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The Convergence of Games and Film

Posted by Zonk on

Gamasutra has a piece on the ever-increasing convergence of games and films. The final chapter meeting of the IGDA's San Francisco chapter this year had an event focusing on, in particular, the preponderance of Star Wars games. From the article: "The convergence of film and game production has been predicted for years, but progress has been slow... cultural, logistical, financial, and computational barriers have kept the two worlds apart. Everybody sees convergence, most want it, but few know what it really means and fewer still have actually tried it."

2 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. Final Fantasy IV by Schezar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You know what I want to see? A movie based on Final Fantasy IV (II for you USians). Not a movie that happens to be called "Final Fantasy," but one that's actually an adapted retelling of the story from a REAL, playable Final Fantasy. There's definitely enough of a nostalgia gamer market for such an endeavor to make a decent profit.

    There are so many games with rich characters and engaging settings that would be perfect for cinema. Sadly, movie producers go after the franchise crapola games and make franchise crapola movies. Even sadder is that these films make money.

    Take a chance! Hell, animate the thing and save money on actors/sets/locations. Buy the rights to an older game for a song. The first one to take a leap and make a good movie based on a good game and catering to the right demographic is going to go gangbusters.

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  2. If games were supposed to be movies... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...then game makers would just MAKE MOVIES. I don't want interactive cinema. I want interactive GAMES. If the games can borrow some cinematic language now and again (i.e. the motion blur in Shadow of the Colossus) then hey, more power to them. But the things that make movies great and the things that make games great are pretty divergent. This "inevitable convergence" will just make movies a weaker vehicle for storytelling, and it will make games less interactive. Some stories make better games, and some worlds make better movies, but it is a pretty rare thing to find something that makes an equally great game AND movie without one or the other suffering from the relationship.