Gaming Gossip: Episode 11 - Are we in the golden era of gaming adaptations?

Audio transcription

"Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Gaming Gossip.
This is, I think, our 11th episode. I'm actually not too sure.
I think it's 11. No, because we're actually one ahead on Gaming Gossip."

"Yeah, but we're one ahead. Yeah, because there was one week where we didn't record a film frenzy.
So we are one ahead on Gaming Gossip.
I know it's difficult to keep track tabs on these things.
But, um, yeah, Alex is here, as you can tell from that."

"I wasn't here in the last one. No, I wasn't. What the hell? Where was I?
Well, we recorded earlier last week, so I think you were away.
But me and Dav, we talked, I think Star Wars Outlaws for a full hour.
Well, full hour, 20 minutes."

"Full hour, bloody hell. What happens when I go away?
It's gone to the dogs.
But yeah, no, Dav's not here this week, unfortunately. He's away.
So we were, you know, Alex is coming in, replacing him."

"Step back up. Yeah, step back up. It's just me and Alex today.
And we're going to be talking, as we did actually recently in Film Frenzy, about more Fallout.
It's the topic of everyone's conversations at the moment.
So we figured it would be, it's the right decision to talk about it again."

"Essentially, the question that we've come to discuss more so than anything is, you know, are we in the sort of golden age of gaming adaptations?
Or is this the start of the golden age of gaming adaptations?
What was the way you framed it, Alex, to do with the MCU?
Well, I've seen a lot of people are like, so you know how in 2008 Iron Man comes out?
And The Incredible Hulk, but we don't care about that because it didn't actually come out."

"Woah, woah, woah, woah.
But Iron Man comes out and everyone's like, wait a minute.
This B-list superhero that no one, no one knew about Iron Man before like 2008, unless you were like a comic reader, right?
And there's, like compared to like even like manga readers, there's barely any comic readers around."

"And so no one really was like Iron Man.
People knew Batman, Superman, Spider-Man.
Maybe...
Hulk, like everyone knows the Hulk."

"Maybe Hulk.
Nobody really, like people knew the Hulk, but they didn't know the Hulk.
Wolverine, X-Men, they were bigger, right?
But like Iron Man, The Avengers, all that."

"Scratch what you knew today, kids.
Because nobody gave a rat.
And then Iron Man comes in and people are like, that character is very charismatic.
He's like an MCU, you know, Batman where he's got all the money."

"But he also, he's like, he's cool.
I think we might have lost Alex.
But yes, I'm going to carry on talking while I think we've lost Alex.
See if he'll just come back in a minute."

"He's fully gone.
I think we might have lost him.
Iron Man, Batman, whatever, you know, as soon as the MCU comes about, that's all we've got for like the next ten years of like big blockbusters."

"It was a reliable thing, apart from like your Fast and the Furiouses and your Transformers of like, that's how you make money, is you make a superhero movie.
And you saw DC try and do it and fail to do it with the, you know, the constant attempts of like, here's a Superman, here's a Justice League, here's whatever."

"And so now people are like, are gaming adaptations the new version of that?
Is the essential thought of, are we just going to see gaming adaptations as reliable box office money for the next decade or so?
Because they do make money."

"That's something, even in the quality, in Film Frenzy, Magnus said he hated Five Nights at Freddy's.
I totally understand why, but it does make money.
That's the undeniable objective fact that the people at the boardrooms care about, which is why I think probably we will see a lot more of them as long as that trend continues."

"Am I dead?
Yeah, I would agree. No, no, no, you're fine.
I would agree. I think that, yeah, I think that you're probably onto something there.
Although, granted, I don't think they've quite figured it out just yet."

"I think that we're sort of two years away or so from having it as like the next big fad for the simple reason that there's some, there are a lot of these sort of gaming adaptations that come out that are just absolutely terrible."

"Or ones that you just question why, you know?
Like PlayStation productions are a big one for me.
Yes, we know that they have like Horizon Show in the works.
It's like kind of supposedly like quite a sort of new, sort of unique premise as well."

"Not like a direct adaptation of Horizon Zero Dawn or something like that.
Then there's also the God of War show they're doing as well for Prime Video.
So that's quite exciting.
But at the same time, they also committed resources to doing Gran Turismo as a live action film, which is weird because like, I don't know why."

"Sorry, based on a true story.
Yeah, I know it's based on a true story.
No, that's the full tagline.
It's Gran Turismo based on a true story, isn't it?
Yeah."

"Again, it wasn't a terrible film.
I just think like, why are we looking at Gran Turismo as one of the first ones?
You know, The Last of Us is easy, but it's also recent and it's essentially just a remake."

