Video Games and Movies – A Tough Mix
Games and films have not had it easy. Having worked on 2 games based on films, I know the difficulties in adapting them. Going the other way has not really worked well either; Silent Hill as a film was ok and the Resident Evil films are fun, but mainly because of a action-kitch vibe that being great films. However there is a space where they can and will mix – we’ve just not found it yet. So it is with great interest that I note:
Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell publisher Ubisoft has created a new film and television division in France, although it has not yet revealed its first project.
According to Variety, the division is based in Paris and will be headed by Jean-Julien Baronnet, former CEO of Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp. Gainsbourg co-producer Didier Lupfer is head of production and development, and former Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures France distribution chief Jean de Rivieres is head of marketing and international sales.
Now this has a better chance of success IMHO – in part because it seems that they are borrowing from Marvel’s model of allowing the medium’s creatives (in their case, comic writers & artists) a key say in how the project evolves:
Marvel also benefited more from movie franchises as “Spider-Man” and “X-Men” became blockbusters and brought new attention to its characters. The company reached a turning point during the making of the 2008 film “Iron Man,” which was produced by its own Marvel Studios in and that starred Robert Downey Jr. as the armor-clad hero. Still, during the development of “Iron Man,” Marvel invited some of its editors and writers to consult with its director, Jon Favreau. When “Iron Man” went on to sell $585 million in tickets worldwide, its success seemed to validate the suggestions from its publishing talent.
Though time will tell…
How News Works in the Social Media Era…
This is a really interesting look at the stages that news goes though in the modern, networked media age. This must be because as the volume of people who know about a story – even before official announcements grows, and as they all have the capacity to tweet, like, share, blog about it – so the nature of a major news release changes…
From the time of the reported first tweet on the topic, coming from @KeithUrbahn who lists himself as “Chief of Staff, Office of Donald Rumsfeld, Navy Reserve intel officer, and owner of two miniature dachshunds. Opinions are my own,” which was posted around 10:25 p.m. EDT, Twittersphere and Facebook denizens followed a compressed news cycle as folks waited for confirmation from someone, anyone.
Excitement. These tweets quickly followed expressing a tone of excitement and the thrill of being first to report potentially huge news.
Uncertainty. Almost as fast as the news hit, the doubters came out questioning whether the news was legitimate or not. Some were waiting for the news venue of their choice to weigh in, while others were waiting for the coming statement from the president.
Searching for Validation. Torn between wanting the news to be true and the fear of being wrong, folks turned either reverential in their love of Al-Jazeera or the New York Times or whoever was already reporting details or scornful of those who might have been more cautious.
Confirmation. The White House confirmed, and now the search for meaning, data and tasteless jokes will begin in earnest.
Jokes, Profits and Platitudes. Once confirmed, theplatitudes, jokes and attempts to profit either via owning a domain, a twitter identity (say hello to @ghostosama) or the umpteenth joke about the birthers now asking for a long form death certificate are free to escalate. Meanwhile Google updates its Maps to show the location where bin Laden was killed.
Action. This is where Facebook and social media really shine. From tweets about people seeking more information from friends to those seeking to find out if others are meeting at Ground Zero by checking out a live web cam of the site, people now can learn about news and do something.
Real Analysis. Not on Twitter, unless it’s via a link to a blog or a newspaper. What insight on geopolitics can one really offer in 140 characters?
It’s Mayday! Time to Relax…
So its the day for us workers of the world to take five and chill out. So what better way to relax than with a film… But what to choose? How about one of these 25 films that you did not think were good, but are…
The only one in the list I’ve seen is Dog Soldiers, which was fun. It also recommends Defendor – which others have told me to check out. After Portal 2, I might…
(Oh, and it has one film there by Uwe Boll!!)
Gamezebo Op-Ed: The Decline of Consoles
I have an opinion editorial on the gamesite Gamezebo – check it out!
