The Silver Screen Treatment - Why Fans and Producers Should Rethink Demand for Videogame Movies

Every once in a while (read: all the time) a peculiar demand pops up in various corners of what we call the ‘gaming community’—and that is the demand to turn some video game franchise into a movie. I keep wondering, why do people really want that? What is it that videogames have that makes them good—or rather desirable—movie material? And why is there even demand for some gaming franchises being turned into movies?

One franchise that repeatedly pops up in these demands is Grand Theft Auto. People seem to really want a Grand Theft Auto movie. Which is strange because the games—especially the ones since part III—have had very strong movie-like qualities, star studded casts for the cutscenes and elaborate, long winding stories in between the elaborate long winding open world gameplay.

On the one hand, I think GTA lends itself pretty badly to a possible movie treatment. Mostly because, for one the GTA stories themselves are strongly inspired by various gangster films, which would mean that any GTA movie would eventually become a copy of a copy. Watered down material of little if any artistic merit. Just look at the Resident Evil movies to see where this goes. And on the other hand, there’s the gameplay. GTA is about messing around in an open game world and doing whatever you want. That is an experience that can’t be translated to a noninteractive medium.

There’s also the fact that there are GTA movies out there already—they just don’t use the GTA brand. Take a good look at the two Crank flicks and tell me those don’t qualify as spiritual Grand Theft Auto movies. They don’t bear the brand name, but for all intents and purposes they are movies very much with the same attitude as the Grand Theft Auto games. And they are not the only ones. Personally, I would never want to see a GTA movie, because I am convinced they would not be as good as Crank, neither as a movie nor in bringing that anarchic GTA spirit to the silver screen.

People also want a Mass Effect movie, which again is a franchise based on broad genre tropes and a game based on player agency and freedom.

People also want a Mass Effect movie, which again is a franchise based on broad genre tropes and a game based on player agency and freedom. If I wanted to see a Mass Effect movie, I’d go for another Star Trek marathon. Or watch Babylon 5. There’s no need for a Mass Effect movie, as they already exist only with other brand names attached.

Which of course is not to say that the medium of videogames doesn’t have a number of franchises which might just lend themselves to a movie treatment pretty well. Halo—if done right —could actually work quite well (if the all-too obvious references to James Cameron’s Aliens were toned down) because the franchise takes a lot of its big ideas from hard(er) sci-fi novels, breaking those ideas down to a level that works for a broader audience. Bioshock also might work fairly well because both the game world and narrative are unique and not based on existing genre tropes from another medium.

And that’s the kind of movie based on a gaming franchise that I can understand a demand for. One that isn’t copying the copied genre tropes the videogame was based on. One that takes a gaming franchise that features some originality to it and runs with that instead of producing a really tired zombie flick with some fan service and a big name slapped on to it. Gamers often bemoan the lack of originality in their own medium, so the least we should do is not in the same instance demand a celebration of lacking originality in another.