“We really aren’t in control of that dial”: Sam Reich on designing the games of Game Changer season 8
"Game Changer, even before it's a game show, is sort of a social experiment where it's like we're trapping people on a stage and they have no idea what's going to happen," says the host and Dropout CEO.
Sam Reich, the CEO of Dropout and host/producer of Game Changer, shared insights into the design process behind the show's eighth season. Initially, the team approached the show with a mix of avant-garde and performance art, but they aimed to refine their approach by focusing on whether a game was leading toward an inevitable conclusion.
This season, they embraced more complex game mechanics, which led to both intriguing and challenging outcomes. However, they recognized that not all games would appeal to everyone, as the audience comprises both game enthusiasts and those who simply enjoy comedy and performance art. Reich, an avid fan of Blood on the Clocktower, enjoyed incorporating social deduction games, which allowed for misdirection and mischief among the players.
Finding the balance between entertaining content and fostering the "magic circle" – the concept where players treat the game outcome as significant despite it being trivial – proved challenging, as the cast's primary goal was to create the most entertaining episode, even if it meant disregarding the game's mechanics.
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