Its no secret that everytime a blockbuster movie is released, a video game modeled on the movie will be soon to follow. Take the latest recreation of marvel Hero Captain America for example, released earlier this year, has already been followed up with the corresponding Video Game, "Captain America - Super Soldier". this is but one example of this phenomena, others include, X-Men Origins and the Wolverine game released soon after, Avatar and its video game and the catastrophe that was the movie Thor and its equally bad game Thor-God of Thunder. The fact is, many studio's and opportunistic game developers see these blockbuster movies as as the perfect opportunity to effectively "piggyback" on the movies awareness levels that come from being a new studio film. In my opinion, this represents excellent marketing on behalf of the game producers who have effectively identified the opportunity to create a game that will be largely backed up by the movies following (particularly if the genre of the film is reflective of the video gaming community, you couldnt make a "gone with the wind" game for example and expect it to sell), and poor poor marketing decision making in most cases on behalf of those who own the intellectual property of the movie. lets face it people, when it comes down to it, well known video gaming companies, those who are reknown for creating great games arent interested in borrowing ideas for games and are primarily interested in creating their own worlds and enviroments from scratch (world or warcraft for example), you simply never see large companies like Gearbox, Valve or Blizzard creating games based on movies. for the smaller game designers however, it represents a large opportunity. the problem however, is that usually their creative hands are tied by the movies characters and strict development constictions and therefore on average these games based on movies are usually rubbish, and therefore damaging to the creators of the movie and damaging to the brand of the movie itself. take thor for example, the game received a 3/10 on respected pc magazine IGN, and the game developer? Liquid Studios a miniscule player in the gaming community (http://au.ps3.ign.com/objects/900/900982.html). or take Avatar for example, no one could say that the movie was rubbish, but the game on the other hand, released soon afterwards? a 6/10 on IGN, passable but nothing special. simply put, not since the heady days of Bond classic Goldeneye and the game made from it, the timeless N64 classic Goldeneye, has the secret formula for movie-tie-in games been cracked and we will continue to see games released in future that are poor mirages of decent movies, potentially hurting movie brand equity.
p.s
thank god no one has made a twilight game
the horror that was Thor.
for those of you who have seen a game of thrones, this will make you laugh
Personally I am not 100% convinced that the games based on movies are effecting the movies brand image to a large extent.
ReplyDeleteTake for example as you said Avatar, regardless of the game this movie has been a huge success due to its amazing effects. I cant see how the game could be much of a sucess without resembling World of Warcraft, because if they were to focus the game on the effects 9as the movie did)then everyone would claim it is a knock of of WOW, meaning they could only base it or make it a prequal to the story line of Avatar and lets face it the movies story line was not extremely interesting, and definitely not interesting enough to base a game on it.
you make a good point, however you cannot deny the large impact that a poor game has on the gaming community, particularly if the game was expected to be as good as the movie, its a negative stimuli on the movie, and devalues the franchise as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI think I have to agree with @kristina - the gaming market is different to the movie market. A crap game will only reflect badly on the film for gamers, which would only represent a small % of cinema-goers.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but notice that many films appear to be built around future games, particularly animated films. The "chase" scenes often feel like they could easily be transferred into a game. Thinking ahead, or all part of the initial plan?
I tend to agree with Jerry actually, even though gamers only make up a small % of cinema-goers, they would more than make up for it with their online presence. Gamers are much more involved in a franchise if they buy the game than seeing it once at the cinemas and their reach online could hurt that franchises brand equity.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, Hitman the movie had a large reach and was quite popular and that was definitely driven by gamers and their online and offline reach.