A Look At The Role Of Comic Books In Video Games

[BrandonMcAuslan]

Brandon,


What platform was that on - The title sounds familiar but I don't think I know the game.

If we are going to drag old games up to be remade for the DS - either Skooldaze or Spellbound - oh and the Wally Week games from Microgen I loved.

It was on PC. And its the bestest, funniest point n' click this side of maniac mansion...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_the_Sorcerer_series
Loved that game back in the day...

*edit*
There is a new simon the sorceror game coming out! http://www.simon-the-sorcerer.com/en/
It will probably suck lol. But back in the 2d era this game was great... Although the wii would be awesome control method for this... Also why haven't we seen any RTS in development for wii? Control method again, is perfect.

Anyone reading "Countdown" or Plan on reading "World War Hulk"?

[Ads]

[sagema]

The comic book industry turned into a huge failure. It has a monopoly (Marvel), it relies on other markets for revenue (Movies), and it relies on conventions for fans to meet. The game industry is getting a monopoly (EA), it relies on outside revenue (Movies to Games), and it lost events like E3. If I were the game industry I'd avoid the fate of the comic industry at all costs. It would be sad to see the game industry pull in the bulk of it's profits from crap like DBZ, WWE, and Madden NFL.

[cbrotherson]

Corey - I always swung the other way [ahem...so to speak] in that I never really had much time for the point n click adventures, I was always older school than that, to the extent that the type in adventures from Level9, Scott Adams etc.. always always took up most of my life (gulp) when I had a Spectrum / C64 / Atari 800XL - these games captured me soo much more than the more heavily graphically biased Leisure Suit Larry genre.

That's a strange similarity to what I had – my batch was Atari 2600, CPC 464 and so nearly a Spectrum, lol. I kinda get what you mean, though. Have you played Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? There's even a web version: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhik...me_nolan.shtml - sure to bring back some memories, even down to the time based death-traps. Awesome.

Another thing is the way you use the DS - holding it like a novel is inspired. It adds to the familiarity of the genre it's trying to emulate. I certainly think that this is 100% unique to the DS, you can't emulate this on a big screen or on one screen to the same effect.

Totally – a very (excuse the pun) novel ideal that makes use of DS' form factor, something no publisher has tried before. Hopefully more will take advantage of it, although I get the feeling many wont because of the fear the DS' audience doesn’t want to read. Despite the fact they could help literacy levels through videogames like that. Sigh.

Now as a writer, couldn't you have some fun adapting your comic book project into this style of game? The challenge would be to have all the content and plot lines fall into place whilst still retaining some non-linear experiences....is this the next step for this type of game / book hybrid -to actually transfer existing content in a way which copies a book and still is enjoyable as a deep gaming experience...? It would certainly stretch anyones limits as writer to get it right.

Oh hell yes – kinda like a new age Adventure Book or sorts. It could be utterly revolutionary if it was made right. Not sure if any developer is brave enough to do as such, but hey, we can hope. It's a great idea, Rolex, something that a dev kit, talent and some money would become a reality…

I must admit that the trailer for Zack & Wiki does look pretty good. Games of this ilk are of course just dying to be Wii titles - it's so perfect, more so than PC even!!!

One of the great things about Wii doing so well is that games like that could return – while we may complain about other genres fading away, older ones may make a come back, proving the industry is just as circular as many others.

One thing which does worry me with the DS - is the lifespan of the DS in it's current incarnation - it was launched in 2004, in hardware terms it's reached at the very best, middle age. Will we still see games which innovate on this platform [ I know how many they have sold, so I'll guess the answer ]?

Lol, it may take time, but we'll get there in the end – gleaming spots that shine through the mire. Nintendo is kinda stuck in terms of delaying its GBA now, if it ever does so; DS is far too popular for the company to ever consider changing its handheld strategy at the moment! But at least devs will be willing to take risks in its eventual twilight, like they often do with all machines. Hang in there!

Oh and just found out that Myst is coming to the DS...I enjoyed the original on the Saturn but man was it sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow!! Any thoughts?

Lol, Myst was one of those games that passed me by, although I was an onlooker with weak hardware, so it was a very jealous passing Hope it turns out okay in the end, I'd be very interested in getting to play it, and if it manages to do well enough it could spur a fair few copycats, which would be a wonderful side genre to the DS' already vast and diverse catalogue – barring it isn’t as slow as it was on the Saturn

[cbrotherson]

Also why haven't we seen any RTS in development for wii? Control method again, is perfect.

