“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Part 2 – Film Company Myths about Video Games

Myth #1 – Video games based off of films are similar to toys and merchandise based off of films.

Historically, the film industry has treated video games in much the same way that they treat other products that are derived from films, such as toys, lunchboxes, and DVDs.  Most commonly, this has meant licensing the rights to create and market a video game based on the film to an independent company (typically a large video game publisher such as Electronic Arts, Activision, THQ, and others).  The film studio receives an up-front payment for this right and the game publisher assumes the risk associated with creating the game, as well as the potential reward.

As the market for video games has grown and matured many film studios have taken notice of the fact that the lion’s share of the revenue from their film-based game licenses are often left with the game publishers and attempted to build their own in-house game publishing groups.  However, in almost all cases, these efforts have met with limited success.  The explanation for this difficulty is rooted in the studios’ misconceptions about games.  Instead of treating them as high-risk/high-reward, talent-driven, creative endeavors (like films), they have often been left under the purview of the studios’ consumer products, merchandising, or licensing groups.  These organizations are traditionally charged with monetizing the film production group’s creative product, rather than creating their own.  The studios often then compound this problem by leaving the responsibility for the game production in the hands of executives with little to no experience with it.  In some cases, these groups have hired game publishing executives to be directly responsible for production matters, but even then they are often reporting to supervisors from the film production side.

As long as film studios continue to treat their film-based games like toys, they will struggle to achieve the level of quality necessary to realize the highest levels of critical and commercial success.  Some studios, such as Warner Bros. and Disney have begun to show some signs of improvement in this area, but even their successes have been predominantly with original game titles, not those that are directly linked to upcoming films.

Myth #2 – Gamers are mostly teenage males.

While this myth may have been true 15-20 years ago, the first decade of the new millennium saw a remarkable expansion of the video game market.  Today, the average age of a “gamer” is over 30 years, and most game-players are actually female.  Admittedly, much of the industry’s revenue is still derived from more “hardcore” gamers, but even these are now predominantly over the age of 20.  Given the maturity of both the industry and its audience, as well as the intense level of competition, it should be unsurprising that only the best games achieve the highest levels of financial success.  It is no coincidence that the most commercially-successful game franchises (Call of Duty, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Guitar Hero, The Sims, God of War, and more) also receive consistently excellent critical reviews.  Today, the “big money” comes not from selling a T-rated game to a 14 year-old boy and/or his mother during the holidays, but from selling a AAA-quality M-Rated game to at 21-34 year-old.  This means that a truly successful game needs more than a “hot license.” It actually has to be very, very, good.

Myth #3 – Sequels are never as good as “the original.”

Sadly, this statement is often true when referring to films, which explains why it seems so intuitive to filmmakers.  However, there are two fundamental reasons why it is much less frequently true of games. 

Reason #1) The underlying technology of game development continues to advance and evolve at with tremendous speed.  At its core, this means that what games are capable of, as well as the tools available to game creators, tend to steadily improve over time. 

Reason #2) Unlike films, the most valuable and elusive aspect of game development is not an original and compelling narrative, but instead it is a concept simply known as the “fun factor.” In fact, some of the most successful games are often guilty of having some of the most derivative, predictable, and poorly-delivered narrative experiences in entertainment.  (Not to mention the many successful games that have no narrative at all).  The “fun factor” in a game is something that is zeroed-in on.  It is reached through an iterative process that rarely (if ever) “ends,” and often spans multiple game releases. 

It is for both of these reasons that games often see increased critical and commercial success in successive iterations. 

Myth #4 – Film celebrities are more “valuable” than game celebrities.

It is often said that one of the major differences between the two industries is that “there are no real ‘celebrities’ in games.” People who make this statement are correctly identifying that there are few, if any, individuals in the game industry with the kind of global name recognition and fan following that is quite common amongst film stars and directors.  What they are overlooking, however, is that the “celebrities” in the game world are not individuals, but instead the game development studios themselves.  Whereas the names Paramount, Warner Bros., Sony, and Universal, tell their audiences very little about what can be expected from their product, gamers know that when they purchase a game by Blizzard, Bioware, Epic, id, Valve, and many others that they can expect a truly top-notch gaming experience.   In effect, these developers’ names are at least as valuable as those of major film stars/directors, and can be counted upon to bank tens of millions of dollars of revenue at the gaming “box office.” Perhaps for this very reason, companies of this caliber rarely choose to work on film-based games.  Instead, the film industry has consistently chosen the game industry equivalent of releasing only independent product, using relatively unknown stars, directors, and production talent.  Here is just one example of the game’s industry’s acknowledgement of the importance of the development studio’s name recognition and identity.