Games for Reel: World of Warcraft
This isn’t so much an article about why the MMO titan World of Warcraft would make a good movie as it is a letter aimed at Blizzard, begging them to gear their expertise towards making a movie. So, lets make this a little more formal.
Dear Blizzard,
Between your Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series’, every gamer I know has dedicated a good chunk of their lives to the most modern games from at least one of these three. Of course, take a look at the number of subscriptions you have, and the number of hours gamers log into your most popular creation to date, World of Warcraft. Basically what I’m trying to say is that you’re very well known in the gaming world right now. Of course, you already knew this.
So why am I coming to you of all the other gaming companies? Well, here’s why. You have what it takes to make an ideal game film and you’ve proven it time and time again.
Blizzard, you have a yearning for perfection. Well, to be more accurate, you pay a great attention to detail. Take a look back on Diablo 2. The game was released in 2000, and it is still played by gamers today, nine years later. In that time, the game has been patched up to 1.12. In nine years, 12 updates isn’t a whole lot, especially because all of those updates were tweeks to the individual classes in order to balance them, or new content released, not necessary game repairs. Speaking of Diablo, we have been waiting for over a year since you announced Diablo 3. As much as we all crave the third game in the Diablo series, your attention to detail prevents you from releasing the game until it is fully ready for us to play. If you used this much attention to detail when making a film, then it could be the game movie masterpiece that we’ve been waiting for.
Making a film would be a very soft blow on your wallet. Lets just take a very general look at the monetary value of one of your many successful games. Keep in mind, I am no business expert, I just have common sense. World of Warcraft charges members about $15.00 a month. With 11 million subscribers to date, that’s $15 million a month. Even if a third of that was prophet, that adds up to $5 million a month for you to spend as you see fit. You also have to include income from the gamers who have bought WoW with the expansions (about $60 total) that’s an additional $660 million ($220 million prophet). A movie like Transformers had a budget of about $200 million. From my calculations, it looks like you should have more than enough money to pump out a quality film under your name.
Finally, the most important reason why you should make a film: quality. As a company, you have shown what it takes to make a great film time and time again. Starting as early as Warcraft 2, your animated cut scenes have been on the cutting edge. Each cut scene I’ve seen from your games has had me sitting on the edge of my seat, soaking in the developed detail, the brilliant camera angles, and the masterful use of characters for narration and plot development.
Why do I say you should make a film from WoW as opposed to Starcraft and Diablo? Not only because it is the most popular, and would draw the most attention, but because of the plot. For a moment lets set asside the fact that WoW is an MMO and just look at Warcraft. Each character for every race has their own deep back story that draws them towards the Horde or the Alliance. To each individual, the Horde or the Alliance means something completely unique. To some it’s honor, pride, and what is right. To others it’s family, unification, and purity. For others it even stretches as far as racism, genocide, and perfection. There is so much content, and so many shorelines to follow, that I suggest that you could develop a series of films that draws each into the time line of the World of Warcraft. Who knows what you could do with it, but I say get started, you have the power, use it.
So please, make a movie out of World of Warcraft that will change the expectations of movies made from video games.Gamers no longer want our new favored games to be tied to a bastardized film counterpart.
Sincerely,
x wow addict, and loyal fanboy
Atomsk
- Edited by Rusty
nice article. gj ^_^