Sae Institute Glasgow
Question: How do game adaptations of films differ from film adaptations of games?
Student details:
Name: Sam Colin Thomson
Student Number: 95022
Course Code:CMN4200
Assessment Code: CMN4200.1
Date of Submission: Friday 8th December 08/12/17
Word Count: 2184/2680
- Introduction
- Definitions
- Main Arguments
- Conclusion
- References
- Introduction
In this essay I will look at film to game adaptations and game to film adaptations. I will start by discussing what they actually mean and move onto talk about if either of the adaptations have been successful from looking at how some of the most popular releases done compared to their counterparts. I will do this by looking at the general sales of the games to see if they can be compared to what the developers thought they would be, look to see what critics thought, what the movies made at the box office and a variety of other things. Further on I will then analyze why these results are coming out the way they are and why people either like or don’t like the two different forms of adaptations. Lastly I will conclude, summing up all the key areas of the essay to make sure all the main points are clear and then there will be a page with a list of references that I have used throughout my essay.
Hollywood chancers hoping to cash in (keith Stuart 2016)
- Definitions
- What I am talking about
You may be wondering what a film to game adaptation and a game to film adaptation is. That’s perfectly acceptable however when you see some examples of what they are you will be able to understand. So, let’s get started. Films have been around since 1872 (Hale, 2014) however video games have not and they are actually a pretty new thing in the grand scheme of things as they have mainly become popular with the birth of the internet era. The two are both very similar in ways as they both have stories that you follow however in movies you simply just watch the story and in a game you actually play the story which allows you to make it your own. Due to the similarities Hollywood production companies started to make Films based on video games that already existed and video game companies started to make games of movies, so this is what is meant by game to film adaptation and game to film adaptation.
- Film to game adaptations
Film to video game adaptations have been around since 1976 starting with death race which was based on the 1975 cult film Death Race 2000 (Corriea, 2014) however haven’t always been as popular with the general public as they are now in 2017. In fact they have been known to go through different stages as there was a lot being created in the 1970s and 80s that were doing well however then E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came out at Christmas in 1982 (Corriea, 2014). “the first generation of film-based games ended with a crash after the Atari game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial flopped.”(TerKeurst, 2017). So E.T. ended the production of films being turned into games for the next couple of years with it being so bad and turning everyone against the idea of films being turned into games, but then the start of the nineties saw another boom in movie to game adaptations, TerKeurst a computer lecturer at Southampton Solent University said “ the first-person shooter GoldenEye 007 actually made more money than the film. Hollywood fell back in love with games”(TerKeurst, 2017). The success of GoldenEye 007 then grabbed the attention of other production companies and brought back to life popular movies being made into games like Lord of the rings, Alien Isolation and Spiderman two.
- Game to film adaptations
Video Games didn’t start being adapted till the 1990’s however with the likes of Super Mario Bros, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat being the biggest names to be converted but Hollywood was in for a shock as they expected them to follow the reasonable success that Movie to game adaptations were having but surprisingly this didn’t happen with critics saying things about them like “were total cheesefests, barely recognizable contortions that seemed embarrassed to even exist” (Narcisse, 2017) and “But, as with many games based on movies, film adaptations of videogames have had mixed results and are often disastrous” (Thompson, 2010).This is because if a game has a story that is not the greatest that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad as it’s the player interactions that decides how much the player enjoys the game. However a film doesn’t have this as it is just a story that the viewer either enjoys or doesn’t there is no way for them to interact which is why the same stories that are in video games fail in a movie format (Thompson, 2017).
- Main arguments
- Have Film to Game Adaptations been successful?