It is a busy time for new consoles. This spring saw the launch of Nintendo’s new games console, the 3DS. Nintendo has just announced that a successor to the Wii is due soon, too. We’ve also had the news recently of Sony’s PSP follow-up, currently codenamed NGP, or Next Generation Portable. …
But the world the 3DS was born into is not the world that the DS knew. This is the post-iPhone world, and all the rules of the game have changed. The question is not so much who will win between the 3DS and the NGP, but can either of them stay relevant in a world dominated by the mobile phone? I’m not sure they can.
Reflections on Portal 2
I’ve been playing Portal 2 and my first impression is ‘wow’. (I’m playing on PS3) Its a great puzzle game based around a really simple premise and it works, fantastically. Most of the really great games are based around a simple gameplay premise and then just vary the players interaction with that premise by degrees. If you’ve not played Portal (1 or 2) the idea is that you are in a room and have to open a door to exit. However either/or getting to the door is hard or opening it requires tasks to be completed. To aid you, you have a portal gun, which allows you to place two wormhole ends in different places on the level that either/or means you can then jump between them or pass objects though them. Here’s how it looks:
So the game has the basic gameplay mechanic all sewn up. So what else makes this a great game? When not only is it a great mechanic, but its perfectly implemented. So the graphics are great, the setting is interesting, the narrative is fun – and when you hit all of these targets – it means game gold.
Then there are the final elements that ice the cake. First is the humour in the game. It’s a lot of fun to play, and this is enhanced by the klutzy mini-robot voiced by Stephen Merchant and the sadistic yet bureaucratic controlling AI who runs the levels. Then there is the game in 2-player co-op which is more levels that are ace fun. (On PS3 you can play split-screen or online, so I’ve added the game to my list of amazing co-op games for PS3.)
Postal 2 – Instabuy!
9/10 Review for Filth Fair
Which is very cool, and from the very cool Nine Over Ten blog…
I don’t know whether the game set out to be thought provoking (given its patron and artwork), but Filth Fair is an amazing and beautiful piece of art melded with tough trivia gameplay. Nine Over Ten 9/10 is proud to present it with a 4.5 out of 5 rating. Do check it out now, and it’s FREE of charge on the iTunes App Store. You can find it over here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/filth-fair/id417576702?mt=8
Cthulhu Thursday: Eldritch Lego
Lego, that most timeless of toys. I had loads of space lego and used it to make all the toys I wanted but did not have; so I made lego tanks, GI Joe, Zoids – I enven tried lego Transformers but that failed. However better lego-creators that I have mashed up the Mythos with Lego and made some amazing stuff. Enjoy!
Let us start with a Lego Cthulhu himself!
LEGO Cthulhu
We are not done yet. There is this amazing house being attacked by tentacles– in Lego!!!
Lego House vs Lego Tentacles
Plus don’t forget the appearance of another Lego artist before on the digital pages of my blog…
Child of Shudde Mell
Comics are Character and Story Laboratories
I was interested to read a story, originally from the New York Times, about how Marvel Comics are adapting what they do to the modern age. Traditionaly they were a printed-paper comic company. However the sales of comics (as with newspapers) have been in decline for some time now. So Marvel has looked to lever its huge roster of characters into other media – games and films being the notable ones here. Not only that but it has been seeking more control of the films it makes – which has yielded results:
But these opportunities arrive as the comics industry is still struggling to adapt to the 21st century, and Marvel’s core business faces some of the toughest challenges in its history. While its movie business thrives, its print business is contracting, and those responsible for creating its comics are more cognizant than ever of their place within a larger corporate structure.
“If comics is sick, it’s not a broken arm, it’s diabetes,” said Tom Spurgeon, a journalist who covers the industry for the Web site The Comics Reporter. “There’s no easy solution.”
…
Marvel also benefited more from movie franchises as “Spider-Man” and “X-Men” became blockbusters and brought new attention to its characters. The company reached a turning point during the making of the 2008 film “Iron Man,” which was produced by its own Marvel Studios in and that starred Robert Downey Jr. as the armor-clad hero. Still, during the development of “Iron Man,” Marvel invited some of its editors and writers to consult with its director, Jon Favreau. When “Iron Man” went on to sell $585 million in tickets worldwide, its success seemed to validate the suggestions from its publishing talent.
