Why are video game TV Shows and comics often more successful than video game movies?

[Hawki]

Well, that's why I call myself a conspiracy theorist. Still it's better than to assume that a sane person could look at Warcraft and think: "Yep, it's definitely bad BAD bad, The Room and Batman and Robin levels of bad". Even with the critics being the dumdums they are, that get neither fantasy nor video games.

I haven't seen anyone compare Warcraft to those films. I actually liked Batman and Robin as a kid, but no idea how I'd view it now.

But the whole "the critics just don't get it" argument. Right. Because critics have NEVER given positive reviews to fantasy movies. I mean, remember when Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Pan's Labyrinth, Star Wars, Narnia, Spiderwick Chronicles, and others got so many negative reviews? Yep. Fantasy just can't catch a break.

And 'getting games' is irrelevant to liking/reviewing movies based on them. If an adaptation can't stand on its own, then that's on the adaptation, not the audience for not doing the requisite homework.

Well, the data is against that. Multiple sites say it's firmly in the 7 to 8 zone.

Are these the same sites that were giving films like Batman v Superman 10/10 before it even released, and where Ghostbusters 2016 has most of its votes at 1/10, and the second highest group at 10/10?

Looks it up...

Yep.

Looking at sites like IMDB, RT, and Metacritic, Warcraft appears to be less egregious, but it's a noticeable divide, and considering that it's a property with a large pre-existing fanbase, it does make it suspect, when on average, as I've detailed on another thread, critic-audience divide usually falls within a reasonable 20% margin. So, either:

a) The critics "just don't get it."

b) Fanboys voted for the movie regardless of its quality.

c) It's a genuine divide with no ascribable reason

Personally I'm drifting mainly to b, with a bit of c.

 

[sXeth]

Most of the examples in the OP are cartoon gamees adapting to cartoons. Which is really kind of a no-brainer. And there was a wide market in the 90s for these cartoons as the medium bulged.


I can't really think of any game offhand that has adapated to a live-action TV show. Mortal Kombat was trying to push out a web-series at one point, but I think it never got there?

The games that would best adapt to movies... generally are derided as poor games. Shorter, generally linear, small cast affairs with cinematic setpieces. Limited mechanics to try and replicate in the movie. Even taking some games like Dishonored or Bioshock : Infinite, which aren't a terrible basis for a simple linear story, yet still are acclaimed, you suddenly run into trouble of getting Vigors or Corvo's outsider powers to incorporate into the plot. You have to try and budget for the steampunky sets, and so on.

Another point is that a lot of games take a certain amount of inspiration from movies to start with. Directly. In such a way that if you put that story on the screen, there'd be lots of tearing it up as derivative. A lot of videogame stories as things that are well-trodden in cinema, with classic examples to compare to. They work as videogames because the mechanics and interactivity supply additional content, but strip those back out and you've basically just got a cheap ripoff movie.

 

[Hawki]

Aaand I wouldn't put Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Star Wars and Narnia on that list if I were you. Spiderwick... *googles it* No, absolutely not. Pan's Labyrinth... not sure. But there is LOTR and there's GOT. So that's that.

What the heck are you on about? All those movies received mostly, if not near uniformally positive reviews.

You probably will not agree with this, but most of these movies do not satisfy my personal fantasy criteria. I wouldn't watch them for a fantasy fix.

Which is another, irrelevant matter. Your original claim was that fantasy films are never favorably received. You then claimed that only Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones were positively received. That's a claim that's demonstrably false based on those entries.

Who came up with that idea and why would anybody think it is a smart one?

People who understand that an adaptation has to stand on its own, that it has to be judged as its own product, and saying that "you have to read the book/comic/play the game to understand it" is just an excuse for the failings of the adaptation?

This too is a conspiracy theory.
It relies on a bunch of weird ideas, such as:
* people who really like it should be disregarded
* fanboys are never picky and review bombing isn't even a thing
* no people other than "fanboys" vote regardless of quality
* some votes should be dismissed based on value alone
I find them silly.
Now are the results skewed? They are. But not that skewed.
You can judge that based on a drop/raise in the viewer score over time. For Warcraft it was pretty insignificant and non universal.

