It is a pretty well-established axiom that “movie games suck.” Contrary to popular belief, however, the explanation for this phenomenon is not a mystery. Until very recently, the relationship between game companies and movie studios could be defined as a classic one of licensor/licensee. This should not be surprising, given that twenty-plus years ago, when movie games were first being made, gaming technology was extremely limited, audiences were predominantly young children, and movies took far longer to produce than video games did. (Not to mention the fact that game development budgets were a fraction of their movie counterparts, as were their revenues).
Given these realities, the film companies waited until they greenlit a film project for production and then sold the rights to create a video game, based on that film, to a game publisher (in much the way that any other merchandising rights are sold). In fact, it was usually the same consumer products group that was responsible for managing classic toy and merchandising relationships who found themselves representing the film studio’s video game interests.
Ben looks forward to the day that movie games are consistently good
This dynamic has remained largely unchanged until today and means that the only individuals at the film studios with direct exposure to the game companies have been licensing professionals, usually far-removed from the actual film-creation process, and experts in neither game nor film creation. These individuals, thus, are poorly situated to represent the filmmakers’ interests. Moreover, because the film studio has limited, if any, profit participation in the success of the game, these individuals are primarily concerned with ensuring that nothing related to the game could possibly disrupt anything related to the film.
Similarly, because they have no long-term vested interest in the success of the film franchise, the game publishers simply hand-off the game development responsibilities to a team of developers whose top priority is to ship something in time for the launch of the film. The publishers reserve their most talented teams for the intellectual properties that they own, instead giving the licensed projects to the developers with the best blend of dependability and affordability.
Given this working dynamic, it should not be surprising that there are relatively few individuals in either industry who truly understand the other. The result is a series of tragic myths and misunderstandings that have formed on both sides of the business and creative relationship. I have outlined some of the most significant of these misunderstandings in an effort to help shed a little light on their origins.
Film Company Myths about Video Games
Myth #1 – Video games based on films are similar to toys and merchandise based on films.
Historically, the film industry has treated video games in much the same way that they treat other products that are derived from films, such as toys, lunchboxes, and DVDs. Most commonly, this has meant licensing the rights to create and market a video game based on the film to an independent company (typically a large video game publisher such as Electronic Arts, Activision, THQ, and others). The film studio receives an up-front payment for this right and the game publisher assumes the risk associated with creating the game, as well as the potential reward.
As the market for video games has grown and matured, many film studios have taken notice of the fact that the lion’s share of the revenue from their film-based game licenses are often left with the game publishers and attempted to build their own in-house game publishing groups. However, in almost all cases, these efforts have been met with limited success. The explanation for this difficulty is rooted in the studios’ misconceptions about games. Instead of treating them as high-risk/high-reward, talent-driven, creative endeavors (like films), they have often been left under the purview of the studios’ consumer products, merchandising, or licensing groups. These organizations are traditionally charged with monetizing the film production group’s creative product, rather than creating their own. The studios often then compound this problem by leaving the responsibility for the game production in the hands of executives with little to no experience with it. In some cases, these groups have hired game publishing executives to be directly responsible for production matters, but even then they are often reporting to supervisors from the film production side.
As long as film studios continue to treat their film-based games like toys, they will struggle to achieve the level of quality necessary to realize the highest levels of critical and commercial success. Some studios, such as Warner Bros. and Disney have begun to show some signs of improvement in this area, but even their successes have been predominantly with original game titles, not those that are directly linked to upcoming films.
Myth #2 – Gamers are mostly teenage males.
While this myth may have been true 15-20 years ago, the first decade of the new millennium saw a remarkable expansion of the video game market. Today, the average age of a “gamer” is over 30 years, and most game-players are actually female. Admittedly, much of the industry’s revenue is still derived from more “hardcore” gamers, but even these are now predominantly over the age of 20. Given the maturity of both the industry and its audience, as well as the intense level of competition, it should be unsurprising that only the best games achieve the highest levels of financial success. It is no coincidence that the most commercially-successful game franchises (Call of Duty, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Guitar Hero, The Sims, God of War, and more) also receive consistently excellent critical reviews. Today, the “big money” comes not from selling a T-rated game to a 14 year-old boy and/or his mother during the holidays, but from selling a AAA-quality M-Rated game to at 21-34 year-old. This means that a truly successful game needs more than a “hot license.” It actually has to be very, very, good.