They're coming – they tend to be very Western developed titles, and many Western developers were caught with their pants down at Wii's success. So while we're still in the first gen of Wii software (and this is also the reason why there's so few first-person shooters; again, it's a very Western genre), the second and third generation will likely have an abundance of RTS' and FPS. The whole mini-game thing is partly symptomatic of small dev times and high profit yields. We'll see more of them, but at the same time we'll also see more hardcore style games once we see what many Western devs are working on at this very moment.

Anyone reading "Countdown" or Plan on reading "World War Hulk"?

I've given Countdown a miss – I enjoyed 52, but I cant afford another weekly book, so will wait and see. Some people are complaining about it in terms of direction and 'nothing happening', but the same complaints were levelled at 52 early on too; it's the format that seems to confuse some.

World War Hulk I'll likely be buying, but only in its limited series form and not the tie-ins – I think it could well end up a better story than Civil War on a whole, which was fun but patchy. Although I'm cautiously optimistic, on a whole.

The comic book industry turned into a huge failure. It has a monopoly (Marvel), it relies on other markets for revenue (Movies), and it relies on conventions for fans to meet. The game industry is getting a monopoly (EA), it relies on outside revenue (Movies to Games), and it lost events like E3. If I were the game industry I'd avoid the fate of the comic industry at all costs. It would be sad to see the game industry pull in the bulk of it's profits from crap like DBZ, WWE, and Madden NFL.

Yikes. Few things here. While I agree on some of your sentiment, to say the comic book industry turned into "a huge failure" is spurious. If it was a "huge failure" I wouldn’t be able to get any work in it It may not be able to push numbers as it did back in the 90s, but as with any business that experiences a crash it's clawing its way back – in fact, comics are culturally more important now than they've ever been and the quality is also more consistent. Creatively they're richer too, which is surely part of the point. It's far from a failed medium.

Marvel doesn’t have a monopoly. That would suggest it could never be rivalled, which would discount DC entirely; which is very dangerous to do seeing as DC is part of Warner Bros. They call them "the big 2" for a reason, rather than "the big 1 with a trailing number 2". It's more a duopoly than monopoly.

Comics revenue doesn’t rely on movies. Huge misconception there, but ask any major comic publisher and you'll get this answer: most revenue comes from ads and merchandise on a whole. Movies play a moderate part in that, because most movie companies take a large wedge of the profits for themselves. Think about it; comics cost very little to produce by large, movies cost millions. Now, consider that Marvel took out a biz loan to make its OWN movies rather than having to farm them out to Sony, Paramount, Fox and so on. That's a HUGE risk, but it did it because it’s a better biz model than doing what they've been doing for the past few decades; farming licenses. Movies can be a bottomless pit of money for companies, so while Marvel may get a good deal pushing its wares to Hollywood, it's still not a massive source of revenue and the loss of creative control becomes a bugbear. DC doesn’t have that problem, given it can push its stuff through Warner, so that's where you can argue large profits come from for comics, but most other comic properties (indies especially – and let's not even start with other countries' comics, especially the manga scene) see only a small slice of revenue from getting big screen translations. It's not an umbrella thing by any means, and if movies stopped existing tomorrow, comics would still trundle along – remember, there's a lot more comics out there without movie deals than there are with, given the indie market is growing all the time. It's a self sustaining medium these days, but like any other medium it would be foolish to pass up other streams.


It's extremely unlikely we'll see the games industry become a monopoly. EA may make a large wedge of money, but there's too many other companies with vested interests to see that happening. Again, we may see multiple corps take high precedence, but EA being the sole proprietor (which would be a true monopoly) would take a million other things to happen; remember Japan often has a big say in the direction of the medium, and EA's output there by comparison isn’t anywhere near as strong. And as I said before, all good businesses rely on outside revenue, it's only common sense these days.

As for the industry taking a large amount of profits from the likes of DBZ, WWE, and Madden NFL, well, it does already Those three properties are among the most successful ever. We're already at that stage, but the industry is wide and powerful enough to sustain this and others around it. And besides, you may think they're crap, but that's totally a personal viewpoint – millions of others would disagree It's a qualitative argument when quantitive ones also stand up as well.

