If video games are movies now, do we still need the movies?

I don’t buy too many new video games, but when I was in the store recently and saw that the new Goldeneye007: Reloaded game was available, I couldn’t resist snapping up a copy, if only for the sake of how much I loved the original Goldeneye 007.

The first game came out in 1997, and even then, it may have been a warning sign about the future relationship of video games to movies.  The Goldeneye movie (starring Pierce Brosnan) was a moderate success, but very few of my friends actually watched the movie when it came out, and no one seems to have any fond memories of it now.  But every guy who was a teen/preteen in 1997 can remember playing the Goldeneye: 007 video game for hours on end.  Even now, the game’s “legendary” status is being used to promote the new game.  The cultural importance of the video game has overtaken that of its parent movie.

And so I was way psyched up to relive some of my old Goldeneye memories with this new, beefed-up version of the game.

The only problem is, the new game sucks.

Of the original game, one might say: “007stays fresh by never having you do the same thing twice. Players also have a bit of freedom as to what they want to do in any given situation, and what order the directives are completed in.”  There was a certain amount of open-endedness to the game’s missions, allowing for some individual creativity in completing them.

As for Goldeneye: Reloaded, it has better graphics, glitzier production values, and voice acting by the actual current stars of the Bond movies (Daniel Craig and Judi Dench).  It also has absolutely none of the freedom of the old game.  The game leads you through every step.  You always know where to go and what to do; there is no exploration or creativity necessary.  The progression is so linear, it’s a lot like watching a movie while pushing buttons.

Technology now allows video games to be more movie-like in other ways.  For old-school video games, plot was not much of an element.  The graphics and sound weren’t sufficient to include much story.  The old games were all about action.  Pac Man was way too busy eating those dots to deliver any memorable monologues.  Now that games have much more sophisticated animation, and the space to store almost unlimited voice-actor recordings, game plot is a much bigger factor.  To make their stories even more attractive to consumers, video games utilize the acting or voice-acting of superstars in order to bring attention to the game.  Stars with prominent video game roles include Mark Hamill, Patrick Stewart, Kiefer Sutherland, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Neil Patrick Harris, and all four Ghostbusters (Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson).

 [Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) reunited the original movie cast.]

The Goldeneye of the 1990s was a mediocre movie and a legendary game.  But now that video games basically are movies, the new game plays a lot like a mediocre movie.  Nevertheless, after I first put the disc in my Xbox, my disappointment didn’t prevent me from playing the game for 4 hours straight, long past when I’d planned to go to sleep.  Older video games used to offer logical stopping points.  If the game had a save feature, it might return you to a menu screen after each level.  If there was no save feature, you would probably either beat the game or receive a “game over” within a couple hours.  Modern video games zip you along from one task to the next, with no obvious break points.  There’s something strangely addictive about them, even when they aren’t any good.

During a recent trip to the gym, my personal trainer was commenting about the fact that he had some friends who were going out that night, but he’d rather stay home by himself and play the newly released Batman: Arkham City.  For a guy who I don’t consider to be a total loser, that’s really saying something.  This same guy once told me that he had to get rid of Red Dead Redemption to prevent it from taking over his life.

Here’s how this could be dangerous for the film industry: video games (1) are a lot like movies, (2) can take about 20 times longer to complete than the average movie, and (3) are dangerously addictive.  Movie theaters are losing business, and it’s hard not to think that these movie-like video games are one of the many culprits.  How can a 2-hour movie experience compete with a similar 40-hour movie experience with an addiction factor?

[Side note: This is Aeris's death in Final Fantasy VII, a prime example of how video gamers can feel a very emotional connection to the game characters they play as.  Can you match that emotional level without the interactive element?]

In my experience, I’ve found that people are rarely excited about watching movies, at least compared to my impressions of decades past.  Watching a movie just doesn’t seem special anymore.

But people still love going out to the movies.  And the “going out” half of that phrase may be more important than “the movies.”  Movie theaters still bear a social aura that video games may never have (despite somewhat social things like multiplayer modes or MMORPGs, but that’s a subject for another post).

People like to go to sleep knowing that they “went out” that night.  And that’s something the movies have which many competing media don’t have.  Are there ways to maximize this advantage?  More on that later...