The Invisible Hand and the Blatant Sales Pitch -
July 16, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
Well, I only really know one member of the opposite sex, and she's mine! Mine, dammit!
Don't say we didn't warn you.
My four word review of the FF Movie: better than I expected. And that's really saying something, considering that, much like Nich said, my expectations have oscillated between insane hype (BEST MOVIE EVER!!!!) and a deep and terrible dread (RIP Square). Instead, given the inherent difficulties of the film's premise, they honestly did about as good a job as could be expected on it. For the most part, characters reacted in a realistic fashion to events and explanations, and aside from most characters being obvious stereotypes, they weren't half bad.
The visual direction was excellent, going from good-enough-so-that-I-don't-notice-it's-CG (impressive enough in and of itself) to cool little bits that really made me want to see what Square could do with a decent (Vagrant Story-level) script, such as the scene where General Hein's sitting in his ship, surrounded by floating bullets.
MAJOR SPOILERS:
Lastly, the one thing that really impressed me was the fact that there was no ultra-super-mega-happy ending. Right up until the closing credits I was sure Grey would come back to life, perhaps with the rest of Deep Eyes and a complete reboot of the the ecosystem. Nope; the world got saved, but at a cost - no great victory celebrations here. That, and a lot of other things, aren't what I would have expected from a summer popcorn flick, and strangely enough I'm becoming more fond of the film the more I think about it, not less. It'll never be at the level of, say, Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa, but it's not half bad, and Square'll probably clean up overseas. Good one, Mr. Sakaguchi; now how about giving Matsuno a chance to play with those toys?
Onward.
| This Letter capitalizes Things strangely |
| New from Squaresoft!
From the minds that brought you Final Fantasy comes the next evolution of the series, Final Fantasy IV! Follow the tale of a Knight whose loyalty is as uncertain as his relationships with his closest friends, in a conquest to rid the world of evil! The road is a slippery one, wroght with betrayal and hidden agenda, fueled by characters whose names will ring out in the history of gaming as we know it. The Knight of Divided loyalty, Cecil, the Ninja Prince who has lost his home, Edge, and the Dragoon who will do anything to get the woman he loves, even though she belongs to his best friend, Kain! Meet Rydia, the child forced to become a woman, controller of fantastic beasts and the forces of dark magic, and Rosa, the demure White Mage who harbors feelings so strong she acts against her calling! Travel to mystical castles, towers in the sky, the underside of the Earth and even the moon! Find out who the REAL enemy is in an intense 30 hour tale of epic proportions! Only for the Super Nintendo Entertainment system. By Squaresoft.
Well yeah its been done, but I love it. No mention of sweeping CG, the feel of playing through FMV, or anything. Focus on the story, the characters, and the charm of the game. Not what looks prettiest. The only thing I would try to edit is to give the basic character profiles without naming particular characters, and trying not to give as many details away as I did. Regardless, I just am so sick of what is prettiest wins, in pop culture, games, movies, etc.
A little eye candy never hurts, but I hate games that sell on that alone, they plague the market and ruin the essence of gaming IMHO...its about gameplay, control, being the characters or at least piloting them through whatever they may face. Don't sell me what is pretty, sell me what is good.
Also, I agree with GameGO! in a way; the more "hardcore" gamers should have games made for them, as well as the seperate ones for everyone to enjoy. FFT wasn't for everyone, it wasn't meant to be, but it is one of the best games EVER. We need more FFTs and less movies with a controller...unless you can back up your movies with something worthwhile.
Efrate, comepletely entrenched in gaming since he first saw Mario Stomping goombas. I had to do something to fill that void from 3rd grade to sophmore year of college now, and I always give my all! (Such a loser and damn proud of it).
|
A GameGO! sympathizer! Persecute him! Persecute him!
Er, seriously, take a look at what you've done for a second. As you yourself point out, you've given away huge chunks of the plot before anyone ever picks up the game; you've also focused on the main characters to the exclusion of equally interesting (from a personality standpoint) people such as Palom and Yang.
More than that, you're pretty much selling the game to yourself, focusing on what you find good and interesting about the game, rather than what somebody else might find interesting about it. Don't get me wrong, I like swords and fantasy stuff too: the first things that hooked me about FF2 when I saw it in the stores was the gorgeous logo, and the first thing that struck me when I turned the cart on was the classic opening theme. But as soon as I started playing and saw the airships cruising over the surface of the world... that cutscene was the Midgar-flyover of its day, and when somebody shows FMV in a commercial, most people aren't seeing "FMV", they're saying "hey, looks like a cool story." Preaching to the converted is ultimately pretty limiting and self-defeating, and that's one of GameGO!'s main problems.
| Sounds like E3... |
--------------------------------
[Fade in on dark, deserted high school corridor. Sound of wind.
