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Aiming For Hit Games, Movie Licenses Come Up Short
Thanks to the New York Times for its article (free reg. req.) discussing the relative unpopularity of licensed videogames based on recent films. The piece notes: "Of the nation's 10 top-selling games for video consoles last year, only one was based on a film, a television show or a book: Enter the Matrix", before arguing: "The problem seems to arise from basic differences between films and games as forms of media. Films, like books, are obviously linear, with a specific, tightly defined story arc and specifically defined characters." Are there ways film adaptions can break free of these constraints?
Yeah, that's true.
Games like X-Wing and more recently KOTOR have been wildly successful but they do not rely on the story mechanisms of the movies, rather the universe to build the games on. And of course excellent gameplay.
It's interesting that KOTOR also uses the D20 roleplaying system, which is becoming the defacto-standard roleplaying system (like it or loathe it, it's not going away).
Whereas games that are released 2 or even 20 yaers after the film came out may be of a higher caliber, most of the time...
Development time is overlooked way too often in the course of a movie lisence game.
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From my experience, (i just got out of 4 years of college mind you) video games based on movies are terrible. If you've seen the movie, you know whats going to happen in the video game, and they always manage to do it in some cheezy way involving clips from the film that you already saw. They hardly ever stray from the movie plot, so plotwise, the game is already old and dull the second you rent/buy it. Another problem is that they always seem to have less than par graphics and gameplay, probably because the developers were rushed to release the title in time for the movie. You can really tell this when you play a title like Prince of Persia, or Metal Gear solid, Metroid, Zelda, etc.. vs the spiderman game, or even lord of the rings. I mean, how fun is it to play as Frodo!!!! Seriously. All those other games have fresh new plots, great gameplay, and awesome graphics, while the movie games are just sub-par in all those categories.
Enter the matrix on the other hand, was a brilliant video game. First of all, they hyped it up like another movie. And if you played it, it almost was. They basically told another story that tied so well into that trilogy, but used new and fresh plots, and even scenes by the matrix actors just for the video game. If more movie games were more like movie-additions, they'd be more successful, and even better yet, more fun to play
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"The problem seems to arise from basic differences between films and games as forms of media. Films, like books, are obviously linear, with a specific, tightly defined story arc and specifically defined characters."
Another problem is that games generally aren't the same length as novels or movies. A book like Harry Potter can be condensed into a two or two and a half hour movie and remain pretty faithful to the source material, and though no one actually reads them, two to three hour length movies are very often adapted into novels that retain the fairly standard 150-300 page paperback length. Modern games, on the other hand, are expected to be at least eight to ten hours in length, if not twice as long.
That means that when a game developer adapts a movie into a game, they have to find another six or eight hours (at least) of story and action sequences. And on top of that, they have to make sure that the filler doesn't interfere with any of the possible ideas for where the movie franchise could go in the future, both forward in time (sequels) and also backwards (flashback sequences in the prequel). This is why useless, lame-ass villains like Shocker and Mysterio are featured prominently in the Spider-Man: The Movie games, instead of much more interesting and fun supervillains like Venom or Carnage.
If only more movie studios would just let them go the KOTOR route, we'd be fine. But apparently they won't. So movie games suck, even though they don't have to.
There is still a problem. As some SWG players have noted, they feel powerless, because they can't alter the storyline or go directly against established canon. This also applies to well detailed movie universes-you don't have much space to create your own plotlines, or else you run into the movie. KotOR got around this by predating near anything done in that universe so far. Episode 1: Racer escaped restraints by taking an undetailed aspect, and expanding upon it in great detail. Enter the Matrix tried to, by taking relatively unused characters. Where it failed, however, was by trying to integrate its plotline with the movies. Especially in a setting with as much depth as that one, they could have taken a tangential route to the movie, and still been able to play around with the trappings, with near no restraints. A game either needs to have the space to take large liberties with the established plotline, or be able to create a near unrestrained one of its own. In marked contrast, games based in the Forgotten Realms have nearly never had those problems-as the setting is large enough to allow for multiple developing events.(Although the designers of its pen and paper counterparts have had to clean up messes they've left behind-and some of them still aren't resolved.) I can see a fundamental problem here-the difference between a single epic storyline, and a world built to support many different stories. All of the MMORPGs based upon an established storyline are going to run into a problem at some point: they can't take true liberty with the world, as they have to avoid destroying the movie/book/whatever's story. In marked contrast, a world-based MMORPG, like EQ, can avoid this, by allowing for individual player development. There is one way to meld the two-by making the epic, singular storyline so far above a player's reach that they can never touch it. An example of this can be found in the World of Darkness(White Wolf's Creature: the x games), where there was a consistant meta storyline, but the players were(or should be) busy working with their own problems, like defending their town, and giving White Wolf a free hand to play around with Marianna of Balador. The two might interact, but there was near no development problems-the Storyteller worked on the smaller scale, the company on the larger. The game was specifically designed for this dual cycle of plotlines.
