On December 1st, Netflix removed almost all of them interactive television shows. However, a group of fans (and even some people who worked on the deleted material) are working together to keep these interactive shows available and playable even after Netflix shuts down.
On November 5th Netflix confirmed it is removing 20 interactive shows from its streaming catalog, including shows based on Jurassic World, Carmen San Diego, And Boss baby. After December 1st, there were only four interactive shows left on Netflix: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, Ranveer vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, And You versus wild. But a small and dedicated group of fans, not happy about the news, have spent the last few weeks archiving and preserving the now-deleted shows.
As reported by 404 mediaBefore the December 1 purge, fans used Discord to organize an effort to record and archive as many of the then-soon-to-be-deleted shows as possible. Others have worked to reverse engineer the way Netflix created interactive video experiences.
“I couldn’t let this work go to waste,” explained Pixel, one of the fans working to archive everything 404 media. “We’re talking about over 100 hours of video and about a thousand hours of dubbing.”
According to the outlet, some shows are already fully emulated and can be enjoyed through alternative video players. Other shows have been uploaded to YouTube and mimic the interactivity using on-screen links and maps that take you to other archived videos. This is actually a similar method to how Netflix has created some YouTube exclusive ads I promoted the interactive shows a few years ago.
To get people to talk to them, 404 media agreed not to share the Discord channel and other places where these archiving methods take place. My city I won't share them either. There is fear of this in the community Netflix will stop their efforts if these alternative options are shared too publicly on the Internet.
Pixel tells 404 media that Netflix's interactive shows relied on an “internal video” that included all the different paths and endings. According to the archivist, these interactive shows were driven by two JSON files. One controlled decisions and where to jump in the video and the other file pulled in assets for the buttons.
“We currently have a proof-of-concept emulator running on a Python script that uses the JSONs to make working decisions, although it needs work and the button images currently no longer work,” Pixel explained. “We have a team member in Turkey hosting the files once we get the emulator running on a website.”
According to Pixel, the biggest challenge fans currently face when archiving all that deleted Netflix content is keeping track of it.
“We have a lot of people counting on us,” Pixel said, “And I get A LOT of DMs from people asking how to play her.”
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