New 'Kong' monkeys with game industry

(continued from previous page)

Further, while Jackson was consumed with making "King Kong" the film, he made a point of staying involved in the production of the game about the ferocious but misunderstood primate.

"Of course, Peter Jackson was very busy with his movie," said Poix, "but he took a lot of time to help us with our game. We went to New Zealand (where Jackson's production company is) five times. We showed him what we had and we got his feedback."

Cooperation between teams can go much further than mere feedback from the director, though, and can give game producers big advantages over the process of creating games from scratch.

A significant head start
For example, the game developers benefit from being able to use assets--characters, environments, behaviors, creatures and the like--from the films. Further, while the idea is to make a game that goes well beyond the story of an associated film, having the basic elements of a film as a starting point represents a significant head start.

"When starting a video game, you of course have to have some idea of game play, but you also need to design a world," Poix said. "You need a universe. When getting a movie license world, you already have these."

By all accounts, the cooperation between the two productions paid off for Poix and his team. Most reviews of the "King Kong" game have been positive, and it was by far the best-seller at Microsoft's Xbox 360 November launch party in California's Mojave desert.

Yet according to Hall, creating high-quality movie-based games that launch in tandem with their associated film can be difficult.

"When a movie is officially green-lit and set into production, the amount of time (until release) is shorter than what it takes to create a AAA video game," Hall said. "So you get this chicken-and-egg thing where you don't want to develop a game unless you're sure you have a movie. People end up cramming the production of the video game and that creates a qualitative degradation."

That leaves video game production companies with unappealing choices, said Hall: Wait to launch until movies come out on DVD or accept the likelihood of turning out a flawed game.

But because the video game industry is now turning to next-generation consoles and higher game prices, Hall said he expects the two industries to find a way to make the process work.

"I don't know anybody who's going to pay $60 for a next-generation product that's not of good quality," he said. "The (game) industry is figuring out how to get ahead of a film so they can come out (the same time) as the film."

That's exactly what the producers of the "King Kong" game did, said Poix, who added that his team had been working on the game for more than six months before they ever saw a film script.

Of course, as a remake, "King Kong" gave the video game producers some obvious creative advantages.

"When we began the game, we had studied the 1933 movie," Poix said.

Meanwhile, Jackson's significant involvement in the creation of the "King Kong" game was surprisingly common for a director, said Hall.

He explained that the Wachowski brothers--makers of the Matrix films--went so far as to write story lines into Atari's "The Matrix: Path of Neo" that intentionally extended the larger Matrix story. That's something film and game audiences should expect more of.

"If you like a movie and you want more of that, video games are offering a real way to explore more of that fiction you liked so much," Hall said. "I think that's something to pay attention to, as we have growing audiences that span multiple mediums."

[jamie.p.walsh]

Tie-ins are key to the cross-marketing and also cross into DVD

Having an element within the game that leads the player to wonder, could entice them to see the movie or buy the DVD and vice-versa as well. The key is the dearth of writing and story depth that needs to happen in the first place. The problem becomes that, with a title like this, writers will typically want to stay true to the original story line, but from a production standpoint, producers will want them to take the story further, and that takes talent and money.

It becomes simply a riskier investment that has huge potential to pay off, but an even greater potential to fail.

[gerhard_schroeder]

Hollywood videogames are for losers

Obviously, this article is written by someone who is not a gamer and knows only what he is told by others about games.

And the sychophants driving his glowing depictions of "extended narrative" falls flat when faced with the stark realities of buggy, janky, movie games like The Matrix or Harry Potter or Shrek or Finding Nemo or King Kong ad infinium.

These games are unoriginal, feature button mashing, and poor graphics. Generic gameplay and a lack of originality. They smell like marketing devices and play like an assembly line.

Hey Turd-man... I'll stick with Final Fantasy, Tekken, Resident Evil, Warcraft, Armored Core, Metal Gear Solid, etc.

And your precious hollywood? It is THE GAMES that will be making MOVIES as fun little tie-ins. Hollywood is withering and dying... Game studios will be making the tie-in movies going forward. Not the other way around.

Game studios have credibility with fans. Capcom is more credible than Touchstone. Square Enix packs a more potent puch than Dreamworks.

Your world is dead.

[tubedogg]

Exception to this

King Kong is a relatively good game. Granted it may not be the next coming of Final Fantasy but given some of the crapfests that have come out as movie tie-ins (Enter the Matrix, anyone?), it is a good, if short, game. At least on Xbox 360 the graphics are amazing -- it's one of the best looking 360 games available.

[gerhard_schroeder]

BUG ALERT: King Kong game did not pass QA

Real journalists at the BBC dug into the King Kong game and found out ... surprise! its crap...

This Hollywood shill - Terd Man - is looking really crazy right now...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4525318.stm



TV glitch mars Xbox 360 Kong game
By Alfred Hermida
Technology editor, BBC News website

Gamers can play as explorer Jack Driscoll and as King Kong
Fans wanting to get the best out of the King Kong video game should avoid the version for Microsoft's new Xbox 360, the game's maker Ubisoft has suggested.

Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot admitted that the 360 game is too dark on standard TVs, making it hard to play.

"I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't see it when we were developing the game," he told the BBC News website.

[Charleston Charge]

If you like good QA

try Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing!

[gerhard_schroeder]

Ubisoft just admitted the game looks worse on XBOX 360

Honestly, what are you talking about?

High up officials at Ubisoft are now admitting that the XBOX 360 version looks much worse than PS2 or GameCube versions on standard TV. This is a huge problem, and something that only a Hollywood game would allow, because of the need to release on some artificial box-office date.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4525318.stm

[Charleston Charge]

All your base are belong to King Kong

All your base are belong to King Kong

[gerhard_schroeder]

King Kong sucks

King Kong suck it.. and so do Hollywood shills trying to drum up interest for a mediocre movie and a crappy video game on this marginal website.

[gerhard_schroeder]

Ubisoft movie crap games - Dukes of Hazzard

These people made the Dukes of Hazzard movie game (crap) and tried to censor the rebel flag from the paint job on the General Lee. Pathetic...

I wonder how long it will take them to neuter Kong?