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[kicker]

Yes, yes, obvious answer is in the title 'they died out because they sucked', but let's discuss the idea. Watching John wick 4, I would've loved to pick up some tie-in game that allowed you to play as the tracker, or just John himself through that paris night section

Used to be you would expect some b-grade game releasing the same day as a blockbuster movie with maybe some shared references or straight up extra story beats needed to understand the full story of either.



I got too lazy to add the other trailers but Harry potter, Star wars, The Matrix, Return of the king, King Kong, Spiderman 2, all had tie in games that were cool ideas, mostly shit execution.

My theory is:
- Those tie-in games weren't very good if we're being honest, and that might have been due to having a tightly fixed deadline to develop.

- It wouldn't be practical these days since good games take a while longer to develop than producing movies usually does

- AAA is already such a gamble gor investors, fixing an arbitrary deadline isn't wise if one wants maximum, or even just decent, returns.

And lastly, games aren't as small as they used to be. Even if most of the money is in mobile, I'd still say the average AAA game adaptation stands more strongly as a distinct media product than in the past



What do you think?

edit: just thought about how some would agree the blockbuster movie industry has also declined creatively, or has become less risk prone. Probably has something to do with it

 

[kicker]

Well, shit. How do I edit the title?

 

[Three]

I think mostly licencing cost killed them. They don't even need to be AAA budgets but the movie studios expect them to be. If Pistol Whip was called John Wick I think it would have worked well for example.

Movie tie-ins also have a weird negative effect with people expecting them to be shit. Last big one I remember is probably King Kong.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Marvel movies are made on an assembly line. No game developer could keep up.


The time it takes to make a videogame versus making a movie diverged somewhere in the 2000s.

 

[Black_Stride]

The rising costs of game dev meant even these B-grade games actually end up costing quite a bit to make and the trickle money you could get from simply being tied to a popular movie doesnt add up anymore.

Maybe after UE5 takes hold and B-tier devs can piece together something using MegaScans and Marketplace content in 2 seconds we will see them return.

Turn on Lumen make sure every light is moveable-dynamic bake nothing.....absolutely nothing and boom, youve got yourself a game of sorts.
But now you gotta do the voice acting.....ohh right VoiceAI will sort that out.

 

[L*][*N*K]

The way I see it original video games weren’t considered a big money maker and they were hard to market to people who didn’t already played video games, that thing has changed considerably since the PS2-era, I remember back and 2020 my boss who never played a video game asked me about Cyberpunk and what that game is all about, a year later he asked about Forza Horizon 5

 

[Beer Baelly]

 

[anothertech]

I played the shit out of mad max

 

[RagnarokIV]

The last example would have been The Dark Knight, which was quietly cancelled.

 

[KungFucius]

As you suggested, development time is the main issue. If you want to do a proper tie in that follows the story you need to start building the game 5 or more years out. Movies are written and made faster than that with few exceptions. You could make a Trilogy game at the end of a planned Trilogy, but you can't make a Super Mario Movie game reliably fast enough to release this week when you only greenlit the script a few years ago.

Also nowadays everything is franchise. Why make a copy of the movie in game form when instead you can make a parallel thing set in that universe and spit it out when it is ready after 3 months of patches? The Ubisoft Avatar game will likely launch well before the next movie. It will serve as something to keep fans engaged with the franchise while they wait for the next movie to drop.

I remember the Matrix game was supposed to tie into the shitty sequels. There were 2 minor characters in the movie that got maybe a minute of screen time, these characters were the ones you played in the game and the result of what they did was mentioned in the movie. It was a neat idea and if someone could get everything together to try something like that again, it would be great. Like if you could play a C-plot of a trilogy that launched alongside or before the 3rd installment that had hooks in each of the films it would be a great way to promote the 3rd film, which statistically always does worse than the first.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Because AAA games take too long to make (and cost too much to make). Not only is it a crap shoot with how it will fare with the gaming audience, likely it will release well after a movie's release, which further hampers its success.

-Guardians of the Galaxy (came out years after GOTG 2)
-Lego Star Wars (came out 2-3 years after Rise of the Skywalker)

Plenty of others

 

[ToadMan]

It seems to me that games became bigger - both in terms of revenue and the effort needed to create them - than movies.

For tie-ins now, it’s going to be a movie that ties in to a major game release rather than the other way round.

And then there’s release delays to throw in the mix.

 

[Drizzlehell]

I'm guessing it's not a viable option anymore due to licensing and development costs.

