Interviews// Rebellion: Aliens vs Predator

SPOnG: It brings me onto an interesting point really, about how games based on movies don't generally perform very well or are critically panned.

David Brickley: It says loads that ten years on we're still talking about Goldeneye.


SPOnG: Exactly, and we also have the original AvP game that was well received, possibly because you were given the freedom to do your own thing with it. Where do you feel these film-to-game projects go wrong, having made a successful franchise tie-in yourselves?

David Brickley: Being tied to the release of something else is probably what cripples most of them because it's in the balance sheet, at the end of the day. The movie company involved has done the math and accounted for the game as a portion of the revenue.

So to earn that the game has to be in the same ad campaign as the film, which results in a last-minute developer pluck to make a 'good enough' game in six months. And to be fair, no developer in the world would refuse an easy cheque like that, so the studio often agrees to make the game. Goldeneye I suppose is the big exception because it missed its deadline by about two years [laughs], and God bless Nintendo and Rare for that.

I suppose though, if you detach the licence from the release of anything else then you get something wonderful like Batman: Arkham Asylum. There's nothing intrinsically bad about timed IP, from another medium into a game. It's just that most of the time, it's part of a bigger launch and up until now movies have been bigger than games. That tide is turning, the games industry is turning a hell of a lot of money of its own and hopefully movie execs will begin to separate... not that I'm naïve or anything – movie tie-ins will never go away – but the money a game can make on its own when it makes good use of the licence can speak volumes.

You have EA at the moment making good revenue out of the use of licences like Dead Space, and somebody somewhere is going to realise that's worth more money than something to be forgotten two weeks after the movie's released and sent to the bargain bin. I'd like to think that studios will start to see the commercial strength in making a good fucking game.

Eric Miller: I think the reasons are many and varied as well. Having worked on a fair few licenced titles myself, I've seen it from the internal side as well. From the games development side, from the licences and how they react. There can be a lack of understanding between studio and licence holder, as to what makes a game. They want to protect their IP and make a quick buck too.

Although if we were talking about making a game into a film, I would expect to see the games industry making the same kinds of mistakes today. Games publishers and developers would want to simply protect their IP and cash in too, but just because we know how to make games doesn't mean we know how to make films.

But there have also been successful games, let's not forget Chronicles of Riddick. Unfortunately, it seems that people almost automatically assume – especially if the marketing campaign isn't there – that anything associated with a movie isn't worth picking up. And Riddick is unfortunately a good example of that. After all, besides the name, it largely has nothing to do with the film at all.

David Brickley: It's funny as well because it starred and featured input from a guy who was a gamer (Vin Diesel).


SPOnG: One of the rare instanced where a celebrity who says he's a gamer is, in actual fact, a gamer.

David Brickley: Indeed!


SPOnG: Have you guys made any concessions to allow the game to feature on consoles as well as PC hardware?

David Brickley: Yeah, I think so. Certainly when we compare it to the original AvP game, we didn't compromise in any way, shape or form. In 1999 there was a very healthy console market but the game didn't make the transition. That is not the case anymore, and you could choose to see the single player campaign as a concession in that sense. That's mostly because of the fact that we've added so much stuff into this sequel and to help players master each class.

It's getting the balance right between making the game accessible and having enough meat in there to satisfy core gamers. It's not 'dumbing down', but it's not slapping people in the face either. We'd really like you to enjoy this experience and give you a whole campaign that lets you get used to these three species, make a bond with them, choose your favourite and to learn how the system works against an AI that's dumber than a human. That's the concession if you want to see it as such.

Some may see it as such because the 'original game didn't have this accessible feature to the game, so why should this one'? Yeah, the forums are always full of “All I want is the original game, just remake it” and... yeah.