Current TV Announces Bar Karma, Interactive Show Created By Will Wright

Current TV has announced that The Sims and SimCity creator Will Wright will be heavily involved in a new, interactive television series that "will give audiences the ability to create and control the show’s storylines and plot developments." Bar Karma, as the series is tentatively titled, will use "technology that Wright has developed exclusively for Current TV" to allow the viewers themselves to create and vote on the storyline for each week's half-hour episode, according to the announcement. Though the show's producers will provide a rough outline for each week's show, it will be up to viewers to submit actual storyboards laying out their vision for the plot through the Bar Karma web site. Members of the community will then get to remix various storyboards into final proposals, which will be voted on to determine which one is actually produced for broadcast. "Bar Karma is a culmination of over a year's work and I am very excited to see the results as we join together not only gamers and television viewers, but actually create a community that will be empowered with a professional production team,” Wright said in a statement. “To develop and lead an initiative like this fulfills a long held passion for television, and I am thrilled that Current would provide the resources and creative support to bring this to air." Former President of Spike TV and President of Entertainment at Nickelodeon Abbie Hecht is credited as Wright's co-creator on the series. She also heads production company Worldwide Biggies, which will produce each week's half-hour episode from the viewer-generated ideas. “I have always been excited by innovation and what we are creating is unlike anything on television,” Hecht said in a statement. “The technology that Will has invented empowers viewers to participate, but also provides direct communication to me and my production team. We will be taking our cues from the viewers, working with them and then quickly producing. Wright left his position at EA/Maxis last year to focus on personal projects as part of his Stupid Fun Club "entertainment think tank." In April, he reportedly signed a deal with The Science Channel to produce programming on topics including time travel, different worlds and the future. Bar Karma is scheduled to premiere sometime in the first quarter of 2011.