[sagema]

Is the comic book industry still alive and well? Yes. But is it growing at a insane level? No. I don't see millions of kids trying to draw comic books anymore. Now they want to make games and movies. It's also clear that the comic industry pulls in a great deal of outside profit from movies and games.

No entertainment medium has ever died out. What all entertainment industries should fear is mediocre products, growth, and no longer being top tier in the world of entertainment.

[cbrotherson]

Is the comic book industry still alive and well? Yes. But is it growing at a insane level? No. I don't see millions of kids trying to draw comic books anymore. Now they want to make games and movies. It's also clear that the comic industry pulls in a great deal of outside profit from movies and games.

Not quite as black and white as that - there's a very good reason why you don’t see THAT many kids wanting to be in the industry and it's this: most kids can't buy or get to comics. Simple as. It's a big argument within the industry at the moment. Put in 'kids and comic books' into a search engine and you'll find a million arguments about it. In other countries where comics are easily found for kids (Japan, step up), you'll find tons of kids who want to enter the industry. There's plenty in the West, but not as many as there used to be because most of them cant get to them easily, while to get a film or game all you need to do is walk down the road. Which is part of the reason why growth isn't as big as it is, but again, to state A isn't happening without realising B makes C somewhat fallible. You also have to take into account there are very obvious routes to the games and movie industry these days, but not very clear ones to the comics industry because it's like telling a careers advisor that you want to be a novelist – they'll just say study and practice your discipline rather than take a specific course, because frankly, there isnt any, especially for writers (compared to artists).

As for profit form movies and games, of course, but as I said, remove them and comics would still get on just fine – adverts are primary sources of income and that will never change unless floppies die, which they won't. There's overlap, naturally, because the age groups are very close, but beyond that there's no direct symbiosis when it comes to profit sharing. Take it from someone who works in both mediums, especially given I have to survive in the indie scene which has very little ties to movies at all, yet like many other creators, we still get paid.

No entertainment medium has ever died out. What all entertainment industries should fear is mediocre products, growth, and no longer being top tier in the world of entertainment.

Well that much is a given But as I said in the other thread, most of any medium is crap/mediocre. Growth is necessary, naturally, but it's relative - the movie industry shrank the past few years (bizarrely) while the comic industry grew (bizarrely) - but obviously in terms of relativity, it's neither here nor there And as for being top tier, again, that's relative - right now, people would argue games are top tier, especially on a global scale (it certainly is in terms of growth, which is currently massive). Comics are a transitory medium; should Western comic makers hit the same vein as the East then you'll see something similar to the boom of the 90s - which is a long way off, but stranger things have happened...

[Rolex]

Have you played Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? There's even a web version:

I actually finished the first time round - I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi per se, but comedy I am - put both together and you do get a great game, I may relive the memories - "Analgesic anyone?" "Not whilst the light is off!"

By the way - did you happen to have a night in... Sooo many replies!

Totally – a very (excuse the pun) novel ideal that makes use of DS' form factor, something no publisher has tried before. Hopefully more will take advantage of it, although I get the feeling many wont because of the fear the DS' audience doesn’t want to read. Despite the fact they could help literacy levels through videogames like that. Sigh.

Oh hell yes – kinda like a new age Adventure Book or sorts. It could be utterly revolutionary if it was made right. Not sure if any developer is brave enough to do as such, but hey, we can hope. It's a great idea, Rolex, something that a dev kit, talent and some money would become a reality…

Well, the homerbrew community have actually started with this - there is a comic book reader, with some amateur books out there - not had a chance to look into it but it is there...

DS is far too popular for the company to ever consider changing its handheld strategy at the moment! But at least devs will be willing to take risks in its eventual twilight, like they often do with all machines. Hang in there!

If you consider that I am 1000% playing more DS than Wii - man I didn't see this coming, I'd held off buying one because they looked crap and hey what do you know - you dip your toe in an it comes out covered in 100% fun....


As with all the other replies in this thread - to address the comic book biz model slightly - again as an outsider [i.e. reader / lapsed reader], one thing you can definately say is that comic books have core readerships which keep the homefires burning, fans / fanatics / fanboys - whatever moniker you want to adorn them with - comic book have this solid base that; I guess; carries titles but without growing at a steady rate and always has done.

