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Hollywood Courting the Gaming Industry
beatleadam writes "In a trend that we all seem to already be hyper-aware of... 'The video game industry was once an afterthought in Hollywood, at most an ancillary source of revenue like action figures. The people passionately developing the computer-based form of entertainment were seen as dorks compared with the celebrities. Not anymore. Now that games have matured into a $11 billion business, topping movie box-office sales and siphoning television viewers, the lucrative and increasingly influential genre has attracted more star power than ever.'" We did another story about this a month ago.
when are they gonna make a movie based on zork? and i'm not talking fancy graphics or effects or anything. i wanna see huge text printed up on screen for two hours...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
More like absorbing.
Life in Orange County
Sounds like a threat to our precious bodily fluids!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Now Bruce Campbell and Mark Hamill will get the recognition they sorely deserve.
I don't see this lasting too long. The "Van Helsing", "Spider Man", and "X-Men" video games are weak, and get horrible reviews.
Why doesn't Disney just fund companies like id or epic games so they can have more developers who can turn around games quicker, create better engines, etc
What's really scary is that some huge percentage of that $11B is EA. They already have sports stars all over the place and it would be interesting to see how they incorporate Hollywood stars into games like Sims. Even more scary would be a Sims movie which if it is half as boring as the game it should make a ton of money.
as long as they don't have games starring Bette Midler and/or Whopie Goldberg, i'm fine with that.
That's just what I play video games to see:
Stuck up "actors" I don't like doing their normal piss-poor job of acting on high budget, yet poorly designed ( technologically and cinamantically ) games that I will never play, opting for net hack.
Further, let's turn a cheezy game into a movie! Yeah, it'll be slop, so people will pay us MILLIONS to bad mouth it.
And you know what? We will. At the end of the day, the execs know that we will fork over our cash for crap because we are told to do so.
In closing, let me leave you with this thought: Moo.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Great, now software companies are going to get touchy about copying "THEIR" intellectual property...... Wait.., thats where it started....
Do we really need more bad movies? Are there any GOOD movies based on video games?
coming (naughty, don't go there) to a theater near you, staring Pee-Wee Herman has LSL
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I'm not a goth. Many goths say this, but I'm really not one. Well, OK, I wear black. And I like goth music. And regularly go to goth clubs. Argh, and I've been known to wear silly goth outfits when I go. But I'm still not a goth.
When are we going to see Tia Carrere in Daedalus Encounter II?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
some games aren't really games.. more like interactive content sold for $50.
MHO is that hollywood is seeing the dollars. you make a bunch of CGI movies or even real movie like ROTK and TTT and you add some animated version of the main hero that you control doing some punching/sword swinging and they get $50 for their DVD/Movie vs $15-$30 for their movie.
Next thing you know, Mark Hamill will be in major demand based on the Wing Commander series...
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So, they followed the movies pretty closely then, you say!
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Counter-Strike: The Motion Picture?
Of course if they play the movie too loud in the theater the next movie over will accuse it of wallhacking.
we already have seen millions of dollars invested in videogames, like doom 3 and half life 2,but 5 years ago from now they would be able to relase new versions of games within 6 months of the original relase.
With the level of detail and complexity of new games this will slow down to 3 or 4 games a year per company. Time will tell when small computer game developers will join efforts in order to deliver huge games quick ($$$) ending with like about 4 mayor gaming factories, with fictional characters, some celebrities and some young programmer waiting to get his(her) big break. Is this where games are going?
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
So now that hollywood is looking at video games will advertisers start to look at video games to the point where video games are free/cheap because instead of a cutscene we get to watch a comercial?
Is that a run on sentence?
...I still think that other movie tie-ins like promotional fast food offers, action figures, jillions of DVD and VHS releases, etc. etc. will bring in more money. I mean, if the total market is $11 billion then that generated by tie-ins from other media must be only a few tens of millions.
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I'm selling my K5 acct.
On the Van Helsing movie site's front page, only one link actually goes to the movie's page. There's links for a video game, a cartoon, repackaged versions of old monster movies, and even Van Helsing merchandise.
