Google has plans to create interactive games on top of Youtube videos, according to a patent submitted in early 2009 and finally published last month. Could a Youtube viral video choose-your-own-adventure game be just around the corner?
Google’s patent, snappily titled Web-Based System for Generation of Interactive Games Based on Digital Videos, describes a way to offer “collaborative generation of interactive features for digital videos…in particular to interactive video annotations enabling control of video playback”.
Google’s plan for Youtube suggests a future when the annotations that can be currently added to Youtube clips are able to trigger actions. ??Google’s patent suggests that “annotations can be used to construct interactive games using videos, such as a game in which clicking on different portions of a video leads to different outcomes”. In other words, it’s choose-your-own-adventure 2.0.
With Youtube now showing full TV shows, its clear that Google is working to make Youtube a more fully fledged entertainment platform. The ability to build more interactive videos would obviously help with that.
If Google does decide to launch this feature, Youtube will be absolutely flooded with Dungeons And Dragons rip-offs. However, it’s not even certain that it will apply the method as it’s currently just one of many Google patents.
