Gaming: convergence is inevitable

From Pong to Assassins Creed II, games have evolved into a business and art form that is starting to merge with the traditional screen media. Miguel Gonzalez found filmmakers should start playing if they want to win.

“Computer Game: Approx $80, almost guaranteed entertainment, at least 30 hours fun. 2 Hollywood blockbuster dates: approx $80 (plus the rest), 5 hours of ‘fun’. Computer game wins every time.”

 

This post by ‘Plife30’ on the Sydney Morning Herald website on November 19, 2009 is hardly surprising, considering the size and growth projections for the video game industry, both in Australia and overseas.

 

Games are a very serious business. Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 made $591.21 million worldwide during its first five days, selling an estimated 9 million copies. That’s more than half of what the biggest Hollywood blockbusters made during their entire theatrical run this year (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, $1.02 billion; Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, $968.3 million; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, $918.1 million).

 

According to the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association, Australia’s game industry was worth $1.96 billion in the 2008 calendar year, a 112 percent grow from its size in 2006. Research also indicates that 68 percent of all Australians play video games, and their ubiquity makes them available at home computers, consoles and mobiles.

 

The figures are impressive, but traditional screen practitioners should not fear the gaming sector. If anything, they should embrace it, as the two areas are merging in new, exciting ways that provide ample opportunities. This new age of convergence goes beyond those cinematic game trailers shown before during movie previews, the animated sequences in the games themselves, or the countless game-to-film adaptations (from Tomb Raider to the successful Resident Evil series) and tie-in games to exploit a film’s popularity. From transferable skills to cross-platform projects and visual integration, the convergence is only beginning.

 

A LEGITIMATE MEDIUM

For many years, video games were looked down at as children’s entertainment. But as audiences matured and continued playing, and technology and design evolved into more sophisticated forms, this decade has seen a boom in academic research in the area, and well-deserved recognition of their creative and artistic values.

 

RMIT has a gaming program that brings the media and computer science schools together to teach games graphics design/programming and digital arts. Helen Stuckey is a lecturer in history, culture and theory of video games, and she believes that games are the art form of the 21st, reflecting its technologies and participatory culture, and speaking directly to the new active audiences.

 

“Different disciplines – cinema studies, psychology, economics, etc. – are studying games and their impact, and starting to appreciate their cultural significance.

 

“Games are crafted objects, representational systems, and there are so many levels to their artistry: technical development and audiovisual concept, ludic qualities, design of the game plan and how ingenious that is, and all the things that they require from audiences,” explained Stuckey.

 

One of the interesting considerations about the film/game convergence for filmmakers, says Stuckey, is that players are more used to dealing with open-ended narratives that demand them to construct their own narrative structures, opening the door for fully integrated cross-platform development.

 

“These are profound game/film relationships where people are really thinking about extending the narrative world across different media and breaking the traditional sense of the film containing everything in it. They’re offering more depth to the experience and the audience becomes a part of the storytelling process, filling in the gaps,” said Stuckey.

 

Screen Australia’s development manager for innovation, Mike Cowap, believes the opportunities extend beyond drama to factual filmmaking, with projects such as Darfur is Dying or Harpooned, which can get the same message across, but in the form of an educative ‘serious’ game instead of a documentary. Dubbed ‘The Guggenheim of Gaming’ by The Age, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image was one of the first venues in the world to dedicate permanent gallery space to games. Their 2008 Game On exhibition was a huge success, and gaming – past and present – plays an important part in their new permanent exhibition Screen Worlds.

 

Head of exhibitions Conrad Bodman says it simply became difficult to ignore games from any perspective. One of the problems he found when he was first doing research for Game On was the little academic discourse available on the field, which made it difficult to work out who the leading creatives were.

 

“Those people were never credited, but that is changing. It’s becoming like filmmaking, with famous directors, and a larger size and scale in the productions,” said Bodman. “Many filmmakers are looking at games as reference for their work, and there are opportunities to collaborate and to learn from games and their economic model, which is increasingly about online distribution and sales, which is perhaps the way to go.”

 

EXTENDED UNIVERSES

Patrice Desilets is the creative director of Ubisoft’s latest hit, Assassin’s Creed II, about a young noble in Renaissance Italy, who seeks revenge after his family is betrayed. Its predecessor sold almost 300,000 copies in Australia.

 

To launch this title, Ubisoft also released three short films entitled Assassin’s Creed II: Lineage, which serve as prequels to the game’s storyline. In a press release, Ubisoft CEO Yannis Mallat said the company was committed to making the shorts as visually stunning as the games by using state-of-the –art

Hollywood production tools, processes and technology. Perhaps that is why the company acquired Canadian VFX house Hybride Technologies (300, Sin City); Ubisoft now has the resources to operate comfortably in both worlds, and even held the “Video Games and Hollywood converge” panel at the 2009 Comic Con.

