Gamers Might Finally Accept Movie-Based Videogames

Nielsen has found evidence that videogames outed as tie-ins for the big release movies of summer seem to be garnering some respect from gamers with a select few of them being accepted as interesting in themselves.

It appears that players still wish to pick up X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was made by Activision, probably because the title was a competent brawler and actually managed to complete the backstory for the comic book character. 29% of people were interested in taking the game home.

Second spot goes to The Godfather II, which is loosely based on the movie trilogy, enjoying 28% purchase intention. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was also highly sought after by gamers as were videogame movie tie-ins like Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, and Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

When it comes to online “buzz,” a term used to refer to the amount of attention paid to a videogame by online sources of news and previews, the new Ghostbusters videogame has been the most talked about with a share of about 22,2% of the buzz, followed by Terminator: Salvation with close to 15%, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

It's interesting to note that the levels of buzz for one title are not directly correlated to those of sales intention, suggesting that more attention could be paid to titles that have high profile movie companions but do not have the quality needed to make it as videogames on their own strength.

It seems that the safer route for movie-inspired videogames is to take a property that has not had a theatrical release in some time, like The Godfather or Ghostbusters, where the videogame product can exist on its own, without needing to copy the storyline and the details provided by a concurrent movie release.