Gaming research paper
Research Paper Proposal
Nicholas Brown (3527179)
Digital Game Studies MAAC 3095 Dr. Lauren Cruikshank
November 25th, 2020
University of New Brunswick
For my research paper I decided to talk about how the current Hollywood and the
filmmaking industry in general have been taking lots of inspiration from videogames and
the culture that surrounds it. From movies that have the same titles and follow the
same stories as videogames, for example, “sonic” and upcoming “Uncharted”, to movies
that handout “shoutouts” to popular videogames, like “fortnite” appearing in “Avengers:
Endgame.”
The question I wish to answer in the final paper is: Do movies based off of videogames
have a positive effect on videogame culture and awareness? Or are they simply
attempts to capitalize off of gamer culture? I want to find out if the success of a game is
an important factor and if the making of these movies increased the popularity of their
respective games. The weekly topic that my category fits in is in “Comparative media,
games, and genres.”
The arguments that I will make will be that the release of these videogame inspired
movies adaptations help build awareness and give people the desire to want to play.
Having your favourite actor playing your favourite videogame character would be a
dream come true. Another argument that I will make will be what the gaming community
typically thinks of these film adaptations of videogames,if they typically react positively
or negatively.
One Paper I will use is “The Bleak Reality of Video Game Movies” and in this the author
mentions that one of the reasons he personally liked some of the adaptation movies
was that it was nostalgic to when he would play the games himself. Even if the movie
isn’t good, it still works as a guilty pleasure for many.
This research paper will be interesting, because we will dive into why movie adaptations
of videogame stories are often perceived as bad, with some exceptions. We will also
briefly discuss what makes a good film adaptation of a videogame, and what makes a
bad one.
Citations:
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/feb/14/the-bleak-reality-of-video-game-mov
ies-/