If shitty advertisements disguised as films are the best Hollywood can put out, it's no wonder they need the video game industry. I'll take an Enix or Blizzard (well, make that ArenaNet) game over another Matrix sequel any day.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Ray Liotta .... Tommy Vercetti (voice) .... Ken Rosenberg (voice) (as Bill Fichtner) .... Sonny Forelli (voice) .... Steve Scott (voice) .... Avery Carrington (voice) .... Colonel Juan Garcia Cortez (voice) .... Phil Cassidy (voice)
William Fichtner
Tom Sizemore
Dennis Hopper
Burt Reynolds
Robert Davi
Gary Busey
To name a few from GTA:Vice City and I thought it made the game funnier.
Having quality voice talent in games is a plus.
Having bad action movies based on games is a minus.
Maybe this will finally motivated Gabe Newell to drop some pounds in hope of getting famous... either that, or we'll find out that he's only bloated 'cause he mistook the HL2 Source Code for a cheesesteak and wolfed it down...
Instead of doing both the movie and the game in the piss poor fashion of late how about trying to at least get one or the other done properly. Games like Van Heilsing are horrid and the movie really isn't much better. Both were released the same day and really all you see featured about the movie is the "amazing" special effects. I don't know about everyone but for me the special effects ridden movies of late have failed to deliver. The main reason I go to see a moive a "story" or "plot". Instead its just one big effects shot then some poor dialog and/or character development then another enormous effect. How long trend will this continue? I guess as long as they can make enough money at the box office to cover it. Or if not at the box office then from the game revenues, after all it probably takes very little money to make one of these "movie" games.
Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous/interesting/insightful value of this comment
Not only that, but I saw commercials for the video game before the freaking movie was even out yet. I think that might be a first.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Some of you will berate me for saying so, but some movies based on video games are actually good. By any financial account, some have been VERY successful.
This does not follow when the roles are reversed; I have yet to witness a game based on a movie that was successful in any respect (unless someone can convince me otherwise). Even as a huge matrix fan, I have not been the least bit interested in playing Enter The Matrix.
As long as the movies make money, Hollywood will still make them, even if they are raffish.
"In a trend that we all seem to already be hyper-aware of... 'The video game industry was once an afterthought in Hollywood, at most an ancillary source of revenue like action figures. The people passionately developing the computer-based form of entertainment were seen as dorks compared with the celebrities. Not anymore. Now that games have matured into a $11 billion business, topping movie box-office sales and siphoning television viewers, the lucrative and increasingly influential genre has attracted more star power than ever.'"
Does anyone not know the history of the videogame industry on Slashdot? Try 1976. That was the year Warner Communications (think Warner Bros. Pictures) purchased Atari, Inc. By the early 1982, Atari accounted for 3/4's of Warner's profits. So in your analysis, you are 22 years off on the video game industry's importance to Hollywood.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I just got "Onimusha 3" for my PS2, and the opening movie was BETTER, in sheer visible quality, directing, and storyline than anything I've seen on a movie. The 10 minute CGI movie was reminiscent of Episode 1, except it was much, much better. Hell, the game even stars Jean Reno (The Professional, Wasabi, Ronin, etc.)! As soon as storage (DVD's) get better, we absolutely will have games that are 100% interactive, but the quality will be as good as if not better than movies.
that with every year, commercial game development is becoming more and more out of reach of smaller/indie studios. The expectations are being raised with every Doom3 and HL2 that comes out. Nowadays, the models have to be on par with movie-quality standards, the sound has to be done in a professional studio and etc. Gone are the days when a small studio could write a game and hit it big in the industry. Mods seem to be the only way the little people could make themselves known, and even those have to be on par with the modded game (level are not designed from blocks anymore, they are their own complex 3d models). And eventhough i drool everytime i see a new screenshot of HL2/Doom3 and see the new ATI demos, I also long for the days when people got excited by 16x16 pixel characters and 8 bit sound.