Back in the day you could at least go cheap on the development, which is why so many of those games were so crappy. But development costs today are way higher so you can't even cut corners on that anymore, and they don't even bother. Notice that the only companies that are still rolling out any licensed games are the ones that already own the properties that those games are based on. Primarily Disney and Warner Bros. They also shifted strategy to giving those games higher development and marketing budgets to ensure proper exposure and quality, with the latter not always working out obviously, but on the other hand we also get stuff like Spider-Man sometimes.

 

[SmokedMeat]

You answered your own question.

They were garbage licensed games, associated with low quality, that people were sick of.

 

[AJUMP23]

They stopped selling on association alone. So they stopped making them.

 

[Games of Today]

Mad Max is one of the best examples of this. And it was actually a blast to play.

 

[crackajack]

I guess the appearance of all TloU games in the PS App indicates it sold well enough to be a hot topic again and that good stuff can help other good stuff. But that is the requirement. Cash grabs will grab some cash but not actually work as a merchandising article people will love too.
I guess the Avatar game was intially supposed to launch alongside the movie but they missed the mark despite Cameron taking forever to make that movie. Or is it supposed to land together with Avatar 3 and is right on track?
It requires some effort and will to coordinate two huge projects and maybe having to deal with several creatives from writing and directing leads, coordinating two pipelines, where one is usually much more prone to delays, legalities and penalties if its outsourced and that all might not be worth it, it also needs an IP owner who either gets the other medium equally and directs both to some extend, or interferes not too much if they don't.

I liked Bloodstone eg. Being its own thing while just using the same stuff as Quantum of Solace did, but not being tied to a movie's story and set pieces made it actually better. Or Telltales Game of Thrones was also nice in extending the world and not just rehashing or slightly expanding the known story. Matrix, John Wick, Tog Gun Maverick, Expendables, whatever are IPs that could have games but not necessarily launching alongside their movie.

 

[CamHostage]

All the reasons above, but also, the game maker doesn't own our control the IP. They have to do the work, changing it at the whim of a superset separate company (who messages them through multople layers of proxy,) and then the profits of that work need to be shared and you own nothing to build upon for your wider studio portfolio. If they say no to the sequel, you're screwed. If your game is good but they messed up the movie, you're screwed. If it takes too long to make the game and the license cools off, you're screwed.

I liked Bloodstone... Telltales Game of Thrones... Matrix, John Wick, Top Gun Maverick, Expendables, whatever are IPs that could have games but not necessarily launching alongside their movie.

Sure, I like it too when the game stands creatively as it's own work. But I would guess the sales trends show worse results for stand-alone games, especially for young franchises? Bond or Walking Dead or Spidey can support a new franchise entry whenever one is ready, but Wick or Expendables would have that feeling a year or two separated from a movie of, "gee, why so soon? "

 

[tr1p1ex]

lincensed tie-in shit sucked because the game was released when the movie was released no matter what. This kind of development environment doesn't lead to great games. IT leads to lazy half ass cash grabs. AS a rule of thumb.

 

[Three]

Maybe after UE5 takes hold and B-tier devs can piece together something using MegaScans and Marketplace content in 2 seconds we will see them return.

Matrix Awakens was like they wanted to do a movie tie-in game but couldn't be assed or didn’t have the time/budget to make a full game.

 

[kicker]

I played the shit out of mad max

Mad Max is one of the best examples of this. And it was actually a blast to play.

Weirdly, mad max is a perfect example of a game that was initially planned to release as a tie-in bit was rebooted because of development issues and ended up releasing coincidentally around the same time. From the wikipedia:

The game was retooled during development. Despite its release that year, the game is not directly connected to 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road and was not intended to be a tie-in; its setting and story are original. This decision was made because the game's publisher, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, believed that a standalone game was more beneficial to players than a "play-the-movie game" after the success of its Batman: Arkham series

Sure, I like it too when the game stands creatively as it's own work. But I would guess the sales trends show worse results for stand-alone games, especially for young franchises? Bond or Walking Dead or Spidey can support a new franchise entry whenever one is ready, but Wick or Expendables would have that feeling a year or two separated from a movie of, "gee, why do soon? "

Warner Bros. They also shifted strategy to giving those games higher development and marketing budgets to ensure proper exposure and quality, with the latter not always working out

I liked Bloodstone eg. Being its own thing while just using the same stuff as Quantum of Solace did, but not being tied to a movie's story and set pieces made it actually better

Yeah, good points. Based on the wiki quote above, it seems Arkham's success gave the wb execs more confidence in making mad max its own thing, for example.
Ironically, for mad max, the game would've benefited massively from being connected to Fury road since the game has effectively been forgotten and probably needed more promotion, especially from 2015's biggest action movie.

