As Hollywood looks for new content to keep consumers engaged, video games have become an intellectual property gold mine with the number of film and television adaptations consistently growing over the last two decades — especially in the streaming world.
Video game adaptations released within the past several years include the films “Uncharted,” “Mortal Kombat,” “Sonic the Hedgehog,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” and “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City” and TV shows “The Witcher,” “Halo,” “Arcane,” “Resident Evil” and “Cyberpunk Edgerunners.”
But on Sunday, HBO debuts “The Last of Us” with the daring goal of elevating the video-game adaptation to prestige TV — something that hasn’t truly been accomplished before.
While many past attempts at television and film adaptations of video games have failed to live up to fan expectations, Cowen entertainment, media and gaming analyst Doug Creutz told TheWrap that the current boom differs in that storytellers are taking the medium more seriously and are focused on “creating a quality experience as opposed to just making a cash grab.”
“It’s not dissimilar to what happened with the comic book genre 20-odd years ago,” Creutz said. “When creators started taking it seriously as a milieu to tell broadly relatable stories, audiences beyond fanboys also started taking it seriously.”
Source: Ampere Analytics + Commissioning
It also reflects an increased willingness on the part of video game developers like Sony Corporation and Nintendo to license their IP, Ampere Analysis research director Piers Harding-Rolls said.
In September, Ampere Analysis estimated that there are about 20 to 25 movies and TV series that are released per year based on video games. The firm noted that an increasing proportion of these releases is attributable to subscription video on demand (SVOD) platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, who have been responsible for a number of original releases in the past five years.
“Generally, this increased willingness is due to the growing cost of developing game franchises and the need to generate new revenue streams,” he added. “It is also due to the growing popularity of gaming and the realization that game companies can legitimately position themselves more actively as entertainment players.”
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The video games segment is projected to generate total revenue of $221.4 billion globally in 2023, according to Statista, with the majority coming from the United States ($56.84 billion). The industry’s revenue is expected to grow at an annual rate of 6.52% between 2023 and 2027, resulting in a projected market volume of $285 billion by 2027.
When it comes to selecting what IP to produce, entertainment industry strategist at Parrot Analytics Brandon Katz noted that media companies are eyeing cross-platform franchises that span a variety of entertainment mediums, support multiple revenue streams and engage audiences en masse.
“The goal is to keep audiences within an ecosystem for as long as possible,” he said. “So to extend engagement, a studio will try to shepherd a fan through its video game and directly into a movie or TV adaptation, and then out into books, comics, merchandise and more.”
Katz emphasized that a successful video game adaptation requires “a strategic balance between incorporating what makes the source material popular in the first place and tailoring a story that fits with the passive visual medium of the screen — as …….