So my first Ramble: I am a fan as we know, of games and film.
Success... how do we measure the success of a game or film?
What makes a hit? Well, how much it sells? that's probably
a massive proportion of the puzzle. Another might be
whether it receives critical acclaim from reviewers and
another measurable might be how long it echo's in popular
culture. Arnie's quotes from Terminator 2 are still
floating around, though I would say they are definitley
on the downward slide (not a bad effort though, "I'll
be back or asta la vista, baby has been well and truly
done to death for the last 15 yrs)So at it's core it's the
idea... right? because a great movie grabs the viewer and
inspires them. They want more of that world or universe or
want to see more about a character... is this the same for
games? do games have the same traction with their audiences?
I think they do.
If so, does that mean that a great idea is fully translatable
between mediums? and if so, doesn't it then make it more
important to have a great idea for a world or a universe or a
situation rather than just a specific type of game and platform?
Sure you might still want to delineate your target audience
but at the heart of your product, be it a game or film or whatever
you have to have an idea that's compelling (there's a vast amount
of scope in that statement)compelling can mean just about anything
lol So that's my opinion, Great idea's create great IP which in turn
can beanything!film, comics, games, board games etc.
What do you think?
After speaking to you about this other week I’ve been trying to track down the lecture video I mentioned. Unfortunately I cannot remember who the speaker was or where it took place.
ReplyDeleteHe made very similar points to you: that strong IPs are translatable between mediums, and indeed genres. His primary example was Star Wars, which not only has stood the test of time but has been translated into everything from books, games, cartoons and even manga. And it’s been able to do this because it has such a rich and compelling universe that is not tied down to any particular medium.
You could say that there are also games who’s universes are not tied to the fact they are games, and I would agree - though I'd argue there aren’t many as few have the depth to expand into other mediums or genres without extensive development of additional lore.
I think it’s telling that the Star Wars franchise now has TV series dedicated as much to the clones - the most one dimensional characters in the original films - as it is to the actual main starwars heroes (though I would also argue that when you literally have personality-less clones that are more interesting than your lead characters, you’ve got some serious problems).
I’ll keep looking for the lecture online, and post a link if I find it.
No sooner do I post this than I find the lecture: http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/12/06/gdc-prime-2007-what-we-are-missing/
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately these are the slides only and don't really get the point across. I used to have a video (or maybe it was just the audio), but I can no longer find it.