Myth #3 – Sequels are never as good as “the original.”
Sadly, this statement is often true when referring to films, which explains why it seems so intuitive to filmmakers. However, there are two fundamental reasons why it is much less frequently true of games.
Reason #1) The underlying technology of game development continues to advance and evolve at tremendous speed. At its core, this means that what games are capable of, as well as the tools available to game creators, tend to steadily improve over time.
Reason #2) Unlike films, the most valuable and elusive aspect of game development is not an original and compelling narrative, but instead it is a concept simply known as the “fun factor.” In fact, some of the most successful games are often guilty of having some of the most derivative, predictable, and poorly-delivered narrative experiences in entertainment. (Not to mention the many successful games that have no narrative at all). The “fun factor” in a game is something that is zeroed-in on. It is reached through an iterative process that rarely (if ever) “ends,” and often spans multiple game releases.
It is for both of these reasons that games often see increased critical and commercial success in successive iterations.
Myth #4 – Film celebrities are more “valuable” than game celebrities.
It is often said that one of the major differences between the two industries is that “there are no real ‘celebrities’ in games.” People who make this statement are correctly identifying that there are few, if any, individuals in the game industry with the kind of global name recognition and fan following that is quite common amongst film stars and directors. What they are overlooking, however, is that the “celebrities” in the game world are not individuals, but instead the game development studios themselves. Whereas the names Paramount, Warner Bros., Sony, and Universal, tell their audiences very little about what can be expected from their product, gamers know that when they purchase a game by Blizzard, BiowWare, Epic, id, Valve, and many others that they can expect a truly top-notch gaming experience. In effect, these developers’ names are at least as valuable as those of major film stars/directors, and can be counted upon to bank tens of millions of dollars of revenue at the gaming “box office."
Perhaps for this very reason, companies of this caliber rarely choose to work on film-based games. Instead, the film industry has consistently chosen the game industry equivalent of releasing only independent product, using relatively unknown stars, directors, and production talent. Here is just one example of the game industry’s acknowledgement of the importance of the development studio’s name recognition and identity.
Next page: Game company myths about films...
6 Comments
May 18, 2010
Your final myth is basically a tautology. If you condense what you wrote, you're basically saying "well, if you hire top tier developers and give them enough time they'll make a good game". Obviously - as long as the film people don't interfere and screw things up, which is an important point that you didn't write.
I still don't get why you think communication between the film & game people is so important to making a good game though. You seem to take it as a given and I think that is an error.
May 18, 2010
I have that exact pair of sunglasses.
May 18, 2010
ElGancho - The reason that I think communication between the two parties is so important is that, generally speaking, both the game and the film will (should?) have complementary narrative elements. This is not to say that the game should be an attempt to retell the story of the film, but that the two ought to be aware of and, ideally, supportive of each other. For this to happen, however, the game team needs to have a good line of communication to the film team, in order to be kept abreast of script changes, and in order to collaborate regarding high-level world-related decisions that might have unforseen negative impacts on the game. Similarly, effective communication early on ought to also make the review/approval process go much more quickly and efficiently.
May 18, 2010
I think your final point really brings it all together why this is such a perpetuating issue for both industries. While small strides have been made, there are still huge gulfs in communication and expectations that lead to disappointing results.
May 19, 2010
Thanks, David. The good news is that these are solvable problems. Stay tuned... ;-)
May 19, 2010
What makes a good film does not necessarily make a good game, just as what makes a good book does not necessarily make a good film. So what do you do when adapting the same story? You change it to suit the new medium.
This might go some way to explaining why the most successful film-based games are often sequels based on the intellectual property rather than adaptations. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was a good game, but Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was a great game. Ghostbusters is pretty great, but again, it's a sequel to the source material, not an adaptation of it, allowing the very different needs of game narrative and design to take precedence.
The main exceptions might be Lego Star Wars and Indy: both games take great liberties with the source films but still present them in a recognisable way to the player. Similarly the Spider-Man games were pretty good, but they took big liberties with the film story and set-up to do the job right.