Amazon turns choosing what to stream into a series of mini-games

midian182

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What just happened? Do you endlessly scroll through the seemingly unlimited amount of streaming content available today, unable to decide what to watch before it's time for bed? Amazon has an app that could solve your conundrum in a fun way, though it is only available to Fire TV owners in the US—at least for now.

The free IMDb What to Watch app on Fire TV turns the often arduous task of discovering and deciding what to watch into three mini-games, which will recommend movies and TV shows across multiple streaming services.

The first game, Quick Draw, is the most basic and fastest way to decide what to watch. It shuffles through virtual playing cards and draws three movie/TV options for users to pick from. Whether people will just repeatedly hit the 'deal card' button until they find something that piques their interest remains to be seen.

The second game is Watch Challenge. This asks users to work their way through curated lists of titles from IMDb, including the Top 250 movies list, award-winning titles, and popular franchises, to collect digital stamps. It's also possible to rate the entries on offer. Amazon says the themed lists will be updated frequently.

The final and likely the best game is This or That. It asks users a set of this or that questions to determine the perfect movie or show based on their mood, be it a horror, romance, comedy, etc.

All the recommended titles will come with IMDb ratings to help users decide whether to watch them, and it's possible to prioritize titles available on specific streaming services—recommendations show details of where the content can be streamed.

Amazon says it will be adding new games, including Build-a-Cast and Time Machine, to the app, which can be downloaded from the Fire TV app store or by asking Alexa to "open IMDb What to Watch app." Here's hoping Amazon makes it more widely available at some point in the future.

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Yeah… who wants to use their own brain to decide what to watch? Let’s let Amazon decide for us - and give them more data on our choices to make it even easier for them to influence us in the future…
 
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