As we delve head first into the a global culture, we see more and more cross-over between games, film, TV, and music. At the first annual Hollywood and Games Summit, Paul W. S. Anderson, whose film credits include Mortal Kombat, and the Resident Evil series had the following to say:

This sort of synergy is a vast untapped resource waiting to explode We'll begin to see intellectual property designed to be released as video games, feature films, and television spin-offs all at the same time

Anderson is currently working on the Dead or Alive film.

At the same conference Marvel's Kevin Feige had the following to say: "These days game builders work on their script at the same time as the screen writers are developing their script." Marvel now makes far more from licensing its characters and stories than it does from comic books.

There have been some excellent examples of where the film-game convergence formula works. For example, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay videogame was more than a movie spin off, it actually is the official backstory to Pirch Black and provides excellent material, such as where Riddick got his infamous eye-shine (and it was an excellent game, to boot). It's a shame they didn't release clips from the game in the recently released Riddick Trilogy DVD set.

However, the same philosophy was taken with X3: The Official Game, with nowhere near as spectacular results. Yes, the game fills the gaps between the second and third X-Men films, and it explains why Nightcrawler is MIA, but it was painful to play.

What some, including yours truly, is that we are only going to see symbiotic games and movies. That is, movies based on videogame or comic properties, and videogames based on movie or comic IP. With games getting more and more expensive to develop, many publishers are looking for the surefire sales that movie tie-ins offer.

My wish? Keep making games based on films, I've got no problems with that. But remember that the most memorable videogames started off as videogames. From Mario, Master Chief, Sonic, and Solid Snake true videogame hits are born. So game publishers, remember that creativity still counts for more than marketing. [Source: AFP]