Hollywood if they could

Paul Hyman writes an excellent game industry column for the Hollywood Reporter that I follow each week. This week, he interviewed me to pick clean my thoughts on why most Hollywood movies fail to make good games. (In case that link doesn't contain my interview, you can click here to go directly to it.)

In 1976 Warner Bros. bought Atari, with a keen eye for the nerd guy. But while Warner saw the big picture, they didn't score box office-like success and eventually sold Atari, giving up on games. Since then, Hollywood has ventured many times into the game industry's lair, and most often retreated with deep scars.

Hollywood tells stories, often with spectacle. But games don't rely on stories. And most of the Hollywood's greatest stories cannot make a great game, such as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Titanic, Godfather, The Unforgiven, Kramer Verses Kramer, Citizen Kane, Jaws, To Kill a Mockingbird, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Schindler's List, It's a Wonderful Life, and E.T.

Get the picture?

Well, Hollywood sure doesn't.

The game industry uses stories like window dressing, not as the Main Thing. To win in the game industry you need to innovate in either tech, design (gameplay) or art, otherwise, you're a copycat and a sure failure. Hollywood can be successful without worrying about innovations in these three areas, and so these critical areas are not of paramount importance to them. Quite simply, Hollywood firmly -- and mistakenly -- believes that people love their stories and actors in any medium.

But what do I know! That's why I defer to The Man...

"Seemingly, movies and games are similar, but they are poles apart. I do not think anyone can come up with good project simply by converting a scenario of a good movie to a game, and vice versa."
-- Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo Power, April 2002

Comments

[Eric Lulie]

Scott, why do you think most superhero games end up being mostly fighting games?

[Scott Miller]

Eric, until only very recently in our industry, most superhero games were fighting oriented, like the Batman games, Aquaman, Superman, X-Men, and so on.

[Tommi Hartikainen]

I do disagree to a certain extent. I don't have much time to actually explain my self, apologies for that, but you could make a good game out of most adventure, fantasy and even regular action movies. A brief explanation follows. Outcast, released for the PC in '99, could've been a movie licence game (Stargate anyone?). If you create an working expansive world to explore, with decent enough gameplay and story - in my extremely humble opinion, any movie based game could be a great success.

[del]

perhaps good games could be made from any sort of movie license, but the time, money, and effort from the publisher and even the licensor is not there. Often it is "We want you to take X gameplay and apply it to our license Y." Given enough time and talent, I'm sure some good gameplay could be found in just about any license but the realities of the current business model don't allow that. The game has to be out by the movie release and so the schedule works backward from there.

[Evan Erwin]

I think the simpleness of creating a fighting game, along with time constraints, is why Hollywood embraces and encourages this behavior.

That Batman idea is the best I've ever heard, period. But WB would never fund it, because Batman Begins is opening in June, and there is no time to take the Splinter Cell engine and modifying it a Batman world. If you did it would simply come off as an ugly hack/mod, and players would be asking "Where are the villians? Why does he have henchman just standing around these places? Why can't I drive the batmobile? Or fly the Batwing?"

Over and over these questions are asked and they simply don't want to put the time/effort into creating good games. Its easy money to put a fighting game with lame voice work and simplistic gameplay. It's tougher to create worlds than to build a character model and insert it in a set gameplay model/engine so it will launch on opening day.

[Tommi Hartikainen]

And will that Batman pure action game flop or sell big?

One great example of an licence used well is the new Transformers PS2 game. Even though not actually a movie licence, it's close enough I think.

[Erwie]

I was wondering how you declare the succes and superb gameplay of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from the Butcher's Bay. It doesn't obviously apply to the factors a movie-license needs to be succesfull as a game, but it succeeded.

IMHO, Biggest difference were the high production values and the role Vin Diesel took in the development. It wasn't just a cheap tie-in but had to be something special and unique from the beginning. I think that's what makes the difference here, and that the factors like special abilities from the main character, just help to achieve this goal easier.

