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-/