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Businesses Media Movies Entertainment Games

Movie Games Losing Their Appeal to Game Publishers 66

Posted by Zonk from the better-late-than-never dept.
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..."
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Movie Games Losing Their Appeal to Game Publishers More

Movie Games Losing Their Appeal to Game Publishers

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  • Wow. . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @09:15AM (#11735461)
    These guys are slow on the uptake. I think the rest of us had it figured out about the same time E.T. kiled Atari.
    • I am the only person I know who both enjoyed and completed the E.T. game on the Atari. Being that it was my first game on my first home console (I think I was 8 years old) might have influenced my opinion.

      • Re:Wow. . . (Score:4, Funny)

        by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @10:15AM (#11735912)
        Being a research participant in the phase 1 human trials for Ritalin probably helped, too.
      • You mean you got past all those pits you could fall into and not be able to get out of requiring the machine to be reset? What a games player!

        I'd love to know where they buried all those unsold ET cartridges in the Mojave...
        • You mean you got past all those pits you could fall into and not be able to get out of requiring the machine to be reset?

          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

      • Nope, you not the only one. I played, beat and enjoyed ET on the Atari, though I thought I was the only one, guess there are two of us.
        As a later poster mentioned the pits could be annoying, the trick was to make sure you kept holding the button down, and then moved off the pit in the upper screen, not that hard, and no reset needed.
        The most important thing to remember to do was, always find the location the ship would land, before you called them. Trying to find just the right spot on that forest scree
      • Nope - I thoroughly enjoyed it (and beat it multiple times), before the internet told me I was supposed to hate it.

  • Vice Versa (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the darn ( 624240 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @09:18AM (#11735485) Homepage
    If only they would realize game-based movies are an equally bad idea!

    • Re:Vice Versa (Score:4, Funny)

      by WhatAmIDoingHere ( 742870 ) * <sexwithanimals@gmail.com> on Monday February 21, 2005 @09:36AM (#11735612) Homepage
      Tell that to Uwe Boll. Or better yet, kill him before he makes another movie.

    • Tomb Raider was actually an entertaining movie. Like the X-Men movie, which was also pretty good, if the game/comic spin-off movie is done well, it is worth it. The movies can give a two-hour digest of what the game/comic is about, which is great for people not into spending time on comics or gaming.

      Perhaps, the time investment is the main thing. Games often require 30 to 100+ hours to complete, which is really time available only to teenagers or adults with nothing better to do. Anyone can watch a mov

    • Re:Vice Versa (Score:5, Funny)

      by alan_dershowitz ( 586542 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @02:29PM (#11738110)
      I was really disappointed when Super Mario Brothers wasn't included in Columbia House's Dennis Hopper Collection DVD set. His performance as King Koopa was _marvelous_.

    • Re:Vice Versa (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A bad idea? Are you serious? I mean, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, the Tomb Raiders and Resident Evils... these movies represent a new level of quality entertainment! And I know what I'm talking about, because I'm an excellent judge of quality entertainment. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy the latest Ashlee Simpson album.
    • Destroy all cross-media licenses!

  • Solution : Get rid of Uwe Boll. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Destoo ( 530123 ) <destoo@noSPaM.gmail.com> on Monday February 21, 2005 @09:36AM (#11735617) Homepage Journal
    (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.

    • Re:Solution : Get rid of Uwe Boll. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @10:14AM (#11735902)
      Well, something is going to happen. Alone in the Dark is on track to lose $5-10m, even estimating the market abroad and home video. At some point, Uwe will need to turn a significant profit. Otherwise he's not going to be making too many movies. I mean, you don't see Cimino making too many movies.

      On the other hand, say you're a game publisher and Uwe Boll comes up to you and wants to buy your film. You know it will forever tie your game to something really really terrible. Yet they still say yes. So, the publishers are at fault too.

    • Re:Solution : Get rid of Uwe Boll. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      in my opinion, the "hunter: the reckoning" console games weren't even interesting enough to finish once i'd foolishly bought a used (cheap) copy, let alone make a movie out of.
    • "And next, he's going to butcher... Hunter: reckoning"

      Too bad Interplay beat him to it.

  • Different media equals (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HMarieY ( 316249 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @09:42AM (#11735670) Homepage
    different points of interest. The biggest issue with translating any story from one medium to another is that what is "really cool" in one is just goofy or boring in another. In the Lord of the Rings books there were many places where the party was just traveling. Tolkien used that time to describe the changing landscape, the fear and uncertainty they were feeling, and their comradery. If this had been done in the same way in the movie (which can show in a few seconds several pages of description) it would have been boring. This is part of the reason Douglas Adams naturally adjusted his story to suit each media it was translated into.