A "conspiracy" is defined as willful action/plotting by a collection of individuals to do something harmful, so no, observing audience behaviour (as per the Ghostbusters/BvS examples) isn't a conspiracy, it's an observation that films that have a pre-existing audience can generate large divides between critics and said audiences.

Also, I never claimed any of those things. In fact, review bombing is a thing. That's part of the point. Metacritic is so notorious for review bombing that the term "metabombing" has popped up to describe it. It also works both ways.

 

[hermes]

You seem to confuse being successful with being good.

As others pointed out, there are a lot of examples of series being long lasting and successful while being mediocre, or having little to do with the games. In fact, to be long lasting, most series have to be mediocre, in order to hit that middle of the road that doesn't get people passionate but also alienates no one.

But regarding your question, I think it comes to budget. Comics and TV shows (specially animated) are relatively inexpensive, and a company can subside them at a lost simply because it counts as promotional material. I mean, comic numbers cost thousands of dollars to produce, and a run of several thousands is considered a good run. By contrast movies cost, at least, tens of millions of dollars, and most game studios can't really take a lost in those terms (remember Squaresoft and the Final Fantasy movie)

Also because of that, comic books and TV shows can try to experiment with weird content with little risk (like the latest Sonic show) for a few numbers, which in the end (if it works) helps them build a personality. By contrast, movies don't get that chance, so they tend to be the most average, by the books adaptation possible (unless you are Resident Evil, which I don't think at this points even cares to be an adaptation)

 

[Hawki]

Which is another, irrelevant matter. Your original claim was that fantasy films are never favorably received. You then claimed that only Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones were positively received. That's a claim that's demonstrably false based on those entries.

No, my claim is that most of those movies are not, in fact fantasy. They're fairy tales for the most part.
Fairy tales are for everyone. Fantasy is for nerrrdddssss.

A fairy tale is, by definition, fantasy.

The only argument that you can make is that Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones are high fantasy rather than low fantasy, but that's a genre that extends to The Hobbit, Star Wars, and arguably Narnia, to use the examples I listed. So, no. There's no evidence that low fantasy is favored over high fantasy in terms of critical acclaim. If anything, with the critical acclaim of the likes of LotR, GoT, and Star Wars, you'd have an easier time arguing that high fantasy is more favorably received.

Oh, and again of the listed medias, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Spiderwick, and Narnia, all have the most in common with fairy tales in terms of tropes. That's predominantly high fantasy.

 

[Rangaman]

Comic writers and cartoonists (I'm assuming those are the people you're referring to) can afford to take liberties when translating a interactive medium into a non-interactive one. Shows or comics that aren't doing well can also be canned at any time without a huge loss, due to the fact that they are cheaper.

Movies, on the other hand, are so expensive to make nowadays that if it's not a crowd-pleaser then they might as well not bother. Taking a six-hour interactive medium and making it into a two-hour non-interactive one is always a challenge.

 

[Zenja]

Pokemon's success, I would say, is its immediate branching out into multiple medias. Almost instantly after the game came out, they had a card game and a TV show. I bet there are many people who think it started as a TV show or as a card game as that was not only their first experience with the franchise but also the one that they most associate with the time it got popular. I thought it started as a card game myself until I looked into it.

Every other example is fromt he 90s and the reason those lasted is because that was the start of household videogames. Back then, video games were for kids and so are cartoons. And the people who are 30 now were 12 then and we liked watching mario, link, megaman, and pacman be animated. Sonic probably had the longest run, ironically enough, in the 90s. I can't think of any video game properties that do well now days on TV. But I also dont watch tv.

Comics are a whole other thing. A mega man comic could be awesome. It could also suck really bad. The writer determines that.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Considering the number of "video game tv shows which are popular" is so low as to be statistically insignificant, I'm not sure that tv shows do better than movies. Like, I've got a pair of Mortal Kombat show stuck in my head that were, frankly, shit.

Comics do better, yeah, but only when they take huge liberties with the source material.

Maybe if more video game movies were strictly aimed at kids they'd do better?