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Role Playing (Games) Television Media Movies

MMOGs With Television, Movie Add-Ons 81

Posted by Zonk from the omg-bbq dept.
conq writes "BusinessWeek has an exclusive interview with James Cameron. In it, the director reveals plans to design a massively-multiplayer online game (MMOG) alongside his next film, Project 880. There's also exclusive news that Ron Howard's upcoming reality show, XQuest, will have an MMOG component. Gamers will be able to interact with the contestants in the show (the game will be similar to Eve Online), and winners at home will be in the next season's show."
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MMOGs With Television, Movie Add-Ons More

MMOGs With Television, Movie Add-Ons

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  • mmog / tv show (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Jonny_Madness ( 794455 )
    This makes it so people play to be on TV; not to play because the game is good. Which means the game is gonna suck. Right? -- Jonny
  • Time to bang out one of sonys magical "WoWhaX!!!111" cd's and see if it works on this, money to be won...

  • Like Eve Online? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LakeSolon ( 699033 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @01:22PM (#14635887) Homepage
    Perhaps there's more detail elsewhere, but given what the article says I see very little parallel to Eve Online other than that neither are "Fantasy/Magic" based. It seems like the MMO component will be extremely shallow by itself (the now defunct Earth and Beyond comes to mind) and heavily planned/scripted. Nothing like the extremely player-driven environment of EVE.
    • What would make a great reality TV show, would be a bounty hunting situation. Put a bunch of people in the game, with certain goals. Then also have corporations put out bounties for them part way through. Winner is the last one surviving. Make it hard enough for the regular players to figure out who is on the TV show, and it could be very interesting to watch. More "Survivor" than Survivor.

      --SCZ

  • Movie based games (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Overloadplanetunreal ( 603019 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @01:23PM (#14635894)
    When I go to the store and see a game that's based on a movie, I don't even give the box a second glance. There have been so many bad movie-licenced games (and it seems that every single movie has one) that it's just not worth trying them anymore. It surprises me that people buy these games and therefore make it worth it for more bad games to be released. I have a feeling this game will be another "Enter the Matrix"
    • I'd normally agree with you, but it must be said that there are some exceptions to the rule that movie based games suck.

      I would have never bought it on my own for the reason above, but I got a video card packaged with The Chronicles of Riddick game, and I enjoyed it. It was well thought out and well put together, save for the need to have the CD in the drive, and a couple minor bugs... But most importantly, it was fun and immersive, and unlike most FPS games where you need to collect items to get past obst
    • When I go to the store and see a game that's based on a movie, I don't even give the box a second glance. There have been so many bad movie-licenced games (and it seems that every single movie has one) that it's just not worth trying them anymore.

      I don't know about that. The "Passion of the Christ" first person shooter has some awesome graphics. Though the weapons are kind of limited. Actually, you don't really get any weapons, you just get beat up by Romans. But I thought the graphics made up for what

  • Reality? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... m ['mai' in gap]> on Friday February 03, 2006 @01:25PM (#14635905) Homepage Journal
    From Reality TV magazine [realitytvmagazine.com]:

    Over the course of a month, the contestants' perceptions will become reality as they are immersed in every sensorial way possible - sights, sounds, motion and environmental on a 24/7 and 360-degree basis - to take them on a fantastic outer-space mission never before experienced. ...
    While immersed in this environment, the teams will compete on missions, which will take their respective biocrafts to intergalactic locales. Periodically, the teams will be forced to jettison a crew member, until - at the end of a month of complete immersion - a winner returns to Earth.


    You know, with all this high tech, I wonder if adding the "reality" element with the 24hr cameras, etc. is really necessary. If the SFX are as good as they say, just watching the contestants complete their "intergalactic" missions is worth it.

