When it comes to major blockbuster releases, you can’t really fault a studio for wanting some return on a sizable financial investment. What you can fault them for is forcing their way in and taking over a project, stealing all creative freedoms and almost always producing a bad product. This used to be something that was usually saved for Hollywood blockbusters and the phenomenal dud that every summer would serve up. In recent years though, as the console wars have begun heating up, we’ve started to see it more and more in AAA releases as well. Sadly, this has led to the same making of a giant bomb, financially and critically, in the gaming world as well.
Here’s a few ways that game studios are quickly turning AAA games into Hollywood blockbusters, mainly for worse.
Budget
The most obvious always comes first. The budget for a summer tentpole picture has been ballooning ever since Arnie shot the T-1000 in the face and his head blew in half. It’s to a point now where the thought of a big summer release coming out with a budget under $150 million is laughable. While gaming is surely a different beast than movie making, this is very quickly becoming the status quo of AAA games as well. When it came to an untested product, studios were willing to sink $500 million into producing Avatar, a number that many thought would bankrupt 20th Century Fox. In gaming, Bungie sunk just as much, if not more, into making Destiny and no one even blinked an eye. Out of the top 20 most expensive games released thus far, only eight of them were made before 2010 and only three of those before 2005. At this rate, the first billion dollar game will make be attached to the next generation of consoles at launch. Just because you slap a huge price tag on something doesn’t simply translate to quality. Ask Disney who wrote down nothing short of a billion dollars in 2012-’13. Game publishers would do well to remember that as they continue to match budgets with Hollywood’s biggest films.
“Out of the top 20 most expensive games released thus far, only eight of them were made before 2010 and only three of those before 2005.”
Flogging the Franchise Horse
It has been 5 months since the last Call of Duty landed and it will be at the very most, 8 more till the next one. The annual churn out of ‘mega franchises’ has become the norm, regardless of how that turns out. Not only are there annual releases of mediocre games but a great number of games are now entering the fourth installments of their franchises, most of these kick starting a new trilogy. Fresh and new ideas are dwindling at the biggest levels of gaming because Master Chief or Lara Croft can’t grace the cover. Even when they do take a risk and have a great one off, like The Last of Us, sequel talks immediately go into high gear. Because nothing says ‘bland, mediocre quality’ like forcing as many sequels out of an idea as you can before everyone loses all love and respect for the series. It would be like making a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie! Oh, wait…
“Because nothing says ‘bland, mediocre quality’ like forcing as many sequels out of an idea as you can before everyone loses all love and respect for the series.”
Release Dates
Speaking of annual releases, the locking down of release dates far in advance has gotten seriously out of hand. It is March of 2015 and I already know what movies I can see in July of 2020. While it may not be five years ahead, I still know several games that I can play in 2017 and on what specific day they will come out. The problem with this lengthy date setting is it forces developers into putting a game out by a certain date regardless of what shape the game is in. Even if the game is in shambles, to push a release date back is financial suicide. Outside of the rare occurrence of understanding by consumers, a delayed release means it’s in deep trouble and an extra six weeks probably isn’t going to help. This means a lot of people will wait and see before picking it up, which means you miss out on a big chunk of first week sales which oft times translates to a loss of steam on the hype front. That means fewer sales in total. By setting dates more than 12 months in advance, you’re in essence compromising a developers ability to produce quality in order to shore up some sales for your fiscal year. I’m totally not pointing fingers at Assassin’s Creed: Unity, I swear!
“The problem with this lengthy date setting is it forces developers into putting a game out by a certain date regardless of what shape the game is in.”
Review Embargos
Luckily, even if you’re game is in shambles, you can simply slap a review embargo on it and you can still rake in all of those sweet, sweet, idiotic pre-orders. I’m picking on Unity a lot here, but the weaponization of the review embargo became fairly clear with the release of that game. Sadly, this has been a common Hollywood practice for many years, so when I heard about Unity‘s ‘day of’ embargo, I wondered just how bad it really was going to be. Turns out, pretty bad. Game studios have adapted the same code of conduct as movie studios with the review embargo, yet another tool to force money out of unsuspecting wallets.
“I’m picking on Unity a lot here, but the weaponization of the review embargo became fairly clear with the release of that game.”
Story
Hands up if you’ve seen the Ryan Reynolds vehicle R.I.P.D. No one? Hands up if you’ve seen Men in Black. If your hand is up for MIB, you can put your hand up for R.I.P.D. too because it’s the EXACT same movie. If I described a scene and asked you to tell me which movie it was from, I guarantee you that you wouldn’t be able to get it right. Now, not to pick on any particular franchise, but can’t we say that about a lot of game series? I love the Uncharted games but if asked, I’d still be hard pressed to tell you which scenes went in which games. In the case of R.I.P.D., the story was already similar to MIB so the studio literally lifted the beat by beat structure of the latter and applied it to the script of the former. They refer to this as ‘safe’ storytelling. Studios feel that audiences will attach to a story they’re familiar with and ignore the fact that they’ve seen it before. I mean, just look at Avatar! This basically says that people are too stupid to handle new ideas, so recycling is the safest choice. The more games I play, the more I’m beginning see this crop up. If you’ve played Dying Light, their finale is essentially the final act to about a dozen games that I can name off the top of my head, the most obvious being Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, right down to the stupid and annoying quick time events. Dying Light also has a main story so by the books that 10 minutes into the game you can probably tell me who lives and dies. Game studios have also seen that repetition breeds success and that’s why when I play a game that has a even somewhat unique story, I get excited. A truly unique AAA game storyline is becoming as rare as finding one at the theatres in July.
“This basically says that people are too stupid to handle new ideas, so recycling is the safest choice.”
What this all shakes out to is how much money can be made. Publishers have seen the money movie production houses make and they want some of that cash badly. Badly enough that they’ve begun to adapt a lot of the same policies when producing their biggest games. Policies that are ultimately hurting the quality of games. The most unfortunate part of this is that money made from gaming will never catch movie money! Remember when GTA V was released and made between $500 million or $1 billion in a week, depending on whose numbers you go by, and everyone began to talk about how games will soon make more money than movies? Even with the re-release, GTA V will make (and I’m being very generous here) maybe a little over $2 billion on a $265 million budget. In comparison, the Avengers movie made $1.8 billion on a $220 million budget on box office revenue alone. Avengers will keep making Disney money for at least 20 more years with DVD/ Blu Ray sales, syndication, etc. and that’s not even touching merchandising!
The point is, gaming is a huge industry and it has become so big because it’s always been innovative and strove to deliver quality to gamers. With the recent turn in AAA games and how the practices in producing these games has taken a turn for the worst in starting to resemble the production of a Hollywood blockbuster, I can’t help but feel that games should stick to what made them stand out in the first place. Make great games that blend solid gameplay with good story and great characters that suck us all in and we don’t see natural sunlight for at least a little while, just like the good ol’ days.