If EA, ID, or anyone ever publishes a Pulp Fiction game, I'm in!!!
"If I'm curt with you, it's because time is a factor here. I think fast, I talk fast, and I need you guys to act fast if you want to get out of this. So, pretty please - with sugar on top... clean the f***in' car." The Wolf
I had a blast playing Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
If they can make games like this that actually have depth to them, instead of a shooter with just a level from each scene of the movie, I am all for it.
But I think there is going to be a problem seeing a movie based on a video game. You already have in your mind, a set perception of the game and how it should go.
Kinda like reading a book and then seeing the movie. It always seems like the movie sucks compared to what you had read.
... the crap-fest that's usually the result of a game->movie conversion or the mandatory third-person-view licensed games that follow every high-grossing movie...
Seriously, name three good movies based on video games. Impossible. I don't know what they do with them - my theory is that they simply think that the hard-core gamers will see the movie anyway and just throw in everything and the kitchen sink to draw in other groups, creating an end result of a horrible horrible mess.
It's almost as bad the other way around - name three original and good licensed games. Almost as hard. They're without fail uninspired third-person (so the audience can see their favorite actors on screen all the time) shooters, platformers or so-called adventures...
Why, having no cast at all of course. Expect more hyper realistic 3D animation to take the place of actual motion pictures. CGI will soon become THE MAIN CHARACTER instead of just the wallpaper as in Troy (battlescenes? all fake as opposed to the Kirk Douglas "Spartacus" which used 10,000 extras). Now all that Whoreywood has to do is make the CGI characters semi autonomous eg. capable of taking direction so as to give the appearance of pompous art and you will see hundreds and hundreds of cheap-o dateflicks, war movies and the like. Hell they'll probably customize them for each demographic. Imagine a "Passion" with all black actors, or a "Kill Bill" with naked chicks.
So people don't watch as much tv, and all the junk they used to sell you to play with has been replaced with electronic boxes.
You can bet damn sure they're going to get that $20 out of your wallet one way or another. Even if they have to devour another market to do so.
Ironically, you'll pay more for them to do that.
If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
Well, this isn't exactly real, but just think if someone could come up with a good idea for this movie. That would be pretty rad. :-)
Halo: The Movie.
... geeks finally get to be as special and pointless as Hollywood ... what we've all be working towards all these years ...
This is not the first time Hollywood marketing freaks thought up this alliance. Its just that things are now getting profitable.
Look at Tron; the video game out-grossed the movie.
Look at Krull; the video game was done before the movie!
Remember that the in the Early 80's the video game industry was viewed as "hot" and making lots of money. Cross overs seemed inevitable.
Then, we had the video game industry crash (thanks,ET!)
Now that the video game industry is back on top and making lots of money, its cross over time again.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
And just like Hollywood, The artists and coders who do the hard work, never see ANY of those millions.
What was once an industry created by self made talent, who could profit admirably off their hard earned work... as turned into a slave machine controlled by slick suit wearing slave drivers, who under budget, under pay, and demand insane production cycles.
Yup... its a lot like hollywood these days. The people who do all the work, see none of the pay.
But thats a growing trend here in America.
if only the porn industry would come around. I'm pretty sure my Xbox can't further the spread of HIV. At least until someone writes a tactfully named virus for XboxLIVE.
Soon, more blockbuster game franchises, such as "Halo" and "Doom," are expected to become the basis of movies.
They write this, as if it's the first time. No, sirreeee....
Anyone remember Wing Commander and Super Mario Bros?
Amazing that Hollywood haven't learned from this yet...
I had always wanted the video game medium would rise to be recognized as as much of a storytelling medium as movies. Games like Freespace2, Max Payne, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid (2), and others are very story-driven and the gaming experience becomes even more immersive with competent voice acting and good writing. (If you want to be contentious about Max Payne/MGS2 that's fine. They got way too damn trippy for me, too.)
