Are “Character” or “Gaming” Companies Becoming Entertainment Companies?

Nintendo has just acquired the film production company Dynamo Pictures.

Marvel retooled their business strategy to enter the film industry.

Sega and Sony have both put a lot of money into making movies and TV shows based on their video game franchises.

The intention of the purchase by Nintendo is to create visual content based on Nintendo’s intellectual property, such as Super Mario movies starring Chris Pratt. That’s a telling admission from a company that has long opposed the natural progression of its properties into mediums other than video games. The company is aggressive in protecting its intellectual property, possibly as a result of the poor reception of various television cartoon series and live-action programmes in the late 1980s, as well as the disastrous Super Mario Bros. live-action film in 1993.

But it does show the times we live in. Other companies are adopting this strategy. It’s a good financial move on PlayStation’s part, especially given the company’s The Last of Us TV programme will soon be available on Netflix, joining similar adaptations from other game firms.

The more we consider Nintendo’s function as an entertainment business, the more we consider how movies fit into that, and we may consider things like movies in the future.

An Uncharted film was just published by Sony. More than $721 million has been made from Sega and Paramount’s two Sonic the Hedgehog films.

Ubisoft may be the only video game publisher that has fully embraced the trend of adapting its games into movies. Since 2012, when it established its own film division, the publisher has taken a keen interest in the cinematic adaptations of its works. With last year’s Werewolves Within and Apple TV’s Mythic Quest (which will soon be returning for a third season), that division, which has had its share of teething difficulties, has finally reached its groove.

The acquisition of Dynamo will give Nintendo’s creators greater say in the presentation and storytelling of its games, leading to (hopefully) more genuine experiences for the company’s legions of fans.

It’s easy to understand why Nintendo would want to bring its already-popular characters to the big screen in animated or potentially live-action form, given that they inhabit imaginative, colourful worlds.

The popularity of visual material incorporating Nintendo’s large list of characters from various franchises may have finally dawned on the company, since fans of all of Nintendo’s games have frequently commented, “They should definitely adapt this into a movie or TV series.” Marvel and DC have made billions of dollars by transferring their vast libraries of characters and stories to cinema and television over the years.

It’s becoming more obvious that gaming and other forms of digital entertainment are merging into a single industry, with producers of these products fighting for customers’ “screen time” at the expense of everything else. The fact that Netflix has identified Fortnite as its main rival in 2019 is indicative of this. Due to the ever-increasing crossover, game developers now have to compete with every other kind of digital entertainment for consumers’ time and money.

In other words, it’s not a dead end. Previous Epic events have included non-gaming activities. Among them are the Fortnite in-game events, including performances by Ariana Grande and Travis Scott, and the ShortNite film festival. Epic plans to adopt a novel user acquisition technique to bring in new players, and the company will also provide bonuses to current subscribers in an effort to keep them around for as long as possible.

Roblox has just entered the video distribution market by providing an episode of the Spin Master Corp. anime TV series Bakugan a full week before its premiere on Netflix. Once again, the objective was to bring people together by having them share a common entertainment experience.

It’s becoming abundantly clear that a fully-fledged digital entertainment industry is on the horizon, one that doesn’t limit itself to specific hardware or platforms in order to meet the needs of a consumer base that demands instantaneous and constant interaction with the topics that interest them most, in the ways that best suit them.