When two worlds collide, there are often fireworks – and the gaming and film industry is a prime example of that. Cast your mind back to some of the classics; Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Sonic the Hedgehog – they’re all famous films and games. Gaming gets into bed with many an industry actually, sport and music being another huge collaboration. If you haven’t played guitar hero, you haven’t lived! And we all know of the likes of Fifa that dominate the sports gaming world. Basically, if you can think of it, there’s a game for it.
Below, we will focus on the close relationship between the film industry and gaming and how they both benefit from one another.
Films Into Games
This is like the egg and the chicken scenario – which one came first?! Well, it is films that developers began to use as ideas for popular games, and it goes back as far as 1982. Many believed ET was the first film that transformed into a game, but it was actually the 1982 classic Raiders of the Lost Ark that turned into the Atari 2600 game: Raiders of the Lost Ark. This came out at a time that gaming was finding its feet.
Since then, there have been huge links between the film industry and gaming, and even gambling. On Casino777 slots for example, many of the slot games feature our favorite characters – like Alice Adventure, which is based on the film Alice in Wonderland. It’s a tactic used by software developers because they know people will be more attracted to games using their favorite film or actor/character as the theme.
Games Into Films
The gaming industry may have begun to benefit from films first, but the film industry soon realized that creating movies based on games was a good idea. Tomb Raider: Lara Croft is the perfect example. The original Tomb Raider game was released in 1996, and there have since been 12 versions of the game. The movie world then realized this could be a popular film, and it was in 2001 when Angelina Jolie took to the screens to play the iconic and badass Lara Croft.
That’s just one example. There are tons of movies based on games. Some have been successful, and some have utterly tarnished the good name of the film. Rampage in 2018 is a prime example of a great movie that didn’t work out as a video game.
The Future Of Both
The future of both is bright. Both industries generate billions of dollars a year and continue to benefit from one another. Resident Evil is one example of how video games and movies still merge into one masterpiece, with the new Resident Evil — Resident Evil Village — already a huge success this year. Similarly, the ties the gaming world has to other industries will continue to flourish, with sporting games like EA Sports UFC and Fifa more popular than ever before.
There are an estimated 3.24 billion gamers worldwide with a passion for gaming – whether the game is based on a movie or not. Similarly, billions of people head to the pictures worldwide to see the new and most anticipated films, some of which will feature storylines based on popular games. The two industries will forever collide as one.