"And you only get so many seasons of that.
Like maximum three.
Unless they're going to do what they did with Game of Thrones and just push past the source material."

"But no one's going to like that.
Absolutely not.
People barely like The Last of Us Part II as it is.
Most people are really split on it, I find."

"Because they'll either love the story and be like, the rest of it was a bit...
Or they'll be like, I hated the story.
You know, the golf club incident."

"I mean, we can talk about it pretty freely now, right?
I mean, it's not a spoiler.
I won't mention it, but...
I think it's going to be one of those things, though, for, shall we say, the wider audience, the people that don't play the games, when that first episode comes out and it concludes in the way that we all know it's going to conclude."

"Do you think that'll be episode one?
I do. I do.
Because...
I reckon they could have stretched out the whole first half of a season with that still not happening."

"I think it will be the first episode because the way they frame it in the game is very much like...
It happens early on and then there's loads of flashbacks back to Ellie and Joel doing their things, right?
So I think that they'll do that relatively early and set Ellie on her path."

"I don't know.
I don't know because the thing is, they say they're going to stretch part two into multiple seasons, don't they?
That's what I was thinking."

"That's the idea that they're thinking, so...
I don't know.
But the only reason I say that it's going to be early on, though, is because apparently Pedro Pascal's already done his sort of filming for it."

"He's got his moustache off or whatever, hasn't he?
So it makes you think that if he's already done shooting it, he can't have shot much, which makes me think that we're probably not going to be seeing a whole lot of him."

"Yeah.
That would be weird.
Anyway, back to...
And Bella Ramsey carried the show.
Yeah."

"That's a big question, isn't it?
It's a very big question.
I don't know.
Very questionable.
But then as well, PlayStation, the other thing is Twisted Metal, which you spoke about recently."

"I really didn't like that show.
I couldn't get into it whatsoever.
And I just think that...
I'll tell you what, I've never seen it."

"Interviewed the guy who made it, never...
Never got a chance to watch it.
I didn't want...
Like, the screener was broken."

"The screener wouldn't let me watch it.
So I couldn't see it.
And so I had to just sort of like...
Sort of blag a bit.
But that's where I'm at my best."

"As anyone who's seen an Alex Hoffman Game Reactor interview before...
Yeah.
That's where I come into the limelight.
But no, it is interesting."

"Because, yeah, I think there's still quite a lot of hit and misses.
I think Halo is bang in the middle.
It's not quite a hit, not quite a miss, I don't think.
I think it's just..."

"It's just there.
Exists.
Some people do love it.
Some people hate it.
I find most aren't watching."

"Like, if you had to say, does it actually like...
Create conversations in the way that like the Fallout show did?
Not really.
It's sort of like there every time a new season comes out."

"Yeah, and it's for a whole multitude of different reasons.
It's like that, I think, as well.
I think that...
Yeah, I think Fallout exists in its own way."

"In that it's a very, very high quality show.
Unlike Halo, I think Fallout is...
I think there's like an extra degree of care that's been handled...
With this show, unlike Halo."

"But at the same time, they're very different adaptations.
For very different purposes.
And I don't think people quite understand that a lot with Halo.
Yeah."

"I think they're very...
They're still in this mindset that Halo exists as a franchise...
As it did with Halo 3, ODST, Reach, you know.
Halo 2, that sort of era."

"Like, Halo hasn't been excellent for a long time.
Halo peaked a while ago.
I don't think it ever gets back to that.
No, no."

"Halo 4 was okay at best.
Halo 5 was...
Well, really struggled.
Infinite, you know, had a fun campaign.
Terrible launch otherwise, really."

"Terrible support.
And it's getting better.
But like, we don't look at Halo the same way we did.
And that's the same with a variety of other sort of franchises."

"And I think that's why the Halo discourse gets me a bit.
Because I never went into the Halo show thinking like...
This is it.
This is going to be back to Halo 2 level quality."

"Halo peak, Halo sweep.
You know, I don't know.
I'm not too sure what we're expecting there.
And to be honest, that's what..."

"And that's what kind of concerns me a little bit about Borderlands.
Because I think that Borderlands has...
It peaked a long time ago.
And I still love it."

"I still love Borderlands so much, man.
But the trailer for this upcoming film gives me no faith in it whatsoever.
Am I being harsh?
I know, that's the perfect thing though."

"No, I think that's entirely true.
I think it could be one of the worst films I've seen in years.
And yet, I would still probably love it.
Like, I would still probably enjoy it."

