Sequelitis and franchise fever are common complaints to be heard about the current state of the entertainment industry, but it could be something harnessed for quality and innovation.
In both movies and video games, name franchises and ever increasing numbers are the safety net for the big publishers to recoup the cost of their films and for them as entities to remain viable. Now that the Harry Potter films have wrapped up Warner Brothers is desperately looking for their next big franchise to keep them in the black for example. A blockbuster movie not only has to be profitable for itself, but often these tentpole films have to recoup the money lost on all the movies that didn’t make money that year: mostly critically acclaimed movies expected to be a financial loss and middle level movies expected to make a little bit of money, but didn’t. The game industry is the same way. Activision, EA, Ubisoft and others do not make a lot of money on all their products.
However, an interesting phenomenon has cropped up with regards to blockbusters. Because the big movies need to earn a lot of money, they need to have broad appeal. To do this it is common knowledge in the film industry that you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator by dumbing down your film to the public’s level.
Mark Kermode wrote a rebuttal to it in his latest book, an excerpt of which was published on the Guardian last August. The short of it is that the general intelligence or stupidity of a blockbuster has no relevance whatsoever on it making money or not. A blockbuster, a true blockbuster movie, will make money no matter what you put in it, as he calls it “the safest bet in Hollywood right now.” Inception was a movie everyone thought was going to fail because it was too smart and would scare audiences away. In reality, the public doesn’t care and came to the movie because the movie became an event. People had to see Inception to find out what Leonardo DiCaprio was doing against collapsing buildings, zero gravity fighting and a James Bond like firefight on a snowy mountain. Also, because everyone else was going to find out the same thing. On the opposite end of the spectrum people will go see a movie in droves no matter how bad it is or how bad the previous entry was (see Transformers) for precisely the same type of reason. Kermode suggests since smart movies wont scare away the audiences, could studios please stop purposefully dumbing their movies down to insulting levels.
I see a similar sort of opportunity in video games. This isn’t true for every AAA game, just like this isn’t true for every highly advertised movie. But for our blockbusters, for the biggest of the big franchises I believe it is applicable. Would droves of players not go out and buy the next Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Elder Scrolls, Uncharted or Assassin’s Creed games if they decided to take risks, be innovative or push the boundaries of what games are capable of? No. So long as these games remain the type of game these names imply, the content within will not matter to their sales. I think everyone can agree this is a safe bet. Each of these games is going to be mutli-million copy sellers regardless of the actual content within the game.
In a way we have already seen this in the Call of Duty franchise. Modern Warfare was a highly innovative game and broke new ground in both its single player and multiplayer campaign. And say what you will about Modern Warfare 2 as a whole, I give them props for trying something with the No Russian level. These were highly successful games, the latter especially.
Right now there are rumors about Grand Theft Auto V possibly having multiple player characters, heists that you plan beforehand instead of having a developer set path, and one of those characters could be a woman. Honestly I hope all three of those are true. Why? Because Grand Theft Auto has done the crime satire thing, they’ve done gritty American tale thing, they’ve done linear mission structure. It’s time to switch it up and bring us something new. If Rockstar did any of those things, would anyone really not go out and buy it? Of course not, it’s Grand Theft Auto.
So, think on it developers, publishers. If you have on hand a game that is going to sell like gangbusters try something new. The vocal minority may bitch and moan, but they will still buy it. We will buy your Call of Dutys, your GTAs, your Skyrims. These games will sell no matter what. So, why not do yourselves and us, your audience, a favor and try something new. I know you won’t be able to go as far as indie titles, but quite frankly, adding tower defense on top of everything else in Assassin’s Creed isn’t going to cut it.
