The concept is simple: viewers participate in heroes’ struggle. Spawn in monsters, or trigger traps in their attempt on survival. Audiences sponsors and supports players by spawning in weapons and healing items. Sounds familiar? Well, it’s not shocking considering that it’s the exact premise of Susan Collins’
Hunger Games trilogy. The only major difference is the fact that the game will be virtual.
Twitch recently implemented a new feature, Extensions. It’s an interactive video player installed on the channel page by broadcasters. To make a long story short – it allows players to make decisions and have an influence on things they watch. In an interview with gameindustry.biz, Kevin Lin explained how it can revolutionize the way we experience Twitch and e-sports overall:
"I think you can go full-blown Hunger Games. You look at the success and continued growth of Battle Royale games and particularly PUBG - probably one of the fastest growing games in history. It would be super cool to add in that sort of mechanic where the audience can vote, or vote with their money, to help their favourite player or team out. That's very near. We've got 1,100 developers using it, and more joining every day. We're really hoping to build an ecosystem around it. I think you'll see some pretty cool games built."
The company is trying hard to use the feature in the most popular games, like
League of Legends, Overwatch, Hearthstone and
PUBG. Will “Extensions” be the next big step for video-games or another dead end? The (let’s hope not dystopian) future will tell.