 

Hybride developed the live action shorts using the same actors that provided the motion capture for the game, inserting them in virtual backgrounds, sometimes utilising assets developed for the game itself – thus reducing production costs. At the same time, the shorts influenced the game’s visuals and animation.

 

“What we’ve created is a universe, and we can tell all of its stories through different media,” Basilets told Encore. “The main medium is the video game, but sometimes we could use movies to tell part of the story, or perhaps a novel, comic book or TV show.

 

“It’s not something we do on the side for marketing reasons. Young people are now playing more than they watch movies or TV but still, gamers are not just gamers; they’re also moviegoers and readers,” said Basilets.

 

According to him, while some may still dismiss his medium thinking ‘it’s only a game’, it has certain advantages over traditional media.

 

“Games provide emotion; they tell stories, and we offer something else than movies can’t: participation. “A movie is a monologue, there’s an artist saying ‘this is my work and there’s nothing you can do about it’. With a game, I’m giving you tools to co-create the experience with my ideas, and that is much more powerful.”

With a film studies degree from the University of Montreal, Basilets believes that while his professional medium has always been gaming, there are skills learned through his film education that have been transferred to the gaming world, such as shot composition and the importance of a good script with an interesting character arc, whether with a linear or modular narrative.

 

“I’m also not afraid of cuts, because sometimes games developers like long shots. I don’t mind cutting from one angle to another when you’re playing.”

 

While the film industry has traditionally been dominated by Hollywood, the gaming arena is a more ‘democratic’ space in which anyone is capable of producing a big hit. According to Desilets, it all comes down to controlling the channels, and the trend seems to indicate a democratisation of production and distribution, empowering independent developers and giving them access to the marketplace.

 

“If you control production, and DVD, you’re in charge. But here, there’s Microsoft and Sony, but you also have the PC, and mobile phones, etc.”

 

FLYING WITH BORROWED WINGS

Utilising video games to generate a film is not a new concept, with popular titles such as Red Vs. Blue, which used footage from Halo as the basis for an original series. It’s an example of machinima, a technique defined as “animated filmmaking within real-time virtual 3D environment” by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. In other words, it employs footage generated through a video game console, controlling the characters to ‘act’ out scenes in real time and then synchronising it with new dialogue and audio effects.

 

Australia is redefining the concept, and the new series Mordy Koots is, according to its creators, the world’s first MOGIE (Movie Over Game Integrated Entertaiment). Director Clayton Jacobson has integrated actors – including his brother Shane as the title character – with footage Blazing Angels and Heroes Over Europe to create a 10×3’ online series about a World War II pilot. “I call it epic entertainment for the small screen; it’s made with the internet in mind, but I’m taking the internet seriously in terms of a place for content,” says director Clayton Jacobson.

 

Mordy Koots was born out of his frustration working with VFX on high-end TVCs, where any changes meant long delays. One night he went home to find his son playing an Xbox driving game, and the ease with which he was able to navigate through a 3D environment caught Jacobson’s attention.

 

“I thought ‘if I could just put actors in that world, my life would be easier,’ he recalled.

 

Realising there really was no reason why he couldn’t actually do it, he performed a quick test, shooting his son in the kitchen.

 

“Within 15 minutes, I had generated a test piece that felt like you were watching a heist movie with my son at the wheel. I knew I had something; I had a wonderful sort of revelation, that I could walk into any gaming store and the shelves would be filled with potential locations!”

 

The flight combat game Blazing Angels was part of his son’s collection, and Jacobson felt was a good fit for his idea: shooting an actor in a mock cockpit and have him fly through the sky using footage from the game – although the production would eventually have to create certain backgrounds for the hangars and other spaces which were not part of the game itself. Jacobson called his brother and started developing the project.

 

Producer Jim Shomos then contacted the game’s publisher, Ubisoft, to get their approval. Games make their money primarily in the six months after release, so Shomos showed Ubisoft how they could have a whole new revenue stream, by opening the eyes of production companies and ad agencies to stop seeing their products merely as games, and to think of them as ‘virtual studios’ they could license.

 

They accepted, and the project went from being a novelty idea to a legitimate production that had to find its funding. Shomos originally conceived it as a branded series, but with the financial crisis, partners were hard to come by. Seeing the potential, Screen Australia came to the rescue and fully funded the $250,000 project.

 

“Imagine walking into a funding agency with an idea set in WWII, and you’re going to blow up lots of planes. Immediately it’s millions of dollars, but this way, you’d be able to get an off the shelf game and utilise the graphics.

