Why Movie Games Suck

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Why Movie Games Suck


Ever wonder why videogame tie-ins to hit movies suck so bad? According to the founders of developer Rebellion [http://www.rebellion.co.uk/], the nature of the business and the differences between movie and game development make it almost unavoidable.

Name a good videogame based on a movie. Go on, I dare you. You can't, can you? (Actually, I hear the new Wolverine [http://www.uncaged.com/] game is pretty decent.) There's a good reason for that, say Chris and Jason Kingsley, the brothers who founded U.K.-based developer Rebellion: By the time all the pre-development groundwork gets laid there's just not enough time left to come up with a decent game.

"The problem is it's actually quicker to make a movie than it is to make a game these days, by quite a big margin," Chris Kingsley, Chief Technology Officer at Rebellion, told Develop [http://www.developmag.com/news/31798/Film-to-game-scheduling-a-big-problem-for-developers]. "That's always a big problem, because often you're not given enough time to make the game. So you have to fit to the schedule that you have."

The problem is getting worse, he added, as the process of negotiating franchise licenses has grown increasingly lengthy and complex. "It used to be a couple of months or so; now it usually takes much longer with budgets going up as well and more riding on the success of games," he continued. "That time spent negotiating you don't have at the end of the project, because the endpoint doesn't move."

His brother Jason, Rebellion's CEO, echoed those comments, saying that while movies can go from approval to release in a year it doesn't provide enough of a window to properly develop a game. "Generally speaking, when you start talking with somebody about a title, it takes three months to get a letter of intent, and then another six months to get a contract," he said. "By that time you're already nine months in, and really you should be submitting at that stage to Microsoft [http://www.sony.com] or whoever for approval."

"There really isn't a way of getting around it unless you are dealing with major movie groups who can schedule their releases two or three years ahead," he added. But even in those cases, Kingsley noted that problems can arise because of the planning necessary to "schedule in key actors."



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ZeroMachine

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Oct 11, 2008
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Malygris said:
Name a good videogame based on a movie. Go on, I dare you.
Enter the Matrix. Flawed, nowhere near perfect, but it's still good, and the way the plot ties in to the movie is pretty awesome.

Ranooth said:
Malygris said:
Name a good videogame based on a movie. Go on, I dare you.
Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.

Sorry but someone had too.
/facepalm at self

How could I forget that one? Thank you!

EDIT: Also, the old Super Star Wars games were good, even though they were pretty brutal. But I doubt that counts.
 

SharPhoe

The Nice-talgia Kerrick
Feb 28, 2009
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thenumberthirteen said:
I liked the LOTR:Return of the King game, and does LEGO Star Wars count?
Yeah, both of those were mighty fine games, if I do say so myself. Then again, they might not have had major release dates to worry about, so...
 

Slycne

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Feb 19, 2006
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Tinq said:
I can think of some good titles, but none with a coincidental release date.
Agreed, there are a few jewels in the cesspool of movie tie in games, but they are likely to be games that are produced after and not coinciding with a movie release. Goldeneye 007, for instance, was released almost a full 2 years after the movie open in theaters.
 

Internet Kraken

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Mar 18, 2009
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I think the point is that there are no good movie games that where released at the same time as the movie.

There have been good movie games, but those where all released after the movie.
 

Sir_Nolan

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May 4, 2009
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I don't know how it corresponded to the release of the movie but Spiderman 2 The Movie The Game was pretty awesome. I played through the game and wished the movie could have been more like the game, especially with Black Cat.
 

ROTMASTER

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Dec 4, 2008
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movie games suck because the game is a second thought for more $$$ and the movie its based on was ment to be watched not played it was ment for everyone to see it the same way while a game is sopposed to be experienced differantly by everybody and movie games dont allow that and then thow in pointless minigames and the whole thing goes the same way as it did for everybody else because you cant imply your oun personality into the storyline. also movies have places in them that wouldn't work in a game like long conversations with no action for about 20min and that doesnt realy work in a mainstream title and that makes gameplay shortened so they have to put useless fillers into it to make the game longer
 

Brotherofwill

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Ranooth said:
Malygris said:
Name a good videogame based on a movie. Go on, I dare you.
Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.

Sorry but someone had too.
This.

When the article dared me to think of one it took around half a second.

The Lion King and Aladdin games were also pretty good back in the day (atleast to the best that I can remember).
Chronicles of Riddick was good.
There are a lot of good Star Wars games (even if most of the good ones are not directly connected to the movies). TMNT had good games. LotR also had some decent ones.

Well, I guess in essence the article is right though.
 

Anachronism

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Apr 9, 2009
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I thought the King Kong game was pretty good. Ok, it was ridiculously short, but I really liked the fact that there was no HUD at all; it worked well. The Kong sequences were fairly standard stuff, but I really enjoyed the FPS sections.
ROTMASTER said:
movie games suck because the game is a second thought for more $$$ and the movie its based on was ment to be watched not played it was ment for everyone to see it the same way while a game is sopposed to be experienced differantly by everybody and movie games dont allow that and then thow in pointless minigames and the whole thing goes the same way as it did for everybody else because you cant imply your oun personality into the storyline. also movies have places in them that wouldn't work in a game like long conversations with no action for about 20min and that doesnt realy work in a mainstream title and that makes gameplay shortened so they have to put useless fillers into it to make the game longer
Dear God, use some punctuation, will you?
 

Andy_Panthro

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May 3, 2009
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The best example that's already been mentioned is Star Wars. Sure, the best games aren't directly associated with the films, but that's probably why the games are good.
Using the universe outside of the film story was a great idea, and spawned X-wing, TIE Fighter, Dark Forces et al.
 

Yog Sothoth

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Dec 6, 2008
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Ranooth said:
Malygris said:
Name a good videogame based on a movie. Go on, I dare you.
Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.

Sorry but someone had too.
Everyone always seems to forget Goldeneye, the one exception to the "All games based on movie licenses suck" rule...
 

BWIceSoldier

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Nov 25, 2008
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Yog Sothoth said:
Ranooth said:
Malygris said:
Name a good videogame based on a movie. Go on, I dare you.
Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.

Sorry but someone had too.
Everyone always seems to forget Goldeneye, the one exception to the "All games based on movie licenses suck" rule...
Yes, but the point being made is that coincidental releases (when the game is released at the same time as the movie) tend to make the games not preform well.
 

daribian

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May 2, 2009
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the reason why movie games suck is because they are rushed to be released with the movies release it is why star wars games work quite a lot of the time because they don't rush them.
 

Yog Sothoth

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Dec 6, 2008
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BWIceSoldier said:
Yog Sothoth said:
Ranooth said:
Malygris said:
Name a good videogame based on a movie. Go on, I dare you.
Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.

Sorry but someone had too.
Everyone always seems to forget Goldeneye, the one exception to the "All games based on movie licenses suck" rule...
Yes, but the point being made is that coincidental releases (when the game is released at the same time as the movie) tend to make the games not preform well.
Oh sure, games that launch the same day as the film always suck... Worst case scenario: Pirates of the Caribbean. It was originally going to be Sea Dogs II, then Disney bought the rights, renamed it and rushed it out to meet the release date of the film. Game was so damn buggy it was literally unplayable. Game-ending glitches before you could even pick out a boat..... I was pissed. I loved Sea Dogs....