[Gabby Dizon]

Scott,

Good point about Batman not being expolited well about the game industry. How he fights is only half of what makes him interesting; it's his character - his supreme intellect, his mortality, and his dark view on the world that makes Batman so lovable as a character.

What Max Payne did well was fuse a gameplay hook (slow-mo fighting) into a storytelling medium (film noir). While the gameplay itself followed no discernible story, the cutscenes were always there to give more meaning to all the killing you were doing.

I think this is what a Batman game needs - of course it will have fighting (stealth fighting with tons of gadgets, is a good idea, though Batman can definitely go Geronimo in some instances), but it won't work unless they tap into Batman the character.

[YicklePigeon]

You know, I did have this long winded post that I was going to put up. Then I realised the key factor in why the IP holders and publishers keep putting out these crap games...

...is for the lowest common denominators of that particular fanbase.

Take the Star Trek shooters, I've tried them, absolutely despise them. Why? Last time I checked, only comedians (amateur and professional alike) refer to Star Trek as "We come in peace! Shoot to kill!!!". Add to this that I played the Star Trek point 'n click adventures of old...which funnily enough kept the spirit of the series.

But that kind of game requires brains, which is one of the major reasons (imho) why we've seen a decline in great and entertaining games in any game category. So we've had sparks, Broken Sword 3 (brains to figure the puzzles and understand the story), Max Payne 2 (strong, very adult oriented story which requires -OMGWTFHAX!!1one!!oneone-thinking). But thats all they are, sparks of goodness as opposed to the huge wave of trash that we all need to wade through.

As it is, lets look to the late 80s, early 90s. It was easy to make a movie/tv show tie-in. Make a platformer! Whilst some of these were entertaining and deserved the 60-70% scores, for the most part they were empty experiences.

Sigh, I've argued about this too many times now. Besides, I've got work to do if I'm going to send in anything to 3D *OOPS! Nearly gave away my master plan!!!*

Regards,

Yickle.

[YicklePigeon]

Oh and in addition, I walked into my local GAME (think Electronics Boutique) store yesterday. Nothing in there caught my eye.

I already have Max Payne 1, no adventures worth picking up, none of the Lucasarts re-releases, multitude of racing games with some driver's name attached, bad TV show and movie tie-ins...BLEH!

I walked out when I heard one of the employees behind me ask the manager "Why has he *points to me when I can see her pointing in the shelving unit's mirror* not bought anything yet?" "He just comes in here, walks around and then walks out. Besides, he likes Duke Nukem so what-"

I didn't catch the rest. I had already walked out. I walked to a superstore nearby and bought Max Payne 2 for £14.97 (£5.02 cheaper). Completed it just about an hour or so ago (only had bought it two days ago). It's one of the few games that if I screamed "GERONIMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" Max would probably be seriously hurt or dead.

Regards,

Yickle.

[Factory]

Hmm I would rather say that the main reason that movie licences are crap is because the games are crap, not because they do not translate well from the film (ie. compare the two different Spiderman 2 games).
If I was hollywood I would use my cash to buy the rights to use another quality game and then graft on the elements from the film. ie. use the splinter cell engine to make a batman game, or a bond game for that matter.
Or for that matter make an engine that has sneaking, car driving, and shooting, and you would prolly have the base elements to translate just about any Bruckheimer film, just make the settings and the characters the differentiator, rather than the gameplay.

[Gestalt]

Scott - "Hollywood's greatest stories cannot make a great game, such as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Titanic..."

Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure I'd class it as one of Hollywood's greatest stories, but Titanic could make a great basis for a survival adventure game (a la that Japanese earthquake game I can never remember the title of), with the player trying to make it from steerage to a lifeboat before the ship goes down. Unique selling points? A truly dynamic environment (the ship's tilting and flooding as it goes down), a play against the clock mode (where you only have the time it took the ship to sink in real life, from the decision to abandon ship to the boat snapping in half and going under), and/or non-linear gameplay (recreate the entire ship from bow to stern and give the player multiple ways of getting out). Just think of it as Ico on a boat, with Kate Winslet subbing for Princess whatsherface. Could be interesting. :)

[Blake Grant]

"I was wondering how you declare the succes and superb gameplay of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from the Butcher's Bay. It doesn't obviously apply to the factors a movie-license needs to be succesfull as a game, but it succeeded."

Actually, it does fit his criteria.
1) "Focus on movie sequels, because then people are lined up to buy the game almost regardless of quality" - The movie was a sequel, albeit to a fairly unknown movie.
2) "There needs to be a built-in hook that hasn't been seen in the game world" - Riddick does have a unique ability which is (somewhat) exploited: His eye shine
3) "You need a very compleling character that people look up to" - Riddick is pretty damn cool despite the fact that the movies weren't great.
4) "The richer and broader the world that needs to be explored, the better" - If you've seen the Chronicles of Riddick movie you'll notice that there seems to be alot of depth to the universe that hasn't been explained. Whether it ever will be is another question, but the potential is there. The game helped flesh some of that out, as did the tie-in animated movie.

In addition to all that, the game was very well made, fun to play, and in terms of quality far exceeded the movie in my opinion. It also helps that the plot gave more back-info on Riddick rather than trying to duplicate the plot of the movie.

[Scott Miller]

Good stuff, Blake. I haven't played the game, though I've heard it's good.

[Greg Findlay]

I think the biggest pitfall a movie made to game has going for it is that it's trying to fit gameplay around a story. Comparitively, alot of the really great games are built with great gameplay in mind and building a story around the gameplay. In other words the story supports the gameplay, it isn't it's crutch. This is pretty much just a rehash of what Scott said though.

[Mark Ventura]

"Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Titanic, Godfather, The Unforgiven, Kramer Verses Kramer, Citizen Kane, Jaws, To Kill a Mockingbird, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Schindler's List, It's a Wonderful Life, and E.T."

First, you purposefully chose movies that you don't think could become a good game. What about The Godfather, The Matrix, Chinatown, LA Confidential, etc. ?

Second, I think you're wrong. I could see games made of Citizen Kane, Jaws, and The Unforgiven.

"win in the game industry you need to innovate in either tech, design (gameplay) or art, otherwise, you're a copycat and a sure failure."

So what you're saying is that all hit games are innovative?

[Scott Miller]

-- "So what you're saying is that all hit games are innovative?"

Yes. And no.

But more yes than no.

In fact, mostly yes.

The exceptions are games, like Enter the Matrix, that ride the coattails of a bigger wave, a wave they had no part in causing.

If you look at practically any hit game, you'll see a significant innovation or you’ll see that it did something original. Successful games are rarely copycats, and they almost always excel in a new way not seen before in the game industry.

[Mark Ventura]

Maybe you have a more lax definition of 'innovative' than me.

For example, I don't consider Halo and Warcraft III to be innovative, yet they're both huge hits.

[Reason]

How does Max Payne really differ from a bog-standard Hollywood action film?

[Brad Renfro]

Is it about Hollywood coming in and selling 8 million copies of their licensed game or is it about Hollywood creating some reliable extra revenue to garnish their toy and t-shirt merchandising sales? Is it that movies and games are so fundamentally incompatible that no one can bridge the gap? I mean, talk to gamers and many will say they play games for their story or theme, right? The Matrix game rode a wave of story and actors, not a wave of gameplay, right?

Of the 50 movies which make up the top ten grossing movies of the last five years, here are a few licenses which could excite gamers: LOTR trilogy, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc, Pirates of the Caribbean, Matrix trilogy, X-Men 1/2, Terminator 3, Spiderman, Star Wars 1/2, Harry Potter 1/2/3, Men in Black 2, Mission Impossible 2, Gladiator, Toy Story 2, Austin Powers 1/2/3, The Mummy 1/2, Blair Witch Project, Tarzan, the Sixth Sense.

