Revenge of the Gamer Media
“When was this horrible ‘80s movie actually made… 2003???” I said as my mother and I watched Angelina Jolie rotate a switchblade that had been thrown prior to her freezing time to redirect its momentum. While almost any movie requires some suspension of disbelief, the lazy effects, second-rate acting, and overall poor quality that marred the video game derivative media landscape has been low-hanging fruit for mockery by Penny-Arcade and anyone else looking for an easy laugh - I felt lucky that Resident Evil hadn’t been a complete waste of $17 to catch, though any legacy it may have had was soon buried beneath more lackluster sequels than an ‘80s slasher franchise.
This certainly isn’t the only pitfall the video game industry has faced, with the E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial mass grave in New Mexico attesting to the tragic story of the video game crash of 1983. Little did we know that the children who cringed at Dennis Hopper’s King Koopa would be the adults blown away by Arcane, The Last of Us, and a Mario Brothers movie that ALMOST made us forget John Leguizamo’s Luigi.
Considering how AAA games like Grand Theft Auto V have generated billions and legacy gaming properties like Mario Bros are pre-streaming nostalgia properties with decades of derivatives like comic books, games, fan fiction, and cartoons to generate several backstories to pick and choose from, is it any wonder that they EVENTUALLY got it right?
After recovering from the its near-death experience in ‘83, according to Bloomberg.com, the gaming industry is worth $200 billion dollars, or roughly 20 times the value of global movie theater ticket sales in 2023. Not only has gaming supplanted some of the television and movie industry - it is currently eating it.
“Excuuuuuuuuse me, Princess”
In examining the first titans of the gaming industry, the original versions were pretty bare for backstory - Mario was originally “Jumpman,” swinging a mallet at barrels because there was a giant ape who, for some inexplicable reason, maybe kidnapped a princess and had an endless barrel supply. Why does lighting these barrels on fire turn them sentient? Don’t worry about it.
From the Legend of Zelda show, produced when there was little lore of a game that would, over several decades, develop a novel’s worth
Such a broad canvass led to some choices being made by writers that could, at times, be an awkward fit. This included the Legend of Zelda cartoon turning a vaguely Lord of the Rings-style hero in Link into a bit of an annoying, 90’s style skater punk. Early games would take decades of working out to get to where they are now, with the Zelda series increasingly adopting more folklore-style storytelling, giving the characters and Hyrule far more depth. Fast-forward to the modern era of gaming, and role-playing elements become more possible, with better graphics contributing to cinematic cut-scenes, telling in-depth storylines for franchises like Final Fantasy, Diablo, and Last of Us. This brought in significant, Netflix-worthy character development.
Movie, streaming, video game, and comic book writer Mark Bernardin, in commenting on playing Last of Us on the Fatman Beyond YouTube channel, remarked that the storyline and gaming was a bit traumatic (SPOILERS FOR THE LAST OF US GAME AND STREAMING SERIES) - the main character, Joel, reluctantly developed a deep bond with Ellie, a young girl who somewhat took the place of his daughter who died early in the story. Ellie was the only person to have an immunity to the symptoms of a global fungal pandemic that had all but completely destroyed society. After bringing Ellie to them, Joel decided to kill an entire facility filled with well-intentioned people, some of whom had richly-developed characters, who were making the grisly decision to sacrifice Ellie to produce a vaccine or cure. “They make you do it, it’s part of the game that’s on rails” he explained, saying that having to target and kill former good guys that were desperately working on a cure and re-establishing society was haunting. While not every game is as television-ready as Last of Us, most games demand far greater depth of story than they did in the era of Donkey Kong, with popular shows like Arcane building significantly upon the core elements, world, and characters of the League of Legends game - we’ve come a long way from bashing barrels.
A Ready Business Model
The advancement of video game graphics technology has significantly impacted the production of television shows and movies, offering new possibilities for storytelling and visual effects. Game engines, such as Unreal Engine and Unity, have evolved to produce stunningly realistic graphics and immersive environments. These technologies are increasingly being utilized in the entertainment industry to create virtual sets, digital backdrops, and CGI-heavy scenes. An early, independent example of this would be Red vs. Blue, made from the game Halo.
By harnessing the power of video game graphics, filmmakers can bring fantastical worlds to life with greater efficiency and flexibility. Additionally, the integration of motion capture and performance capture techniques allows actors to inhabit digital characters seamlessly, such as Idris Alba in Cyberpunk. As a result, the development of video game graphics not only enhances the visual quality of television shows and movies, but also expands the creative possibilities for filmmakers to push the boundaries of storytelling.
Once a studio has established the digital infrastructure to produce a show or movie, this infrastructure can be used in further games, movies, and other media - this is one of the reasons why Pixar has been able to produce movies with a similar artistic feel without breaking the bank on every production; although there is a clear evolution, the latest Toy Story movie is visibly built upon the original digital art that blew us all away in the ‘90s.
A Blurring of the Lines
Ultimately, considering how much time in some games can be spent watching cinematic cut-scenes, the lines between video games and shows have become a bit blurred (with yours truly still recovering from watching Sephiroth wipe out Aerith).
While such depth of story was not always possible considering the limitations of what could be expressed during a simpler 8- or 16-bit era where even low-quality cut scenes could occupy precious cartridge space, popular ‘80s and ‘90s franchises have had decades of comic books, fan fiction, and other opportunities to develop an increasingly-complex backstory for their characters and worlds. Though plenty of fun games come out every year that embrace the simplicity of a bygone era and have us shooting at aliens “just ‘cuz,” the bar has been raised for video game storytelling and graphics in ways that lend themselves to be efficiently converted into other media, much like a comic book doubling as a pitch deck.
While video game media was once a laughing stock, the recession of the movie industry, the rise of quality graphics and storytelling in gaming, and decades of experimenting with the lore of legacy characters have presented an opportunity that companies like Nintendo have been increasingly capitalizing on. Much like the pre-streaming nostalgia market in general, many of these titles have a broad, built-in audience that no degree of marketing in the current media environment can reproduce. The further development of video games will only make their characters switching media easier, with higher-quality, lower-cost digital media increasingly accessible, and live-action derivative titles being started from billions of dollars of profits and successful marketing campaigns from their digital predecessors.