One of the biggest gaming franchises is Assassin’s Creed due to it being the 14th highest grossing game along sides the likes of Grand theft Auto and Call of Duty (Piccalo, 2017). The French publisher (ubisoft) has earned 636 million dollars (Grubb, 2016) just through the sales during its fiscal third quarter which was actually lower than expected but is still a great deal of money for a franchise that is 10 years old to be making. Due to the ever growing franchise that Assassin’s Creed is it’s no surprise that Ubisoft realized they could branch out into other forms of media however have been judged for the extent in which they did so, as they released nine novels, 11 comics, an in-development TV show and most recently a movie(Plante, 2017) which has led many fans of the game to say the franchise has become “predictable and bland” (Plante, 2017). The Assassin’s Creed movie was released in 2016 and was set to be one of the largest movies adapted from a gaming series ever, as you would expect from the popularity of the franchise. “For once this isn’t a bunch of Hollywood chancers hoping to cash in on a successful gaming brand; it’s the game makers themselves”(Stuart, 2016) proves that this movie was expected to be something completely different from the others as it was being made by the game developers themself not a Hollywood producer seeking money. However the success people had expected the movie would have never came as the movie’s budget was $125 million (Rufus and Shanley 2017) and it grossed $240 million (Anon, 2017) which does look good but is not for a movie of this scale, especially if you compare these figures to the games. If we look at the figures of the new Assassin’s Creed game : Origins it reveals that from just digital downloads alone the game made €342.6 million (Nunneley, 2017) which is already a lot never mind the sales of real copies of the game. These figures prove that Assassin’s Creed does still have a large fanbase, however just because people like playing the game doesn’t necessarily mean that they will flock out in numbers to see a real life version in the cinema.
Analysis
First of all we do need to acknowledge the fact that the movie wasn’t made by a production company seeking only money it was actually Ubisoft’s (creators of Assassin’s Creed) idea. Personally I think this is a step in the right direction for game to film adaptations as people actually want to make the movie to please fans and give them a little extra of what they already have, not throw a movie at them that has no relation to the game that the fans have turned up at the cinema to see.
So let’s talk a little bit more about why Assassin’s Creed the movie did not do well as the reasons for its failure relate to a lot of other game to film adaptations that exist. “The film also lacks in explaining the setting and the story to Non-Gamers” (Eis, 2017) which is a problem for all game to film adaptations as they try to give the fans of the game what they would like but forget that a lot of people in cinemas are most likely just movie fans there to see one of the biggest movies of the year. I also think that this is what makes film to game adaptations easier to understand as even if you have never seen the movie the game is based on you do have a story that you will be playing for hours and can make your own, but this is not an option for game to movie adaptations as the producers have two options, please the fans that exist already or let them down and please the new viewers in the cinema by going through what the background of the game is. Another reason that made loyal fans of the gaming franchise not go and see the movie was “Assassin’s Creed was Rated PG13 and that also means that you miss out bad language, sex and violence” (Eis, 2017). This was a mistake made by the franchise as if it was aged 18 and over just like the games are it would have felt more like it as one of the main reasons people play the game is for the blood and gore. “The average gamer is now 36 years old and at that age, they feel pretty punked watching a turned down movie” (Eis, 2017). This means by making it an aged 13 and taking most of the violence out of the movie they probably lost more older viewers that would have came to see the movie than they gained younger viewers.
- Film to Game adaptations
“There was a time when every major movie had an accompanying tie-in game” (Tait, 2017) that people played for hours on end after watching the movie itself as it kept them in that world. However in recent years not so much. Releases such as Mummy and Pirates of the Caribbean do not have games to accompany the recent movies released however there older movies did (Tait, 2017).
To begin with there were some games released based on movies that actually went on to do very well for example, Shadow of Mordor, Goldeneye and Alien: Isolation.
However, let’s look at one of the most recent releases that was expected to do well but shortly after release got boycotted by fans (Travis, 2017). The game we are talking about is Star Wars BattleFront II. The game was boycotted due to a new feature meaning that you can buy credits to unlock characters or play to get them, but if you are not wanting to spend any money you are going to have to put an estimate of 4,528 hours in to the game which is just over six months (Davidson, 2017). This was a shame as the first installment of the game done very well, selling 12 million copies in just 2 months after its release (Passalacqua, 2016). Although Battlefront was always going to sell games with it being apart of the Star Wars franchise as people that watch the movies are often fanatics that would do anything to get a little more action. This is why the big movie franchises such as Star Wars and Marvel are still making games because even if they are not good they will make money and at the same time please the hard core fans.
