Apple's 'Severance' could be the start of something bigger

AppleInsider

"Severance" isn't just surviving the wait for season three, it's becoming the breakout franchise Apple TV+ has been chasing the very beginning.

An Apple TV+ teaser image for the second season of 'Severance'

With "Severance" season 3 in development and the show's cultural footprint continuing to grow, Apple TV+ seems to have stumbled into something it's been chasing since launch: a franchise with legs.

What began as an idea born from one creator's experience with "corporate misery", throughout two seasons evolved into a rare watercooler show. And one that's not only critically acclaimed but also increasingly mainstream.

Terms like "innie" and "outie" have made their way into everyday conversation. The show's presence has spilled out into real-world spaces like Grand Central Station and even Madison Square Garden.

All this hype isn't just good for "Severance." It's good for Apple.

Yes, Apple TV+ has racked up both nominations and awards and yes, it has garnered its fair share of prestige. But it still doesn't have the cultural cache of some of its larger competitors.

Many of its hits, while popular on the service, struggled to break out into the mainstream. Its second popular most series, "Ted Lasso," was the first of its offerings to really drive subscribers to the platform.

But now, "Severance," is being discussed in the context of spin-offs and merchandise. This is the kind of franchise-building talk usually reserved for the likes of HBO or Disney+ -- not generally something you'd see at Apple TV+.

And yet, Ben Stiller, who executive produces the show, confirmed in a new interview with Variety, he's got not one, but two potential spinoff concepts. Of course, he didn't bother to elaborate on what stage of development the spin-offs are in, or if they've even been discussed with Apple.

In addition to spin-offs and merchandise, Stiller would like to see a "Severance" video game. Adam Scott, who plays Mark Scout in the series, agrees.

Given the three-year gap between seasons and the behind-the-scenes hiccups that have reportedly occurred, the fact that "Severance" is still gaining steam says a lot. For Apple, which is still trying to justify the streaming service's long-term existence beyond being a nice value-add for hardware buyers, that momentum is invaluable.



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apple4thewin

If I’m going to be honest, at least from my surroundings, there was more hype and talk around Ted Lasso. The most conversation I ever heard about Severance was from my local radio show. I haven’t heard much talk coming from friends or older coworkers about this show, even though it is great. With that being said, this does seem like a show that will grow with popularity years down the line. Not the same level of something like Breaking Bad that first came out when I was too young to remember, and by the time I went into college, that was the only thing people would talk and meme about.

jgreg728

Some key things that Apple really needs to focus on here:

1) Merch
This is so important to make shows known to people in the real world. Apple TV+ (along with other streamers) need to give their original programming more of a footprint to make people aware. Merchandising is the answer here. Turning these shows into brands of their own in shops, malls, etc — online or brick and mortar — will drive up awareness with people that wouldn’t normally see ads for these shows in the usual places (annoying ads for niche audiences that people prefer to ignore). Plus, people like buying and collecting stuff to own. Merch for Apple shows like Severence, Ted Lasso, even Foundation would go a long way in supporting the shows and Apple TV+ as a whole.

2) “Justifying” Apple TV+’s Long Term Existence
This tends to be the million dollar question all the time about TV+. Why does anyone NEED to subscribe to a service with all original shows with unknown and unproven IP? Apple wants this service to be NETWORK. A network setting the stage for a post-cable world. Programming for cord cutters. But to achieve this, it needs a more diverse assortment of said programming. The bulk of their content is serial dramas and comedies that require a lot of attention. But they need more than that. And this is why it kinda sucked to see a show like The Problem with Jon Stewart get cancelled. Apple needs different types of programs to compete with other networks. They need a late night program. They need a “Family Guy” adult animation program. They need more live event programming. More sports programming. Only when they nail that down will they achieve that type of consumer perception of their service. 

3) A Better TV Ecosystem - Channels
This is more of a personal opinion, and one I know not everyone agrees with. But to piggyback off of my notion about Apple wanting a post-cable TV experience, achieving that requires more than just Apple TV+ getting Apple’s attention. The Apple TV App and Apple TV Channels as a whole need to be boosted in Apple’s plans for the future of television. There’s a whole sub-ecosystem to be tapped into here. And they have the foundations setup for it. Sports integration. The UI. Even small features like Picture in Picture on Apple TV 4K. Apple would be smart to tap into this more and compete more heavily with Amazon Prime TV Channels. Allow skippable ads for other streamers content. Make channels an ad campaign in itself. If Paramount+ is streaming a live game let it have the same compatibility with features such as Multiview that Friday Night Baseball and MLS currently have. Now apply that to Peacock and Max if they were channels.  Putting all this under one umbrella would put the Apple TV App at the top of the streaming app food chain. And would only boost TV+ as the center of it. 

blastdoor

I'd love to see Apple make the kind of investment in original games for the Mac that they've made in series like Severance for Apple TV+. 

Apple has gradually built up a pretty solid technological foundation, both hardware and software, for games on the Mac. They've made it easier to port AAA games from other platforms. Now they need to invest in making some great original and exclusive gaming content. 

One Apple TV+ show that would translate nicely into a game is Silo. There are a lot of episodes of that show that feel like a game. 

tmay

jgreg728 said:

Some key things that Apple really needs to focus on here:

1) Merch
This is so important to make shows known to people in the real world. Apple TV+ (along with other streamers) need to give their original programming more of a footprint to make people aware. Merchandising is the answer here. Turning these shows into brands of their own in shops, malls, etc — online or brick and mortar — will drive up awareness with people that wouldn’t normally see ads for these shows in the usual places (annoying ads for niche audiences that people prefer to ignore). Plus, people like buying and collecting stuff to own. Merch for Apple shows like Severence, Ted Lasso, even Foundation would go a long way in supporting the shows and Apple TV+ as a whole.

