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Movie Games Losing Their Appeal to Game Publishers
The New York Times (registration required) has an article on the relationship between games and movies, as regards movie tie-in games. While efforts like Spider-Man 2 or Escape from Butcher Bay prove that quality games based on movie properties are possible, game developers and publishers are beginning to realize the inherent dangers involved in attempting to capture a movie as a game. From the article: "Another factor adding to the risk is that the development process for most major games is now 18 to 24 months, longer than that of many movies. The long development time puts publishers under pressure to make their picks when a film is just a script. And still, not all games come out on time for a movie's release..."
(this would solve the Game to movie problem, not the other way around)
A lot of movies based on games have been so crappy lately, and I blame the "Uwe Boll" phenomenon.
He's the worst thing that has been happening to the industry. Period.
I don't think it's his fault personally, but it his horrible what happened these past few years. Alone in the dark? (What part of "alone" didn't he understand?) House of the Dead?
And next, he's going to butcher Dungeon Siege, Farcry, Bloodrayne and Hunter: reckoning...
This has got to stop.
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
Star Wars has made a number of good games. (And then there's Force Commander.) Star Trek is usually the example brought up when one wants to talk about stinkers, but there's a few winners there too -- Starfleet Command, Bridge Commander, Elite Forces.
Perhaps the difference there is that the ST and SW games are generally not tied to the release of a specific movie (though there were SW games tied to the release of episode 1 and 2, but these are the exception rather than the rule.) Perhaps they should stop making games to go with movies and instead make them to go with franchises (like SW and ST), so they have the time they need to make the game, and don't need to rush it out the door.
Of course, I can only think of a few franchises where they've made 6+ movies. I guess by my reasoning, they should make a Friday the 13th game now? (too late!) Police Academy? Nightmare on Elm Street? Revenge of the Nerds is getting close ...
You know, I never had such problems with E.T.'s levitation function that it required a reset. The trick is simply to stop pushing the joystick upwards the moment the screen changes from inside the pit to the surface. You then change direction and levitate to the side or downwards. The "bug" was that the levitation would end one pixel early if you tried to levitate off the north/topside of a pit.
I'd love to know where they buried all those unsold ET cartridges in the Mojave...
It wouldn't do you any good. They were mixed in with a bunch of other underselling Atari games, crushed under steamrollers, and then had concrete pored over them. (I can't remember for sure, but I think the bulk was being used as some kind of foundation. It wasn't just simple disposal, but a crude recycling attempt.) You wouldn't be able to get anything for eBay from the remains.
Those who complain about affect & effect on
The basic problem is that the movie industry has developed a predictable efficiency, and the game industry has yet to do that. Perhaps that's why so many movie studios favor EA; they're mostly on time, and they get it done (granted, at the cost of overworked employees and p-oed wives).
I still contend that if the movie industry can more or less accurately predict a release date before even starting production, eventually so can the gaming industry. With the new consoles, this is going to hit critical mass. It's only going to get worse for the game industry. It needs to start developing better tools.
And maybe unions.
Well.. yes, but unfortunately the producers decided that they had to release the game as a "tie in" with "chronicles of riddick" (which wasnt only bad it also had nothing to do with the game) so they released it without a multiplayer component and that turned the game from an excellent buy to "good".
Go ahead MOD my day!
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Good points. I think another issue is that when staying exactly to the same scenes as the movies, is the issue that you've already seen it, what's the motivation to actually doing it?
While on paper, it might sound cool to act out the adventures of heroX in a movie, the driving force behind games a lot of times is finding out what happens next, what's behind that door, etc.
If seeing the movie means I know it all, I'm going to get bored quite quickly.
As much bad press as it got, I think the Matrix game had the right idea in that sense. It was terribly flawed beyond repair in other ways, but by taking two characters from the movies who had little part in the movie, and using the game to explain their backstory, what they were doing while the movie was going on, and having them occassionally intersect at key elements was a very cool way to do it.