Analysis
Star Wars is arguably one of the biggest film franchises ever with it ranking 3rd in the top grossing franchises by the Box Office (Annon, 2017), with this being said it is no doubt that whatever they release would sell, especially a video game as people that are into Sci-Fi movies tend to also be into video games also as there are alot available for them. So I think that they have made a good move by keeping on releasing game after game even when some have failed such as Star Wars: Attack Squadrons, kinect Star Wars and Star Wars: The clone wars (Riviello, 2015). They have done so because they know that they have so many hardcore fans that would do anything to get a little bit of extra content out of them and that will buy their games. Personally this is where I think it’s easier for film to game adaptations to sell more copies to there fans than game to film adaptations as people that love the movies are there for the story lines which you get in both films and games, although the stories in games are very much made for you to make your own as well as get the point of what’s happening. However people that love games usually do so for the excitement and thrill of them which I would not say you get from both genres as movies are just something that you watch and get entertainment from, however in a game you are actually controlling the character which makes you feel apart of the story.
- Conclusion
To conclude I think that both film to video game and video game to film adaptations are both growing and will continue to for the foreseeable future as even if the critics don’t think they are good and they are not bringing in the numbers that they want to people are still buying them or going to see them which show’s some people are actually enjoying them. I also believe that they will keep growing as they are slowly starting to improve, as we seen with Ubisoft making the Assassin’s Creed movie and not some low budget Hollywood production company trying to make some quick money. This will hopefully influence some other game developers to stand up and learn from the mistakes of Assassin’s Creed and actually boost the popularity of the cross overs.
- References
Anon (2017). Assassin’s Creed (2016) – Box Office Mojo. [online] Boxofficemojo.com. Available at: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=assassinscreed.htm [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
Anon (2017). All-Time Top Film Franchises – Box Office. [online] Filmsite.org. Available at: http://www.filmsite.org/series-boxoffice.html [Accessed 7 Dec. 2017].
Davidson. (2017). Someone’s Estimated How Long it Takes to Unlock Everything in Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (Too Long) – IGN. [online] IGN. Available at: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2017/11/15/someones-estimated-how-long-it-takes-to-unlock-everything-in-star-wars-battlefront-2-too-long [Accessed 7 Dec. 2017].
Eis. (2017). Why was the Assassin’s Creed Movie not a box office hit?. [online] Quora. Available at: https://www.quora.com/Why-was-the-Assassins-Creed-Movie-not-a-box-office-hit [Accessed 7 Dec. 2017].
Grubb. (2016). Ubisoft earnings comes up short thanks to Assassin’s Creed. [online] VentureBeat. Available at: https://venturebeat.com/2016/02/11/ubisoft-earnings-comes-up-short-thanks-to-assassins-creed/ [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
Hale. (2014). The History of the Hollywood Movie Industry | History Cooperative. [online] History Cooperative. Available at: http://historycooperative.org/the-history-of-the-hollywood-movie-industry/ [Accessed 7 Dec. 2017].
Narcisse. (2017). A Brief History of Filmmakers Explaining Why Video Game Movies Suck. [online] Io9. Available at: https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-brief-history-of-filmmakers-explaining-why-video-game-1792900512 [Accessed 28 Nov. 2017
Passalacqua. (2016). Star Wars Battlefront Sells 12 Million Copies in First 2 Months – IGN. [online] IGN. Available at: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2016/01/02/star-wars-battlefront-sells-12-million-copies-in-first-two-months [Accessed 7 Dec. 2017].
Plante. (2017). The Assassin’s Creed series ranked — with Origins included. [online] Polygon. Available at: https://www.polygon.com/2017/10/27/16554856/assassins-creed-origins-games-ranked [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
Riviello. (2015). 12 Worst Star Wars Video Games Ever Made. [online] Screen Rant. Available at: https://screenrant.com/worst-star-wars-video-games-ever-made/ [Accessed 7 Dec. 2017].
Rufus. and Shanley. (2017). Assassin’s Creed (2016) – Highlights (and Lowlights) from Watching 25 Video Game Movies. [online] The Hollywood Reporter. Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/video-game-movies-best-worst-all-time-962776/item/assassins-creed-2016-968210 [Accessed 30 Nov. 2017].
TerKeurst. (2017). What happened to all the video games based on movies?. [online] NewStatesman. Available at: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/games/2017/06/what-happened-all-video-games-based-movies [Accessed 28 Nov. 2017].
Thompson. (2010). Ranked: Best and Worst Movies Based on Videogames. [online] Metacritic. Available at: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-and-worst-movies-based-on-videogames [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
SAE institute, Game Art and Animation 