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
-The X-Wing and Tie Fighter series of games
-Tron 2.0
Both share a few attributes - they capture the feel of the source material, without making you think you are rehashing the movie. They let you recreate/relive the most fantastic moments of the movie - with you as the star (trench run in X-Wing, disk duels in Tron 2.0). Most importantly - they are creative and go beyond what happens in the movie - you aren't just summarizing the movie in a game - you are adding to the saga!
People keep blaming the story - but then they forget games like Half-Life - a game that was, practically, a playable movie. Over-linear storylines are no excuse. There are tons of massively successful hyper-linear games.
ETMatrix was a bad game because it was ugly, clunky, and dull. Not because it had an over-linear storyline. Max Payne has practically the same fantasy-mechanics as The Matrix, and the game just played and looked better even though being an older and smaller project.
The incompetence of movie games is probably mostly due to things happening behind closed doors like
a) boardroom micromanagement by non-gaming PHB's
b) formulaic design to keep the title safe, resulting in bored developers
c) shipping before completion to make deadline
Evidence that it is likely these factors causing the problems appears when you compare to games based on older movies, like the AvP, Star Wars games (except for the glut of ep1 and ep2 games - only a few of those managed not to suck), and Tron 2.0. Remember, even the corny Nintendo Star Wars platformers on the NES and SNES drew piles of rave reviews from magazines.
Still, gameplaywise, I think one of the most common problems is that games are often made in completely the wrong genre for their movie. Like the Starship Troopers RTS - anyone watching the movie could have told you it would be a boring version of StarCraft. Or a Star Trek Spacefighter (remember ST - 25th anniversary, or any of the other ST games where a consitution class starship handles like an X-Wing?). Star Wars is not afraid to make great departures into odd genres, but while they do it they throw out the tight connections to the movies. IMHO, the first Matrix game should have been made not as a Shiny 3rd person adventure (especially not from a team that specializes in cute puzzles, cartoony animation, and twisted humour) but as a Digital Extremes project. UT with more Matrix oriented gametypes and the matrix set of abilities. I would love it to be a "design a character" team FPS game. But no.
Is it a bad thing that movie/licensed games don't sell? I say NO.
Back in the 16 bit days you couldn't turn a profit on an "original" game (you'd be lucky to sell 10,000 copies), so every had to be licensed. Publishers truly believed you needed a licensed property to compete.
Now to hear that a licensed property does NOT guarantee the higher sales, is GREAT news to me. Perhaps the publishers can open their eyes, ears and minds a little more now and take a few "risks" on innovative original game designs. Why not? They are saving themselves millions in licensing fees and the headaches that go with them.
Games made from licensed IP aren't as good because a sizable portion of the budget goes to pay for the IP. Say the average game costs 2 million to make, so that's the budget given to it by the publisher. The IP license costs 1 million so you now have half the budget of any normal game, plus a tighter deadline and twice as many suits looking over your shoulder. It keeps happening over and over again though because people buy these pieces of crap because they have a recognizable name. So, rinse and repeat.
Setting a movie based game in the same world or universe, but following some side-story or other characters is probably the best way to go. Although they're obviously not based on a movie, the two Half-Life expansions Blue Shift and Opposing Force demonstrate this perfectly. They both take place in the same location and time as the original Half-Life, but instead of following Freeman, they follow a security guard and one of the invading troops instead. You'll often run into places Freeman has already been, seeing what he did there, or you might even catch a glimpse of him escaping. Doing it this way with a movie based game would leave it open for creativity and a different story, while keeping it tied to the movie.