    When big movie companies get involved in making a game based on their movie, they insist that the game stay close to the story. You end up with behaviors that are similar to the movie but aren't a lot of fun in a game and a lot of direct from the movie cut scenes, all of which are buggy because of the push to get it released in time.

    It is funny that it has taken movie companies so long to get this.

    • Re:Different media equals (Score:4, Interesting)

      by llevity ( 776014 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @01:46PM (#11737720)
      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 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.
      • I completely agree with what you said about "Enter the Matrix".

        Now if only if they made the game to not make you choke yourself with the keyboard cable while playing. Lucky me, i've got a Logitech Wireless Keyboard!

      • 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.

        Gran

  • Deadlines (Score:4, Informative)

    by SafteyMan ( 860733 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @10:07AM (#11735850)
    I think the biggest problem of making a game based on a movie is releasing the game close to when the movie came out. When the matrix game came out the same day as the movie, you could tell it was just unfinished. There were so many bugs, big and small, and the whole game just felt unfinished.
    • NO way, this is a question of $$$ from the publisher's angle. If you are the publisher, you need to give a $$$ chunk back to those who gave you the licensed right to use LOTR or spiderman etc. There is no chunk to give back if you are not using movie names. Simple as that. Publishers are people who burn CDs and slap a logo on the developer's hardwork. They want to cash in bigger and bigger.

  • Fads vs. Niche (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DingerX ( 847589 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @10:23AM (#11735976) Journal
    A lot of the difference comes from the distinction between fads and niche markets. Fads are very short lived and generally spill down from the core market to less sophisticated markets: people will buy macarena-based garbage, not a movie. Niche markets are the ones with a die-hard core of nerds that will shell out for anything related to the product. Few people are buying Light Sabre flashlights and bartman dolls, but Star Wars videogames, simpsons filmographies, and any number of related pieces of merchandise are selling pretty hard.

    Still, things are getting better. There was a period when I remember seeing the California Raisins and VAnilla Ice both having video games in production, and neither being able to make it to the market before the fad was passe'.
    • but the California Raisins game was finished, and ported to multiple platforms. check www.the-underdogs.org. From what I've heard, it's and above average platformer.
      • Vanilla Ice I'm pretty sure was an abortion. One of the guys who was coding it used to come through the office, and we'd crack jokes about it. As for california raisins, I had some horrible flashbacks... check my journal for the full story.
      • Responding to my own thread -- doh! I looked at the site and saw that there was a PC game. Forgive me; I was traumatized by having to do final QA on the NES version, which (thank God), never was released.

  • Examples that break rules (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Allicorn ( 175921 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @10:42AM (#11736098) Homepage
    Mind you, the Chronicles of Riddick game (referring to PC version here, can't comment on consoles) was quite a corker. Rather than just trying to sloppily re-create "cool" moments from the film into a stereotypical chopped-together movie->game transfer - some elements of the Riddick story are told only in the movies, while others are told only in the game, and the two media support eachother quite well IMHO.

    Add to this a fair bunch of DVD-movie-a-like "extras" on the game disk, including a sometimes fascinating in-game developer commentary, shots of early development versions, concept artwork and such. I think what you end up with in "Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay (Developers Cut)" is a movie-game tie-in that merits a small footnote in the history of the development of these kind of cross-media entertainment franchises.

    Alli
    • 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".

      • Re:Examples that break rules (Score:4, Informative)

        by n0wak ( 631202 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @01:02PM (#11737346) Homepage Journal
        What the hell you talking about? The "producers", the big game dork Vin Diesel being one, had this all in mind. I mean, how does "Chronicles of Riddick" have nothing to do with the game? It's about Riddick and his, yeah, chronicles before the movies.

        Now, personally, I hated the movies and hate Vin Diesel as an actor, but what they did with Riddick the game was astounding. And to dismiss it because it doesn't have multiplayer is idiotic.
        • Hmm ... sorry I think I have a point and is not idiotic at all, Multiplayer in these kind of games (fps) IS a big deal. How do you think Splinter cell 2 or Halo 2 would have fared without any Multiplayer? Ask around and most people will agree they wouldnt be playing these games now if the multiplayer wasnt so good. How do you think Doom3 would do in xbox without co-op multiplayer mode?

          When a feature becomes standard, non having it means you have substandard quality. Weither you like or not. (try to name 5
          • Thief I
            Thief II
            Thief III
            System Shock
            System Shock II

            Admitted, System Shock did eventually come out with a multi-player add on, but well after the single player game's release.

  • Its not going away (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SafteyMan ( 860733 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @10:56AM (#11736222)
    Just because some publishers are moving away from movie licences doesn't mean its going away. People wil still buy games just because it has spiderman or harry potter on the cover no matter how bad the game may be. And as long as people are willing to buy the games, publishers will keep buying licences.

