Cross pollination - TV to Video games to TV
Video games have long borrowed from other media forms. Developers use cutscenes and in game cinematography to drive the storyline - and the best cutscenes are as effective as the best Hollywood has to offer. Horror games make great use of sound effects and music to heighten the suspense, much like horror films have been doing since Nosferatu.
Games have also borrowed from TV. One of my favorite games from back in the day was Interstate ‘76, which had a hokey ’70s TV show feel, including a great opening sequence. Watch this great opening movie and credit sequence and tell me that it doesn’t hit that ’70s action series feel on the head: I’76 Opening Movie.
Today, video games are becoming such a big part of popular culture that we’re starting to see some design ideas going the other way - from video games to TV and movies.
Sports broadcasts and games are a prime example of this cross pollination. Football video games were overlaying the scrimmage and 1st down lines decades ago - which is a common practice in football broadcasts these day.
Sports broadcasts have also borrowed some camera techniques from video games. The flyover, fly-by-wire, aerial camera required need technology to pull off but video games have been using that for a long time … which they probably originally borrowed from the movies to begin with.
Examples of this type of borrowing are everywhere. The Matrix’s “we’re all living in a virtual reality MMORPG” is heavily influenced by video games. Max Payne took the bullet cam and made it the interactive bullet time. And it’s only a matter of time before sports broadcasts figure out how to do real-time bullet cam. And soon after that DVRs will figure out how to give users the ability not only to stop and rewind live TV, but also allow the viewer to change camera angles at the same time … basically a bullet time camera for live TV.
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