Why no Hunger Games video game?
- Thread starter JD
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24 characters a year, actually. 12 districts supply two tributes a year.
I agree that a video game about kids killin' kids in a gladiator arena for mass entertainment of the upper class wouldn't really fly with the parents groups.
I'm not sure that stereotype is remotely true, although they're probably not known for appreciating fighting games. That being said, is the movie audience the same as the book audience?
It could work, if the hero character is mainly being controlled in a deadly traps and monster (mutts, etc) platformer game and less about killing the others.
You could throw in a few boss characters from the career tribute pool who can be aged up enough so not to count as kids anymore.
It would still be very dark, because while the player survives, you can't quite get around other kids dying gruesome deaths, just not necessarily at the hands of the player.
You could throw in a few boss characters from the career tribute pool who can be aged up enough so not to count as kids anymore.
It would still be very dark, because while the player survives, you can't quite get around other kids dying gruesome deaths, just not necessarily at the hands of the player.
You could murder children in Fallout, The Phantom Menace, Deus Ex, and Baldur's Gate. Fallout 1 even has a perk called "child killer" your character receives after killing a child. I also remember running over children with an ice cream truck in Body Harvest on the N64. See, you play the ice cream music to lure them close, and then turn them into a bloody splatter on the street. Sure, you're supposed to save them to complete the mission, but sometimes you just want to have fun.
There's plenty of games where you can kill kids.
Nope. I can't think of any examples where kids kill kids. Sure, there's probably an NES platformer where you play as a kid throwing apples or something at other kid-like looking 32x24 pixel sprites causing them to blink out of existence, but that doesn't count.
Well, in "The Walking Dead", season 2, you play a little girl as a main character. Of course, she is fighting against zombies, not humans (haven't actually played season 2 yet). The only way I could see The Hunger Games turned into a videogame is a similar approach. More like an adventure game and less like a fighting/survival game. But I'm actually glad they stayed away from any possible Hunger Games videogames. As was mentioned before, there is always a rsik that games based on movies totally suck.
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You'd be surprised. When I was high school I knew several girls who played video games. And there all sorts of articles on the web about girl gamers.
As I said earlier, big video game companies and their publishers tend to be pretty conservative, and they have more traditional market researchers and salespeople and all that jazz who buy into "traditional" notions of who buys what. Plenty of teenage girls are into video games, but MBAs at EA and Activision just wouldn't believe it.
With all the kids playing GTA IV and Call of Duty I'm not so sure.
What's funny is you quote me and then don't answer the question correctly. In none of those games is the GOAL to kill children.
Now, if you had quoted the second question of my post, where I ask about games that ALLOW you to target children, your list would be applicable.
Regardless, The Hunger Games focus on children killing other children as bloodsport. The goal is child murder for LOLs. No one is going to greenlight that game.
I suspect that this is the biggest reason why there is no game. Actually how much Hunger Games merch is there in general? I know there are dolls and make up (some one really missed the point on that one) but are there action figures and vehicles? I know its a complicated story to market to kids but its been done. I suspect that the bulk of the merch for the films has been targeted at girls, which is why there is no game.
The other thing to consider is what contracts exist that make the movies possible. I would imagine that a Hunger Games game set before Katniss would require the input of the original author. That may increase the development time for any game. Plus when you think about it, a Hunger Games game set before Katniss would be fairly limited story wise, since there would be no larger plot unless it was about the original uprising that was brutally crushed. The challenge of going that route is that the details about that event get revealed in the third story, so the game would be one big spoiler.
I understood your question correctly, but it's an unfair question. There aren't any games where killing children is the goal because children make for poor goals. Can you imagine a Call of Duty game where you fight an army of 12 years olds or a platformer where the big bad is a 15 year old girl? It doesn't make sense.
Western games are focused on the gritty, adult stuff and Japanese games are focused on fantasy. Children don't fit into western games and humans don't fit into Japanese games. So I did the next best thing and gave you a game (Fallout) where the company actually programmed in a character perk that you can achieve if you murder a child. For an open-world game that's as close to a goal as you get.
I do agree that children murdering children wouldn't fly in an ultra gritty, realistic FPS, but outside of that genre, say for example an isometric RPG, there really isn't a problem. Baldur's Gate and Fallout were two of the most popular and influential games of all time and they allowed (even gave you bonuses for) murdering children.
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