The Verge: Last week, news broke that Disney was surveying customers about a new name for its Florida-based Hollywood Studios. The change would come alongside a fundamental reimagining of the park itself, moving away from the ride-centric home to attractions like Star Tours and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, and towards a more interactive, immersive land in line with the upcoming Star Wars: Galaxy Edge. “Enter this newly named Disney Theme Park and completely immerse yourself in the realm of some of your favorite stories,” the survey read, promising guests the chance to “step into imagined worlds made real, and take the lead in an adventure that surrounds you at every turn.”
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3 comments:
I agree that immersive entertainment has a naming problem. I am excited to see how Disney and other big companies take on the challenge of making more immersive parks vs. the expected amusement and thrill rides.
I also agree that a well made name can go a long way. As in the cases of various brand names, when the products of the brand dominates the market and settle into consumers lives, they can verbify and replace the generic word to represent the function of the product. Like we google instead of internet search, xerox instead of make paper copies or photoshop instead of edit the photo on computer. It would be great if Disney can figures out the one name that is catchy and simple enough to represent the consumer experience. But also, an appropriate name can settle after couple trials or after consumers get a chance to experience it for themselves, as in the cases of Escape Room and Haunted House. So even if there is yet to be a word that represents the experience Disney is planning in Florida, there may be no need to rush it and come up with a premature placeholder.
Disney’s naming conundrum is quite an interesting problem to have. It’s odd to think that as technology advances and new areas or objects are being invented so to do the names of these inventions also have to be invented. I’ve always thought I had missed the time in the United States when inventions were happening, and new names of new things were being developed. However, it seems as though with all this new technology I’ll be alive for the second round of the invention/ name invention time in America. I like what the article said about all immersive entertainment having a naming problem: “These are issues that arise when any new medium begins migrating into the mainstream. But the trick with immersive entertainment is that it’s not a specific medium like cinema or television. As I wrote in the first installment of this column, it’s actually a number of different art forms that all share common techniques and traits, centered around the core idea of making the audience an active participant. The catch-all of “immersive entertainment” works great for creators and for discussing the larger trend, but it’s far too broad to be useful for audiences”. Each environment seems to need its own name or naming style.
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