    No more "reality", please... we're sick tired of it.
    • The "Reality" element that you deride actually shapes a story out of the raw footage. If you want to just see their experience, you could go to Disneyland, get on Star Tours and look at the person in the seat next to you. Their is nothing inherently wrong with Reality TV. There is good reality tv and bad. Blanket statements are mental laziness.
      • While I agree that blanket statements are mental laziness... can you actually name a GOOD reality TV show? One or two seasons of Survivor were OK, POSSIBLY good, but that still leaves more than half of the seasons as mediocre (at best)--that type of track record doesn't exactly make me think its good... Most of the other reality TV shows are just total crap. If you want good TV, watch LOST, where there's an ACTUAL storyline and not just people being their normal dumb selves. If I want to watch people being
        • Just because the dramas on TV are great does not mean that all Reality is bad.
          Survivor is still good. Entertaining and not pandering to the lowest common denominator. I would argue that it is the same audience that watches CSI (the ratings are very similar).
          Amazing Race is a decent show. Breaking Bonaduce was hard to watch but it was actually very well done. Project Greenlight - good, smart show. Project Runway - people with real skills compete for a chance at a real career.
          There are diamonds
        • Survivor Man. [discovery.com] The most "realistic" and interesting reality show on TV. It's basically what "Survivor" *should* have been, without the stupid voting or morons with larger chest sizes than IQs.
        • But good and bad is subjective... the problem being that your view of good and bad does not jibe with the rest of the nation or world. I suffer much the same, and as a result of it I just don't watch much television.
        • The Biggest Loser is pretty good, except they all cry too much.
    • More importantly, there's a Reality TV Magazine? What the hell?

  • Too much of a good thing? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ShibaInu ( 694434 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @01:26PM (#14635920)
    Now we're really getting carried away. In a couple of years MMOs have gone from hard-core only nerd fests to mainstream. Worse, they seem to be well on their way to being the trendy choice when making a new game.

    Are MMOs the next dotcom? Will every tv or movie franchise have a corresponding MMO? At least it should cut down on the number of rushed single player games based on movies or tv shows... I hope.
    • At least it should cut down on the number of rushed single player games based on movies or tv shows... I hope.

      Nope, it'll just cut down on the number of games worth buying. And considering that there are less than a dozen out there, we may one day see the "Game of the Year" being THE game of the year.

  • And it starts... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheNoxx ( 412624 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @01:30PM (#14635948) Homepage Journal
    If this is any kind of success, I'd imagine that many of the major Hollywood producers with their millions will want to start backing MMOG's of their own. Remember, folks, games are still in a very nascent stage; similar to movies in the 50's (as in, 30 years after the start of cinema).
    • He hasn't made any good scifi (and arguably anything good) since Alien. This whole thing sounds hokey and the work of some disconnected-from-reality assumptions about what gamers and sci-fi goers want. I wouldn't trust a traditional director with a game, ever.
      • I don't know about that. 'Aquaman' looks like it's gonna be pretty good. Though I'm not sure about Mandy Moore as Aquagirl, I think an unknown would've been a better choice.
      • If you mean Ridley Scott didn't do anything good since Alien, you'd be wrong, because he made Blade Runner three years after. If you mean James Cameron didn't do anything good since Aliens, you'd also be wrong, because right after that he made Terminator 2.

        If you want to say "Terminator 2 sucked!" consider before you do so that you obviously don't know anything about sci-fi movies in general.
    • Really good point. There's more and more game developing talent out there. You don't even need to be a studio to have a game firm. Vin Diesel has Tigon Studios; they did the Chronicle of Riddick game to go along with his franchise.

      Games are way cheaper than corresponding films to produce. A hundred million dollar film can get a game done for 10 million. The margins are beautiful on games. A platinum game worldwide is still $50-70 million gross. Because there's more talent out there, it comes cheaper, and th
    • Actually movies were first invtented 1888. The first MUD in 1977, so we are now about 1917, or so. Still early years yet.

      And of course if this is a sucess producers will follow, that is what they do.
      • I think it would be more fair to compare the very first movie to the very first computer game, not the first multi-player game. Consider the multiplayer component in a similar vein to developing sound for the movies.
    • The 50's saw the end of the studio system. I'd argue that the games industry is still moving toward a model of "let's churn out as much as we can as fast as we can while we can still sell something," not away from it.
  • TFA's author seems pretty excited, but I'm not sure I see an innovation here to get all breathless over. We already have games based on movies (and movies based on games). Other than the order of release, this is just another game based on a movie.

    From TFA:
    " Movies with game tie-ins have been around since the days of Atari (ATAR ), but the games usually follow the plot."

    Doesn't the Star Wars MMOG allow you to explore without sticking plot from the films? I don't play the game, so I don't know for sure.

    • Re:How is this innovative? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      I think the problem is the tail is wagging the dog.

      Instead of releasing a MMOG and a film in parallel, if you really want to do something innovative, release the film inside the MMOG. It wouldn't even have to be exclusively in the MMOG.