"Because you can make it bad, but as long as it's enjoyable.
It'll make money.
Because people go and see it.
Like, Five Nights at Freddy's."

"It's not a good film.
It is objectively not a well-made film.
It is a film that is not like...
Five Nights at Freddy's should have been made after the first game came out."

"Because following all the games that have come out since, they've added loads of lore that doesn't really make any sense.
Because a guy called Game Theories had to explain it to everyone.
Because the guy who made it didn't really know what he was doing."

"And so, then they've put all that lore into it.
So the film is not really scary more than it is a lesson in Five Nights at Freddy's lore.
And so you've got not really much to love there.
But at the same time, I had a lot of fun with it."

"Because the animatronics are really well made.
There's some fun kills.
And there's some good bits.
And it's also like...
Yeah, it's the Five Nights at Freddy's film."

"It's funny.
It's funny that it even exists.
It's the same with the Borderlands movie.
It really shouldn't exist.
If you think about games and Hollywood have always been very separate."

"And now they're merging.
And it's creating...
You know that episode of Rick and Morty?
Where Summer and Morty have an accidental incest baby."

"And it becomes like a huge space baby.
That is horrible to look at.
I feel like that's the blending of video games and Hollywood.
Sometimes it'll be alright."

"But stare at it for too long and it's quite ugly.
No, for sure.
I really wish that Borderlands impressed me in that trailer.
Because I really want it to be good."

"I really do.
But it's just not there.
But then again, we have a lot of different other things coming up in the future.
Game adaptations that are coming out."

"Including one that recently wrapped filming.
I.e. Minecraft.
I'm not too sure what to expect about that.
Again, it kind of fits the same sort of mindset as Five Nights really."

"Because Minecraft doesn't really have a story.
It's kind of just go out in the world and do your thing.
And yeah, they've made an entire movie on it.
Live action as well, right?
I think it's going to be like Jumanji."

"Yeah, it's live action.
So I think it's going to be like Jumanji.
Where someone gets pulled into Minecraft.
I don't know whether that's going to be good or not."

"Which one do you think is going to be pulled in?
Jack Black or Jason Momoa?
Apparently Jack Black because he's Steve, right?
Who's Steve?
It's either him, Jason Momoa or Pedro Pascal."

"One of them is Steve.
I'm pretty sure it's Jack Black.
But I'm not 100% certain.
So I think it's probably going to be Jack Black, right?
And then Matt Berry plays a pig."

"It all sounds really good on paper.
In terms of the casting.
And then I hear live action.
I'm like, well that doesn't make any sense."

"If you'd have just made it like one of those Minecraft YouTube animated videos.
You know, where it's like overly saturated.
And it's just like really bad 3D CGI.
But they make loads of views because kids click on it."

"And they're like, you know, Minecraft the movie, whatever.
I'll watch that.
If they'd just made it like that, to be honest.
It probably makes like 2 billion at the box office."

"Because kids still love Minecraft in a way that is like...
Minecraft came out when me and you were in like school ages.
You know?
And that's weird to think about."

"How it still has the same influence over people that were the same age as we were when it came out.
Because it's just that popular.
And kids will go and see it.
They will drag their parents to go and see it."

"In a way that I don't even think would be the same as the Super Mario Bros movie.
Because I think Super Mario now isn't nearly as big among kids as Minecraft is.
No, no, absolutely not.
They will be foaming at the mouth for this."

"The children yearn for the mines.
They do, yeah.
But yeah, again, it's weird though.
Because Minecraft to me...
It sort of fits in that same..."

"But Minecraft is a weird one.
Because it kind of exists like Sonic the Hedgehog did, right?
When they did the live-action ones of them.
Because I wasn't really too sure how you could really do Sonic as a live-action thing."

"Because it doesn't really have a story either, right?
It's like just platforming for the sake of platforming.
Like Mario.
But they made a really good movie."

"And they made a really good second movie.
And then this month we got the Knuckles live-action TV show.
Which I don't really have much faith in, honestly.
I don't really know why they're doing that."

"But then we got the third movie coming out in December.
Which I think, I would assume, is going to be quite good as well.
It's going to have Shadow in it.
Who's playing Shadow? Do we know that yet?
I don't think we do."

"Although, if Colleen O'Shaughnessy, whatever her name is, details...
Like, why can't we have the Shadow voice acting?
I like the Ben Schwartz cast in Sonic.
I think he kind of suits the role."

"But I never really understood the Idris Elba Knuckles.
I didn't get it.
I still don't think it works.
It's me, Knuckles.
Yeah, it's me, Knuckles."

