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.

On Difficulty

While I'm not sure if this has far reaching consequences or some deep commentary on society, I do find it interesting to what lengths game companies will modify their games in order to satisfy. As I mentioned previously, WoW has been around for several years and I have been playing since launch. This means that I've seen new continents added, downed new bosses and unlocked new features. However, I have also noticed a disappointing trend. The game is becoming easier.

Well. Okay. Parts of the game have become easier. Mostly all of the old content. From the most recently expansion, the level cap was raised to 80, but us veterans remember the days when 60 was the highest attainable level. Since this is an upward form of growth, it is understandable that the designers added new content for levels 60+ since the larger portion of the fanbase was at that level. However, with each expansion, the designers have made the old content portion of the game easier to breeze through. They've employed several strategies including lowering level requirements for items that increase speed, to special experience bonuses if you reactivate your account after inactivity.

I am a little disappointed because while I understand the importance of creating fresh end game content, I think it would be much more interesting if the old game content was modified as well. One of the key elements of an online MMO is a persistent online world. I understand that this creates an element of fairness and security in a virtual environment, but over time it really becomes stagnant. This is why it is fairly easy to get through levels 1-60, but still somewhat difficult from 60-80. However, this does not attract new players to join the game itself. WoW boasts of 12 million subscribers, but they seem to be hitting their limit. They claim to still be recruiting, but at this point it seems like they are just trying really hard to retain their fanbase.

However, there is some hope for the future. World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion Cataclysm intends to do what I believe should have been done a while ago. Basically under the pretense of a great earthen catastrophe, the old world has been irreversibly torn asunder. This means that old familiar territories will be drastically changed and the old flow of the game will be modified to accommodate. I believe that this will once again make the natural progression of the game much smoother and make the entire experience more enjoyable overall.