Although video games are the second largest competitor with movies in the entertainment industry, behind only television, movie adaptations of video games haven't been received very well thus far. Why is that?

Disclaimer - We have painted video games with an overly large brush, and trust us that we have done so begrudgingly. However, because perception always takes time to catch up to reality when it comes to public opinion, and perhaps in this case critical and executive opinion as well, we felt it was necessary in order to make things more explicable.

It has been interesting to note how critics have commented on the source material for the recently released Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. As most of you know by now, if you didn’t know before the release, the film is based off of a video game of the same name. And like with most films that are adapted from video games critics have pointed out the various congruencies between the two productions, such as story structure and character construction. In the case of Prince of Persia, these two things along with the aesthetics of the movie’s action sequences have been said to resemble (some say closer than others) their corresponding elements in the source material, but the intriguing thing is that the comments written that illuminate these similarities usually paint them as being faults. Anymore if the reception of a movie can be compared to the manner that video games are received (though there are many inherent differences between the mediums) it is taken to be as a deficiency or imperfection. Why should it be considered an automatic negative that a movie resembles its source material if that source material is a video game? Before we get into any sort of discussion that might explain a possible discrimination against video games, let us first try to discover why it is that so many critics find the storytelling techniques of video games and movies to be so incompatible.

The first cross-medium adaptations that the movie industry created during its early years were sourced from literature. After the advents of continuity editing and sound, and rise in the standardization of feature filmmaking, the structure of narratives in films were very much reflective of the structure of narratives in literature (and by and large they continue to be). This led to the emergence of writings theorizing the purpose(s) of film as an artistic medium, with one avenue of that theoretical aspiration dealing with the supposed necessity of narratives. Within this school of thought a proposition was made that the manner with which films convey meaning through their aesthetics could in fact be a language in and of itself. Perhaps the most famous film critic/theorist who wrote about such a concept was Christian Metz, who – though he wasn’t the first to do it – used semiotics to try to explain just how it was possible that this notion could be true. Eventually what came about with the thinking that narratives were a natural fit for movies, and that movies themselves had a visual language all of their own, was that the pairing of the two was then just as natural and innate.

Because movies first borrowed the many narrative structures found in literature, it was of course these specific types of narratives that would readily be considered the most appropriate for the medium. Enter video games. The specific kind of video games under discussion must be made clear, for there are many different genres. The type that has recently been adapted to the screen most often is action/adventure (ex. Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Hitman, and almost Halo). There have been movie adaptations of other genres such as fighting games (which is a game genre that rarely incorporates any sort of tangible narrative) like Street Fighter and Mortal Combat, as well as their sequels, but predominantly it is the action/adventure game that has so far lent itself to be adapted on a more regular basis. The typical action/adventure game, by design, integrates the basic dramatic structure of a typical story, beginning with exposition and eventually moving on to the rising action, climax, and falling action. Being that most films work with this same basic organization it’s clear why the action/adventure game genre is adapted most often (Role-playing games (RPGs) are also built in this way, however they are the video game equivalent of the movie epic, lasting many hours and involving numerous tangential side-stories. Although they may be theoretically compatible, movie adaptations of RPGs would be extremely expensive; which doesn’t bode well for their chances – especially after the enormous failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within even though the movie had nothing to do with the games). There is, however, more to consider about this game genre than just its basic story structure.

Character construction – or more accurately, depth – is arguably where the two mediums have thus far shown the most disparity. And, it is the aspect which one might say critics inherently against video game adaptations have complained about most often. There is a plethora of video games out there that include characters that are fleshed out in a way that some might think is not possible on film (considering how a single-player campaign lasts 15 hours on average anymore), however there are still even more that don’t and unfortunately it has been these games which have been adapted the most. In such games, which can very well be extremely fun to play, true character development takes a back seat to the purpose of the game, which is to control, manipulate, and upgrade the main character(s) through battles and action-oriented obstacles in order to arrive at the end of a more-or-less linear path where a final “boss” awaits to be defeated. Because the primary focuses of the character (and thus you the player) are their actions and physical ability – as those are what is needed to progress through the game – character construction is a logical secondary concern because the point of any game is to be interactive, and the most interactive points in a game are where there is action. And so, when a movie adaptation is to be made of a game like this, the presumption of the filmmakers is that the fans of that particular game want to be subjected to the same style of entertainment. The makers of these films (Tomb Raider might be the best example) assume that the expectations that a player has for a game are the same ones that player (turned audience member) has for the movie of that game. This is where the debate really begins.

Because there is a split within the audience of a video game adaptation based on expectations, that adaptation is forced to appeal to two sides which anticipate differing products. With one side anticipating normal usage of the literary narrative form made intelligible via film’s unique aesthetic language and the other side anticipating a narrative conveyance similar to that of the video game the adaptation is based on, each side is expecting exclusivity but is not getting it. The reason for this is because one medium cannot satisfy the expectations and unique languages of two. Therefore, the resulting reception of a video game adaptation is forced to somehow split between these two different types of audiences, often restricting it from being able to achieve any kind of positive consensus. Many of you might ask how this type of audience differentiation might be irreconcilable for movies and video games but not for movies and literature, being that the latter combination is also a mix of two separate mediums. A film theorist might say that it is due to films and books naturally sharing the same narrative styles and forms, and so everyone in an audience of a film that is a literary adaptation – while withholding differing expectations about how the language of film will convey the story based on whether or not a person as read the source material – expects to be subjected to the same kind of narrative style.

Narrative structures found in video games – which are built to be conveyed through that medium’s own aesthetic languages – don’t translate as well to film because the aesthetic language of that medium is different. Not so different that no sense can be made, but incompatible due to the unlike functions of each medium. Likewise, if the pairing of narrative forms found in literature and the aesthetic language of film is to be considered “natural” then any alternate forms must be regarded as unsuitable. One must also keep in mind one very, very important thing: Movies have been considered by academics to be an art form for decades. Video games on the other hand, while branded as an extraordinary source of entertainment, do not yet carry such an esteemed label. This is an issue that will be highly contested in the upcoming years in this country, especially if the impressive production quality of games and their systems continues to go up. However, that is a topic for another time that we shall leave to experts of that medium to tackle.