The films that come from comics are, at their best, iterative. By this I mean the writers can plunder the huge archives of stories looking for the best stuff and adapt this as a film. This means the stories have already been tested out on an audience. So the writer can draw on material that s/he knows works. For example (acknowledged or not) the film of Batman Begins is influenced by Batman: Year One by Frank Miller. In this sense the history of a comic is a rich treasure trove of material for bigger, more expensive productions. So if you are going to experiment with ideas and characters, do it in comic form where its cheap. Then take the best bits of there and make games and films from them…
Though Marvel’s publishing side does not directly control the content of Marvel films, Kevin Feige, the president of production at Marvel Studios, said the storytelling in the comics had a strong influence on the movies “because it’s a hell of a lot less expensive to take a chance in a comic than it is to take a chance in a movie.”
I remember putting a plan to one of the directors of Hothouse to start a digital comics division (back in 1999?) so the costs would be even cheaper. My idea was down-time in the art dept. could be used to make online comics and to experiment with new characters. We could then use the popular ones to put into games. Sadly they never went for it.
When you see comics as a character/story research lab, it means it may be a part of the business that looses money on its own (though it seems not for Marvel) yet the things it develops, as much as new graphics technology or hardware – are ideas that may make lots of money back in the long term.
from Batman: Year One
More recognition for Ada Lovelace, The First Coder
This is great. More recognition for Ada Lovelace, the woman who invented programming. Its’ from an interesting interview between John Naughton (who writes an ace column on technology) and James Gleick (who wrote the ace book ‘Chaos‘):
JN: I found your account of the life and achievements of Ada Lovelace very moving. She has a pretty good claim to be recognised as the first computer programmer, and yet her story is a classic case-study in how brilliant women can be airbrushed from history, much as Rosalind Franklin was in the double helix story. It was good to see her being given her due.
JG: I think of all the people who come and go in my book, she is my favourite. Worse than being airbrushed from history, she was never written in. She had a brief flash of celebrity as Byron’s daughter, but no one, with the lone exception of Charles Babbage, had a chance to glimpse her formidable mathematical powers. We can see it now in retrospect. She could never publish under her name; never belong to a professional society; never even attend university. Yet, working with Babbage as an anonymous younger sidekick, she surpassed his vision of what his proposed computing machines could do and could be. “First programmer” is apt. She was a genius.
Monday Gamification: Random Scores
I’m a fan of Oliver Burkeman (who writes a column in the Guardian about psychology). So I was very pleased to see this psychophysical method for getting things done using Gamification:
Rightly or wrongly, the unique power of “intermittent variable rewards” makes them perfect for manipulating others: what is dog training, after all, except manipulating dogs? (Even dogless parents and spouses might find Pryor’s book worth reading, given how transferable her techniques seem to be.) It’s also surely why certain drama-loving people, prone to unpredictably conferring or withholding affection, seem to “addict” their partners, whether or not the manipulation’s conscious. But it raises a sunnier prospect, too: might you be able to use random rewards to addict yourself to more positive behaviours?
Which brings me to Habit Judo, a crafty self-improvement scheme devised by a Michigan law student named Allen Reece, who was finding it hard to get new habits to stick. “That’s the problem Habit Judo solves,” he told me. “It provides enough additional incentive to get you over the motivation gap until the new habit becomes ingrained.” His systeminvolves rewarding yourself with a computer-generated random score between one and 10 every time you perform a desired behaviour. Your score gradually accumulates, and at certain thresholds you “qualify” for a real reward, such as a favourite food or “move up a level”: Reece marks the levels by wearing wristbands in the colours of judo belts, hence the name. (In technology circles, the term for such ideas is “gamification”, because videogames often deploy similar reward mechanisms – but then, so did Skinner, years before videogames.)
A Great Becoming... 