StarCraft 2 Cutscenes Sold As a Movie?

[nightcrawl3r]

Activision is just getting evil day by day.

 

[eric54]

So they're gonna play that 15-20 mins of crappy in-game-rendered cut-scenes with the what, 5 minutes of pre-rendered cut-scenes? I would never pay for that, ever. Am I alone in feeling a little ripped off that Blizzard had so few good cut-scenes?

 

[Guest]

Note that Blizzard actually DID do this with the first Starcraft (and I think with other games of theirs like Diablo). I have a DVD of the cut scenes from the game "remastered" in higher-resolution form (albeit not anamorphic) than they were rendered in the version on the computer, and with director commentary included. It doesn't really make a story, but it's an interesting oddity and a cool way to view all the cinematics from Starcraft and Brood War.

 

[Benihana]

Hilarious! He wants me to pull $30 for in-game cutscenes delivered linearly? If it had additional content, then at $5 I'd consider thinking about it. At $3 I'd think about it, and at $1 I'd buy it.

 

[Guest]

So... we'd pay for something we already have in the game? And something that is an incomplete movie? For twice the price of a movie ticket? Umm... no.

 

[Guest]

This is just a typical CEO lying to lenders/shareholders in an effort to justify his huge salary and stock options.

 

[Guest]

Funny here how nobody has mentioned the ridiculousness of taking cutscenes from an INTERACTIVE medium (a game) and turning them into a NON-interactive game.
However, I will admit. I have downloaded the cutscenes for several games (Metal Gear Solid series and Zone of the Enders). However, I had two reasons there. First, is that MGS is well known as being less of a game and more like a movie. Sure, in MGS 4, you can control the Mark II during the mission briefings, but that was more of a gimmick, than a new type of gameplay or adding to the story. I was going to do the same for Final Fantasy XIII, but the sheer level of detail and effort that went into graphics at the expense of everything else convinced me otherwise. I even threw my copy (Collectors Edition) into the bin, after getting about 10 chapters into the game.
As for Zone of the Enders, I have the anime series on DVD, and always wanted to see the rest of the story. Sadly, my PS2 died, and since Sony don't want PS3's to be backwards compatible, I didn't have a way of playing the game. So I found someone on Youtube who uploaded his playthrough of the game.

However, does this mean that I would buy a DVD/Blu-ray of these cutscenes? No, I would not. Cutscenes don't tell the full story. They don't offer the same amount of immersion if you leave out the rest of the game. Imagine for example they did this for say Final Fantasy. Sure, the pre-rendered cutscenes in any of the games are beatiful to look at, but you don't get the whole story. There are characters you meet while playing the game that have dialog that adds to the story.

 

[Guest]

@medisinman

"This idea is neither good nor new, a few years ago Square/Enix made a movie from their Final Fantasy franchise called Final Fantasy VII the Advent Child which was totally made using the characters from the game. I think that they used the same CGI engine as the game cutscenes".

Actually, you're completely wrong there. Its called Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and is a movie sequel to the game. Its entirely CGI and is quite beautiful to watch, especially on Blu-ray. It does not use any of the actual games cutscenes (a few are completely re-animated as flashbacks), but the same CGI engine was not used.
Just in case, I am not a fan of the movie. Its your typical plot-less action movie. It is beautiful to look at, and is a good way to waste an hour and a half if you're bored.

What I think you heard about was a special feature on the disc made for those who never played the game, where they took game scenes and condensced the story as much as possible, so newcomers wouldn't be totally lost. In that, yes the CGI scenes are straight from the game, using the same engine.

 

[prozium42]

Jesus, the most funny thing here i think is ITS ALREADY BEING DONE BY BLIZZARD. Seriously people you act like Blizzard is ripping out your wallet in some dark alley or something. If you don't want the cutscenes in DVD format don't buy it; ITS THAT SIMPLE. I think it would be really cool if they added more to the cutscenes so that its a coherent little mini-movie SO LONG as it does not change the games design in any way. If its simply only the cutscenes on a disk, just like most of Blizzards special editions have come with, then i probably wouldn't buy it-but thats FINE.

http://us.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=110000086

LOOK. They did it for this one, they have one for WoW(more behind the scenes though) and you can go on amazon and such and go buy the music to most of the games.

