Game for It?

Film marketing has got itself a new strategy - that of making a video game based on the storyline.

If the movie narrated the rise of a ruthless organisation; the video game took the story forward from where the film ended. When GI Joe: Rise of Cobra released in 2010,it was its video game version that helped generate the hype in the initial days. This trend of using video games to keep a movie franchise growing has spread in the film world. Avatar,Tron Legacy,Gran Turino,Ironman 1&2,Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen are some examples where movies have used video games to widen their fan base. Bollywood’s Ra.One will join the group.

Ra.One is the first Bollywood film to resort to games as part of its promotion strategy. Sony Computer Entertainment in association with Red Chillies Entertainment will launch a Playstation 2 and a Playstation 3 compatible version of the game. Atindriya Bose,country manager-India,Sony Computer Entertainment,says,We began designing the game a year and a half back in association with the team from Red Chillies. In fact,the storyline for the game was written by Shah Rukh Khan himself. The game will have all the central characters of the movie and a similar plot line. It will be released a month prior to the movie so that it generates the necessary buzz about the film and players can get a feel of the film.

These are big companies that have dedicated core teams to sit and develop games within a time frame of a year or a year and a half. On the other hand,television channels develop mini-versions of games that are loosely based on storylines of the films to generate interest when they are aired.

Himmat Butalia,marketing head,Sony Pix,says,There are two major reasons behind these games being introduced in the market. When released on television,these movies are already well established. The games only help television audiences become more receptive towards the films. Secondly,these games are not high-action strategy games,but basic shooting or hack and slash ones that are developed within a month or so.” Since they are simple,almost everyone can play them and one doesn’t require expensive consoles. Plus,the games are available as free downloads. “We used this when we premiered Salt on TV last month. Even with the Resident Evil games,we developed a simpler version so that we could use it for the movie promotion.

Unlike smaller games designed for free downloads,Ra.One,The Game is being developed on the lines of Avatar,Resident Evil and the others. Hollywood has been a great market motivator. The games released there make a significant impact on creating a brand out of the movie. Even Ra.One was developed at a high cost like these international games, Bose adds.

These games however do not always become a hit. For instance,Ironman 1&2,Transformers and even Beowulf garnered negative reviews on gaming sites like IGN and Metacritic. Butalia says,What these games help in doing is create a hype. However after that,it is the job of the developers to make a good game. And there are times when that doesn’t happen.

Bose says that there is a difference between Playstation games and the development. We are only publishers. So we have an understanding with developers to sell their games. What happens on how these games are received is a totally different issue. With Ra.One however,we are developing the game ourselves. What we want to create is a loyal game player fan-base,so that it opens the possibility of developing future storylines independent from the film by retaining the same characters, he says.

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