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Movies Stars Seek More Control Over Videogames
stoolpigeon writes "MSNBC has an article about major actors and their relationship to videogames, saying: 'The trickle of A-list talent appearing in games has turned into a torrent of late and beyond publicity, the trend has triggered changes in game development. Stars now work with game producers on story and character development as agents and lawyers try to figure out how an actor can maintain his 'image,' in an interactive environment.'"
I've always wondered why people like movies with famous actors at all *anyway*.
Sure, they can generally act well, but there are a lot of good actors out in the world.
And the down side of having a famous actor is significant. You are constantly having the fact that the actor is the *actor* thrown in your face. It's much harder to achieve the illusion of the actor being the character in the movie. Sure, for some movies it doesn't matter. When you go watch an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jackie Chan movie, you aren't going to see the character -- you're going because you want to see Schwarzenegger or Chan doing more of their trademark things. You aren't going to fall into the false reality of the movie, because, well, you're watching *Jackie Chan*!
For most movies, I *much* prefer when I don't know the actor -- maybe there's a really extensive makeup job done, or the actor is much older or younger than in any other movies that I've seen him in, or I just plain haven't seen the actor before. It means that I'm watching the *character*, not the *actor*.
I am interested to see what happens when good CG (starting somewhere around Gollum in LoTR) becomes more pervasive and it's not as readily apparent who is acting as what character.
May we never see th
There's another class of people who don't understand interactive storytelling ready to add the cacophony of "This is the way we want it done, oh and it better work as a game."
Just when developers finally start to get the hang of the movie translation, and just a producers learn how to deal with marketing and management and publishers and every idiot who thinks that they know how to make a game, and it's pretty much the same thing as writing their high-school english essays but easier, since it's a game, and how hard can that be, there's a brand new class of people who come along. Not only that, a brand new class of really pushy people. Oh, hooray.
On a slightly less sarcastic note, yes, there have been many, many bad video games featuring actors, and some of those very good actors, and perhaps this will help out. At least to have someone say, "Wow, these lines are really cheesy. Who wrote this, the programmers?" (Cause, you know, sometimes programmers like to help out on the dialogue, too.) But I can't help but feel impending doom for at least 5 years of this actor/agent-as-game-designer thing starts gaining momentum.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
Not only are celebrity VG actors unnecessary (games don't regularly make use of full-motion video, even for cut scenes anymore), they're unwanted. Just as with feature-length animation, the main thing recognizable celebrity voices add to video games is distraction from the content.
Games are not a passive medium, anyway. The player character is the "actor" in a game, and its "star". Shifting that focus to celebrities because they are whiny starry-eyed bitches with no conception of their actual utility in the real world just makes games unappealing.
It's already been announced by EA that there will be no PC version of the upcoming "Everything or Nothing" Bond game. I wonder why? "What would happen to an actor's career, for example, if it was discovered that a player could have use his or her character to perform violent or sordid acts and then post screenshots on the Internet?"
Although I love the idea of game developers getting more access to Hollywood, the possiblities for abuse of the medium will be incredibly high...all too easy even. What will happen when people try to crack the console-only versions of the games and post working hacks on hacked Xboxes, GameCubes and PS2s? Can anyone smell DMCA waving all over that? Don't be surprised when the first $100+ million game is developed, with 90% being agent, lawyer, producers, etc. fees. This is not entirely good news for the gaming industry as a whole, especially after the new FBI seal they got.
There will be a war on consumers and it's already gearing up.
What would there be for them to react to? You can't use Jet Li's image in a game without asking for permission first. And yes, it *can* be a bad thing when the game developers aren't allowed to create PC versions of their games because of the modding possibilities.
I swear this is the only reason for that conveyor belt/factory sequence in Attack of the Clones.
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