      I'd scatter clues to the game throughout the movie, and keep the movie running continuously on the cineplex inside the MMOG (charging admission of course).
  • I'd play JC's game, not RH's. As some have already pointed out, most movie-based games suck, and most movies based on games also suck. However, having something worked out in parallel with each other would be pretty cool. Granted, I'd like to see how they would cast "gold farmers" in the movie. ;-) As for the MMORPG-meets-reality, no thank you. First off, the "winners" would more than likely need to be US citizens, and we all know that MMORPG players are not all US-based. Granted, you could have a dif

  • Point of no Return (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HunterZ ( 20035 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @01:47PM (#14636052) Journal
    Great, it's a sure thing now: the MMORPG market is headed for over-saturation.

    Given the nature of these games, few people devote their time to more than one. The more games that come out, the fewer number of people there will be playing each. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually it gets to the point where - except for a couple big ones - most MMORPGs shrink back down to the player base of individual Neverwinter Nights servers or the MUDs from which they spawned.

    Industry executives obviously missed the memo spelling out the fact that you can't have everyone playing every MMORPG out there - it just isn't gonna happen.
    • Industry executives obviously missed the memo spelling out the fact that you can't have everyone playing every MMORPG out there - it just isn't gonna happen.

      We got the memo alright, but the GREAT NEWS is that EVERYONE is going to play OUR GAME. Dave in marketing told me so himself.
    • That is exactly why I haven't committed to playing ANY MMORPGS.

    • With the commoditization of the game servers and engines ( Multiverse article @ /. [slashdot.org]), it will cost significantly less to run one, though. A small team of developers could have an MMO that would be enough to make a living with less than 1000 players - which is NOT a very hard subscriber base to achieve.

      I personally look forward to the niche games that we'll see as a result of it, people that are more willing to go out on a limb and not try to just give us "Everquest in <insert genre>." The big boys ar

  • Gamers will be able to interact with the contestants in the show (the game will be similar to Eve Online)

    Oh great, so we can actually watch people being pod-killed on TV now? Makes the gate-camping almost worth the wait! Who's bringing the popcorn?
  • Everyone that gets on the second season's show will have one common trait: Either full-out OCD or boarderline. My friend, can sit and play World of Warcraft for 12 hours at a time. And he's not even a 'fanatical' player of the game. What about these people? 20 hours a day? For their one shot at being on TV?

    The real question is..will the producers have enough Mountain Dew?

  • This will crash and burn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jarnis ( 266190 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @01:56PM (#14636114)
    Making MMOs is Difficult. Very Difficult.

    No information of any established MMO dev/publisher being tied into this leads me to belive that this will crash and burn in the most spectacular way ever. All they mention are couple of 'names' and unknown startups. Those poor souls... they have no clue what they are getting themselves into.

    Either the 'game' will suck horribly, or if it doesn't, their infrastructure will implode under the onslaught of gamers, they'll be overrun by exploiters and farmers. See: Blizzard, WoW launch. And Blizzard was a pro developer with years of experience with online games (just not MMOs).

    Looks to me some big name hollywood guys noticed that Blizzard is taking in 300M$/year off MMOs, and that's big hollywood-grade wad of cash. So the hollywood guys are locking onto the 'money detected'-signal, and desperately trying to cash into the market with an unique spin.

    Now the idea of the show about a team in a 'spaceship simulator' sounds intriguing, but I'd never let outsiders break everything by adding 'MMO universe' to the mix - at least not without *minimum* 5 year development schedule to get a working game, before adding the TV show bits to the mix.

    Now lets assume for a minute that their nice pitch can somehow be made into reality... If they'd try the described system by tossing a 'simulator spaceship' into, for example, EVE Online, the 'TV show ship' would get podded to hell and back over and over again, and the 'crew' would end up sitting in a station trying to refit a new ship 99% of the time, with dozens of nolifers camping the station for the chance of getting to show their l33t ships and guns on TV. Not very exiting after the first couple of explosions. PvP-enabled game universes can be harsh, and the only real way to avoid repeated ganking is to look unimportant - which doesn't work if there's a "celebrity" in the game. And if they make sure nobody can kill anyone, the "celebrity" people will just get mobbed by a horde of players that will just lag everything until servers go 'boom'.

