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With the advent of new technology, in which media is seamlessly transferrable from one platform or device to another, transmediation is becoming increasingly popular and profitable venture. Video game adaptation to and from film is becoming a regular feature of popular franchises, with studios noting the increasing success of video games.
The age of new media presents an increased ability to tailor media to an individual’s tastes and, consequently, a general trend to move away from content produced for the masses. Considering this ability of consumers to pick and choose their content, studios have been focusing their efforts on recapturing known audiences for near-guaranteed success, rather than taking the risk with new ideas (Moore 184-186).
This has lead to a symbiotic relationship between the film and game industries, where each counterpart of the franchise is produced simultaneously, sharing physical assets including design studios, footage and scores during production (Moore 184-185).
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Film-to-game adaptations have become an integral feature of big film franchises since their conception in 1975, when the first arcade game inspired by a film was produced. Although slow to start off with, the industry has produced more than 22 games per year since 2002 (Blanchett). Brookey (4) attributes this to technological advances, suggesting that as graphics have improved, games have become far more film-like, and as a consequence, more films have become games. In total, some 547 films have given rise to more than 2000 video game adaptations. Of these adaptations, only 46% were derived from films with original screenplays, indicating that a staggering 54% of films were already adaptations from sources including literary works, comics and television shows (Blanchett).
Game tie-ins have become a major revenue raiser and marketing tool for studios. Hall argues that their creation was initially a marketing tool used to generate extra profit from the concept, as well as providing video game developers with footage that would otherwise be financially unfeasible to produce. In effect, 2006 and 2007 saw 70% or more of the highest grossing films remade as video games (Brookey 5). Franchises without adaptions were estimated to have missed out on approximately $100 million in sales from near guaranteed audiences (Brookey 5).
While economic advantages to transmediation exist, remakes of media with large existing fan cultures are at risk of alienating them, should the venture seem disingenuous or too profit-driven (Brookey 69). In the instance of Marvel Comics, many video games were the third iteration of the primary text, having been developed from a comic, to a film, then to a video game. The strong fan culture of the original comics felt isolated by these major mainstream productions produced with international corporations such as Fox and Columbia Pictures. In this case, the video game was produced to recapture their interest by providing an interactive platform that appeals to their documented love of expert knowledge and competition (Brookey 69-71). For Australian Marvel productions, see Marvel Super Hero Squad inspired by the original comic, toy line and television series of the same name.
The Australian sector of the industry had its most recent involvement in Marvel productions in 2011, when developer THQ Australia was commissioned to make a first-person brawler that included Marvel characters such as the Hulk. Unfortunately, THQ Australia closed prior to its completion, to fans' disappointment (Lien). For completed Australian Marvel productions, see Marvel Super Hero Squad inspired by the original comic, toy line and television series of the same name. For Australian film-to-game adaptations, see Hellboy: The Science of Evil and The Polar Express.
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Cover for the Playstation 2 release, using the same image as the film posterThe Polar Express 2004 single work multimedia -
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Game-to-film adaptation is a far less common pathway for transmediation. The primary difficulty for developers appears when attempting to translate narrative structure from one medium to another. Where film and literature share a standardised structure, in which viewers share a common beginning, middle and end, Video games frequently allow to create their own path that can lead to multiple endings (Kaldamanidou and Katsaridou 267), or serve to lengthen play time in what can be a relatively shallow narrative (Brookey 4). As such, there are no Australian game to film productions to date. Notable international productions include Tomb Raider and Silent Hill.
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Although some 30% of film to game adaptations originated from a literary source (Blanchet), direct literary work-to-game adaptations are also a feature of the industry. In fact, this mode of adaptation has its roots in Australia, where the first production using a licensed book was made (Maher).
One of the first Australian video game publishing houses, Melbourne House, originally began as a publisher of young Australian authors and American authors who lacked contracts in the Australian and British markets. Melbourne House gave rise to its in-house game development team, Beam Software, who created the first internationally successful game in Australia’s history. The 1982 adaptation of The Hobbit became probably the most successful illustrated text game in history, and put Australia on the world map (Maher). Co-developer, Veronika Megler, says she was shocked by its success, and at the time considered its production merely an exciting part-time job to support her university studies (Sharwood).
The idea adapting a novel for the studio’s first game arose when founder, Milgrim, assembled a team of highly skilled programmers to create a fantasy adventure game, but lacked any experience or ability as fiction writers (Maher).
“Bilbo Baggins’s quest to kill the dragon Smaug and return safely with his treasure, overcoming trials and tribulations along the way, was not just suitable for an adventure game but practically identical in the broad strokes to the structure of most of them. And The Hobbit was very popular — probably the most-read fantasy novel of all time, in fact — which would guarantee the game an eager audience,“ states Maher on the subject.
Australia's further involvement in direct literary adaptions is limited. Some Australian literature has been adapted, such as Deltora Quest, to a significantly lesser degree of fame.
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See full AustLit entryA text-based adventure game adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and written by Melbourne-based games designers Veronika Megler and Philip Mitchell.
The game used an advanced text-based model called 'Inglish', which permitted more complex sentence structures than the typical verb + noun constructions of other text-based games.
The Hobbit won the 1983 Golden Joystick Award for best strategy game.
The success of the game was such that Beam Software followed it with Lord of the Rings: Game One (1985) and Shadows of Mordor: Game Two of Lord of the Rings (1987).
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Technology has become a naturalised aspect of contemporary children’s lives (Beavis 17). The Australian Curriculum recognises a need to assist students in becoming capable and critical multimedia users (F-10 Curriculum).TheDigital Beginnings study (Brooks et al. 2005) has found that the integration of popular culture and new technologies in school curriculums has a positive impact on the engagement and enthusiasm of children in learning. Educational video games have been found to promote complex learning as they combine diverse elements to make meaning, including sound, image, actions, and symbols (Beavis 18).
Australian video game developers have not produced educational children’s games that are specifically film or literature adaptations. However, the ABC TV Children’s Multiplatform team have created a plethora of video game adaptations of Australian children’s television programs (ABC4Kids). The ABC4Kids website and mobile app features over twenty educational video games primarily aimed at pre-school children (ABC4Kids). While Australian developers have produced few educational adaptations, a number of international studios have created video game adaptations of Australian literature and television. The successful children’s literature series Deltora Quest was adapted into a video game by Japanese developers Bandai Namco in 2007 (Gantayat 1), and Australian children’s television entertainers The Wiggles released a Playstation 2 consol game, developed by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2010 (SingStar The Wiggles).
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See full AustLit entryDeltora Quest follows the adventures Lief, Barda and Jasmine as they journey across the fictitious land of Deltora, endeavoring to recover the magical belt of Deltora and defeat allies of the evil Shadow Lord.
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