    • Why not just put (insert hyped up character) on an empty game box with just a fan club postcard inside and charge $40? The guilt on money lost would be the same.
  • Of course, this situation is a concern only for marketroids, and shouldn't concern developers (in a perfect world, anyway). Is it a nice marketing gimmick to be able to advertise a movie and a game at the same time? Sure, I guess. But you're just as well off advertising the game during the trailers as "coming soon" just like all the other movies that get advertised during the trailers.

    See, the problem, she is solved, and it doesn't involve developers compromising quality to meet ridiculous ship dates.

  • or.. perhaps ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AzraelKans ( 697974 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:08PM (#11736878) Homepage
    Or perhaps Hollywood just realized that Halo 2, GTA SA, Metroid Prime 2, made quite a few million bucks, and their best "tie ins" "spiderman , ridick" barely reached the top 20 most sold games of the year?

    Heres a hint: 1 year development time with zero creative freedom an unexperienced team and copycat techniques, cant lead to more than a regular game, never will, never has. No matter how "cool" it looks on paper.

    Probably the most succesful licensed game is Kotor (1) which took almost 3 years in development. Complete creative control (since is barely tied with the star wars universe) and a team of rpg experts leading it. Take a note hollywood producers.

    Heres an idea. Grab an experienced team who actually admires your franchise and grant them the license and resources to do a game about it. Forget about "tying it" to the release of a movie. Leave them do their work. If everything works you will make almost as much money as you did with the movie.

  • The Game Industry Needs a Shot of Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:37PM (#11737125) Homepage
    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.
    • "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 deadli

      • Re:The Movie Industry Needs a Shot of Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)

        by superultra ( 670002 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @05:36PM (#11739692) Homepage
        Good points, but when the movie industry announces a date, it sticks. This is especially true when a movie leaves the pre-production phase (scheduling an actor, for example). There are exceptions, but those are rare. Yet, there are very few video game companies that can accurately predict their own release date, even in the very last stages of production. With Fantastic Four, the date didn't change four months. It changed a few weeks. Compare that to our industry's epitome of professionalism: Valve. Would a movie studio have announced a firm date for, say, Spider-man 2 in multiple magazines, let that date pass without saying a word, and then announce to weeks after that date that it wouldn't be out for another year?

        Maybe the key is, as you indirectly suggest: secrecy. Game companies have time and again proved that they are incapable of keeping their projects under wraps when they don't have a specific date. Valve might have been an exception with their announcement of HL2 supposedly only a few months before September 30th, but even they were unable to keep this date.

        EA and Nintendo are some of the few companies that have developed a practice of not announcing their game without a street date, and then sticking it (although Nintendo wasn't always this way). Where's the rest of the industry?

    • Re:The Game Industry Needs a Shot of Evolution (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Zangief ( 461457 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @07:12PM (#11740352) Homepage Journal
      Game developing is in great part software development. Software development today is completely unpredictable.

      So, only when game development houses start using better tools and pre-made engines, that can be easily slapped together, and concentrate on content creation, game development will be as unpredictable as always had.

      EA is only efficient with their sports games, because, in the worst case they just pick up last year's game, update roosters and call it good.
      • Actually, I think EA is pretty much on time with most of their games. I worked at an EB for 3+ years, and I can't remember many times when an EA release date - for any of their games, sports or otherwise - changed. That could be different now, since I stopped working at EB in 2003 (thank God), but I doubt it.

  • Businessweek says the Opposite (Score:5, Informative)

    by Swanktastic ( 109747 ) on Monday February 21, 2005 @12:38PM (#11737128)
    Chalk it up as 'journalists never agree on trends.' An article on Businessweek's cover this week says the exact opposite-- Video games and studios are getting much closer, studios looking to buy devs/publishers, devs/publishers looking to make alliances with studios. I read both, and Businessweek is usually more accurate about industry trends than the NY Times. So take it with a grain of salt.

    The question is not really whether movie games are universally good or bad, but whether the publishers are paying the right amount of money for the license. Also, remember that only a small fraction of games are hits, so there's a pretty good chance that a big movie-based game could flop. All the naysayers will point to this and say "See movies and games don't mix-- I told you so" when that is simply the standard operating economics of the industry.

  • 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,
  • That means no more "Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game"s... Now if games as movies would lose appeal as well, we could legally shoot Uwe Boll and put an end to poverty, sickness, hunger, and . . Well, Uwe Boll.

  • movies/tv vs games (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jtrek ( 861007 )
    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 re
  • Theres another great idea. Is there someone even remotely interested in buying that game? (lets not even mention scarface)

    No wonder why the studios are dissapointed.
  • <rant>

    Are they calling Spider Man 2 a quality game? Anyone who has played this game will agree it is complete shit.

    </rant>

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