Inanimate: Don't Mess With 'Toons
Over the years, major television and motion picture studios have developed ways to better capitalize on the popularity of their most profitable licenses. When videogames were introduced to the mainstream consumer market in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Disney was the first to exploit this relatively new form of entertainment for promotional means. In 1982, Tron became the first movie to have a videogame based on it. Since then, countless films have spun-off videogame incarnations. Fans of popular movies from Star Wars to James Bond quickly realized that they could soon be taking on the roles of their favorite action heroes! Unfortunately, this bright outlook rapidly disappeared with the release of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial later the same year. In what can only be described as the Implosion of Movies to Games, E.T. single-handedly created the crappy movie-based game genre.
E.T. has proven that a videogame cannot succeed on name popularity alone. Actual work must be put into these electronic pieces of art in order for gamers to appreciate them. Just because I draw a stick figure in my math book, it doesnt mean I am an artist by any stretch of the word. It may come as a shock to most people, but Atari spent $20 million on purchasing the E.T. license from Universal, but only took five weeks to create the game. I know you re all thinking to yourselves right now, Five weeks for $20 million, but regrettably, this is no joke. Perhaps the only thing more pathetic than E.T.s horrible failure is the fact that this practice continues to this very day.
Recently, my younger sister purchased THQs latest Sponge Bob Square Pants videogame for the Nintendo GameCube. Based on my past experiences with TV / movie based videogames (and THQ in particular), I strongly advised my sister against spending her $20. Unfortunately, she, being the independent well-informed 10-year-old that she is, went against my warnings and spent her money anyways. Needless to say, Sponge Bob sits incomplete and totally ignored at the back of the entertainment cabinet.
Not long after this, my sister became aware of a new Rocket Power videogame. She exclaimed, Oh cool! I want that, so bad! Its funny how history has away of repeating itself, no? Once again my recommendation went without consideration and another $25 was thrown away on a poor TV licensed videogame. Thankfully this time she had enough sense to take my advice and sell the game to Game Stop a week later and purchase Animal Crossing in its place. It should come as little surprise that Animal Crossing has been played almost non-stop for the past two months.
The question I would like to pose to gamers is, Why do TV / movie inspired videogames get such poor treatments? And more specifically, cartoon inspired videogames? Most will say that game companies simply dont care, and only see the brand recognition as a cheap way to milk a franchise and make a quick buck or two. This may in fact be very true, but I think this issue goes much deeper than greedy companies. From my own conversations with game designers from Retro Studios to Electronic Arts, I can safely say that most, if not all, feel great pride in their own work. So why would these designers jeopardize their professional credibility, which is necessary to stay competitive in this industry, at the expensive of making the company they work for a dirt profit? Well for starters, many artists and programmers have little to no say in the timetables given to them to complete their tasks. Second, many movie studios and television networks place pressure on development studios to complete a game hastily in order to make it to market at the same time as their video counterparts. Designers are always begging for more time to polish their titles just a little more. Could you imagine if Nintendo had to get the next Zelda game out in time for the release of The Legend of Zelda: The Motion Picture? Quality would drop off the face of the Earth. To rush a product out to market before it is ready in order to meet the market rush is simply inexcusable. That's like a baker taking a loaf of bread out before it's done in order to make sandwiches for the lunch crowd.
It is such a shame that artists, designers, and programmers are given such limited resources and time to complete titles based on a hit television show or blockbuster movie, because these games have so much potential just waiting to be tapped. Rare showed the world once and for all in 1997 that a truly great game could be born from a famous film license with the release of GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64. Konami showed everyone how to make entertaining arcade "Beatem Ups" in the late 80s and early 90s with the Ninja Turtles titles. We know it's possible to make a fantastic videogame with a lot of hard work and dedication, but what if companies are still unwilling to allow additional funds and expenditures to do so? Can a game still be made great? The short answer: Yes. If studios dont increase budgets and time, it is possible to create a great game; however, that game will come at the expense of losing one dimension. Yes, that means reverting back to the good old days of 2D.
In this day of age, when the third-dimension is peddled as the only true way to make a great game, many people tend to forget that a glorious art form preceded 3D for over 20-years known as 2D, or two-dimensional. Battlezone was the first 3-D game ever-created in 1980. These primitive games entertained an entire generation of children for hours on end anywhere from the arcade to home and even to their cars. The debate over Is 2D Dead? continues to rage across the Internet, with little end in sight thanks in part to the upcoming 3D handhelds the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, but most can agree that 2D can be a very effective way of producing quick cheap fun.
So how does all of this factor into TV and movie based videogames? Well, I say if companies dont want to spend the money on making games the correct way in 3D, then they should use those more-than-adequate funds to make a well-polished 2D title. If that is too extreme, then it is always possible to scale back on 3D titles by keeping them in the side-scrolling format. By simplifying the formula, designers can better realize their ideas and artists can make more detailed graphics to better represent the original content. Some people have pointed out that many 2D games currently released on the Game Boy are just as bad as their 3D big brothers, so how could 2D possibly be an answer to this problem? Well these people fail to miss one important point: budget and staff size. Typically, development studios will drastically reduce the funding for a handheld title, which again brings us to limited programmers and artists. Take Finding Nemo for the GameCube and Game Boy Advance for example. The console version sported a programming staff of 17 people and an art team of 10. Compare this to the Game Boys five programmers and five artists. These numbers seem very small for a 2D game, when you see that Yoshis Island: Mario World 2 for the SNES sported seven programmers and nine artists. By maintaining the size of the budget normally used to produce half-hearted 3D titles, studios should have a much better chance of creating a full-hearted 2D title.