I suppose that some of the darker titles could be alluring due to the subversive nature of the storylines or art - whatever it is, it keeps scores of readers wanting more. I can't give you specific examples as I haven't really been an avid collector for many years but I do remember that this was the case when I was - comic book stores (true 2nd hand stores) always had people in buying £50+ worth of obscure collectibles.

Herein lies the value to the industry - the resale value of these things should be taken into account when describing the industry in general. Second hand issues were gold when it came down to it - I know that you may say "Well the publisher doesn't see anything from the 2nd hand market"....not strictly speaking - 1: it generates interest in their current crop of titles, giving people confidence to step up to the newer pubs and 2: the original titles have had to have been sold in such volume as to resurface in these places, surely?

Comic books in my opinion are not in the public consciousness per se - sure we have Spiderman / Batman but this doesn't reflect the actuality of the characters as intended by the books - sure people know the name but they know little else, even children / teens whom these films are primarily aimed at [ableit with adult pricing] - don't generally have a great insight into the origins beyond what the film tells them - these films are cool because it's what advertises tells us is cool!! Isn't it????

Just quickly - regarding EA as a monoploy(ish) - just to add to what Corey has already pretty much fully commented on. As I see it EA have seen an opportunity, unlike others, with the Wii and just been quick off the mark - if anything they seem to be lagging behind Nintendo themselves in the race to get titles out - if EA surpassed Nintendos 1st party sales then I feel you would see something different - to be high profile, which EA are currently with Wii, shouldn't be construed as a taking over of the industry.

The more titles we get out there the more longevity the Wii will have. Sony and MS won't even have this issue - I firmly believe that PS3 will lead the race in the not too distant future [purely based on their perception as a hardcore multimedia behemoth and not a fun games machine, MACHO SELLS ]. I think that the Wii-surge is creating purely a huge hardware base which will shrink back to a less dominant games plateau - i.e. all the people who are buying Wii; will keep them and play with them but they aren't going to push games sales in accordance with the current sales of the hardware....so discounting hardware sales, software sales will not go as apeshit as we are seeing at this moment.

Of course I realise that the known number of machines out there creates a possible games sales market in correlation.

I am saying this despite the minigames, familygames, non"hardcore" games which EA are shovelling out... causal gamers, such as mom and pop ordinary, will not, imho, buy game after game after game to satisfy what is essentially, I class as "The Sports Generation" - the tale of the tape in the immediate furture may be Rayman II but I hope I live to eat these words....

**Edit** The reason I took Rayman II over say Boogie is because I consider Rayman a gamers game and not a casual game as such. It still has some niche attached to it in my view and although a good game which all the family can play - just as an example **

[cbrotherson]

I actually finished the first time round - I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi per se, but comedy I am - put both together and you do get a great game, I may relive the memories - "Analgesic anyone?" "Not whilst the light is off!"

I never got to finish it! Loved those games when I was younger, but barely have the time these days. One day…

By the way - did you happen to have a night in... Sooo many replies!

No money + late nights + slight deadline pause = reply overload Things are a tad tight at the moment, so it's meant I've had to go back to hermit mode while I deal with the work load. There's lots more around the corner too, so I doubt I'll be around much for the rest of the month, aside from my work here.

Well, the homerbrew community have actually started with this - there is a comic book reader, with some amateur books out there - not had a chance to look into it but it is there...

Yeah, never had much time to delve too deep into it – the lack of range/choice is obviously a big problem too, seeing as many mainstream pubs are shunning the process in various ways.

As with all the other replies in this thread - to address the comic book biz model slightly - again as an outsider [i.e. reader / lapsed reader], one thing you can definately say is that comic books have core readerships which keep the homefires burning, fans / fanatics / fanboys - whatever moniker you want to adorn them with - comic book have this solid base that; I guess; carries titles but without growing at a steady rate and always has done.

Yeah – it's taken a few years, but the core user base (which will always be around) has grown slowly. As with any medium, the core will keep growing at a very slow rate, it's only new users that shunt growth into large chunks, but comics have a problem in gathering those new eyeballs. Gone are the days where supermarkets, newsagents, toy shops and bookstores would have spinner racks, which is where a majority of those new readers came from (my local newsie has copies of Silver Surfer and the New Warriors while I was shopping for my copy of Amstrad Action, which got me straight back into American comics again, when I was 12). Manga doesn’t have that problem – a quick visit to any bookstore will often reveal a large and healthy manga section, that is often more visible than the 'graphic novel' section. And they appeal so much more to kids too, not just in subject matter, but also in format and size. Marvel and DC are learning, but distribution is still key – and unless they get back into mainstream areas to couple the direct market, growth will continue to be slow.

