No, this has nothing to do with The Hobbit. Â If that’s what you were looking for when you found this page, I’m sorry.
Instead, this is my entry for this month’s Round Table discussion:
We’re heading out of the summer movie blockbuster season and into the autumnal video game blockbuster season. What better time to take a look at the transition of intellectual property from the big screen to the little screen? From traditional media to interactive media? Why do so many movie-based video games fail to capture the spirit of their big screen counterparts? Is it because video games can’t tell stories as well? Is it due to budget issues? Scheduling issues? Or something more sinister (Hollywood moles attempting to undermine the rising influence of video games on consumer spending habits, perhaps)? What movie based games have succeeded? Why? How could they be better? This month’s Round Table invites you to explore video games based on Hollywood IP. Focus on a specific game, or a specific franchise, or the idea as a whole. Take a look at the business realities, design constraints, or marketing pressures. As always, your approach is entirely up to you.
The problem that I always have with adaptations of film or books into video games is that a book is written for you to hold in your hand and turn the pages, one after the other, from the beginning to the end; and films are made to be watched from your seat, for the 90 minutes to three hours it takes to tell the tale. Â Games are not, or at least in my opinion should not be, designed for you to sit in front of your PC while the story unfolds in front of you. Â Games should involve the player, actually involve them, not just emotionally, but physically. Â The game can’t progress from start to finish without the player, at least in part, deciding how to get there.
When most movies are made into games, if I enjoyed the movie, then there is a 99.9% chance I will not enjoy the game. Â Because the game isn’t the movie. Â Its close, the narrative might be there… but when I watched the movie, the hero didn’t have to stop and play Bejewelled to unlock doors. Â And if my participation in a game is limited to playing mini-games in order for the cut scenes to play, then I’m not interested. Â The game play needs to support the story, the story needs to unfold in the gameplay, not around the outsides of it.
In a similar fashion, games turned into films suffer the same fate. Â They take a game where the player is involved in the story, assisting to help it unfold, and then throwing the gamer out of the equation. Â Now, you don’t get to help, you just get to watch. Â Its even worse when a game does allow the player to mold the story, because then the movie is just one aspect of the story and is going to match only some of the players’ experiences. Â Or worse, since the game won’t directly translate to film, they just go make up a bunch of stuff so that its not really the game any more but just some (usually bland) story with a flavor of the game.
And just like how the book is most often better than the movie… when a game takes 20 hours of solid play to complete, compacting that down to under 2 tends to hurt the story. Â If the game came first, most often it is going to be better than the movie.
Personally, I think that games and movies should stay away from each other, except as inspiration. Â At best, they should tell completely different stories, often with different characters, but inspired by the existance of the other.
But I don’t make games or movies, what do I know? Â Well, I know that I almost never buy games based on movies, and rarely enjoy movies based on games. Â Yeah, I said I “rarely enjoy” the movies, because I’m a sucker for films and I’ll see just about anything.
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