The Movies console canned

By Tom Bramwell Published 7 February, 2006

Poor PC take-up blamed.

Those of you wondering about the fate of the promised console versions of Lionhead's The Movies have your answer: they've been canned due to weak sales of the PC game.

As we pointed out yesterday, the PC version's inspired people to create all sorts of amusing little vignettes to represent their in-game movie studios - but apparently not enough.

Still, you shouldn't discount the PC version anyway - as you can see from the newly released demo, it's an interesting blend of empire building and creativity.

A bit like stealing your sister's crayons, then, except with far more kicking and screaming in the aftermath.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Eldritch #1 6 years ago

    Any official sales figures?

    Is it true that both Black & White 2 and The Movies were (financial) flops then?

  • Stickman #2 6 years ago

    Well..it was a little bit rubbish in the end, wasn't it? You played for a few hours and it was all so exciting, the possibilities were endless! Then you played for a few days and realised that, in fact, the possibilities ended fairly sharpish, and dull repetition took their place.

  • Talha #3 6 years ago

    Um, well, I did play The Movies for a few hours and quite enjoyed it, but haven't got back to it since. That is its story really, ain't it? A game with so much promise, but failing to deliver in terms of basic gameplay hooks.

  • kazuya69 #4 6 years ago

    Exactly how I felt about Black & White.
    I wish he hadn't of sold Syndicate to €A. :(

  • Talha #5 6 years ago

    Haven't played B&W, but I think it does not take EA to ruin franchises - people can do that even without their help.

  • brokenkey #6 6 years ago

    Maybe the £45 price point at launch was a mistake

  • Darkedge #7 6 years ago

    He sold the rights to syndicate?
    Oh fuck

  • Talha #8 6 years ago

    @brokenkey: The real mistake was how repetitive the gameplay got just a few hours in. It degenerated so quickly it even made it into the reviews. It seems that everything that seemed like a nice idea was honestly put in, but nobody tested how it played for long durations. A shame, really.

    Let's hope the inevitable The Movies 2 puts that right.

  • Eldritch #9 6 years ago

    "Maybe the £45 price point at launch was a mistake"

    You could get it from CD WOW for £20...

  • Ceatlan #10 6 years ago

    I also played for a few hours, after which I never touched it again.

  • Blerk #11 6 years ago

    I'm still waiting for the PSOne version of Black and White, by the way. :-)

  • brokenkey #12 6 years ago

    @ Eldritch - you can now, but at launch the cheapest price on line was £25, and Game stores were selling it at £45. You can see what they were thinking - EA buys typical Lionhead PR bullshit, thinks "it genre busting, and the excuse we've always been looking for to pump the prices of PC games", and it tanks at retail.

    Early review were very good, early forum reviews were also glowing, but it just didnt' have the legs.
    Edited by 1 at 07/02/06 @ 10:55

  • nick_f Verified Senior Producer, Microsoft #13 6 years ago

    The Movies was published by Activision, wasn't it?

  • Darren #14 6 years ago

    Black & White 2 was a little disappointing (but still good!). The Movies though was excellent and it's a real shame that it was considered a flop on the PC. I suppose that means the chance of Sims-style expansion packs are pretty slim then...?

  • reality_cheque #15 6 years ago

    @Darkedge: At least someone might do something with the license now, resulting in someone under the age of 25 actually knowing what we're talking about.

  • Jokerr #16 6 years ago

    Shame that when a developer actually tries something new, it gets shunned by consumers. I expect Lionhead's next game will probably be a generic 3rd person hack n' slash or something.
    Edited by 1 at 07/02/06 @ 11:36

  • Markusdragon #17 6 years ago

    Shaaaaaaame.

    It didn't help that they took out a shitload of features so that they could put them into add-on packs.

    Shame that when a developer actually tries something new, it gets shunned by consumers. I expect Lionhead's next game will probably be a generic 3rd person hack n' slash or something.

    It'll be Fable 2, which isn't quite a generic 3rd person hack n' slash, but is pretty close.

    He sold the rights to syndicate?
    He didn't sell them per se, it's more that he lost the rights when he stormed out of EA because they were trying to force him to make generic and rushed sequels, leaving Bullfrog Productions behind.
    Which is pretty much why I have a shitload of respect for Molyneux. That and Theme Park.
    Edited by 3 at 07/02/06 @ 11:49

  • Eldritch #18 6 years ago

    I have the feeling that Lionhead creates the game equivalent of "one-joke films". When I started playing B&W for the first time, I was mesmerized. The possibilities... Then it turned into an endless bore, at the end of which I just wanted to destroy everything. I had the same experience with "The Movies". Having a great idea (and those games are based on great ideas) and turning it into a great game are two different things. Sad, but true.