I suppose that some of the darker titles could be alluring due to the subversive nature of the storylines or art - whatever it is, it keeps scores of readers wanting more. I can't give you specific examples as I haven't really been an avid collector for many years but I do remember that this was the case when I was - comic book stores (true 2nd hand stores) always had people in buying £50+ worth of obscure collectibles.

In truth, I personally think comics have been better on a whole than they've been in a long time. The storylines are much more personal and affecting, but also wide in genre and tone – Fables, Y: The Last Man, The Walking Dead and many more are absolutely essential and more mature than many stories we see in the cinema. Which is partly the reason why Hollywood is so desperate to take talent and ideas from the comic book industry.

Herein lies the value to the industry - the resale value of these things should be taken into account when describing the industry in general. Second hand issues were gold when it came down to it - I know that you may say "Well the publisher doesn't see anything from the 2nd hand market"....not strictly speaking - 1: it generates interest in their current crop of titles, giving people confidence to step up to the newer pubs and 2: the original titles have had to have been sold in such volume as to resurface in these places, surely?

It's a bit of a minefield – I think publishers prefer to repackage their goods under their own terms. For some reason, the second hand market is rarely ever deemed valuable, which is a shame.

Comic books in my opinion are not in the public consciousness per se - sure we have Spiderman / Batman but this doesn't reflect the actuality of the characters as intended by the books - sure people know the name but they know little else, even children / teens whom these films are primarily aimed at [ableit with adult pricing] - don't generally have a great insight into the origins beyond what the film tells them - these films are cool because it's what advertises tells us is cool!! Isn't it????

True in many ways – although those sort of characters are icons, and probably don’t need any form of depth in terms of what the audience knows and doesn’t; the core of their character is so strong and identifiable that they can coast on the bare essentials. There's very much an unspoken respect held for them that relates to an all ages audience, which tends to get them by to a degree… although not in all cases, as seen by the relatively disappointing BO for Superman Returns.

The more titles we get out there the more longevity the Wii will have. Sony and MS won't even have this issue - I firmly believe that PS3 will lead the race in the not too distant future [purely based on their perception as a hardcore multimedia behemoth and not a fun games machine, MACHO SELLS ]. I think that the Wii-surge is creating purely a huge hardware base which will shrink back to a less dominant games plateau - i.e. all the people who are buying Wii; will keep them and play with them but they aren't going to push games sales in accordance with the current sales of the hardware....so discounting hardware sales, software sales will not go as apeshit as we are seeing at this moment.

I don’t know – one thing that has been evident is that pretty much all third parties have been caught by surprise by Wii's success, which would have also been the case with the original PS One had Nintendo not already pissed off just about every publisher it could and then go with carts to add insult to injury, lmao. The most recent sales figures show Wii is selling more than 360 and PS3 COMBINED, which is shocking; during a slow season and without any REALLY big titles behind it. Should third parties actually put some effort in its software (which really, not many have, in terms of quality and output), then they'll reap rewards.

Looking at the most recent UK ad for Boogie, I believe that game will be a world beater in terms of sales, as should a couple other third party titles by the end of the year. Maybe not to the extent of sales that a typical 360 third party game sells, but the important thing that's not always transparent is that a game costs much less to develop on Wii than it does on 360 or PS3 and so doesn’t even need to sell those sort of numbers to get a good return. Coupled with the userbase, the range of success is much greater on a whole.

Wii's trend is not only aping that of any successful, dominant console – it's actually surpassing it, while other consoles continue to actually drop sales. When companies like Take Two and Rockstar are now going "shit, let's get some games out on Wii", you know something is changing. It seems if neither 360 or PS3 can catch the rate of growth Wii has by the end of this year (hell, maybe even by October – Wii is only about 2 million behind 360, worldwide, which is scary), then consider the generation packaged up; because by then, many third parties will have already picked a side and set their schedules for the end of fiscal year 07/08 and into 08/09, and by this time next year, if the rate of growth continues, Wii will be too far ahead…