How Relevant Is Your Choice? - User Engagement and Perceived Agency in Interactive Digital Narratives on Video Streaming Platforms

Lobke Kolhoff, Frank Nack

Abstract: With the release of the film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Netflix entered the area of interactive streamed narratives. We performed a qualitative analysis with 169 Netflix subscribers that had watched the episode. The key findings show (1) participants are initially engaged because of curiosity and the novelty value, and desire to explore the narrative regardless of satisfaction, (2) perceived agency is limited due to arbitrary choices and the lack of meaningful consequences, (3) the overall experience is satisfactory but adaptions are desirable in future design to make full use of the potential of the format.