Tumbleweed rolls by. Pan camera 180 degrees to other end of corridor.
Silhouette of lone teenage boy against light at end of corridor. Zoom to boy
in typical and "extreme" skateresque clothing. Boy raises arms to the sky
and screams.]
Boy: Final Fantasy X!!!!!!!
[A stampede of teenagers pours out of classrooms and into corridor.
Resembles post-professional-league-sports-team-championship-in-major-metro
riot. Boy continues to scream.]
Boy: Final Fantasy X!!!!!!!
[In less than 10 seconds, corridor is deserted. Boy runs away screaming.
Camera zooms to poster on wall of Final Fantasy X game art]
VO: Final Fantasy X. Only on PS2.
-----------------------------------
God. More than derivative, repetitive, shitty (yet admittedly
stress-relieving) gameplay, that ad made me despise Mortal Kombat. They say
there's no such thing as bad publicity. Well they can eat me. My ire for
this ad was (and is) matched only by that for the Legend of Dragoon
commercial. Ick.
Wait. We were supposed to demonstrate FAVORABLE game marketing? Oh.
Joshua Jarvis |
Yeah, but at least it got your attention, right?
Right?
On the other hand, maybe this is evidence that games get the marketing they deserve: dumb, crude games get dumb, crude ads. There's justice in the universe after all.
| You just can't translate away red and blue |
| I know this is dreadfully off-topic, and the fact that it's about the Final Fantasy Movie makes it even less appealing - but I was reading some entertainment news this evening and some thoughts came to mind.
According to preliminary totals, Final Fantasy is going to come in fourth place this weekend, with around $20 million, way below what some people are hoping for. I can't help but think that maybe this movie was marketed... backwards? Allow me to explain:
Go to any review you can find and the story gets bashed. I saw one person who had the audacity to call the movie "sacreligious". It's perfectly well-known, to us anyway, that the topic of the movie is largely built on Eastern themes that most Americans would either find confusing, unrelatable, or strange. Final Fantasy fans also concede that the movie will do much better in Japan than it will do in America, especially considering the soon to be released FFX works as a marketing catapult. So here's the question I've been asking myself:
Why wasn't this movie rendered with Japanese dialogue, and then subtitled for American release? Clearly the actual brilliance of the CG would still carry the film. But more importantly it would make the movie read as a foreign film, and perhaps make the common American viewer more open-minded about some of the obvious un-American devices that make the plot work. Ironically, the recent success of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon can not only be used as a parallel example, but would have made this idea seem much more viable (although I realize that no one could have figured this out four years ago when production began).
Am I the only person who thinks this movie should have come to America second and not first? Please tell me I'm not alone.
--Needle
|
You're not alone, but I think you're probably in the minority. The thing is, CTHD had the option of being an art house film - that's what it started out as, in release, and it was only after it was able to build support on that level that it was able to jump into wide release. The sheer amount of money it cost to make TSW ruled that possibility out: it had to release wide, and big, and that required English dialog right from the get go.
More than that, you're making the assumption that the English dialog was a problem with the film, and that Japanese dialog could have disguised away the awkwardness of the plot. From my point of view, both premises are flawed. The US dialog's pretty good, as animated films go; certainly the actors do a solid job, and the lines themselves, while not always perfect, aren't that bad. The premise does seem silly to a lot of people, but it's not something that a Japanese dub could have disguised. The bad spirits are red, the earth spirits are blue, and the respective good and bad guys tend to get identified with those colors as the movie progresses. That symbolism's a bit heavy-handed on the visual level, and as cool as some of the action sequences were, nothing could have washed the fundamental strangeness of the idea out of the movie.
| I could see this playing during late night TV |
| With regard to the whole 'elitist vs. newbie' / 'old skool vs. new school'
and so on debate, my belief is that we *all* have been new to it at some
point or another... if we don't have any newcomers, where will the experts
come from?
Now, on with the show!
"Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for the revolution! It's Dance Dance
Revolution for your Sony PSOne console. With 28 hot dance selections on one
CD, this one's guaranteed to heat up your PSOne" ... just like a parody of
those Time-Life music ads, then scrolling the track names, occasionally
playing a snippet (title appears in yellow) like that way? I swear, if that
game had *any* marketing at all, it'd sell more...
