Will Games Ever Be As Frequently Re-Made As Movies?

So I’m not a huge fan of film re-makes, I don’t hate them (except for when the film in question was re-made a decade or less after its release) but I’m not keen on them. Admittedly some aren’t bad, some are surprisingly good (The Amazing Spider-Man anyone?), some are just awful and some aren't obviously remakes (I wonder who among you noticed that Avatar was just Pocahontas in disguise), however it’s something that’s not seen often in gaming. Why? What is it about the video game as a medium that means it is treated differently from a movie?

 It is not unheard of for games to be remastered, the original Xbox version of Chronicles of Riddick was updated for the Xbox 360 and with the recent release of Halo: Anniversary it seems that no game is safe from it. Even Edmund McMillen, creator of Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac has confirmed he will be remaking the latter (though ‘de-making’ may be a more appropriate term as it will be trading its cute trademark ‘newgrounds’ flash animation style for a 16-bit retro lick of paint) in order to re brand the product and combine it with its expansion for a more fully rounded gaming experience (McMullen, 2012).

With this in mind it seems like most games when they are remade are done so by their original developers. So why this difference between game and films?

Steve Martin says that films are remade so much because times are constantly changing (Martin, N.D.). Even if this is a legitimate reason then why don’t games follow the same suit? Why not just make a film that changes with the times rather than remaking an old film so it fits in with today’s world? It could be the speed of technological development; games tend to advance more quickly and encourage expansion of ideas slightly more than films, however it could also be to do with the number of different teams that end up working on a game. Films tend to involve very few production organisations when compared to games. Due to how collaborative the creation of a game is it would be more difficult to remake a game as the rights are harder to obtain.

When I watch films there are definitely some times where I will say to myself “I could have made this better.” Whereas when I play a game I indentify flaws and rather than saying to myself that I could do a better job, I simply believe that if I was ever involved in creating a game I simply would be more aware of those potential problems. It may just be me or it may be a different attitude possessed by the gaming generation. Was the mentality more of a one-upmanship train of thought whereas video game developers assume a more introspective idea of personal excellence? Whichever it is, its something that is interesting to observe, and maybe it shows that games developers are more mature artists than their ‘behind the camera’ peers.

 

I’ll see you after an 18bit demake.