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Make a Play for a Great Career: Video Game Design |  |
February 23, 2007
by Alayna Buckner
Design Programs Columnist
Video games are breaking out of their nerdy niche and into mainstream media. From books to movies to TV, video game designs are now interacting with the stories and formats of traditional media. If you want a creative career on the cutting edge, take a look at video game design degrees.
From Pages to Play
A great story is a great story, no matter the format. In a new video game based on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry, Ron and Hermione face a fire-breathing dragon, rescue friends from the icy Black Lake, attend the Quidditch World Cup and even duel Lord Voldemort.
Video Game Design Hits the Big Screen
Video-game movies are spreading to the big screen in a big way. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, a video-game movie, earned over $131 million at the box office a few years ago.
To adapt a video game, writers must create a coherent story line out of it. Video game graphic designers know that there are two choices when converting a video game into a movie. First, writers can invent complicated explanations for a game's weird details--as when the writers of Super Mario Bros. explain Mario and Luigi's hydraulic jumping boots as a gift from a fat lady in an alternate universe.
Or, writers can create a storyline loosely based on the video game's graphic design, and risk annoying devoted gamers who dislike diverging from the authentic game. The Street Fighter movie follows the video game's characters as they trade in their street clothes for the cool costumes they wear in the video game.
Video Game Graphic Design Takes on TV
In 2004, Game Over aired on UPN, showing the off-duty lives of video-game characters. The Smashenburns, a not-so-normal suburban family, live in an alternate video-game world. Only six episodes aired, but the show tried to make video games accessible to non-gamers and was well done.
Perhaps the mainstream media is only willing to go so far, right now, when playing with gaming.
Sources:
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Slate, "My Doom"
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Slate, "Revenge of the Nerds: Game Over hides its video-game dorkiness under the guise of a family sitcom"
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Box Office Mojo, "Video Game Adaptation Movies"
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New York Times, "Video Game Heroes: Just Folks"
About the Author
Alayna Buckner graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Public Policy and Philosophy. Her favorite games are charades and Balderdash.
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