informa
/
1 MIN READ
Featured Blog

Surprise: Movies Based On Games Aren't Likely To Be Good

Reading an article in the latest Game Informer magazine about the poor record of movies derived from games, my reaction was "that's not surprising." Games aren't a good storytelling medium, which makes a successful movie less likely to derive from a game.

Reading an article in the latest Game Informer magazine about the poor record of movies that derive from games, my reaction was "that's not surprising."  Games aren't a good storytelling medium, which makes a successful movie less likely to derive from a game. 

In essence you have to make up the story for the movie because there isn't much of one in the game--the game is more a setting than a story.  Video gamers, when they say a game has a really good story, are comparing to other games, not to novels or even movies (stories in novels tend to be better than stories in film, I think--there's more "time" to develop the story). 

Games put the player "in" the story (ideally, though often not in practice), while movies have the viewer passively consume the story.  Comics, on the other hand, ARE a storytelling medium, somewhere between novels and movies.  (The reader has to expend more mental effort in a comic than the viewer does in a movie, but less than in a novel.) 

While we're finally getting some excellent movies deriving from comics--it's taken a *long* time--we're much less likely to get very good movies deriving from video games.

Which hasn't stopped Hasbro from greenlighting tentpole movies for Monopoly (Ridley Scott?!), Battleship, and Candyland among others.  But those are non-video games that don't pretend to tell much of a story, so I think everyone will accept that the studio has made up a story to fit the brand's vague setting. 

For video game movies there are the fanboys who want the movie to be "just like the game", and that's not going to work well owing to differences in the media.  No movie can possibly be "just like Battleship", so "no problemo."

Latest Jobs

IO Interactive

Hybrid (Malmö, Sweden)
3.02.23
Gameplay Director (Project Fantasy)

Arizona State University

Los Angeles, CA, USA
2.27.23
Assistant Professor of XR Technologies

IO Interactive

Hybrid (Copenhagen, Denmark)
3.02.23
Animation Tech Programmer

Purdue University

West Lafayette, IN, USA
3.02.23
Assistant Professor in Game Design and Development
More Jobs   

CONNECT WITH US

Explore the
Advertise with
Follow us

Game Developer Job Board

Game Developer

@gamedevdotcom

Explore the

Game Developer Job Board

Browse open positions across the game industry or recruit new talent for your studio

Browse
Advertise with

Game Developer

Engage game professionals and drive sales using an array of Game Developer media solutions to meet your objectives.

Learn More
Follow us

@gamedevdotcom

Follow us @gamedevdotcom to stay up-to-date with the latest news & insider information about events & more