We Need More Comic Book Video Games
The return of (the corpse of) Telltale Games’ The Wolf Among Us is a stark reminder that we don’t have nearly enough games based on comic books. I’m talking specifically about non-Marvel and DC comics here, since superheroes have become a genre in their own right. Despite tirelessly imitating cinema, games are consistently the weakest medium for compelling storytelling. Maybe what we need is more games that adapt and emulate comic books. After all, it worked great for Hollywood.
There was a time when it seemed like every blockbuster film was based on a comic book. In the mid-’00s, Hollywood had become risk-averse that you couldn’t get a film made unless it was an established IP. This was when sequels started dominating the box office and every mildly-successful movie was spun off into its own connected universe. This IP-obsessed environment also created a powerful comics-to-film pipeline as studios rushed to buy the rights for anything people had even vaguely heard of.
Related: There’s More To Acting Than Looking Like A Marvel Comic Book Character
Instead of writing spec scripts and pitching movies to studios, filmmakers started self-publishing comic books instead with the hopes that they could sell the idea as an established IP. Wanted, Kick-Ass, and Kingsman creator Mark Millar was so prolific in his ability to get comics sold to movie studios that he inspired bidding wars over the film rights to his books before they were even published. Sin City, Watchmen, 300, Road to Perdition, Ghost World, Men in Black, Oldboy, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World are all based on comics. Hollywood understood that films were more likely to tell well-liked stories and find bigger audiences if they were based on comics that people
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