- JR
|
I'm not a huge DDR fan myself, but it seems to me that such a kitch edge would pretty much be the only way to sell the game in the US. Make sure the big song titles in the game get noted, sure, but there's just something about those dancing avatars that seems to demand a tongue-in-cheek sell. Then again, I'm not sure I'd buy it either way (got no rhythm, man) so maybe I'm just full of it.
| How can you disagree with a guy named Elvis? |
| Agent-
As a card carrying NPR junkie, I heard this saturday morning on their Weekend Edition program. It's a review of FF:TSW which dwells on video game to movie translations. All in all i feel it pretty well sums up the feelings of the non-gaming "art" crowd about gaming. Nothing most of us probably haven't heard before, but a fairly concise treatise on why most people believe videogames aren't as *good* as, well, just about any other art form. I especially liked the bit because it was so woefully apparent neither of the commentators discussing the subject had played any of the Final Fantasy games at length.
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/wesat/20010714.wesat.15.rmm
Carl Jarvis
|
I dunno... I obviously disagreed with the piece too, but there's a lot there that we can't and shouldn't ignore. I've been listening to Elvis Mitchell's reviews for a while now, and he's a damn sharp guy, in general. (He'd have to be, to be the NY Times' movie critic.) And unlike Jack Kroll's essay last year in Newsweek, Mr. Mitchell isn't outlining some agenda as to why games can never be "art", he's saying why they're not art here and now... and he's right. Many games do have severely anemic plots that get overlooked because of the player's involvement with the title; take away that interaction (as with, say, Tomb Raider) and what's left looks pretty paltry in comparison to a real movie.
Of course, as a critic for a much more established media, he's bound to look down his nose on punk upstarts like gaming. He's not universally correct: there are a handful of games I can think of that have better plots than movies I've heard him praise, and he seems to have been so intent on critiquing the CG that a few of the film's more interesting moments passed him by entirely. But the key thing to remember here is that this guy's not a clueless idiot, he's a savvy judge of what's good and bad in a story, and until games can put up something to convince guys like him, they really have no grounds to call themselves "art" in the first place.
| Long, fanboyish... but not half bad |
| I've been drooling all over myself ever since those
rumors about a third Chrono game were reported, and
I've been working on the basic ideas for a 3rd game of
my own, just for fun, since I beat Chrono Cross around
February.
Trailer:
[Screen is black, then whip-pans up to a forested
mountainside. Music in the background is slow, but
quickly builds up into a nice, adventurous theme.
Listen to "Kasuf Returns" on the soundtrack for the
movie "Stargate" for a good idea of how the music goes
through the entire commercial.]
Cut to: Three characters racing down the
aforementioned mountainside on horseback; one male
reminiscent of Chrono and Serge, one male that looks
like a grizzled, veteran version of Glenn from Chrono
Cross, and a young female armed with a Marle-style
crossbow.
Quick montage of scenes: A regal queen sitting in her
throne room. A breathtaking vista from atop a cliff
across a sea. An FF-style airship soaring through the
sky, hawks flying nearby, like dolphins racing
alongside a sea ship. What looks suspiciously like
Lucca's telepod, writhing and crackling with
electricity in front of the young male and female
mentioned above. The torch-lit interior of ancient
ruins, three tiny figures standing in front of a
massive wall covered in indecipherable runes and
heiroglyphs. A hot-air balloon floating high above the
trees, almost in the clouds.
[Music quiets down, becomes heavier, slightly
menacing. Chorus comes in.]
Slower montage as music builds: Single shot for
several seconds on a fleet of airships like the one
you saw before, black and red and bristling with
weapons. A high-ranking military official of some sort
standing on the bridge of the flagship, looking grim.
Somewhere else, a huge army spread out across an
equally large field. A shot of a Dragonite (picture a
highly evolved Reptite) wearing battle armor and
wielding a wicked multi-bladed hand weapon. A human in
a highly technological setting, with a similarly
high-tech uniform, readying a laser rifle. Another
general of some sort, standing on the bridge of what
is clearly a spaceship.
[Music hits a low climax, subsides, highly menacing.]
Cut to: A room filled with computer equipment, looks
like it could be somewhere in Chronopolis. Several
characters are standing around, one of which is a
professor-type. The menacing music continues, low, in
the background.
Male voice #1: "You don't realize how dangerous time
travel can be."
Male voice #2: "We've been working out the details.
We're not planning on actually *doing* anything, just
running some experiments."
Female voice #1: "That's how everything starts out.
Just as an experiment."