But then on the flip side, I'm sure the middle earth games would've been worse if they were forced to tie-in to the hobiit movies or something, so yeah, I guess the execution is too much for most studios

 

[diffusionx]

On NES, Genesis, or even PlayStation, you could churn out a crappy licensed game in six months for a few hundred thousand dollars and line it up with the movie. It was almost like a marketing cost thing but it was also basically guaranteed to make money because you had some cool cover on it. Nowadays, you need five years and $100 million, it's just impossible to time it right and it's really hard to turn a profit.

 

[Fuz]

 

[Knightime_X]

Almost every movie game was granted to the lowest bidder.
Every movie game was rushed with no real plan behind it because the focus was hype based on the movie, less on the game.

 

[hemo memo]

It seems to me that games became bigger - both in terms of revenue and the effort needed to create them - than movies.

No. Movie studios are just better organized and more efficient.

 

[Ulysses 31]

 

[Sleepwalker]

The EA LOTR of the ring games were glorious but those were the exception rather than the rule.

Also they still exist, and are still trash

 

[hemo memo]

 

[MiguelItUp]

I think mostly licensing cost killed them. They don't even need to be AAA budgets but the movie studios expect them to be. If Pistol Whip was called John Wick I think it would have worked well for example.

Movie tie-ins also have a weird negative effect with people expecting them to be shit. Last big one I remember is probably King Kong.

Yeah, I think you nailed it.

Awhile back Wes from Gun wanted to try to get rights to The Crow to make a game. He was transparent about the entire process, and it ended at him presenting his ideas with the owners. Apparently they liked the idea and were onboard, but the amount of money they were expecting was absolutely insane.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Best to me isn't a movie tie in, but a franchise tie in. Look at mad max game. It came out after fury road, but it want about fury road. It was it's own story. It was amazing because it used the lore and did it's own story with time to do it right. Same with batman and Spiderman games.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

I'm glad they are gone.

I remember these games starting from 8/16 bit era or even Atari 2600 and even after and 99,9% of the time they were TERRIBLE.

Bye TERRIBLE games.

 

[Games of Today]

Weirdly, mad max is a perfect example of a game that was initially planned to release as a tie-in bit was rebooted because of development issues and ended up releasing coincidentally around the same time. From the wikipedia:






Yeah, good points. Based on the wiki quote above, it seems Arkham's success gave the wb execs more confidence in making mad max its own thing, for example.
Ironically, for mad max, the game would've benefited massively from being connected to Fury road since the game has effectively been forgotten and probably needed more promotion, especially from 2015's biggest action movie.

But then on the flip side, I'm sure the middle earth games would've been worse if they were forced to tie-in to the hobiit movies or something, so yeah, I guess the execution is too much for most studios

It it actually connected to the movie regardless whether W.B. has stated it officially.

The game is based on the Fury Road tie in comic book so the game isn't technically an original story.

The woman and little girl that you rescue in the game also appear in the opening of Fury Road in Max's flashbacks.

 

[Dural]

They can still be done, but they have to have a smaller scope and be something like what was done for Scott Pilgrim or The Mummy.

 

[Jimmy_liv]

Ocean software killed them

 

[Danjin44]

 

[fermcr]

Yes, yes, obvious answer is in the title 'they died out because they sucked', but let's discuss the idea. Watching John wick 4, I would've loved to pick up some tie-in game that allowed you to play as the tracker, or just John himself through that paris night section

Used to be you would expect some b-grade game releasing the same day as a blockbuster movie with maybe some shared references or straight up extra story beats needed to understand the full story of either.



I got too lazy to add the other trailers but Harry potter, Star wars, The Matrix, Return of the king, King Kong, Spiderman 2, all had tie in games that were cool ideas, mostly shit execution.

My theory is:
- Those tie-in games weren't very good if we're being honest, and that might have been due to having a tightly fixed deadline to develop.

- It wouldn't be practical these days since good games take a while longer to develop than producing movies usually does

- AAA is already such a gamble gor investors, fixing an arbitrary deadline isn't wise if one wants maximum, or even just decent, returns.

And lastly, games aren't as small as they used to be. Even if most of the money is in mobile, I'd still say the average AAA game adaptation stands more strongly as a distinct media product than in the past



What do you think?

edit: just thought about how some would agree the blockbuster movie industry has also declined creatively, or has become less risk prone. Probably has something to do with it

Short answer... a movie takes 1-2 years to complete. A game takes 5-6 years.

It's basically impossible to make movie tie-in game nowadays, unless they delay the movie release a few years (until the game is ready).
Avatar 2 took 3-4 years to produce and the game still wasn't ready.