Alas, it seems that the universal law is that 90% of everything is crap! (Actually I think SF writer Theodore Sturgeon said that...) Which means that inevitably most games whether movie based or not are going to suck.
Movie based games just get more publicity for sucking badly because of all of the hype. Fortunately most of the bads don't sell. But occasionally, buggy messes like Enter the Matrix actually do, ugh, which is enough to convince the powers that be to continue making movie based games. Oh well, if you do find yourself playing a bad game, perhaps some fun can be had in revelling in its suckitude!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
OTOH films based on videogames seem to be doing
quite well. Case in point: Tomb Raider 1 & 2.
Despite miserable plots, comic-book acting, and
mediocre effects, these turned a pretty damn good
profit.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
While the parent foster has part of it, a lot of designers and developers actually want to put together a good game based on a movie license.
Here's the problem, the developers are real fans of the movie. So, they naturally want to include all those awesome bits of the movie.
Unfortunately, what typically ends up happening is one or more of the cool moments in the movie don't end up using the same type of engine. So you have a first person shooter, and then all of a sudden...you're driving...with the same engine.
So the games start out hamstrung, having to pull things from the movie license and yet have a shorter development cycle than most games. You have to get the game out while the movie's still fresh in the public's mind.
But, you don't want another Waterworld, or Reign of Fire...so you typically don't have game companies rushing out to pick up a license unless it's a hugely marketed motion picture.
You start seeing ads for those like 6 months ahead of time, meaning they were probably shooting like 9 months before that. Assume game companies start work with half the time of movie shoot, and you have basically a window of a year to pump out a game.
This is why the licensees usually borrow an engine slap some new textures on to it and ship it out the door.
It seems like the only real way to win is to create a game off of a film that had some staying power, but make the game 3-5 years after the fact so you can make it something really solid. Otherwise, you're seriously just asking for crap.
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I have heard several times the same "Games cant reflect movies or tell a history" scenario this is not correct. For the information of the suits who believe this sort of crap. A good designed Game can tell the history better than a movie, since they allow you to participate in it. Examples at hand: half life, deus ex, (fable), KOTOR, FF(VII-X) they all tell great histories and manage to do it extremely well with great ammounts of drama, tension and suspense.(even GTA vice city manages to tell the history of tommy vercetti traition, deceipt and finally triumph in the mafia)
The reason why movie games are not "hits" is because most of them have no quality/low budgets, lack of originality, etc in a few words: they suck. Mostly they are quickies made to cash in from movie revenues. The worst thing about this is that gamers are aware of it, and they EXPECT this games to be bad.
Example at hand the shreck2 game (I HAVE NOT SEEN this game) Excerpt from a magazine: "You probably are excited about shreck coming back to teathers but not so much about the game, the first game was awful lets expect this one to be better". The same can be said about Van-helsing, cat-woman, batman and just about any other movie game coming out.
A lot of people expected ETM to be a good game (and to some extent it kind of was) and they expected LOTR to be good too and that was reflected in their sales, people were hyped about the games NOT only the movies they are based on.
If hollywood wants to have better sells for their games all they have to do is 3 things:
1.-Stop the neverending flow of crap games cash tie-ins Licensed by themselves by simply hiring profesional reviewers to test the Quality of games before aproving their release. (that would save us so much pain)
2.- Assign more time to the design and implementation of movie-games theres little to no point to release a game simultaneously or before the movie if the game is bad, unoriginal or quality lacking. If the game is good (and is not very delayed) it doesnt need to. example1: KOTOR was released a lot later than episode 1 and 2 and this didnt provided any problem to sales at all. Example 2: A lot of people would have prefered a van helsing game with true DMC quality coming this xmas or early next year than the medium quality movie tie-in being sold now
3.-You should advertise games as an entity and with its own values instead of just a tie -in to some other medium example: spiderman 2 is advertising their GTA style game instead of its movie linkage, as a result people are as hyped about the game as they are about the movie.
I rest my case.
Go ahead MOD my day!
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