Why Movie-based Games Suck

It is practically a truism to say that video games based on movies are guaranteed to suck. There are countless examples of crappy movie-based games from which to draw as evidence: Enter the Matrix, Jaws Unleashed, The Godfather. If it's big at the box office, odds are there's a terrible game based on it. The process of adapting a movie into a game is often a paradigm for gaming masochism. But why?

Part of the reason for this suckage is simple greed. Game producers want to capitalize on the success of a blockbuster movie. The thinking is that if you enjoyed the movie you'll enjoy experiencing the action first hand even more. So the producer buys a license to the property, has some programmers slap together something that resembles a game, and then ships it. Such was the case with the infamous E.T. game which set the template for the Movie-Games-that-Suck (MGtS) syndrome. Naturally, the resulting "game" is an unplayable mess because the publisher has ignored that which makes a game what it is.

Games offer a fundamentally different entertainment experience than movies or other forms of media do. A movie, for example, has to be structured according to a plot. There has to be action in the Aristotelian sense in order to engage the audience and allow them to follow the story. While it's possible to make a movie without a plot—horror movie directors have been doing it for decades—those movies unsurprisingly suck. A game on the other hand does not have to be plotted. It can be, of course, and my favorite games are, but plot is not a necessary component of games. Poker has no plot nor does chess. The main component of a game, that which makes it fundamentally a game, is repetition. Repetition is necessary to gameplay because of the very reason that games entail play.

Observe the way children play. A child doesn't play with a jack-in-the-box only once. He or she will crank that handle repeatedly, much to the parents' chagrin, despite the fact that the outcome of cranking the handle is known and always the same. Similarly, hopscotch is simply a series of repeated physical moves that don't allow for deviation. In a baseball game, someone throws a ball, someone else hits it and then runs. Rinse and repeat. This kind of repetition is intolerable in a movie, but is desired in a game. Why? Because unlike a movie, which puts its payoff at the end and rewards the viewer for sitting all the way through it, the repetitious action of a game is a reward in itself. That's why it's play.

Even though video games and movies are both visual media, games based on movies are almost guaranteed to suck because of this fundamental difference between playing and viewing. Indeed, this is why movies based on games are almost as likely to suck as the games based on movies. Whereas games require repetition, movies that are repetitive are barely watchable. The gaming-themed horror movie Stay Alive, produced in consultation with game designer Cliffy B, succeeds in feeling like a video game but is a chore to watch. What makes Uwe Boll think his movies will be any better?

So what's the solution? Personally, I think games and movies should remain separate mediums. I wouldn't want a game that I made to be turned into a movie or vice-versa. I'd rather maintain the integrity of the original work. Of course, this sensibility isn't likely to catch on with producers as long as there's money to be made. Moreover, movie-based games need not suck. Anyone old enough to remember the original Star Wars arcade game will recall how fun it was. This game didn't try to retell the story of the movie—not that the software limitations of the time would've allowed it. Rather, this game took a single moment from the movie (the attack on the Death Star) and let the gamer play through it. Repeatedly. Far from being tedious, you actually felt like Luke Skywalker piloting the X-Wing. Of course, the game's interface helped sell the illusion, since you sat inside the game's cabinet like a cockpit while speakers behind your head let you hear the music and sound effects and, occasionally, Obi-Wan telling you to use the force. The game was extremely simple, but extremely thrilling and addictive.

An alternative to such simple satisfaction is to create a game/movie hybrid. Some people are trying this, though not with much success as of yet. Atari's Indigo Prophecy (known as Fahrenheit to the rest of the world) is a case in point. Although this game has an intriguing storyline it plays more like an interactive movie than a game, making the gameplay fairly boring. Another option that has proven more successful is to create movies and/or games that utilize the same characters or environments as their other-medium counterparts but provide distinctly different experiences. This is part of the reason why the Star Wars game worked so well. It wasn't rehashing the story, it was letting you inhabit that world.

All the gamer really wants from a movie-based game is to feel like he or she is playing in the movie's world, not to play in the movie itself. Likewise, the most successful game-based movies—such as the Resident Evil series or to a lesser extent the first Tomb Raider—are those that take place recognizably in the game's world. If the gamers want to see the movie, they've got the DVD player. If they want to play the game, they've got the console. What they want from the game and movie is the fundamentally different experience that comes from playing a game and watching a movie.