I am a little concerned about the future of games and movies.

When Steve and I created this blogsite 4 years ago, we set out to write and cover new and old games with the experience of being long time gamers. I considered myself part of an elite group of old school hardcore gamers that grew up on the original Nintendo Entertainment System and continue to play games till this very day. Lately, I have started analyzing movies from a critical perspective and there is a similar trend that they follow. There is a growing lack of creativity and originality in movies and games. The advance in technology creates such a realistic fidelity for movies and games which I believe has a huge impact in creativity.

I recently started to play older games that I loved growing up and discovered that they haven’t aged so well. This is likely because technology has made some older games harder to enjoy. This had me thinking about games as art. Technology hasn’t significantly change the way human beings experience literature, paintings, or sculptures. There has always been a heated debate as to whether video games could be considered art in the same ways as movies, books, paintings, theater, and other traditional forms of art. Roger Ebert incited a huge discussion by taking the side that video games can’t be considered art. "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." (Ebert, 2013) Initially hearing this in 2013, I was outraged because I’ve felt that games have evoked more emotional responses from me than more traditional forms of art. Art is defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

            Shadow of the Colossus is a prime example of games as an art form.

            Games and movies are heavily influenced by the technology at the time. Video games are able to look more realistic and present a graphic fidelity that becomes more lifelike. Movies can create amazing visual effects that create the sense of true imaginations come to life because of the progress of computer animations. While this improves the experience for our visual and audio senses, it also changes our expectations. Going back to an older game after a long time, the first thing most people will say is “Did this game always look like this or did this feel so weird”. I think that experience doesn’t apply to classic books, paintings, and sculptures. Yes, there are classic versions of games and movies that are timeless and are great despite the limited technology, but they are few and far between. The increase in technology also comes with a new problem, an increase in budget. Games and movies have budgets reaching into hundreds of millions of dollars and with this much money being spent, developers avoid risky new IPs and instead go with safe bets like remakes and sequels. That way they will guarantee large sales and make a profit

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Super Mario World - 1991 and Super Mario Galaxy 2 - 2010 respectively.

               Video games as a medium is in its infancy when compared to paintings, sculptures, and literature but isn’t too far off when compared to cinema.  In fact, cinema and games share a strikingly similar sense of progression that is very dependent on the current makeup of society at the time. With both forms of medium, you have your universally considered classics such as Casablanca or the Godfather for movies and Super Mario Brothers or The Legend of Zelda for video games. However, the current landscape for both mediums are very limited to what is most profitable instead of creating a piece of art that is an expression of self.

Mainstream movies and games are mostly void of original ideas. I’ll name just a few movies that are coming out in the future that are either remakes, sequels, or adaptations of books. Point Blank (remake), 50 Shades Darker (book adaptation), Avengers: Infinity Wars (two-part sequel), The Magnificent Seven (which personally I am thrilled about because there is just a lack of western movies even if it is a remake) and the list goes on. Now I am not saying that there aren’t any original movies coming out or that these movies won’t be any good, I am just stating that it seems the biggest releases are movies geared to make huge box office numbers regardless of their quality. Games are pretty similar. The biggest selling titles are mostly sequels such as Fallout 4, Madden 16, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Mario Kart 8. All of these titles reap maximum profit while mostly sticking with a relatively safe formula. I can’t fault the big name companies for going in this direction. Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke all sorts of pre-sale ticket records and that is before it was even released.

COD is one of the biggest selling games every year and this is the 12th 
installment in about as many years. The series doesn't stray too
from its roots. giving us the same experience every year.

            Even new ideas can be hampered down by the ability to create aesthetically pleasing movies. The prequel Star Wars movies are (not at first) considered terrible movies by most fans. I don’t think they are that bad but the complaints are valid. The movies are full of lasers and explosions and greatly choreographed fight scenes which make it a great visual spectacle but almost take no consideration in telling a story. Also, there was so much special effects that it creates images that don’t even look real which can take viewers out of the movie all together.

 Though the effects of the original Star Wars are modest today, it features a very relatable story. The prequel trilogy featured an abundance of  special effects and poor acting for the most part.

Remakes aren’t anything new to movies and even some of my favorite older movies are remakes of an even older movie like Scarface (1982) which is a remake of the Scarface (1932). Gamers have been waiting for years for the recently announced Final Fantasy 7 remake. I think remakes, reboots or reimagining are great ideas when done correctly and within a reasonable time frame of the originals release.  True Grit (2010) is an awesome example of how to do a remake, the original True Grit (1969) was a great movie that was relatively unheard of unless someone loved old westerns. The remake recaptures the vision, mood, and essence of the original with a touch of Coen brothers style to it. Add in some great performances and you have an Oscar worthy remake. On the flipside, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, while not terrible, featured less of the humor and more spectacle which loses some of the magic the original had. Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory was a fun movie with witty dialogue that brought real and surreal together that made for an enjoyable movie. Game remakes are similar but for the most part play it safer. Usually, they are the same games with a graphical upgrade and maybe new features thrown in that makes the game more balanced or more in line with current features. However, there are some new remakes of games that completely reimagine the original and create a product that is completely a new experience sometimes for better or worst. Nintendo’s classic Metroid was completely remade in a game called Metroid: Zero Mission which added surprises, new missions and bosses and a completely new epilogue.

                                             True Grit: A remake done very well.

There are many original new ideas for movies and games but unfortunately they get looked over by viewers and even publishers. Movies and games are risky to create and cost a lot of time and investment. This unfortunately doesn’t help promote creativity due to the financial need to be successful. While I still believe that games and movies are art, I believe that the future of both mediums are in danger of becoming stale and full of projects to generate money instead of creating work that elicits feelings and responses from its viewers. This worries me that we may be in a storm of big name releases that just mimic great ideas in the past. I'm not saying that these projects don't give us great movies and games because that would be untrue. I am just concerned that there may not be room for newer ideas anymore.