"Alright, mate.
So, I don't know.
It's going to be a strange one.
But then as well, we got a lot of big ones coming out in the future."

"The Mario Brothers...
Super Mario Brothers movie sequel.
Which I don't think it's actually got a proper title yet.
It's just the sequel or whatever."

"Number two.
Probably sequel two, right?
Yeah.
And then there's the Legend of Zelda movie as well.
Which is going to be probably the next really, really big one, I would assume."

"Depends on Minecraft.
It really, like...
We're underestimating the power of Minecraft, I think.
Because it is the best selling game of all time, right?
I think Tetris still is."

"But Minecraft's got to be up there.
I'm not too sure about that.
Minecraft is at least the second best.
Best selling games of all time."

"Let's go.
Wikipedia.
Minecraft, number one.
Tetris, number three.
Oh, really?
What's it beating at?
Gran Turismo?
Gran Theft Auto?
Gran Turismo."

"Gran Turismo.
Based on a true story.
The best...
Yeah, Minecraft, 300 million at the time of writing.
And if each of those turned into a movie ticket..."

"The biggest film of all time.
Yeah, definitely.
I wonder why, though, we still haven't got a sequel to Detective Pikachu.
I wonder why there hasn't been any more significant live-action Pokemon movies."

"Because surely that's a market they can tap into.
Did Detective Pikachu do well?
That's the question, I think.
I think it did."

"I think it was a good 700 million.
450 million?
Jesus.
What's the budget?
Budget 150 million."

"Yeah, why haven't we got a sequel to that?
I don't know.
You'd think that now that we get into this era of more video game adaptations, that people would want something like this."

"And again, as well, they kind of shot themselves in the foot a little bit by choosing the Detective Pikachu brand to adapt.
Instead of just making it a Pokemon movie.
But maybe that's something that they'll look at in the future."

"It's not really Nintendo to do that, though.
It's more the Pokemon company's decision.
Yeah, well, Pokemon's always been more animated, I think, as well.
With their stuff."

"I mean, Pokemon, even the first movie, the one pulled in 172 million at the box office.
And that was when Pokemon was just coming out.
It's released in 2000."

"I think even earlier.
1998, yeah.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with doing an animated one.
You could team up with Studio Ghibli, potentially."

"Do something like that.
That depends.
I think Miyazaki, he hates.
He seems to hate life.
I don't know if you've ever seen the clips of his documentary where he looks at his animations and he just puts his hand on his head and he's like, no one will remember me."

"But at what cost?
And he's just so down.
He makes such good work.
Genuinely one of the artists of our generation."

"I say our generation.
He's not like as old as us.
You know what I mean?
One of the best living artists, I think, today."

"I think it's because he hates his son.
Have you not heard about this?
No, no.
His son has tried to follow in his footsteps and just doesn't have the talent for it."

"And so he hates his son.
And he hates the fact that when he dies, his son will probably try and take over Ghibli.
It'll be a bit of a Brian Herbert, the guy who's Frank Herbert, who wrote Dune, his son, who wrote loads of extra Dune novels that just bastardised the whole thing."

"I mean, Christopher Tolkien's not as bad.
People like that that just take over the whole franchise.
It's sort of a film frenzy discussion, but the Ghibli Pokemon, I wouldn't hold that hope for it because I would imagine that Miyazaki seems very anti-corporate of franchising and stuff like that."

"No, for sure.
I'd just throw Studio Ghibli out there as something that would be really nice to see.
But again, we've seen it before."

"Pokemon Concierge comes out on Netflix and everyone's like, wow, this is really cool.
But why haven't people explored the brand?
Why aren't they letting people explore the brand any further?
That's what I don't understand with the Pokemon Company."

"Because if they explore it too much, they'll realise that the games that the Pokemon Company makes aren't that good.
And they'll be like, oh, why can't we have Pokemon Concierge the game?
And Pokemon Company will be like, we don't know."

"We don't know how to make that.
We know how to make the same game that you've had for 20 years and you better eat it and you better like it.
Just you watch Digimon has a chance here to do the craziest thing imaginable."

"Take over the world.
I love Digimon.
I wish Digimon, or like, you know, the Bakugan.
Yu-Gi-Oh! doesn't really count because Yu-Gi-Oh! was its own thing."

"Where's the Yu-Gi-Oh! movie at?
That's what I want to see.
Do people still play Yu-Gi-Oh! Do people still buy the cards and all that?
There's still people at tournaments and stuff."