:)
I certainly hope that things get to a point where stories are told well through video games on a regular basis, providing yet another great outlet for creativity. I would love to do something similar to a literary analysis of a game like Half-Life, with its stream of consciousness gameplay drawing the participant totally into the story, or of Freespace2's provision of a grunt-soldier point of view of a vast galactic war. Tension in the MGS story is heightened by the player's perpetual need not to be seen.
What better way to immerse someone in your story than to allow them to interact in it and participate? Video games have much more potential than "movie spinoff product." I daresay that today they have more potential even than movies.
If this sounds incredibly weird, remember I'm an English student and I kind of have a vested interest in videogames becoming a semi-literary medium
I hated those damn CD-rom games...
wasn't there one with brad pit in it? Set in New Orleans?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
once I read that, this whole damn thing sprang up:
Act 1: The highway.
Scene 1: Intro
into musical number: Hoppin into history
Scene 2: The side of the road
musical number: where is my lovely lass?
Scene 3: a sighting of the lovely lass across the way.
Scene 4: our hero decides to cross the road
Scene 5: musical number: dodgin' cars!
Act 2: The Median
Scene 1: Our hero rests, and swears to never drive again.
Scene 2: We meet the snake (musical number: I ssseee you!)
Scene 3: We look over the river: the lovely lass is moving.
Act 3: The River
Scene 1: Our hero meets a turtle (musical number: take a ride on me)
Scene 2: Our hero rides a log (musical number: Logs ain't so bad...)
Scene 3: The Log Sinks!
Scene 4: Our hero meets his lovely lass. (musical number: You're better than a fly!)
Curtain.
It almost writes itself.
Sure, we get compared a lot to the movie industry, but we don't get much credit for our work.
We still have a long way to go before we're really like Hollywood, and not just for recognition. There's also the model used for game development and marketing. But I've not the time to go on a complete diatribe, so you can Google about it.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
Dennis Hopper .... Steve Scott (voice)
--- Vice City - Cut scene ---
We see the main character, carefree and with great selfconfidence, walking across an empty street in a fairly rundown part of town, the sun is setting beautifully behind the skyline, and the entire city is drenched in golden and purple. He passes into the afternoon shade of the backside of a building - some shady characters are waiting there...
Our hero walks up and says in an equally carefree and selfconfident voice:
- "OK, it's done, what you got for me now...?"
Their leader replies:
- "* moan *... * MOAN *... * MOAN *!!! Get ready to fuck! You fuck! You fuckers! You fucking fuckers! * MOAN *, * MOAN *..."
Not really a bad idea, actually
and then someone will develop a mod to get past the commercials...
I have so many mixed feelings. Back in the mid 90s, I told some co-workers of mine about my idea of 'corporate sponsership for code'..little messages that would pop up "This software sponsered by Nike" or something. Years, later, the stupid idea actually works in "Adware" and part of my feels stupid for not patening it or something and patr of me feels guilty wondering if I unleashed it somehow
A movie based on Gordon Freemen. Take the halflife series (whenever #2 comes out), and crunch it down too a 2 hour movie. Definitly an action flick, and if done right would be hot. Get John Woo and Steven Speilberg with George Lucas to all direct it. Then make sure they all work together. The actor for Gordon would have to be like... Tom Hanks, Edward Norton maybe or some other legendary actor. If they boff Gordon, it would mess up the entire thing. Then have some creepy dude for the Hman, always kind of out of view, or in the background... but there... Then have the scientists and the marines with the aliens and it would be a classic. I would watch/buy/download it, just because it would have the hl logo on the front.
Gordon in the HL series is so damn badassed and cool.... he could have my babies.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
'Manos' the Hands of Fate: The Search for Master to come out on Xbox and PC later this year.
Someone please remind the powers that be in Hollywood to stay away from:
Duke NukEm Forever - The Motion Picture
The tapeworms who run Hollywood will suck on anything that might increase the bottom line.
One thing for sure - the game industry will never see nickle one out of this no matter how profitable the film... they never make any money! Ask Mario Puzo!
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Games that
I always thought that WarCraft might lend itself to some fairly good movie.
