James Bond: GoldenEye 64 broke the mold for movie tie-in games

20-Aug-2004 • Bond News

Only in the past few years have game developers begun creating quality games instead of what had been essentially poorly executed marketing gimmicks. Beginning in 1997 with the mega-selling "GoldenEye 007" for Nintendo 64, based on the James Bond film, and continuing through this summer with the releases of games based on "The Chronicles of Riddick," "Spider-Man 2" and "Shrek 2," virtual versions of blockbuster movies no longer resemble underwhelming commercial misfires - reports Newsday.com.

"A few years ago, most of the games that came out were slapped together as sort of add-ons," says Philip O'Neil, president of Vivendi Universal Games' North American operations. "There was sort of an assumption that games that were based on films weren't going to be that good."

"A game like Spider-Man 2 wasn't slapped together in just a few months, whereas in the past it seemed as though many of the low-quality movie-based games that emerged were the direct result of last-minute deals," Greg Kasavin, executive editor of Gamespot.com, a San Francisco-based online magazine covering video games, said in an e-mail interview.

"The games were afterthoughts. Now they're not, because both Hollywood and the gaming industry realize that a strong movie brand can actually carry great leverage with game players. But at the same time, game players have leverage, too. If a movie game is terrible, it can actually hurt the movie franchise."

GoldenEye proved that a quality game attached to a movie can be a huge hit. The game, a first-person shooter that featured the digitized face of Pierce Brosnan as Bond, has sold more than 5 million units since its release seven years ago, making it tops among movie- based games, according to the NPD Group, a Port Washington-based research firm.

"GoldenEye is an important case, since that game is legendary among game players, far more so, I'd say, than the movie is famous among movie buffs," says Kasavin, 27, who has played video games for about 20 years.

Since 1996, at least 10 other movie-inspired games have been blockbusters, selling between 1.1 million and 1.8 million copies, including three based on the "Star Wars" series and two based on James Bond, according to NPD Group figures.

Thanks to `JP` for the alert.