On Combining Industries

An interesting evolution of video games that has been occurring over the past few years is the gradual merging or interplay of the film industry and the video game industry. Movies have been made from video games, but they have been disappointing at best. For many years videos game movies have received poor treatment in the hands of Hollywood. Yet, (thankfully) thing might be beginning to change. Over the past few years there has been a sudden flurry of proposed films based on video game titles, including a film adaptation of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Other upcoming titles include a Bioshock movie, Prince of Persia (which has been picked up by Disney) and Mass Effect.

While video game films have been placed in the hands of some rather incompetent directors, they only mask a much deeper problem in their development. Basically, from what I've read and personal experience in both fields, the problem is that video games and films are produced differently. While this might seem like an obvious conclusion, it's more complicated than it might seem. Video games are much more personal project and are typically produced and developed by a team of workers that have known each other for a long time. The designers are very involved and work alongside producers. When producing a movie, funds come from various donations from private parties and employees are brought together from all over to work on the specific project and disband once everything is complete. The film passes through many hands and departments that don't keep in clear contact with each other.

This difference in structure has caused many video game companies to sign away the rights to their property without understanding how much they are giving away. More recently, developers are more cautious about just who they are giving rights to. Now they are thinking who might best represent their game or stick to the intended genre.

So why have these two industries begun to work more harmoniously? Well. For a long time video games were not respected by mainstream industry. Games were considered a niche market and therefore were left untouched by high risk and high budget films. However, recently movie investors have become more interested by video games rise in the global market. The belief that niche markets will not make great sales has also been weakened by the popularity on films based on classic comic book heroes. They're probably starting to run out of comics and so they are beginning to look towards video games.

I also tend to believe that this success has been largely related to film's increasing dependency on digital effects. Video games are build around virtual worlds and have used cinematic conventions to create better narratives. Films have been relying more strongly on digital rendering and have been approaching game companies for partnerships. The two media are building off each other and are becoming similar. Yet, I find that they will still be distinctly different. The entertaining part of video games is their sense of agency. You are put in control of the action. You make meaningful decisions. Games continue to explore and refine the science of interactivity and player immersion.