How does this hurt any of you? It only adds a product that some fans will buy and others will not. If you don't buy it your not going to be barred from the game or anything.

Around now is usually when people start throwing 'WHAT IF THEY______NEXT' at me. You can go home and cry to your parents if thats going to be your childishly assuming viewpoint.

 

[Benihana]

@prozium: You make a good point. Simply put don't buy it.

For me though, I'm a bit old fashioned. In the sense that if I want money from somebody, I don't directly tell anybody that, especially not the consumer. Instead I try to make the consumer "realize" why they need my product or services. I think with Kotick, even though he's not doing anything new, starts you off with a bitter taste considering his past actions. Statements like "There will be a time where we'll capitalize on the relationship we have with our audience" just sits poorly with me, even though that is really what all businesses try to do.

As for the idea itself, I think if he had rather compared it to DVD sales, rather than theatrical sales, would have been a better comparison. For one, you don't expect to see already seen footage released to theatre. Usually the theatre has mostly new content. Secondly, to the consumer, ~$20 - $30 is a justifiable price for a DVD, but not really for a theatre ticket. Where I live, tickets don't go over $15 tops. And third, I classify digitally distributed movies separately from theatrical distributions. To compare the two is like comparing a direct-to-DVD release with the box office. Sure a DTD may sell more on initial release than a box office title, but you don't really compare the two.

I know he's probably trying to be grand about the idea, boasting just how well it will do. But for me the comparison is null, and so is the rest of what he has to say.

Just my two cents.

 

[Benihana]

Damn. I meant "@prozium: You make a good point. Simply put, if you don't like it don't buy it. "

Sorry for the double post.

 

[K-zon]

If looked at from different views theres some good and bad points to it, One you could provide say such movies to an audience that isnt quite to gamer related to the game and just have a movie. Also given Blu-ray and to a lesser extent hd-dvds, putting a movie on a game disc would be awesome. Might increase the price of game releases though. On the idea of collectors edition isnt bad. But it wouldnt have to be a full hour and half long movie either. Could try 30mins to 45, think alot of cut scenes in games take up maybe 15-25mins at most on average? Alot of possibilties really and a decent idea. But at it the one concern at most would be how much would if start to interfere with gameplay or even game development?

 

[Guest]

I, really, don't understand what this rabble is all about...
Apple already prove that, with decent marketing and loyal fan base, you can make big profit out of shiny vulgar products.

If people want to throw money away, and there's a market for catching throwable money, that's capitalism in action. Just go with it...

 

[zak_mckraken]

Bobby Kotick would sell his mother at a $20 or $30 price point.

 

[dalta centauri]

Hmmm, but within 5 years thie type of animation will be outdated.

 

[dalethepcman]

These movies won an accademy award for best effects, which ones now look like crap? Star Wars 77, E.T. 82, Rodger Rabbit 88, Terminator-2 91, Independance Day 96, Matrix 99, LOTR ROTK 03, Avatar 09.

These were good movies that also had (for the time) great special effects. It doesn't matter how good the effects are, movies based on video games suck (Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros, FarCry, Doom, Bloodrayne, Prince of Persia etc...)

 

[BluntObjection]

20-30$...Seems legit guys, don't forget economist have declared the resession officially over. We should all be able to afford double/triple the orginal cost of a movie ticket to see this!

Course, you could probably fill in the time between cutscenes with "Happy Tree Friends" shorts and have a better overall experience.

GL and HF ackteavizon

 

[eyemaster]

LOL, 20-30$... 5-10$ maybe.

 

[Guest]

i believe that the movie would sell, i believe that many gamers would find it really enjoying to watch. The story or the plot line wouldn't be interrupted by playing the game, but 20 to 30 dollars is a tad bit high.