Male voice #2: "This isn't any sort of big deal.
Everything is under---"
Male voice #1 (Cutting him off): "You have *no* idea
what you're getting into!!!"
[Music suddenly returns, full chorus, very loud,
almost apocalyptic.]
Montage: Long view of a massive laser cannon blasting
at the surface of a red and purple planet. A massive
explosion, Dragonites being thrown hundreds of feet.
An alien in power armor, slowly rising and turning to
face the camera, weapons aiming. Two space fleets
clashing, missles and lasers streaking back and forth.
A massive vertical shaft in some sort of underground
facility, shaking as an earthquake or explosion rocks
it. A Dragonite and the young protagonist described
above, in combat: The dragonite swings at the human,
who parries (two tight, quick shots). The high-tech
human described above, firing his laser rifle at
something offscreen.
[Music hits full overdrive, chorus dominating.]
Screen Text: In 1995, you travelled through time.
Scene: Guardia Castle in flames in the distance. A
silhouetted figure (Magus?) looks on.
Screen Text: In 2000, you crossed dimensions.
Scene: FATE Supercomputer, as the Time Crash occurs.
Warning alarms and indicators going off, as scientists
and techs shield themselves as a wave of light flashes
out.
Screen Text: This Summer
Scene: Long shot of the red-purple planet, a white-hot
pinprick of light appears, and a wave spreads out
along the surface of the planet.
Screen Text: Prepare to Leap
Scene: Fleet of starships in space.
Screen Text: Across the Final Frontier.
Scene: Earth, seen from space, as a really sweet CG
rendered version of the Day of Lavos occurs.
Screen Text: The key to one world's future [fades, is
replaced by] Lies in the pasts of three others.
Screen black, fade in logo:
Chrono Crash.
--
In the same way that CC answered "What happened to
Schala?", CR would answer "If Lavos came from outer
space, just where did he come from and what would've
happened if he had never arrived here? And does Starky
have anything to do with it? [not really; only
tangentially]". I know, probably too long to be
posted. I just wanted to share with someone.
(If for some unforeseen reason this DOES get printed,
and someone from Squaresoft DOES read this, feel free
to use any of my ideas, with or without giving me
credit... However, even though I'm a Sociology major
right now, I could change to Computer Sciences and fly
to Japan on the next flight if need be.... ^.^ )
Cecil
|
It's cliched, and overly predictable - ask most Chrono fanatic about what they'd expect from a third game and you'd get something similar. As a result, a lot of the imagery here would only really appeal to hard core RPG fans in the first place, which is hardly the point of a good marketing effort.
And yet... just imagining how some of this stuff would look if Square got a hold of it, I got goosebumps. Fight it as much as I might, there's a part of me that craves the adventure rush this kind of trailer would serve up, and that's probably a good thing - not much point in playing RPGs if you can't enjoy them at their storm and fury best. I dunno how the mythical "mainstream" would go for it, but I'd buy it, if it was real. Meantime, keep dreaming.
| A late arrival |
| Hmmm....... As much as I do hate the print game magazine industry, I don't think "a great many wrongs" have been committed. Some? Sure. I have that first issue of GameGO and I can understand a bit where they're coming from. They mean it, I'll tell you that much. After all, they're putting out a $6, 68-page magazine with virtually no coverage of big-name games. Yes, they mean it. But is it -right- is the question. I can't help but feel that they're overreacting. This industry was never, ever about the fans. No industry ever was. What, did bad games just NOT HAPPEN in the 80's? What about the legendarily shoddy translations NES games got? What about censorship? What about licensed games? Import availability? What about the bad stuff? Screw that idealized nostalgic view people have of THE OLD DAYS. It was an industry then and it's one now.
What changed was technical capability. With THAT and that alone the market expanded. Now GameGO's philosophy would state that -this- is when the "sheep market" gained control of things, that -this- is when the companies TURNED THEIR BACKS ON THE FANS [tragic! tragic!] and, God forbid, SERVED THE MAINSTREAM!! Simply put, guys, get over yourselves. All those now-classics were very mainstream in their time. How else did we find out about them back then? What, Castlevania was underground, hardcore now? You mean you -couldn't- find Ninja Gaiden JUST ANYWHERE? Do you think that these games sold on gameplay entirely? No. They were the market back then. They were what was available. They were STATE OF THE ART. Yes, people buy bad games for superficial reasons. Yes, it happened back then. Yes, now that the descendants of that time's classics look somewhat antiquated, people don't want them anymore. And that's sad. But there shouldn't be this intense bitterness that the GameGO guys feel, this stupid sense of betrayal. They imagine the game industry in terms that just don't apply to business. Moaning about this business isn't going to change what the people, yes, that sheep market, have said that they want. Good games are just as out there as they used to be. Calling the industry a lifeless husk because Strider 1/2 didn't sell [still have to buy me that game] among fans of whatever has Brand Name Whatever on the box is just irrelevant and childish.