 

“We’ve had a lot of experienced filmmakers asking us how much it cost, thinking it was hundreds of thousands, and they’re blown away when we tell them how much it really was.”

 

According to Jacobson, MOGIEs will allow him to tell more stories per year than most people get to do.

 

“MOGIEs condense the gestation period of a project, and allow me to be less precious and have a bit more fun as a storyteller, and hopefully cover more ground than I would by just making features.

 

“I’m still going to do those features, and everything I do with MOGIEs across different genres will inform what I do with features. One hand feeds the other.”

 

Jacobson admits that gaming is a bigger business than filmmaking, and believes it’s natural for both to come together. “They borrow from each other so much. The two are, of their own accord, starting to merge.”

 

Directors Guillermo del Toro and George Miller saw the trailer and, Jacobson says, saw the entertainment value of the concept.

 

“I’m excited to see what other people can do with this, and surprised there hasn’t been a lot more of it professionally, because it gives you the ability to realize stories effectively without all the bells and whistles that come along with traditional filmmaking.

 

“Looking at a game and ask yourself, what characters could you place in this world? Each game comes with its own set of inspirations and boundaries, which are good for creativity, and there are many games that would make wonderful MOGIEs.”

 

According to Shomos, ninemsn.com offered the biggest promotional commitment and the fairest revenue share deal, so that’s where the series debuted on December 2. Ubisoft will also help promote it to their 65,000 subscribers, and at press time, an iPhone app was still in development.

 

REDEFINING CONSOLES

Long gone are the days when video game consoles were just that. Their modern day incarnations are becoming entertainment hubs that allow people to store, manage and consume all their media needs in one device.

 

Microsoft launched its Movies on Demand service in November, with more than 100 titles, allowing Xbox 360 owners to ‘rent’ standard and HD films.

 

Its rival Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced two initiatives that have turned their PlayStation 3 – already the most widespread Blu-ray player in Australia – into a very attractive package in the marketplace.

 

The first is the Freeview-endorsed accessory PlayTV, which turns PS3 into a HD personal video recording device – with a remote play function offering connectivity with the latest version of their mobile console PSP and the Sony Ericsson AINO mobile phone.

 

The second is a deal with the ABC, to offer the public broadcaster’s iView ‘catch up’ service through the console, optimised for viewing on a TV screen. During the week of launch in late November, PS3 delivered 28 percent of the traffic to the iView site; visits increased from 263,000 the previous week, to 318,000.

 

These services, the first on the TV icon of the console’s Xross Media Bar, complement PS3’s other capabilities, such as the PlayStation network, VidZone music video streaming, photo and video storage and display, and web surfing. They will be joined by a movie download service to be launched this year.

 

With such available options, game consoles are now effectively a content delivery option that producers should consider as another option to reach an audience.

 

“Content acquisition with the major studios is done on a global basis, but we deal with Australian distributors for local content,” said SCE MD Michael Ephraim. “We are very open – especially in a market like this – to talking to anybody who’s got local content that is compelling to our consumers. I’m more than glad to talk to them. It’s up to the imaginations of content providers and technology developers to think of applications that would fit on the PS3 in terms of consumer appeal.”

 

In terms of television content, Sony launched the ‘catch up’ TV offering with the ABC because “their objectives were a good match” as the broadcaster, due to its public nature, wanted to deliver their content to as many Australians as possible without the need of a commercial model, and Sony wanted a “great content provider who already had a great brand”. Their relationship will allow both parties to learn about their audience’s consumption habits.

 

But iView is just the beginning, as Sony is already in discussions with other broadcasters for similar partnerships.

 

“We would be very appealing to content providers because we already have 690,000 PS3s in homes. That is a large installed base, where other catch up TV offerings would have to start from scratch.

 

“Broadcasters realise there’s a game-changing shift in how content will be delivered into homes. Broadcasting will be around, but Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and broadband-delivered content is definitely the future.

The commercial networks realise that it’s happening at a very rapid rate, and everybody is developing strategies to ensure their businesses’ survival when IPTV becomes the norm.”

 

LOCAL LEADERSHIP

With the exception of key figures like Super Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto, game developers have been largely anonymous heroes. In the Australian scene, one company has stood out, Melbourne’s Krome Studios. It has become our largest game developer, working with both licensed and original properties – their original character Ty, the Tasmanian Tiger, has been selected by ACMI as an Australian screen icon and is an international bestseller.

 

“Ty is going to come to other media in the future. We need another great success story for Australia, someone to carry on that iconic ‘G’day mate’,” said co-founder and CEO Robert Walsh. “We set out to make him an iconic character, and the recognition shows we have achieved just that.”

