This TV show is billed as an “interactive real-time reality competition” in which viewers help make the decisions about who stays and who goes home. The game begins with 14 contestants of both sexes and varying backgrounds as they live together and compete for $250,000 in a totally wired, state-of-the-art glass house. They aren’t just playing the game with each other though. They’re also playing the game to win over the audience. While in the house, the contestants split into two groups and compete in various physical and mental competitions. The captains of the two teams are the two contestants who have received the least amount of votes from the public. After losing a challenge, the captain of the losing team is sent to limbo, along with a second member of that team which is voted on by the house.

Through social networks and online, viewers are encouraged to support and follow the contestants they like and those that they don’t. Viewer votes help determine which contestants are sent home and also which eliminated players will earn the chance to return to “The Glass House” to compete again. (The contestants receive two days out of the house, in which they are taken to a hotel and sequestered from each other and outside game communications.)

Several times a week, viewers can watch a live online feed of the players and vote to decide everything from what they wear and eat, to the games they play, even where they sleep. Viewers will also have the chance to give their favorite players feedback on their game from outside the house. How the contestants use that information is up to them, because in the end it’s about who plays the best social game and the most important alliance a player can have is with their fans. The contestants are spoken to by a robotic female voice, which they refer to as the “Oracle” or “Ori”. The name was decided by the public.