This is a business, plain and simple. As much in earnest as the cries of people like the GameGO staff are, they're not changing anything and never will. The magazine, like the games it covers, is great. But not profitable. Business and what you do with your time are different things. Would you rather be
a) playing a great, niche-market game that appeals greatly to you and perhaps not everyone in the world
or
b) bitching day and night about how not everyone in the world owns a great, niche-market game that appeals greatly to you and perhaps not everyone in the world?
I, content with my copies of Carnage Heart, Bangaioh, Mars Matrix, Mr. Driller and Ferrari F355, made that choice quite a while ago.
|
This letter doesn't add all that much to the debate, and I can't comment on it except to agree with it, but it was well written enough that I thought it deserved a post.
As for the next letter...
| It's the media! Run! |
| Ok, sorry for being off topic, but after reading yesterday's column I
just wanted to say a few things. First I am 21 and have been playing
video games since my uncle bought an Atari in '84 and although I like
Nintendo best I like video games FIRST. I do not want to be called
hardcore, cause from all over the net the word seems to mean closed
minded,arrogant, and everyone uses it as a stepping stone to
complain/bitch/moan, I also don't like entrenched though, it gives the
image of,"I'm staying here and I ain't fucking moving".
Now though I will bitch. Gamers as a whole should not hate each other
for whatever reason, it's pointless in-fighting. To quote the
not-so-great Sinead O'Conner "this is the real enemy": Mainstream media.
In the coming months two new systems will launch, perhaps raising the
industry above that of movies, but did entertainment media cover E3?No,
they cover every terrible movie Freddie Prinze Jr. is in(even though
they are all the SAME), they cover every Mel Gibson fart and sexual
intrigue and other topics as brainless as Julia Roberts, but an industry
that is creeping up on their beloved Hollywood gets no love. So as I end
this bitching I quote Public Enemy, "Burn, Hollywood, Burn."
achilleszero
|
There's a point here that I don't think ever really got directly addressed yesterday: people's desire to see themselves as a disenfranchised minority. It's not just that they think they're persecuted, on some level they want to be persecuted, and make up arguments to support that.
Take a look around, achilles; games are already bigger than movies, and have been for a while. The entertainment media does cover E3; not in the detail it deserves, and not nearly as much as it covers movies, but it was there. The thing is, games may never reach that level of coverage for two reasons: numbers, and personality. More people see movies than play games, and that may always be true - you need to sell five times as many movie tickets as games to make the same gross. Beyond that, it's often not movies themselves people are fascinated with, but movie stars. Aki Ross may be a cool character, but she'll never have failed marriages, substance abuse problems, or make a bold fashion statement, and that's what the people who read People want to know about.
Still, that doesn't mean that there's some great conspiracy out to keep video games down. Games are what they are; they're interesting, and fun, and often intelligent, and you should enjoy them for those reasons. Whether the rest of the world knows about them or not, that's their problem, and in the meantime, we should just be able to play games without looking down at anybody else.
| Oh, Ecco... *slobber* |
| The Scene : A seedy strip club. Women, with no other place to go, are taking their clothes off for hooting, shouting men. Cleavage is being flashed every other choppy, badly framed, frenetic shot.
Loud techno music is blaring, and sometimes, for no explainable reason, an unintelligible word flashes up on screen, only to quickly disappear before it can be read.
Fade to a black screen, techno music still playing. The words "ECCO THE DOLPHIN" suddenly appear.
-END
....No, wait. That idea's probably already being used by Eidos. My mistake.
-Negative Creep
|
Heck, this doesn't depress me, it cheers me up. Eidos is shameless, always will be, but as a rule, we don't see stuff this stupid. Heck, just compare game marketing in general to, say, beer commercials, if you want to see how gosh darn lucky we really are.
Besides, everybody likes breasts, er, dolphins, don't they?
Closing Comments:
I want to take a break from all the Square topics we've been doing, but the week after FFC and the movie get released isn't the time to do it. So send me any thoughts you've had on the film, now that you've had a while to consider it, and I'll be back tomorrow. Adios.
-Chris Jones, hit the 8th and final spirit with a flyswatter. Oops.
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