    There *is* a reason why MMOs don't generally do 'live events' - as soon as word spreads something 'unusual' is going on, everyone online wants to get to see it and participate and/or grief. Just ask Lord British about his 'celebrity visit' to Ultima Online way back... (hint: he got killed by a player, and yes, servers almost croaked as everyone on the server tried to get to the hotspot)

    Just my two cynical eurocents...
    • EVE Online, the 'TV show ship' would get podded to hell and back over and over again, and the 'crew' would end up sitting in a station trying to refit a new ship 99% of the time, with dozens of nolifers camping the station for the chance of getting to show their l33t ships and guns on TV.

      Good God, can you imagine? They would get CCF assurances, "Don't worry, we'll keep you in 1.0 space and you'll be safe." Then a fleet of ships would roll in that would make the Cylons jealous (basically every player in the

  • Useless (Score:5, Funny)

    by Uukrul ( 835197 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @02:10PM (#14636209)
    There is going to be a new MMO that is going to be a the best ever... [slashdot.org].
    Why they bother to make another one?

  • The next natural step in marketing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BeanBunny ( 936648 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @02:17PM (#14636258)
    I'm seeing this as less than a game and more of yet another cross-promotion strategy. Remember when movie studios realized that they could make millions by selling the soundtrack, and then realized that they could make billions by selling said soundtrack the day the movie was released?

    These days, single-player games based on media licenses are just another form of marketing to extend the brand of the movie or TV property. It's almost a given that you will see a game based on a Disney movie, no matter how lame the mini-games end up being. Curiously, in that case they work because the audience of those particular movies want something basic that allows them to simply interact a bit more with Timon and Pumbaa (and even I liked the Burper).

    I think this is a bit different, however. The principle is the same as above (allow the audience to interact a bit more), except that instead of a "video game," it's now a 3D chatroom with objectives (which pretty much describes the appeal of most MMOGs in the first place). Plus, you get to influence the course of the show.

    I didn't see anything in TFA about "Eve Online." Submitter's speculation?

  • nteresting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @02:18PM (#14636272) Homepage
    This is interesting in that they are forging ahead into uncharted MMORPG territory. The only thing I'd really be concerned about is that MMORPGs tend to look at things in the long term...these types of movies and tv series, while I'm sure the creators hope they will last long, are often very short-lived phenomena.

    Which makes me concerned about pricing. How much would it cost, and how much per month is it? Do I get a free month with purchase of DVD?

  • This is very similar (more than standard MMOG fare) to Alternate Reality Games [wikipedia.org]. There was actually just a great article at ARGN [argn.com] in relation to the new television show by the guy behind "Survivor", making a MMOG tied into a television show, "Gold Rush" where you need both TV clues and online "research" to succeed in tracking down treasures of gold hidden across the US.

    Anyway, it's a very interesting idea, to say the least. I think we're going to continue to see the lines between entertainment and advert
  • That's nice and all that these directors are extending MMOGs to new demographics, but what happens when the MMORPG "hack, slash, collect, buy, repeat" crowd of 10-15 year olds start taking the games over? Will it even be worth playing, once you hop in and see nothing but grammar mindfucks like "30otg for sell PMme pleze kthx" scrolling past the screen faster than they can be read?

    You heard it here first!
  • Matrix Online

    Does anyone play that anymore? How well is it doing based against other MMOs such as WoW, Coh/ CoV, EQ, EQ2, etc.?

    What's going to make these games unique? What will drawpeople to the game, or people away from other MMOs, besides licensing? Most gamers aren't fooled by licensing gimmicks anymore ( Star Wars Masters of Taras Kasi anyone?) [lucasarts.com], so unless there's innovation or new gameply/ mechanics involved that will appeal to old and new gamers alike, it will be an uphill battle.

    Think the onl

  • well... (Score:3, Funny)

    by DiscoNick ( 743960 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @03:50PM (#14637091) Homepage
    Better James Cameron than Uwe Boll!
  • How about this then? -- a Survivor like reality show where armed robots hunt the humans and are controlled over the internet as part of a first-person shooter multiplayer online game. Then people would realize that the most dangerous animal is really teenagers with computers ...
  • Don't try to compete with WoW.. You're opening a no name coffee stand next to a Starbuck's.

    Not even EQ could make another EQ.

    I would have to agree the current plans for super awesome MMO's are going nowhere.
  • I would love to see MMORPG based on ALIENS. Marines vs. Aliens. :)

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