{"id":1724,"date":"2017-01-11T00:31:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T00:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/?p=1724"},"modified":"2022-05-25T17:55:48","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T17:55:48","slug":"disruptive-content-part-1-marco-polo-vghs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/disruptive-content-part-1-marco-polo-vghs\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does Disruptive Content Look Like? Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

My wife and I just\u00a0started re-watching Video Game High School<\/em>. That may\u00a0seem odd\u00a0as neither of us exactly look like the show’s target demographic. But not only is VGHS surprisingly good, it is also a critical\u00a0case study in a shifting film and media landscape. Specifically, it illustrates\u00a0the dynamic of the upmarket retreat<\/em>, which is a telltale sign of accelerating\u00a0disruption in an established market.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Game of “Marco Polo”<\/span><\/h3>\n

I stumbled across\u00a0VGHS<\/em> when showrunner\u00a0Freddie Wong tweeted at my startup:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/fwong\/status\/378229149347110913<\/p>\n

We immediately dove into\u00a0season 1. And\u00a0have been fans ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n

But something struck me on\u00a0our first\u00a0VGHS <\/em>watch-through.<\/span><\/p>\n

On any given evening, we would find ourselves\u00a0on the couch, remote in hand, deciding\u00a0what to\u00a0play that night. At the time, we were watching two series:\u00a0VGHS<\/em>, and a big-budget prestige drama full of\u00a0blood and swords and horses. For the sake of argument, let\u2019s say it was Marco Polo<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a watershed moment for me to realize that on any given\u00a0evening, watching either Marco Polo<\/i> or VGHS<\/i> was a roughly fifty-fifty proposition. Media competes for attention, and attention is both finite and zero-sum. But here, this little \u201cweb series\u201d (I hate the term and don\u2019t think it has any meaningful definition) was going head-to-head with one of the most expensive productions in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Disruptive products are “inferior<\/a>,” but they compete along different vectors. VHGS<\/em> is occasionally rough around the edges. You might even see a slipped roto mask here or there. But on a technical level, it meets the\u00a0baseline of production quality necessary\u00a0to be a viable viewing option. More importantly,\u00a0<\/span>the show\u00a0manages to infuse a surprising\u00a0amount of heart and emotion into its absurd premise. (Elevator pitch: Harry Potter, with video games instead of magic.)<\/span><\/p>\n

And while Marco Polo<\/i> has some standout performances, it simply cannot compete with my affection for characters like Jenny Matrix, Ki Swan, Ted Wong, and Brian D. (To say nothing of Drift King. Or Shotbot. Or Games Dean. Seriously: if you skipped this show, you are missing out<\/span><\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

In one of this publication\u2019s anchor posts<\/a>, I closed with the question, \u201cWhat does a disruptive piece of content look like?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That question does not have a simple answer. But VGHS<\/i> provides one glimpse. A disruptive piece of content can\u00a0<\/span>go head-to-head with a behemoth like Marco Polo<\/em> with\u00a0just 1% or 2% of the\u00a0production budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

When this type of disruption shows up, it forces the incumbents to double and triple down on what they already do best. And in many\u00a0cases, the thing that they do best is just cost<\/a> a whole lot of money<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Great Northeast\u00a0Migration<\/h3>\n

Clayton Christensen, godfather of classic disruption theory, devotes a lot of ink to this phenomenon in a chapter<\/a> entitled “What goes up, cannot come down.”<\/p>\n

Christensen\u00a0shows\u00a0how the internal incentive structures at BigCos tend to\u00a0bias all decision-making in one direction: bigger, faster, more expensive. Over time, incumbents retreat upmarket. That is where they are able to compete most effectively. He calls this the “Great Northeast Migration.” Up, and to the right.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0our example, the incumbent product Marco Polo<\/em>\u00a0spent at least\u00a0100x<\/strong> (my napkin math) per minute of screen time compared to the\u00a0challenger,\u00a0VGHS<\/em>. But that increased sticker price did not, and cannot, deliver 100x the value. I am not 100x more likely to select the expensive show from my program guide. And <\/span>it can’t\u00a0capture 100x of my personal\u00a0attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy watching lavish, expensive television dramas. But I also enjoy watching competently-produced content with innovative premises, interesting characters, compelling storylines, and\u2014something most prestige shows\u00a0keep forgetting about\u2014genuine humor.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/NoelMu\/status\/816727731052433411<\/p>\n

This Northwest Migration is, in effect, what Matthew Ball has dubbed the Death Star Strategy<\/a>. As incumbents retreat ever further upmarket, they eventually balkanize\u00a0themselves in high-end luxury pigeonholes. That\u00a0might still be a great\u00a0place to live if you are an individual\u00a0working within the studio system. You can harvest\u00a0more social capital\u00a0from your proximity to\u00a0big, expensive projects. They’re not called “prestige” drama\u00a0for nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what is good for individual producers and execs\u00a0is not necessarily good for their companies’ long-term health. And these incentive structures are the exact levers that disruptors like to\u00a0pull.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

if you're not disrupting incentive structures, you're not really Disrupting anything. #startups<\/a><\/p>\n

— Pliny (@iampliny) May 3, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n