition show that's featured everyone from Christina Aguilera to Sinbad. Star Search is just one part of Netflix's growing ambitions for live TV, which now includes everything thing from alternative talk shows to WWE. The company streamed its first NFL game on Christmas Day 2024, and has continued to expand into other live events, like award shows. At the same time, Netflix's plans for gaming have seemingly diminished — the company closed its AAA game studio and has removed interactive shows like Bandersnatch from its catalog. Casting has already begun for the new version of Star Search . You can head to Netflix's website for more information and to apply to be on the show.
Telegraph
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Bandersnatch was Netflix's grandest TV experiment. So why erase it?
It's going on for six and half years since the release of Black Mirror's Bandersnatch – the feature-length interactive episode of Charlie Brooker's futureshock anthology series. But now there is one final twist in Brooker's tale of an emotionally unravelling Eighties video game programmer: the entire thing has just been scrubbed by Netflix in an act of digital disappearing that could have come straight from…yes, a Black Mirror script. The snatching of Bandersnatch is part of a move by Netflix away from the interactive TV model into which it invested millions between 2017 and 2022. In that distant and now long forgotten time-period, the streamer proclaimed its modern take on the old ' choose your own adventure ' format an area of enormous potential. 'We're doubling down on that', Netflix VP of product Todd Yellin had declared in 2019, shortly after Bandersnatch made its debut (Yellin left Netflix in 2022). Fast forward to 2025 and Netflix has embarked on a radically different strategy – having scrubbed not only Bandersnatch but a widely praised May 2020 interactive episode of Tina Fey's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, along with several kids shows that utilised the same technology. True, Bear Grylls's You Vs Wild hobbles on with the decision-making element expunged – meaning viewers can no longer actively choose to make Bear eat poison mushrooms and then loudly throw up all over his shoes. The barbarians are inside the gates. Films and shows leave Netflix all the time – in the majority of cases, because of the licensing deals through which the 'content' was secured in the first place. But Netflix owns Bandersnatch lock stock and dystopian barrel. More than that, it put huge resources into the cutting-edge 'Branch Manager' system that gave Charlie Brooker the freedom to write 150 unique scenes and over 60 decision points – along with the 10 official endings to the story (plus other rare outcomes only a tiny percentage of viewers have ever discovered). Netflix has been trialling the tech in kids shows when it approached Brooker and Black Mirror producer Annabel Jones about an interactive one-off. They had initially declined, fearing the results would smack of novelty. But when Brooker came up with the idea of a love letter to 1980s video games, they decided to give it a go – with Netflix encouraging the pair to think outside the box and push Branch Manager to its limits. 'When Netflix initially told us they had the capability to do this, and they asked us if we'd be interested in making an interactive film, we said no. We were determined, it was not for us. It might have felt gimmicky, so it wasn't something we were interested in,' Jones told Deadline. 'They asked us to push the technology, or to come up with ideas they didn't think they could quite pull off, and they would work out how to do them. We'd say, 'Can we do this?' And they'd never say, 'No.' They'd go, 'Well, we can't currently, but we'll work out if we can find a means of doing that.' Bandersnatch was widely acclaimed – 'like nothing I've ever experienced in a movie, a TV show, on Netflix, or anything else,' gushed Esquire – and Brooker clearly has affection for it, given that the latest series of Black Mirror features a sequel story, Plaything. It was also a dark, gritty love letter to the Eighties UK gaming industry. There really was a game called Bandersnatch – or, at any rate, there almost was. In 1984, Liverpool-based Imagine Software teased a new 'mega-game' of that name, though the plans unravelled when Imagine went out of business (it ultimately finally released as the underwhelming Brataccas). Black Mirror is understood to have furthermore riffed on the unhappy story of Matthew Smith, who designed the groundbreaking ZX Spectrum title Manic Miner only to leave gaming after the intolerable pressure of designing the much anticipated follow-up, Jet Set Willy in 1984 – an experience he described as 'seven shades of hell'. Playing Bandersnatch, the viewer is likewise sent to hell and back again and again. The instalment stars Fionn Whitehead as a young programmer hired to adapt a fantasy gamebook, Bandersnatch, into a video game. As the stress of completing the game plunges Stefan into burnout, he begins to feel that outside forces are controlling him (i.e. the viewer). Pretty soon, it all descends into chaos, and the walls start coming in. In one pivotal scene, fellow programmer Colin (Will Poulter) spikes Stefan's tea with LSD and rants about alternate timelines. He demands that Stefan choose one of the pair to jump from a balcony. If the player picks Stefan, he dies, and the Bandersnatch game is cobbled