Game Company Myths About Films
Myth #1 – Games take longer to make than films.
As with most myths, this idea is rooted in truth. From the point at which a major (non-animated) film begins principal photography to the day that it is released to theaters, rarely takes as much as 2 years. The most successful games, however, often take at least this long, from start to finish. What this myth overlooks, however, is the amount of time that a film can spend in development and pre-production (these are two distinct phases that come prior to filming). When this time is added to the film’s production and post-production process, films can often take at least as long to make as the most ambitious game. The challenge for both industries is to find a way to successfully pursue both timelines, in parallel, rather than waiting until it is “too late” to get started on the game. I believe that the solution to this problem lies in how the projects are financed, but that is a topic for another article.
Myth #2 – Filmmakers don’t respect game developers.
On the contrary, the people who actually create/produce films consistently express a tremendous level of respect and appreciation for their gaming counterparts. Many are also gamers themselves and most acknowledge that creating games requires a unique set of creative abilities that they do not possess. This level of intimidation and respect may actually explain why so few film creators have felt comfortable trying to embrace the interactive entertainment medium. Nonetheless, this “second class” perspective persists amongst game creators for two very simple reasons.
Game developers have had virtually zero exposure to their film creative counterparts during the crucial stages of building a game and making the movie. Even those game developers who are working on major projects that are slated to release alongside blockbuster films have traditionally been separated from the people creating the film by several layers of individuals who have little (if any) creative/production experience in either field. It would not be uncommon for the lead designer on a film-based video game to be separated from a film’s director by at least the following people:
- The internal game development team’s Producer.
- The external game publisher’s Producer.
- The film studio’s consumer products/licensing executive.
- The film production company’s mid-level executive who had been tasked with interacting with the film studio’s consumer products division.
Given all of these people who are concerned, to varying degrees, with ensuring that the game production doesn’t disrupt the film production, it should be unsurprising that the Lead Designer doesn’t feel that the film Director or Producer considers them worth the time of day. Meanwhile, the film Director or Producer may have no idea that the game’s Lead Designer may have critical questions that only they can truly answer.
Myth #3 – Games based on films have to suck.
This myth effectively encompasses all of the issues that we have discussed so far. And, if prior performance were necessarily a predictor of future performance, this statement would certainly be true. Despite nearly 30 years of film-based games (going back at least as far as E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark), one would be hard-pressed to identify even a handful of film-based games that are widely considered to be more than mediocre. There is no reason why this trend must continue to be true, however. In fact, many successful film properties (Indiana Jones, Aliens, Lord of the Rings, Inglorious Basterds) could be easily correlated to similarly popular games (Uncharted, Halo, Warcraft, Call of Duty). As we have seen, there are 4 basic reasons why the quality of film-based games has proven so consistently inferior:
- Talent – Licensees do not hire top-tier game developers for licensed games.
- Communication – Game developers have extremely limited, if any, access to their creative counterparts, much less the ability to influence the creative direction of the film in order to ensure that it will also make for a great game.
- Timeline – Game developers almost never have enough time to create high-quality games.
- Story – The story/narrative elements of the game are afterthoughts for the screenwriters and film directors.
When these four, highly-solvable, problems have been addressed, there is nothing preventing film-based games from achieving high levels of quality (and the financial success that accompanies it).
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.