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Hollywood's Rising Fascination With Videogames
Thanks to the New York Times for its article (free. reg. req.) discussing the growing interaction of Hollywood directors with videogame products. The piece notes that Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson has "worked out a deal with the game maker Ubisoft and Universal Pictures, the studio that plans to release 'King Kong' next year, that will give Mr. Jackson substantial creative control over the future game", and also mentions John Woo (" now developing for Sega a video game, an idea he will own outright, about an elaborate heist", as well as his proposed Metroid movie), and Ridley Scott ("seeking a video game maker to form a partnership with him and his brother Tony") as other Hollywood creatives seeking input into games.
Well, what I really mean is that we'll take great games and turn them into great movies like Super Mario Brothers and Tomb Raider and... and... crap. All this means is that we're really screwed now.
Although I feel such director involvement will perhaps benefit the cinematic quality of games, the fact remains that too much creative control from these guys will be a bad thing. Games are games. Movies are movies. Unless Peter Jackson is some sort of closet game design guru, I can only hope for prettier games that play lousy.
Well, I don't really doubt that Hollywood directors are very interested in video games as a new creative medium for themselves. Yet, I can't help feeling that the executives in Hollywood have an alterior motive behind their involvement in the video game world. I'm guessing that they're scared of the game industry, and that if they can further their involvement, the more power they'll have over what happens within it.
At the very least, this has a little something to do with damage control. Their increased involvement allows them to have more power over what happens in the game world and also gives them a new area to do business.
In a worst case scenario, they're trying to start taking over the industry and are just beginning to sink their teeth into it.
Really, I can't blame Hollywood for trying to stay afloat. The major game companies almost seem to want this increased partnering, I don't agree at all that they should partner, but at least this will make it easier for up and comers to shine like never before. The video game scene has a very critical audience, so I hope the big boys stay in top form, for their sake.
Regardless, the potential competition between the established companies and the new breed is starting to excite me. Let the games begin.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
For the most part, titles that go from game to movie or movie to game have been terrible (Super Mario Bros., Enter the Matrix, Street Fighter 2, etc.) However, I can only see the growing interest of Hollywood into games as a good thing. Sure, it's been bad in the past, but that's mostly due to the fact that one side is only interested in capitalizing off the title to get some extra bucks (like LOTR or the Matrix). There wasn't a serious amount of forethought put into it (at least it seems to me) but more of a "Hey, this is a successful franchise, let's build a game/movie out of it" (game/movie depending on which direction) "so that we can get more money."
With this increased input and interaction from movie makers, games stand a good chance to do better where they've generally failed: story. And sometimes, games need a little push in the cinematic direction too. How many times have you seen a cutscene that made you puke or a default camera angle that was unusable? Or how about the terrible voice acting that seems to be a hallmark of so many games? And boy oh boy, story... imagine if a lot of games got a good push in that direction. Sure, there are been some games with interesting/excellent stories in the past (HL, Deus Ex, LucasArts adventure games, and others come to mind), but the majority of games do not have a good story - almost all FPS, most RTS, some MMORPG, most platformers, and the list goes on. Maybe finally, it will be the norm for games to have intriguiging story lines with good dialogue.
Arguably better than the movie, of course, was the Nintendo 64 game Goldeneye.
What did it do right? Well, it was a great game in its own right -- I enjoyed it, even though shooters usually leave me cold.
But what I think Goldeneye did right more than anything else was be a generic James Bond game. Everything about the game just screamed "James Bond!" Other developers have since tried to do the same thing, with varying results.
Basing a game on a specific movie is bad -- since movies are usually less than two hours long, and a successful game has to hold the player's attention for much longer, it's very difficult to stay true to the movie without adding a bunch of extra material. Too much, and you're unfaithful. Too little, and people leave. Better to base your game off a franchise, as then you can draw in elements throughout the series.
Also, let's face it, most games are based on action movies, and action movies are particularly known for verisimilitude. (Not that most games are abounding in that quality.) I guess what I'm trying to say here is: most action movies suck. Most games suck. And remember, suckiness grows not linearly, but exponentially.