Why is there no Twilight game?

[Saetha]

FACT: The Twilight movies and books have enjoyed enormous popularity among teenage girls for a long time.

FACT: Pretty much all modern teenage girls play some sort of video game.

So why haven't there been some sort of Twilight video game? A visual novel would work fairly well, and if that's not an option for some reason then there must be some way they could turn it into a game good enough to sell. So why don't we have a Twilight game in a world where even Akira Pinball seemed like a good idea?

Y'know, I've always found it strange that there aren't more Otome games from Western developers. I've heard it said that they're not really "games," and I guess I'd grant that idea some credence, but just because something isn't a game doesn't mean it doesn't have merit as an artistic work. And you can't deny that a good percentage of teenage girls are very invested in the idea of romance. Making western otomes just seems like an easy way to pull more women into the industry, and with that being a hot-button topic right now, you'd think people would be doing more of it.

That being said... for the love of God, anything but a Twilight otome. Like, speaking as a hopeless romantic - anything but a Twilight otome. Licensed adaptations in general do pretty poorly. I'd rather not see what depths a licensed adaptation of Twilight would sink to. Though on the other hand, maybe if you stack that much terrible on top of itself, it would collapse into the best-damn-otome of all time, and people the world over would spend countless hours debating between Jacob's ass and Edward's shiny diamond abs.

 

[L. Declis]

EDIT: Bullocks, wrong thread.

However, it's because our current style of games will either make it a visual novel (not really a book, is it?), a crap tie-in (Press x to kill 15 vampires/wolves for a... reason), a touch game (collect 15 stalker points to unlock the next part of the story, simper for 15 minutes to get one stalker point) or they would have to make something like Corpse Party, but it doesn't have the story to carry that kind of game either.

It's just not very good, and unlike video games with bad story, it doesn't inspire fun gameplay either. It's just not good.

Seriously, read the other thousand books which are better. Or manga about romance. Or anything.

 

[chocolate pickles]

Not sure that second one is a fact. And as such, I don't think you have a big enough crossover market. That, and I don't think any big dev what's to be known as 'the guys who made twilight: the game.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

FACT: The Twilight movies and books have enjoyed enormous popularity among teenage girls for a long time.

FACT: Pretty much all modern teenage girls play some sort of video game.

So why haven't there been some sort of Twilight video game? A visual novel would work fairly well, and if that's not an option for some reason then there must be some way they could turn it into a game good enough to sell. So why don't we have a Twilight game in a world where even Akira Pinball seemed like a good idea?

This second fact is the issue. A movie/book-licensed game isn't gonna be turned into the sort of game that tween and teen girls are perceived to play a lot of. For a somewhat fair comparison, lets look at the Harry Potter games. All of em (or mostly all of them) sucked ass but they at least had you do game-like stuff such as exploring and adventuring and fighting monsters. Some of them even had an entire theme of that broom-football thing they play as a pseudo sports game. They had a cinematic feel and mainly followed what the movies did. You can't really make such a game thrilling when the actual plot is about basically Abstinence Metaphors-tm and you need much higher levels of talent to turn a movie game into anything OTHER than a generic action game than what is on offer from companies making licensed games. You're asking about a visual novel...well...these people fail at making generic action games exciting most of the time, do you really think they comprehend even the most basic fundamentals about making an obscure genre such as VNs are in the west anything resembling good? I sure don't wanna see em try lol.

 

[mavkiel]

My reaction when I read the thread title. Because there is a god.

 

[RJ 17]

Because no one would want to play a game where you just stand around staring blankly at other characters while actively trying to show as little emotion as possible?

For a more serious answer...

I think the Twilight fandom has long since peaked in popularity so having a video game of the series at this point and time wouldn't make much since, financially-speaking.

I'd say this about sums things up.

Beyond that, a visual novel would be pretty much the only way you could pull it off, though there's still room to argue as to whether visual novels count as "games" or not. Either way, the majority of visual novels come from Japan and aren't based off of western teen novels.

 

[happyninja42]

Because even AAA gaming companies have a line they won't cross. xD And thankfully this is that line.

 

[Something Amyss]

Because we only go the popularity route when it's convenient.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

As far as I know those same fans have moved on to The Hunger Games franchise by now.

Ohh, A Hunger Games game could actually be pretty awesome if it was done well - An open world style stealth hunting game with unforgiving mechanics and deadly environment. Maybe even leave out the wider uprising and revolution and have it more or less be a straight up open world survival game.

 

[spartan231490]

What would you do in said game? Press X to pray Edward likes you?

 

[shrekfan246]

Because no one would want to play a game where you just stand around staring blankly at other characters while actively trying to show as little emotion as possible?

I dunno, people seem to love Bethesda games.

OT: My joke upon reading the thread title has been taken. Twice.

Serious answers have mostly been taken as well.

Jeez, it's getting to a point where a guy doesn't even need to post around here anymore because everything has already been said.

LoTR film adaptations.