Then I told my younger brother, and he unfortunately fleshed the idea out of be like "Masters of the Universe": WarCraft characters in our world, or vice versa.
I still think WarCraft might lend itself to a fairly good movie. Just don't take any suggestions from lez_loves_to_cyber@yahoo.com, ok?
Looks like I'm too tired to hit the right keys.
Was just going to say that applying Cinematic techniques to games can result in games that look good but play badly.
Or ET...that's actually a better example since:
-ET was a stupid movie tie-in
-It also helped cause the ATARI crash (PacMan is guilty as well)
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Unfortunately, I couldn't find the link again, but there used to be a sweet mock-up of a PS2 gave cover based on the animé "Hellsing" - now THAT would've been a great idea. Mmm... cel-shaded goodness... vampuires with unrealistically big guns...
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This story was in my newspaper yesterday. This is very old news.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Funny, I always thought Gungrave came pretty damn close to being Hellsing the PS2 game. Undead protagonist with oversized guns. Check. The character designs were by the creator of Trigun, and since, at least imo, it was rather obvious that Hirano, the creator of Hellsing, was rather influenced by the Trigun character designs... In response to the grandparent thread: Halo the movie might be nice, but what we need is Marthon the mini series... No way a movie could capture it, only work well in a longer format.
I think that a lot of people here are missing the point.
Both video games and movies are basically 20th century mediums. And as such they are now halfway steps to a new 21st century medium: an interactive digitally-generated photography.
Combine synthetic animation such as the AnaNova newscaster with quasi-AI like the classic Eliza program, voice recognition, on-line anonymous interaction with thousands of strangers presenting their image to you as 'avatars'. Have it semi-scripted by Hollywood screenwriters and directors. Run it on multiprocessor systems that are 1 or 2 orders of magnitude more powerful than today's systems.
You get an entirely new medium that makes today's movies and games look as dull as Super-8 family movies and silent film tricks from a hundred years ago. There are some people in Hollywood that realize that movies are about to go the way of Vaudeville in the next twenty years
.
Yeah, I think Gungrave is probably the closest thing we'll get to a Hellsing game. I was just posting about the mock-up, though, not really commenting on existing things :)
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http://media.cube.gamespy.com/media/489/489908/img s_1.html?fromint=1
ack just saying.
no
Yes, my mind careens through the psychedelic swirls and curls of this trend.
I've heard about the insane hours in the video game industry from a couple of my friends. They've since moved on to larger game studios, but I'm still wondering...
Tomb Raider I : Kerching
Tomb Raider II: Kerching (likely, results not in)
Mortal Kombat : Kerching
Final Fantasy : Ooops, loss
Resident Evil : Kerching
Hollywood movie making is rarely art, its simple, pure business. In recent years big games titles means profit on movies. I honestly thought Resident Evil was one of the ten worst movies I ever saw but...kerching, there is a sequel. It does not matter if these movies are "good" in some abstract way, they are measurably good from a financial point of view and that is what matters.
A quick analysis shows that if you have a blockbuster game in the action genre, you can expect to return $70 million dollars minimum. So a safe bet would be to spend 50 million in making the movie. Even Final Fantasy grossed 74 million world wide.
For a chart of movie costs and profits see
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/al
Now that games have matured into a $11 billion business, topping movie box-office sales and siphoning television viewers, the lucrative and increasingly influential genre has attracted more star power than ever.'"
How about getting some of those "stars" to lobby the MPAA to allow the Video Game industry to use movie ratings for video games. That might actually help the few parents who try to watch what their children buy and get various senators to take up a crusade other than censoring video games. That would be a boon (not ed) to the whole video game industry.
Full-priced video games may be on a par with movies in terms of how much total money they are generating, but they are still far less popular than movies. A full-priced video game costs 4 to 5 times as much as a movie ticket, and 2 to 4 times as much as a DVD, despite the fact that the average video game has a much lower production cost than a widely-released Hollywood movie. Maybe if games cost less, the audience would expand, people would buy more games, and there would be less savings to be had by pirating games.
All your twisty little passages are belong to us.