Hollywood's Video Game Era Is Here. Will It Be Any Good?
As superhero fatigue sets in, Hollywood is betting big on video game adaptations, from The Last of Us to Fallout. This data-driven analysis explores why gaming IP may outshine comics: a $60 billion market, a broader demographic reach, and a built-in YouTube audience. With acclaimed filmmakers attached to projects like Resident Evil and Elden Ring, the era of video game cinema promises adult-oriented storytelling and blockbuster potential.
Deep down, we all want this. We wanted it when we were six months old, and we want it today.
- everdrive
Are there _any_ good video game movies whatsoever? The 2005 Doom film was the easiest miss I'd ever seen. All they needed to do was remake Aliens, but with Doom. Instead of ending up in the Alien nest, you end up in hell. No idea how they managed to drop the ball on that one.
- throwfaraway135
Western game studios are failing, look at Ubisoft, Bungie, and a dozen Xbox studios, most of which are collapsing due to a sheer lack of creativity. How Hollywood, which is going through its own dark patch, expects to find creative inspiration in a dying (western) video game medium is beyond me.
- abeppu
> I strongly believe that video games have a higher ceiling for storytelling quality. There are several reasons underlying my newfound evangelism: a larger built-in audience, a more robust market with hundreds of games appealing to many different types of fans, and, most importantly, demographic variability.
So none of the things listed here are clearly related to "storytelling quality" -- those are marketing advantages.
I think the real questions for _quality_ for comics vs games are things like:
- do games, which force players to explore and interact, forcing better world-building by front-loading some consideration of internal logic and mechanics?
- do games, which put players more directly in the perspective of characters, at the level of having to choose actions, force writers to create more compelling dilemmas?
- do comics, which have to give consideration to static visual images, make for better posters than films?
- do comics, which world-build over long sequences, make for stories that feel too compressed in films?
- lemoncookiechip
No, and neither will be the anime Hollywood adaptions which are ramping up.
For every one good movie or show you get ten bad ones.
- drop_star
> I strongly believe that video games have a higher ceiling for storytelling quality.
I find the opposite. I play a game and get into the story only to put it down and totally forget what the hell I was doing the next time I pick it up (sometimes a week later). I really wish there was a re-cap feature in games. Playing Elden Ring required a guide since the game is incredibly dense and has little to no quest tracking.
This is why as I get older and have less time I play more Fortnight and alike as I can just drop in and play for 15 mins