A reader considers the year’s upcoming suite of movie blockbusters and is frustrated to think none will get a big budget game tie-in.
So, in the next couple of years we have some big big blockbusters coming out. Star Wars, The Avengers 2, Captain America 3, Ant-Man, and Superman v Batman: Dawn of Justice. History has proven that these films could be fantastic big budget fare. Alas, recent history has shown us that there will be no game tie-ins to these films. At least on any major console. Why is this?
I mean, surely, making a game that ties in with these titles would be a licence to print money, wouldn’t it? Well, the thing is, I think that the bosses of film and game studios have applied a kind of dumb logic to the fate of film tie-ins. I have a horrible feeling that these execs have looked at the money being made from tie-ins and come to the conclusion that film tie-ins don’t make any money.
Are they right? Well, sort of. A generalised history of film tie-ins is: release the game and people will buy it, regardless of the quality of the game. In fact, off the top of my head, the only film tie-in that I can think of that was any good was GoldenEye 007 back in 1997. So, apart from that game, poor quality tie-ins were released that still made a ton of money. Everyone was happy, no? Well, not quite.
It may have taken some time, but after a while Joe Public realised that film tie-ins were just, well… rubbish. So, they stopped buying them. However, execs did not think ‘Hey, if we improve the quality of the games, people will buy them again’. No, I think that they thought ‘Hmmm… people do not like film tie-ins anymore. We had better stop making them’.
This, to me, is just the kind of short sightedness that we have come to expect from any multinational media company. Look at the potential we have coming up. An Avengers game where you can switch from playing as Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, or Hawkeye. (Come on, Hawkeye has a bow and arrow! Surely someone would want to play as him!?)
A Star Wars tie-in in an open world environment taking place on Tatooine, Hoth, the Death Star, Bespin, and Endor. To pad out the game you have missions that we know took place in these Star Wars worlds but never saw, like Han Solo smuggling before he was boarded by the Empire, Luke Skywalker farming and shooting womp rats, the Rebel Alliance stealing the plans of the Death Star, all in the style of GTA. (Although, the temptation to just shoot all the good guys, while you are playing as Lake, may be too hard to resist. Or is that me?)
So, to any studio execs who read this (I can dream), realise that the reason that film tie-ins stopped making money was not because people did not like film tie-ins, but that people did not like bad, awful, almost unplayable games. Start making film tie-ins that have high production values.
Remember, the gaming industry makes more money than films and music. There is a way of making more money, without annoying the consumer. GC has been after a Han Solo simulator for years! Make their dream come true.
By reader Terry Hurley (Terry342 – PSN ID)
The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
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