2) “Justifying” Apple TV+’s Long Term Existence
This tends to be the million dollar question all the time about TV+. Why does anyone NEED to subscribe to a service with all original shows with unknown and unproven IP? Apple wants this service to be NETWORK. A network setting the stage for a post-cable world. Programming for cord cutters. But to achieve this, it needs a more diverse assortment of said programming. The bulk of their content is serial dramas and comedies that require a lot of attention. But they need more than that. And this is why it kinda sucked to see a show like The Problem with Jon Stewart get cancelled. Apple needs different types of programs to compete with other networks. They need a late night program. They need a “Family Guy” adult animation program. They need more live event programming. More sports programming. Only when they nail that down will they achieve that type of consumer perception of their service. 

3) A Better TV Ecosystem - Channels
This is more of a personal opinion, and one I know not everyone agrees with. But to piggyback off of my notion about Apple wanting a post-cable TV experience, achieving that requires more than just Apple TV+ getting Apple’s attention. The Apple TV App and Apple TV Channels as a whole need to be boosted in Apple’s plans for the future of television. There’s a whole sub-ecosystem to be tapped into here. And they have the foundations setup for it. Sports integration. The UI. Even small features like Picture in Picture on Apple TV 4K. Apple would be smart to tap into this more and compete more heavily with Amazon Prime TV Channels. Allow skippable ads for other streamers content. Make channels an ad campaign in itself. If Paramount+ is streaming a live game let it have the same compatibility with features such as Multiview that Friday Night Baseball and MLS currently have. Now apply that to Peacock and Max if they were channels.  Putting all this under one umbrella would put the Apple TV App at the top of the streaming app food chain. And would only boost TV+ as the center of it. 

I was thinking this morning, how much i would like a Murderbot action figure, which could give an AI response to any question, via connection with an Apple iPhone, mimicking Murderbot.

pleitch

it’s baffling to me (not really) that apple hasn’t had apple arcade games for some of the more viral shows like silo, severance and ted lasso but also murderbot, monarch, for all mankind and even masters of air or hijack. even if they were fairly simple casual games it seems like a no-brainer to develop a game alongside a lot of theses shows. 

eriamjh

Severance, Season III: The Search for More Money

charlesn

pleitch said:

it’s baffling to me (not really) that apple hasn’t had apple arcade games for some of the more viral shows like silo, severance and ted lasso but also murderbot, monarch, for all mankind and even masters of air or hijack. even if they were fairly simple casual games it seems like a no-brainer to develop a game alongside a lot of theses shows. 

Apple has had an odd relationship to gaming. While it seems "not that interested" in the gaming space--Apple Arcade still feels like a half-hearted effort to me--Apple has also been making more money on gaming than Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo COMBINED, thanks to its 30% cut of iOS games. So Apple's passive role in the gaming space has been enormously profitable, nonetheless. So I can understand why it might not want to create an in-house gaming department to develop games, but then why not license out the titles you suggest to Take-Two, Electronic Arts or another independent game developer? Since an important goal of Apple TV+ is its halo effect for the entire Apple brand, then gaming and merch become important ways to spread the halo when you have a viral hit like Severance and other Apple shows with very devoted fanbases. I will say that Apple's approach to Severance merch has been novel and interesting! If you go to the "official" Severance merch store online, it doesn't sell anything but provides links to a list of fan-owned online stores that are selling Severance merch. I'm not sure how they decide which stores are featured, and I wonder if Apple or the Severance creators (not sure who owns the rights to merch) are even bothering to take a cut of sales. 

paisleydisco

Spin-offs = like a beating a dead horse.

Maybe one of the spin-offs can be a comedy.

marvin

pleitch said:

it’s baffling to me (not really) that apple hasn’t had apple arcade games for some of the more viral shows like silo, severance and ted lasso but also murderbot, monarch, for all mankind and even masters of air or hijack. even if they were fairly simple casual games it seems like a no-brainer to develop a game alongside a lot of theses shows. 

It's difficult to time game releases in sync. Movie studios used to do this more, they'd have movie promo interactive CDs in cereal boxes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/lr6oft/collecting_cdrom_games_from_cereal_boxes/

Some movies and TV shows don't translate well to interactive content. If a player plays the protagonist in a movie, you don't see them in first person. Some shows don't have a physically combative antagonist so there's not much to do besides triggering cutscenes.

Someone made a game of the Severance terminal, that's the kind of game that could be made relatively quickly and tie in with the TV show but would probably have limited appeal as a game:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3459460/Macro_Data_Refinement_Simulator/

A narrative game would have to play out a lot of interactive conversations. Telltale Games makes games like this, they are a pretty small studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKkVAOhlZWM (Batman)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6l8flf5bUw (Game of Thrones)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telltale_Games_(2018%E2%80%93present)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Telltale_Games_video_games

They release game episodes like a TV show. A big game normally takes 2-3 years to make. From the list of games, it looks like they had a pretty fast development time, under a year.

For a game like Silo, they could have clues to collect to advance the story. If it follows the TV show, people will know what clues to look for but they might still enjoy it and some people would only play the game.

There are companies that make interactive puzzle games, these are also faster to produce than typical games, they play like the old Broken Sword and Monkey Island games, similar to Myst too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Fish_Games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvZCw6ruJN4

There's still a place for these kind of games. Stardew Valley is a 2D game and sold over 40m copies. Usually these type of games don't generate much revenue but that would be ok when owned by a bigger company as they act as marketing.