Whats wrong with games based after movies?

[machado4]

Why is it that every game based on good even great movies, seem to drop the bomb. Games like Iron Man and SpiderMan should be good. Any comic book hero games should not be based after movies but on comics. But what is it that makes movie games so bad?

[SaintAvi]

They are made solely to cash in on the popularity of the movie.

[Joshua]

to add on what SaintAvi said, they are mostly made as a gimmick and marketing ploy

the main reason why they fail is because they are made backwards. instead of developing an idea and then then polishing that idea until they feel it is ready, the game has a set launch date, usually around the time the movie is released and they just push out whatever garbage is available at that time.

rarely is a movie game ever made where it's being made purely for the sake of being a good game.

[lloyd]

Yeah what they said. Another reason is the developers aren't given much time, not that they even care. Well, it's probably more the publishers that don't care so much, but the point is "they" don't give a c**p if the games good or not. It WILL sell a ton of units no matter how well done the game is, so why bother with trying to make a good game when the sells will barely differ? The worse the game is the cheaper it is to make which means more money in the developer's and publisher's pocket. In the End, it's all about money. :p

[EIN]

to add on what SaintAvi said, they are mostly made as a gimmick and marketing ploy

the main reason why they fail is because they are made backwards. instead of developing an idea and then then polishing that idea until they feel it is ready, the game has a set launch date, usually around the time the movie is released and they just push out whatever garbage is available at that time.

rarely is a movie game ever made where it's being made purely for the sake of being a good game.

Joshua got it the best

Developpers are under a strict deadline to get games out to time it with the movies release, and so are under enormous constraints. Furthermore, they only have the movie's script to work with, rather than freely creative genius. A 2 hour movie can only hold so much story, whereas the average video game nowadays holds 8-10 hours gameplay... hard to stretch that out.

Say you wanted to add some sort of uber cool dinosaur/robot who could stop time and shoot laser squirrels or something similarly ridiculous (but fun) to a game, and you have all the coders and capture animation; its ready to go into a game. You can't put that in James Bond game if it wasn't in the movie right? this kind of stifles creativity, making the games kinda rote. Anytime the creators get an idea for something cool, they'd have to contact the owners of the copyright, ask them if its cool, file for some sort of copyright, and THEN implement it. Easier just to make up your own game.

The development teams are also usually only given around 2 years to make the game, in time with filming, but they usually lack specific plot points/clips, art, game mechanics or characters until the film is entirely completed because of the director changing something, or having a re-write tossed at them. That makes it very difficult to plan a cohesive game, since they're almost always missing key chunks at vital areas until the last minute.

And so, because of these reasons, good publishers or developpment teams rarely approach licensed movie games. Too much hassle and constraint; they go on to make better games. The people who are left make licensed games; probably newbies or lesser-known devs breaking into the industry.

This isn;t to say that all licensed games are bad. I recall the Riddick games being pretty good back on Xbox

[inferno1321]

Like you said above, it's generally because they arn't given enough time (and for lower budget movies money can be a problem too). One example of this was with Star Wars. The game based on (and under time restraints from) the third movie was pretty bad, while Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was a pretty good game. Of course there are exceptions, such as the Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for PS2, and the Spiderman 2 game (although the SpiderMan 3 and new Hulk game just plain sucked).