 

Screen convergence will only become grater, says Walsh, with more and more techniques used in VFX and films to help create more immersive game experiences. This provides work opportunities as certain filmmaking skills become transferable.

 

“We are already seeing specialist people from that field entering the game pipeline: story, lighting, camera and rendering are areas that are already benefiting from the crossover.

 

ACMI’s Bodman agrees: “The narrative elements are important for the aesthetic of the game, and they come with a cast of many. You need writers, editors, actors, which is why development teams have expanded so massively. There is a strong crossover [of skills and employment opportunities].”

 

Krome has worked on international franchises such as Transformers, and while the level of collaboration and access to materials depends on each particular project, Walsh says it just makes sense for filmmakers to help, because the easier it is for the developer, the better the experience they can create to support the brand further in the marketplace.

 

“There are instances where developers have created their own music and voice samples, which filmmakers have either used directly, or became significant influences on the creative direction for the film.

 

“So we can even help them, where we face the same challenges.”

 

Walsh foresees a gradual transition from a physical to digital distribution, and a new way to construct games by breaking them down into ‘bite-size’ chunks at the design face, due to the growing competition of different media for people’s time and attention.

 

But while the sector’s worldwide growth could suggest an unlimited potential, industry insiders fear it will follow the path of our other screen industries, with an exodus of skilled creatives looking for better pastures.

 

Walsh says the Government is “severely lacking in support” of the industry, compared to other countries.

 

“Given the current economic climate and the strength of our dollar, I see more and more studios closing and a lot of our talent going offshore,” he said.

 

RMIT’s Stuckey strongly agrees: “The Government should help nurture a strong industry. Australia’s industry does very well for its size, but it’s ready to move on to the next stage. No one is talking about losing film or TV, but they can’t be preserved at the risk of games not being supported. It’s about coexistence.”

 

That is precisely why Film Victoria CEO Sandra Sdraulig says the agency’s digital medium programs are complementary to their TV and film efforts, and geared towards content, whatever the delivery mechanism.

“The sector’s growth opportunities are incredibly significant, and equally, we want the more traditional film and TV industries to see the potential to exploit their product in ancillary markets, in a far more comprehensive fashion,” she said.

Screen Australia held the Good Games (with ABC TV) and Serious Games initiatives, in addition to opportunities through its Innovation Program. Cowap, says it is important for traditional practitioners to utilize their expertise in gaming, which is complimentary to that industry.

Both Film Victoria and Screen Australia agree that Government support is essential to move the sector beyond ‘fee for service’ work for international publishers, to the development and exploitation of their own intellectual property and, in consequence, better opportunities for business sustainability.

PLAY THE GAME

Filmmakers must realise that thinking of adding a gaming element to their proposition doesn’t mean they have to develop an ultra sophisticated PS3/Xbox/Wii game. It would not only be expensive, but also unrealistic to think that people would spend between $60 and $90 on an Australian film game, when it’s hard enough getting them to pay for a cinema ticket.

But there is a wide range of games, from big, ‘Hollywood’ games like Assassins Creed, to indie, art or educational games, and from console to online and mobile platforms. A free but engaging game could be an excellent way to get through to an audience, particularly a young demographic.

Serhat Caradee is PlayStation’s spokesperson for the film component of the console’s capabilities. His debut feature, Cedar Boys, is the perfect example of an Australian film that could have been expanded as a game; its storyline, characters and settings lent themselves to the medium. So why wasn’t there a Cedar Boys game?

“I’m not sure why [not]. Guns, drugs, nightclubs, girls, cars, everything is there. I never thought about it, but it’s a good idea,” said Caradee. Ironically, this admission took place at a PS3 event.

“The gaming world is foreign to me personally. Honestly, it’s the first time someone mentions the idea to me; there was talk about a book, a play, a TV series, a sequel, but never a game. It’s something you can pitch to your investors. It’s an opportunity right there! It’s another side of the film that could be exploited to reach a wider audience.”

If games can become an additional tool to engage with audiences, why aren’t more Australian filmmakers exploring their options? Walsh believes there is a lack of awareness and education about the medium, although things are starting to change and Krome is currently working with a director “who really gets the game space”.

Film Vic’s Sdraulig adds that financing a core film/TV project is challenging enough for a producer without thinking of broader mechanisms of exploitation, so conversations between the sectors are essential.

“Agencies like ours must try to not just support them financially, but to help to develop links and relationships, networking opportunities, and potential partners that can complement their endeavours in other areas.”

So game developers and filmmakers, start thinking laterally and explore your options; it might be easier than you think! And finally, a community service message from Serhat Caradee:

“If you know anybody who’s interested in developing a Cedar Boys game or one for my future projects, tell them to talk to me!”