You get the bonus of being in the matrix world, you get the bonus of participating in pivotal moments from the movie, but you also get the bonus of seeing and doing new things. It's a synergetic effect that is quite cool. I hate that the rest of the game sucked, though.
"I still contend that if the movie industry can more or less accurately predict a release date before even starting production"
I think game developers are better at predicting how much time it takes to make a game that movie publishers are at predicting how much time it takes to make a movie.
The time it takes to make a game depends on how much stuff goes into the game, number of levels, animations, enemies, etc. etc. and if the schedual slips there are usually some stuff that can be cut to make the deadline. The reason some games just can't seem to get done is that unforeseen problems pop up (you used HOW many vertices in all the characters?) or that the game is too complex or that the staff is inexperienced.
Compare this with movies where you have actors that can delay a movie for years because he is otherwise busy (I think that is the story with impossible mission 3), where you end up deciding to retake major portions of the movie at the time of final editing or even worse the focus tests and marketing driven delays such as other movies would steal your audience (like Fantastic 4 that won't be out on July 4).
The movie a game is licensed on can end up being released earlier simply because shooting the movie was smoother than expected and time is lost to develop the game. The studios are also usually very secretive about their scripts and art and it can be impossible to get any useful information out of the movie producers, and they even shoot alternate endings that they don't decide on until a week before release...
The only recent movie tie-ins that have done well were Riddick and Spider-Man 2.
I'm willing to take a wild guess and say that Enter the Matrix would have to be the low point of movie-game tie-ins. It was overhyped, underproduced, and was not a good game experience. Watching the previews, you could definitely tell that they really really wanted to believe they could sell a ton of it. They didn't plan on two things though: the bad reception of Reloaded, and the quality of their game.
I played it, beat it, ripped the FMVs from it (quite easy when you have the PC version), and shelved it. You watch the movies a couple times and you realize that even those were underproduced (there's a couple with some obvious errors).
The fact that the Wachowski's, Atari, and Shiny want to do Path of Neo well after the franchise has blipped off the radar kinda makes me sick to my stomach. If the Bros. had any smarts, they'd let Monolith just do what they gotta do, get TMO out there, and just stick with that. No one is going to buy the Shiny game after EtM fizzled.
Insert Sig Here
I actually quite enjoyed Enter the Matrix. The driving/hovercraft engines were terrible, but there were only a couple of missions using them anyway. The actual FPS part of the game, while definitely not the best I've played, certainly wasn't bad.
Definitely agree that it was a good move not playing as Neo and crew.
Pursue the influence lines, and you'll see the weaknesses of the game start to come out. The characters just aren't as dynamic as they were in KOTOR1, and don't really progress very much, except Visas and to a slight extent, Handmaiden. Anyway, the ending is pretty lame story-wise, but I do have to admit that Darth Treya was very cool, with the three levitating lightsabres taht fly around the room at you and have to be independently "killed." Been since Die by the Sword since I've seen an enemy like those.
For a show or movie to be successful, it must be a good movie or show; no matter whether its based on real events, a novel, or even a video game. Same goes for video games. I _hate_ star trek. Its a crappy show, always has been- always will be. On the other hand, I love the game MTrek. Its loosely based on star trek, but the gameplay was the main focus of the designers. Rather than cripple the game with being forced to keep true to the ST storyline and timeline, the MTrek creators made building a quality replayable game their top priority. The goal of a game designer shouldn't be to get $$$ by exploiting the fanfare surrounding a show/movie, but rather to create a playable game, which in its own right is entertaining. http://mtrek.game-host.org/
no.
Like others I have to agree with you about Enter the Matrix.
It wasn't the best game in the world, and there were many bits which could have worked out better, but it was still enjoyable (for me, anyway) and the idea behind it was good.
I really like the idea of the game telling the story of some of the background events of the movie. You're not as tied to the actual Primary Cast events, and the idea of having cut-scenes that were alternate takes on things seen from the movie was a really good idea.
Granted, as I said, the game could have been better. But I do hope that other tie-ins try using the concept. The chance to work within the story world without merely aping the main plot elements was refreshing.
Tiggs
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