Game companies making movies

Yves Guillemot says the industry needs to make more movies, in part so that assets can be shared and in part in order to push towards seeing the central core value of developers as being IP creation.

“We will have to start making movies,” he continued, “because if we don’t do it, we won’t be able to take advantage of the power of the next generation. In creating movies and games at the same time, we see what we have to improve to make better games as well.”

So, I am of two minds about this. There’s little doubt that game develoeprs and publishers do need to be thinking in terms of IP creation. Content may be getting more plentiful and cheap, but it’s still king in the way that matters: it’s what attracts people to come take a look-see. And in the long-term, it’s appealing content under a recognizable brand that drives repeat traffic. So yes, of course, focusing on IP creation makes a lot of sense.

Doing it within the realm of movies… well, that’s a good question. To start with, does anyone think that the game developers are going to make better movies than the moviemakers? I don’t. Heck, it’s only recently that Hollywood has managed to get enough geeks into its system to be able to produce decent genre material. I don’t think the sort of learning that we get from making videogames is yet all that applicable to the creation of movies. For one thing, we sort of suck at characters, and that’s a central part of the appeal of movies.

It’s interesting that Guillemot cites the need to share assets as a key driver here. Really, the core of IP is not visual — an IP that relies solely on the visual is one that is vulnerable. The best IPs can be reimagined over and over again with new visuals and styles. Basing your IP decisions on a reliance on high-end CG graphics seems like a self-limiting choice.

It boils down to a question about what the next generation is. And I, for one, have been sold for a while now on the notion that next-generation isn’t about graphics. In place of that, I’d offer up a series of alternatives, any of which seem to me to have just as key a role:

• ubiquity and connectivity
• real-world permeability
• new interfaces
• embracing user content

At least Guillemot did cite this latter one in his keynote:

“We will come back to what we had on the Amstrad or Atari ST,” he said, “where users could create a lot of content. The goal is to make sure our customers become creators.”