10 Game-Industry Stories That Would Make Great Movies

pcmag.com:

March 31 marks the premiere of Tetris(Opens in a new window) on Apple TV. Unlike some other video game adaptations we’ve seen and cringed at in the past, this isn’t just a dramatization of blocks falling into a hole. Instead, it’s the real-life story behind the game’s development and exploitation that starts in the USSR and includes legal struggles, political jousting, and other drama. But Tetris isn’t the only game that has a wild behind-the-scenes story. Here are ten other game-development stories that we want to see turned into movies.

The development team at Stainless Games, based on the tiny Isle of Wight off England’s coast, had no idea that they were making one of the most controversial(Opens in a new window) games of all time. They just wanted to have fun and create something cool. The Carmageddon's development is rife with ridiculous stories that would translate well to film. For instance, there's the “indestructible” Tony Taylor, who “modeled” the game’s pedestrian collisions by actually getting run over by a car multiple times. Then there's the BBC’s moral panic about the game, which led to publisher SCI being raided by the police. I see this one as a wacky comedy with lots of gross-out stunts and big characters.

This one might be a cheat, because the game never actually came out. However, few game industry stories are quite as weird as Bob’s Game. Robert Pelloni was a one-man developer who allegedly put 15,000 hours into his Earthbound-inspired role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. One problem: Nintendo wouldn’t give him an official development kit. This decision kicked off a frenzy of bizarre behavior that saw Bob barricade himself in his room for 100 days, release names and addresses of Nintendo