It's also asking a question to biased people. Game developers would obviously want Hollywood to stay away, if for the one reason that they don't want their IP to compete with Hollywood IP.

[Greg Findlay]

Brad, of all of the movies you listed only two don't have games made based off of the movie IP, Blair Witch, and Sixth Sense. Of the ones on your list that did well, all of them follow Scott's rules.

Sixth Sense could have a gameplay hook if you were to say, play as the child who see's dead people and go around helping out lost souls, all the while trying to figure out why he has these abilities (or some other major story line), that could make an interesting game. I don't think a game that followed the story line of the movie would be fun though, there just isn't any substance to it gameplay wise.

Innovation isn't just coming up with new ideas, it's also using old ideas in new ways or expanding on old ideas.

Halo was innovative because it made FPS gaming on a console fun and it was the control system that made it fun.

WarCraft III was innovative in so many tiny ways people didn't even notice. WarCraft also has it's own unique art style, which you can't get anywhere else, and this was the first time it was seen in 3D. That's not so innovative but it does offer something unique and really that's the whole point of being innovative.

[Gestalt]

Greg - "only two don't have games made based off of the movie IP, Blair Witch, and Sixth Sense"

The Blair Witch spawned a trilogy of prequel games, developed using the Nocturne engine by various members of the Gathering of Developers.

Greg - "Halo was innovative because it made FPS gaming on a console fun and it was the control system that made it fun"

There were plenty of good console shooters before Halo, some of which had decent control systems. I'm not sure you could call Halo "innovative" on either count. All it did was take lots of ideas from other games and combine them into one glorious whole. Well, apart from that awful bit in the middle, anyway. ;)

[Scott Miller]

Halo is a lot like Duke Nuke 3D, in that it did a lot of little things first, and really well. Plus, Halo was the first good shooter on the Xbox, which is another significant way to be first -- be first for a given market. Similarly, Dell's only innovation was that it was the first significant company to focus on selling PCs over the Net. And Vlasic was the first pickle brand to focus selling their product in the refrigerated area. Domino's didn't have better pizza, but they were the first to focus on delivery. So, it's not just the product that has to be innovated, it can be marketing, distribution, customer base, and other factors.

This is the case with Max Payne. We'd all seen John Woo-style action and bullet-time in movie theaters, but Max was the first to bring these two styles to the game industry.

Prior to Duke, we'd all seen beef-headed ego-drenched action stars in movies, but we'd never seen one brought so richly to life in the game industry until Duke appeared. Duke had many other firsts for the FPS genre, too, such as real world locations (in LA), an all-new level of environmental interactivity, linked level design (well before Half-Life), the most advanced 3D engine FPS engine for its time (first with slopes and first with adjustable resolutions), highly creative weapons, a sense of humor, and several more firsts. None of these on their own might have made Duke a success, but all together they were greater than their sum.

Halo had several small firsts that added up, too. But I'll let others pick these out. But my point is that you don't always need a huge and obvious hook like bullet-time to win the day.

[Brad Renfro]

"Brad, of all of the movies you listed only two don't have games made based off of the movie IP, Blair Witch, and Sixth Sense. Of the ones on your list that did well, all of them follow Scott's rules."
Well, yeah...that's why I mentioned them. That list made up 30 of the 50 top grossing movies of the past five years. You could argue that most of them follow the mentioned "rules." So given this, why should Hollywood stay away?

Side note: EA, the license powerhouse, is making a Godfather game.

[Mark Ventura]

"So, it's not just the product that has to be innovated, it can be marketing, distribution, customer base, and other factors."

That wasn't what you originally said. I don't consider those things to be part of the game; I wouldn't call Halo innovative because it's a standard FPS, but on the xbox.

I think people overvalue innovation. Many game designers don't even have a good grasp on the basics.