The Hollywood Cycle: Comparing the MMO Industry with the Silver Screen - Page 7

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Updated Mon, Aug 10, 2009 by Cody Bye

One of the more intriguing little factoids to come out of my research concerning Hollywood is that until the 1970s, most Hollywood films were… tame. The era of “New Hollywood” hadn’t really begun. Yet the 70s were a time of change, and we saw an increased amount of violence and sexuality in films during that time period. MMOs certainly haven’t reached any sort of “New Industry” threshold yet, and I asked the panelists if that would ever occur. If violence and sexuality might make a more prominent position in our MMOs?

This was another decisive issue between our panelists, and was really split between the MMO and Hollywood side of the coin. Here’s what our man from Hollywood, Steve Preeg, had to say:

I don’t think the companies have gone there because it boils down to marketshare. In film, everyone knows that if your film is rated “R” that it will make less money than if it’s PG-13. Less people will go and see your movie, and I think there’s something to be said about that. Many parents don’t let their children play certain games, or they don’t want to walk by and see their child beheading someone. It’s all about marketshare.

Look at Manhunt, for instance. Manhunt was incredibly violent, and the marketshare they wanted to get was that group that wanted to see what it was like to strangle someone with a plastic bag. That was their marketshare. Whether it was a fun game or not was beside the point at that juncture. It was just too extreme, and the same thing happens in film. When you start pushing the envelope, you start losing people. A good example is Tarantino films; a lot of people have a hard time watching his movies.

Titanic made a bunch of money because teenage girls wanted to see it over and over again.

Both Peterscheck and Alexander were a bit more on the fence with this topic

“Maybe [we’ll see something like this happen],” Peterscheck answered. “Age of Conan tried to go down that road with some success. Something else to keep in mind is that trends are evaluated historically not predicted in advance. In the 1970s no one was going around saying that they were going to start such and such a genre or movement - that was done AFTER the 1970s were over. Same thing for MMOs. I suspect that in 10 years there will be the such and such phase of MMOs which then naturally lead into the whatdoyoucallit phase. Being in the middle of it we can't really make such observations though I'm certain lots of things will be tried.”

Here’s how Alexander answered:

It depends on if it’s appropriate for the setting and the content. Age of Conan was trying to achieve that, and did to some degree.

Ultimately, I feel like fantasy is a “Teen” sort of experience. Horror or urban based settings should certainly have a higher degree of violence and sexuality than fantasy or science fiction. It just depends on what genre you’re shooting for. In some cases it’s appropriate. In others, it’s not.

What I do see in our future is a move away from the dominance of fantasy. Clearly fantasy is a great genre, but I think if you added up all the dollars in the MMO space, ninety-five to ninety-nine percent of it is based in fantasy. That percentage *has* to go down. It just has to!