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If you are a gaming fan, or if you are a TV creatr in the making, or better yet, if you are both, then you´ll love what Current TV is developing. Today marks the launch of Current TV’s Creation Studios, a new online destination where the global online community can participate in the creation of Bar Karma, a new series set to premiere on Current TV in February 2011. Created by world-renowned video game designer Will Wright, creator of The Sims and SimCity, the most successful gaming franchise of all time, and Albie Hecht, CEO of Worldwide Biggies, the series (announced last month by Current TV executives) is about a mystical watering hole at the edge of the universe,
Bar Karma is Community Developed Television, a unique television experience that is the first of its kind. Viewers will be able to log on to the site, to participate in the development of the show, including both creative and technical aspects. Viewers are able to influence and alter the show’s episodes by pitching their own storyline concepts and storyboards, and vote on the one’s they like best. Once a final storyboard is selected by the community at large, the producers will adapt, shoot, produce and edit the winning storyline into a 30-minute television episode. The shows development can be followed through Facebook and Twitter, and your mobile device.
Albie Hecht, former President of Spike TV and President of Entertainment at Nickelodeon, who has served as Wright’s co-creator on the project, will executive produce the series, with his digital entertainment studio Worldwide Biggies serving as the show’s production company. David Cohn, former General Manager of MTV2, will serve as executive in charge for the network.
Who is Will Wright?
Will Wright, widely acknowledged for creating the simulation video game genre, unveiled the highly anticipated SporeTM in September 2008. Spore is a “universe in a box” that allows players to create a species and guide it to sentience, help it build a society, develop its culture, and explore an infinite cosmos of worlds created by other players. Fans eagerly embraced the creation tools in Spore and have created over 100 Million pieces of user-created content, as of Summer 2009.
Spore has been distinguished with such honors as Popular Science’s “Best of What’s New Award,” Popular Mechanics’s “Breakthrough Award,” PC Magazine’s “Technical Excellence Award,” Time Magazine’s “50 Best Inventions of 2008,” and the Jim Henson Technology Honor.
A true gaming industry legend as a result of his pioneering contributions to video games, Wright has been the recipient of several prestigious awards and honors. Rolling Stone named Will Wright “One of the 100 People who are Changing America,” in March 2009, placing him among artists, leaders, scientists, and policymakers who are “fighting every day to show us what is possible.” IN 2008, Will received the first-ever Gamer God Award at the Spike Video Game Awards as a testament to his revolutionary work. In 2007, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognized an individual in the Video Game Industry for the first time when it named Wright a fellow. He also received the Producers Guild of America Vanguard Award that same year.
Wright first rose to prominence when he developed SimCityTM, the acclaimed, nonviolent, open-ended sim game. Wright then followed up the success of SimCity with a string of popular simulation games throughout the 1990s. Titles such as SimEarth: The Living Planet (1990), SimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony (1991), SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCopter (1996), and SimCity 3000 (1999) introduced simulation games to hundreds of thousands of new fans, demonstrating the genre’s true potential.
Wright’s next groundbreaking game came in the form of The Sims (2000), which has gone on to become the best selling PC game franchise of all time, being available in 22 languages in 60 countries. Wright, who studied architecture in college, originally conceived of the game as an architectural design simulator. To “score” the quality of the design, he added tiny people who would inhabit the buildings. These simulated people quickly stole the spotlight, and Will realized that watching the lives of the Sims unfold was the real entertainment. The Sims franchise has now sold over 100 Million units around the world.
Will you take part on Bar Karma? Will you show us your showrunning and creating skills?
Let me know in the comments section.
Also, remember to follow me on Twitter for more Bar Karma scoop.
[…] already told you about Bar Karma, the new show on Current TV, I did the preview and spoilers of Bar Karma, and also told you about the Bar Karma Music Studio, […]