"You'll always find that.
But it's like, I read an article recently about a guy who was at a Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament who purposefully forfeited because his opponent smelled so bad."

"He's like, he's about to fart.
At the table.
But there must be like, there's still like, I'm not sure how much the prize money is because Yu-Gi-Oh! is not like massive."

"But it must be like a good $1,000 or something, you know, like a prize for a tournament.
You show up and you get, you choose not to take $1,000 because some guy just hasn't showered in months."

"I respect it.
Use of biological warfare makes sense.
Yeah.
But no, let's circle back then to round out this.
Let's get back to a point."

"Let's get back to the point, whatever the point was.
Yeah, are we in, are we, what do you think?
Are we at the beginning of the golden era of video game adaptations or are we in it now?
What do you reckon?
I think it, like the golden era, it's an interesting thing because like, we don't have one sort of, like with the MCU, you have one track to follow and everything that spins off that."

"So there were other superhero movies, as I said, like Justice League and DC and they failed.
And so you were like, well, you follow the Marvel track."

"That's consistently pretty good.
There's no consistently good track to follow with video game adaptations.
I feel like, even though we've had Arcane."

"I think the track that we have to go off is the things that have gone in the past that have been absolutely terrible.
Just don't do that again and we'll be good."

"Yeah.
Don't give us, even like a 2017 Tomb Raider, you know, the one with the lady from Ex Machina, like don't do that."

"Give us like Arcane, cyberpunk edge runners, stuff that like pushes the boundary in a way that, even like The Last of Us, I would say try not to do that again because it only really works so well with something like The Last of Us with the story so easily translatable."

"Like we were talking about Fallout before and how it's sort of a, shit, I've gone again.
No, no, you're fine.
Oh, shit."

"I thought just because you were like quite still, I was like, I've gone, it's over, I'm dead.
But we were talking about Fallout before and like, Fallout's a bit of a miracle because it doesn't really have, like Fallout stories are its own but a lot of the franchise is based around the universe and the lore that's set up and you sort of existing within that."

"Because like you look at the character of like The Wanderer, for example, from Fallout 4, they're not really like a character because you make who they are even though they're fully voiced."

"So, it's a bit of a thing of like, you need to just sort of get people that understand the product as well.
Like you can't have people that come in and say, it's the same with any sort of adaptation but you can't have people that come in and say we scanned over it, we don't like what we see so we're going to make something that's really different because that's how you lose the fan base that is your foundation."

"You have to please them first.
You have to try really because otherwise you end up with people like hating on it and then no one's going to come to defend it because the fans are the only people that gave a crap in the first place."

"Yeah, and I think we'll see in the future as well, we'll see developers and studios, especially the bigger companies, we'll see them employing sort of like a law keeper, sort of like a multimedia officer, that sort of role."

"Yeah.
I think we saw Bungie do it recently actually.
Well, actually, I know that Bungie has like a law officer, they have like a historian, but I think, you know, Did you go for that job?
No, I didn't actually."

"No, I think I spoke to them recently actually about some campaign we did.
But anyway, no, Bungie has like these plans, you know, that they're working towards like making Destiny, there's some sort of multimedia effort."

"They've been doing it for years and they announced it sort of a while back or maybe it was like a job listing or something, but it's been like clearly in development that they wanted to sort of step into this multimedia effort for a while."

"I think we'll see it in the future with other companies as well.
There needs to be it, especially if there's a market and if there's money to be made in the adaptation space, they need to explore it, they need to support it."

"And yeah, I think we'll definitely see that become more of a thing in the future.
Otherwise, Fallout, if you haven't seen it, watch it."

"It's great.
Yeah.
Otherwise, if you want to hear more about Fallout in particular, watch the latest episode of Film Frenzy where we talk specifically about Fallout and not just ramble about it."

"We've also got Mag on the case.
Yeah, we also have Mag there.
Yeah, we don't just ramble on about Studio Ghibli and whatnot on that show."

"I mean, Zachy hates his son.
Yeah, but you know, you live and you learn.
That's what you come here for, to be educated."

"That's what we've given you today.
If you didn't get a new fact from the latest episode of either Film Frenzy or Game & Gossip, email me or message me and I'll get one for you."

"But yeah, no, this has been Game & Gossip episode 11, I think.
Might be 12.
I'm not too sure."

"It's the one after Film Frenzy, put it that way.
But yes, we'll be back now next week.
So stay tuned for that.
Otherwise, yeah, thank you for watching."

"Alex, as lovely as always to catch up with you and we'll see you on the next one, I guess.
Hopefully with Dav."

"So yeah, see you on that one, boys."