Movies need games, though.
Think about it.
You're a studio with a whole team of actors, casters, set producers and animators, just sitting around. No place to go because the forbidden den known as the 'Writers' Room' to some and 'Hell on Earth' to others has become so overloaded by pizza crusts and visits from the Devil that there's not a creative mind in the house. What better way to get all these people up and working again than to gain the liscence for a game-into-movie. After all, most of these games must have good plots, otherwise people wouldn't play them, right? Plus you have the audience already there, and finally a whole, working, visual model upon which to base any ideas on.
We play games to interact with the story, certainly. But personally, I am one of those guys who prefers an exceedingly linear, nicely-scripted plot (HL2, Portal, Bioshock to an extent) to one which allows meaningless playtime sucked up into 'free-roaming environments' which fail to accomplish little but add to frustration with irate side-quests and shallow NPCs (STALKER, Oblivion). At the end of the day, I play the vast majority of my collection for the great (albeit faux) character interaction which the scene is giving the impression of presenting to me as a player. Of course at the end of the day, I'm still being pulled along on a very thick rope to a goal which is imminent and final. But I still have fun on the way.
Films based on games are for people like me; true listeners to the story. The problem with movies being used as an alternate medium to connote the message originally put out on the former format is this: It lacks that level of satisfication and does not provide enough time for the finer details to be appreciated. We all loved the credits of Final Fantasy 8 because you've just spent the last thirty hours of your own life using and learning about those characters whose tales are now concluding. I certainly absorbed more of Eli Vance's death sequence in Episode Two of the Half Life saga (sorry for the spoiler if you've been hiding under a rock for the past three months) because of the epic battle that preceeded it. Plot and development has always been a way of rewarding players and forcing them to go on just that little bit further with the game.
Movies are your reward for paying the guy at the counter six pounds for a ticket into the screen.
Think about it.
You're a studio with a whole team of actors, casters, set producers and animators, just sitting around. No place to go because the forbidden den known as the 'Writers' Room' to some and 'Hell on Earth' to others has become so overloaded by pizza crusts and visits from the Devil that there's not a creative mind in the house. What better way to get all these people up and working again than to gain the liscence for a game-into-movie. After all, most of these games must have good plots, otherwise people wouldn't play them, right? Plus you have the audience already there, and finally a whole, working, visual model upon which to base any ideas on.
We play games to interact with the story, certainly. But personally, I am one of those guys who prefers an exceedingly linear, nicely-scripted plot (HL2, Portal, Bioshock to an extent) to one which allows meaningless playtime sucked up into 'free-roaming environments' which fail to accomplish little but add to frustration with irate side-quests and shallow NPCs (STALKER, Oblivion). At the end of the day, I play the vast majority of my collection for the great (albeit faux) character interaction which the scene is giving the impression of presenting to me as a player. Of course at the end of the day, I'm still being pulled along on a very thick rope to a goal which is imminent and final. But I still have fun on the way.
Films based on games are for people like me; true listeners to the story. The problem with movies being used as an alternate medium to connote the message originally put out on the former format is this: It lacks that level of satisfication and does not provide enough time for the finer details to be appreciated. We all loved the credits of Final Fantasy 8 because you've just spent the last thirty hours of your own life using and learning about those characters whose tales are now concluding. I certainly absorbed more of Eli Vance's death sequence in Episode Two of the Half Life saga (sorry for the spoiler if you've been hiding under a rock for the past three months) because of the epic battle that preceeded it. Plot and development has always been a way of rewarding players and forcing them to go on just that little bit further with the game.
Movies are your reward for paying the guy at the counter six pounds for a ticket into the screen.
