Comments on: Don’t make video games out of movies

By: Glass

Glass — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:09:28 +0000

The 2005 King Kong movie game was incredible.

By: JDoran

JDoran — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:59:56 +0000

Off topic I know, but wasn’t Famke Jansen (Xenia Onatop in Goldeneye, the girl on the top right hand corner of the Goldeneye picture, top of the page) the best Bond girl ever? She was both extremely beautiful and very sexy (the two can be very seperate things).

By: Fishyhat

Fishyhat — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:04:10 +0000

Robin is right.

How much research did you do on this topic before you worte this out, Bruce? There are plenty of movie based games out there that did extremely well.

Westwood Studio’s Blade Runner was a top seller. In fact it actually did better in the first week than the Blade Runner movie did in it’s opening week.

Goldeneye may be the exception….to somebody who doesn’t know much about video games.

You can erase this now, Bruce. Like you do with other posts that slam dunk anything you say wth such elementary ease.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:43:37 +0000

tomb raider.

okay , i’ve said it , i’ll get my coat and leave now

By: Simon John Cox

Simon John Cox — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:53:43 +0000

As has been mentioned, games seem to be simply another medium for marketing of the main money-spinner – which, at this point (from the point of view of the people making the decisions, anyway), seems to be the films.

But to comment on your point about linearity, even the sandbox games (GTA in particular here) technically are broadly linear, at least on a macro level…there is always a series of set cutscenes, some or all of which play in a certain order (e.g. mission A leads to Mission B), interconnected by a random nonlinear series of events.

By: Ian Osborne

Ian Osborne — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:10:45 +0000

Anyone remember Ecks Vs Sever on the GBA? It came out so far ahead of the film, some movie reviewers thought the movie was based on the game, instead of the other way around. It was also excellent, which certainly isn’t true of the appalling film.

What happened to the green Ferrari you had on your front page earlier?

By: Steven L

Steven L — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:52:42 +0000

Surely better to make original IP games that make you feel like you’re in a movie. The original Mass Effect did this brilliantly.

By: SmaMan

SmaMan — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:40:11 +0000

All very true, Bruce. I actually read another article that interviewed someone working on a movie game (Iron Man I think?) And he said that in some cases the game gets even less time than the movie!

And let’s not forget another time when they weren’t trying to release a movie game in time for a movie, but for Christmas in about 3 weeks… jogging anyone’s memory?

By: Bruce

Bruce — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:41:18 +0000

Ubisoft explain: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26842/Ubisoft_CEO_Guillemot_Explans_What_Went_Wrong_With_Avatar.php

By: Sean Bean's Gravy Boat

Sean Bean's Gravy Boat — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:33:04 +0000

I think the main issue with games made out of films (and vice versa) is that the people that make them don’t really do so with any real passion for the source material, simply seeing the media on which their version is based as a launch pad of free marketing.

There are numerous great games based on films that people have already mentioned, and I’d like to add the Super Star Wars trilogy on the SNES to the list, all of which would have been great games even if they’d have had the license removed.

Saying that the Avatar game hasn’t been a success simply because it’s based on a film is pure nonsense. The game hasn’t been a success simply because it isn’t very good. The same can be said for movies that are based on games – Hitman and Max Payne aren’t rubbish films because they’re based on games. If you stripped the IP away and tried to sell them as films in their own right they would still be rubbish.