So instead I'll say hey, what a wonderful kind of day as far as licensed titles go there have been much worse than the LotR games. Admittedly that doesn't lessen them not really "getting" their source material (and far too many spin-offs have spent too much time worrying about the Fellowship or creating an "original" group that was just a facsimile of the Fellowship) but they've been pretty decent for what they are.

 

[Zeterai]

Who would you play in the game? Bella? She's designed from the ground up to be shallow, vapid, and utterly featureless so as to be phenomenally easy for the book's target audience to identify with. The kind of people who read the books wouldn't want to play as Edward, or any of the other characters - they'd want to interact with them instead.

And, remember, a not insignificant amount of the fanbase.. are not teenage girls. They're much older, and not of the game playing generation.



Of course, there's always the fact that they'd need someone willing to put it together and I'd like to think that not even a shovelware studio could manage to subcontract anyone who'd take the money.

As far as I know those same fans have moved on to The Hunger Games franchise by now.

Ohh, A Hunger Games game could actually be pretty awesome if it was done well - An open world style stealth hunting game with unforgiving mechanics and deadly environment. Maybe even leave out the wider uprising and revolution and have it more or less be a straight up open world survival game.

So.. the Tomb Raider reboot?

 

[Fishyash]

If they tried to make it like an action game, it would look/seem incredibly silly and would probably be a critical failure at least. I haven't watched/read the twilight series but I think it's safe to assume there's very little action and it's more of a drama/romance series.

Honestly, the only western genre I can think of that it could work decently would be a point and click adventure game. If they want to be cheap, it would probably stay on the cheap shelves for a while and make it a puzzle/hidden object game.

I think the most appropriate genre for it would be a visual novel, but as a western franchise it will probably struggle to sell, depending on how popular twilight is in Japan.

And then there's an issue in whether Twilight deserves a video game spinoff... Probably not, which is why it never got made.

 

[Something Amyss]

Who would you play in the game? Bella? She's designed from the ground up to be shallow, vapid, and utterly featureless so as to be phenomenally easy for the book's target audience to identify with.

So she'd fit in perfectly with video game player characters.

 

[GabeZhul]

I think the Twilight fandom has long since peaked in popularity so having a video game of the series at this point and time wouldn't make much since, financially-speaking.

As far as I know those same fans have moved on to The Hunger Games franchise by now.

Yeah, but why wasn't there one to start with?

Because there is practically nothing to turn into a game. It is quintessentially a "romance" story with all the typical angst, misunderstandings, love-triangles and baby-imprinting... okay, that last one may be a bit less common, but you get my point.
There are a few action scenes, but aside of the final battle at the end of Breaking Dawn (which was pretty much a dream-sequence to begin with) there is really nothing that could be turned into an action game, and since this is mainly a supernatural harlequin romance, there is not enough plot to turn it into an adventure game.

The closest thing I can imagine to a Twilight "game" would be a visual novel, possibly doing the ages old adaptation "thing", where they allow other routes and scenarios beside the canon one to please the shippers, but they would never actually do it simply because it would mean they either have to simply adapt the book verbatim (which the fans wouldn't like because they would feel you would be selling them the book over again) or re-write the entire thing (which the fans wouldn't like because you would probably end up with something better than the original (not a hard feat) and it would shatter their image of the original).

That, or a complete spinoff game. Like, say, a point-and-click adventure game following the Cullen family in a historical era (like in the late 19th century) setting up their life while trying to avoid being outed as vampires, using the special abilities of each family member to solve puzzles, maybe even with some Telltale Games style QTEs and decision-making.
...
Shit, suddenly I want to play this...

 

[GabeZhul]

FACT: The Twilight movies and books have enjoyed enormous popularity among teenage girls for a long time.

FACT: Pretty much all modern teenage girls play some sort of video game.

So why haven't there been some sort of Twilight video game? A visual novel would work fairly well, and if that's not an option for some reason then there must be some way they could turn it into a game good enough to sell. So why don't we have a Twilight game in a world where even Akira Pinball seemed like a good idea?

Y'know, I've always found it strange that there aren't more Otome games from Western developers. I've heard it said that they're not really "games," and I guess I'd grant that idea some credence, but just because something isn't a game doesn't mean it doesn't have merit as an artistic work. And you can't deny that a good percentage of teenage girls are very invested in the idea of romance. Making western otomes just seems like an easy way to pull more women into the industry, and with that being a hot-button topic right now, you'd think people would be doing more of it.

Believe it or not, Otome visual novels are some of the most common OELVN (Original English Language Visual Novel) genres. It's just that, well, most of them are pretty much rubbish.
The Japanese on the other hand make a lot Otome VNs every year, and their translations have became slightly more common in recent years, so there's that.

 

[Shymer]

Traveler's Tales are working on Lego: Twilight: Breaking Dawn as we type.

 

[Dalisclock]

What would you do in said game? Press X to pray Edward likes you?

So what you're saying is, it's going be the next CoD game?