together and released to poor reviews. If Colin takes the plunge, the event is revealed as a dream – yet Colin is absent from future sequences. There are multiple endings. One sees Stefan have a breakdown and kill and dismember his father. In another,, the game comes out and flops, and the Imagine-like publisher Tuckersoft goes bust. All told, there are 150 minutes of footage divided into 250 segments – meaning there are one trillion different paths the viewer can take. There are five 'main' conclusions but another five to seven that are harder to reach and depend on making a number of seemingly random decisions. In other words, no two viewers will experience Bandersnatch in the same way – resulting in a meta experience that is both a commentary on the illusion of choice in video games and which recreates the feverish frame of mind of poor Stefan as he is driven around the twist. The result is a unique and fascinating experience. Why, then, would Netflix turn sour on the interactive format – to the point of erasing it from its history? The answer, of course, has to do with money. Scripting hours of additional footage exponentially increases a show's production costs. For instance, the total runtime of the 2022 interactive episode of Jurassic Park cartoon Camp Cretaceous was three times that of a regular instalment – and for what return? Plus, it is understood hosting the Branch Manager system on Netflix servers was expensive – and required constant updating as Netflix upgraded its homepage (the latest version of which rolls out on May 19). Instead of interactive TV, Netflix is betting big on video games – rolling out mobile titles based on hits such as Money Heist and Squid Game. It is also investing in AI-driven feeds on its home page and shorter TikTok-style content. Last year, newly appointed VP of 'GenAI for Games' at Netflix Mike Verdu indicated that the company felt it had pushed the choose your own adventure format as far as it could go. 'We're not building those specific experiences any more,' he said. 'The technology was very limiting and the potential for what we could do in that realm was kind of capped. But we learned a ton from that.' The difference in strategy is illustrated by how Netflix has chosen to market the new series of Black Mirror and that Bandersnatch sequel, Plaything. Netflix subscribers can download a tie-in mobile game, Thronglets, which recreates the empire-building PC simulation that drives the protagonist around the twist. It's great fun and has the same creepy ambience as the episode. But it is nowhere near as gripping as the original Bandersnatch, which started off asking you to pick a breakfast cereal for the lead character and then plunged into a vortex of madness and chaos – a world that has now been sealed shut and cast into the digital void. All told, it is a dark day for dystopias.
Geek Tyrant
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Netflix Removes BLACK MIRROR: BANDEERSNATCH From Streaming and Pulls the Plug on Its Interactive Era — GeekTyrant
Netflix has confirmed that Black Mirror: Bandersnatch , the genre-defying interactive choose-your-own-adventure movie, is being removed from the platform on May 12, 2025. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend , the quirky choose-your-own-adventure follow-up to the hit comedy series, will also vanish on that date. With their departure, Netflix officially closes the book on its short-lived experiment with interactive storytelling. Back when Bandersnatch dropped in late 2018, it was an ambitious standalone Black Mirror experience that starred Fionn Whitehead and Will Poulter and gave viewers control over the narrative, branching into multiple endings across 312 minutes of total footage. The series was described as a 'mind-bending tale with multiple endings,' and the story followed a young programmer in 1984 who begins adapting a fantasy novel written by a deranged author into a video game. As reality fractures, the viewer guides him through choices that determine how—and if—he survives the psychological spiral. After the release, Netflix was all-in on the format. Todd Yellin, then Netflix's VP of product, said the company planned to 'double down' on interactive content. But that push quietly faded away. Yellin left in 2022, and now the final remnants of that experiment are getting scrubbed. A Netflix spokesperson explained that the technology used in Bandersnatch 'served its purpose, but is now limiting as we focus on technological efforts in other areas.' And where exactly is Netflix pointing its tech efforts now? Games. The streamer has gone all-in on building a game portfolio. Its recently revamped TV interface now features playable games on smart TVs, including Too Hot to Handle 3 and Oxenfree —an 'interactive story' you control with your phone. So, interactivity isn't completely dead, but the choose-your-own-movie format as we knew it is getting retired. As for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend , that one dropped in 2020 as a farewell to the sitcom's four-season run. The description read: 'Kimmy's getting married, but first she has to foil the Reverend's evil plot. It's your move: What should she do next?' In the original announcement, co-creator Tina Fey said the interactive finale 'will be a great way to officially complete the series.' Now, ironically, both projects that were once billed as 'the future of television' are being quietly deleted. Source: Variety