  • Markusdragon #19 6 years ago

    I have the feeling that Lionhead creates the game equivalent of "one-joke films". When I started playing B&W for the first time, I was mesmerized. The possibilities... Then it turned into an endless bore, at the end of which I just wanted to destroy everything. I had the same experience with "The Movies". Having a great idea (and those games are based on great ideas) and turning it into a great game are two different things. Sad, but true.

    Which is probably why it was a blessing that Fable was short.
    Edited by 1 at 07/02/06 @ 11:51

  • jaxon58 #20 6 years ago

    "I'm still waiting for the PSOne version of Black and White, by the way. :-)"

    I worked on that! \o/

  • Talha #21 6 years ago

    I don't know about B&W, but The Movies sure was a one-trick pony (the trick in this case being the sandbox mode). I will agree that it is a fantastic idea, but the game becomes tedious and somewhat pointless in the end. There were, in my humble opinion, and with all respect to PM, fundamental flaws with the interface and pacing. Also, I think it might have helped if we were able to start out with a current-day studio and try to build it into a worldwide multimedia empire.

    Ah well, there is always The Movies 2 for that, eh?

  • kangarootoo #22 6 years ago

    "I have the feeling that Lionhead creates the game equivalent of "one-joke films"

    Too right. Visions and Gameplay are not the same thing. Man cannot live by high concept alone. I quite liked Fable (except for the combat, which was bloody awful), found B&W boring after a level or two, not tried The Movies though it sounded interesting.

    I always get negatively affected by the Lionhead hype. It rubs me up the wrong way, so I start to dread the arrival of what might be a good game. Fable turned out better than I had expected, because I was so jaded by all the cack that Molyneux was spewing early on (when they didn't really have much more than a 3rd person tech demop at that point) I was expecting something awful. That can't be good marketing surely? Turned out OK in the end though, maybe I enjoyed it more because I was expecting less. Man, this marketing is a complex business :)

    I know a bunch of people that were indirectly working on the console version of The Movies. Hope this hasn't affected them too much.

  • Blerk #23 6 years ago

    I worked on that! \o/

    What happened, man? All the previews looked alright! :-)

  • mal #24 6 years ago

    I've still got a promo Dreamcast video I picked up from somewhere that shows, along with Half Life on the DC, the port of Black and White. Looked very nice, though I've no idea how it'd have controlled - very similarly to the PS1 version, I guess.

  • Feanor #25 6 years ago

    I thought this was going to be the new Sims in terms of sales?

  • brokenkey #26 6 years ago

    It was built on the expectation that the player would have unlimited creativity, and would be able to express that within the game.

    However, the developers (themselves very creative) forgot one of the golden rules of design - don't project your own level of competance onto your customers. Very few people are creative enough to come up with ideas and then the patience to create them into movies - beyond the lesbo sims porn that most people came up with.

    And yes, it was published by Activision, me bad. Didn't Activision unnecessarily drop their pants on console games prices over christmas? Suggests someone in Activision pricing department needs their head seeing to.

  • Artemus #27 6 years ago

    I can't imagine it was ever running smoothly on any of the consoles anyway.

  • Tomo #28 6 years ago

    You lot are talking complete nonsense! :[

    The Movies was an excellent game, totally addictive. Shame about the lack of interest tho :/

  • Mirkan #29 6 years ago

    I think it catered to an audience that expected MORE and tried to not alienate the audience that wouldn't even bother in the first place.

    If you want to create a film and go though that sort of ordeal you want more creative freedom than the game gives you. You couldn't hope to create something half serious, and if you created something "funny", the amusement certainly wore off after seeing like five movies created in the game.

    I'm the kind of guy who would love to create a movie "easily" (3DS Max and stuff is way too complex for me) but I just didn't find the options available to me flexible enough. Shame.

  • vane101 #30 6 years ago

    As a management game it was both good and bad. Loved the way you could set up your studio but hated the way your stars started playing up for what seemed like no good reason.

    Now the film making sandbox mode should have been a real attraction. The problem is that it wasn't really a sandbox mode. Sandbox mode was really a less restrictive game mode. But you still didn't have instant access to all the sets and all the film making technologies. You had to play in game mode to unlock things in sandbox. Or just play the game in sandbox.

    The film making mode is also far too restrictive. Luckily though, you can add lots of custom stuff such as voice-overs and backdrops which improves things greatly.

    I'm surprised they didn't wait to see the reaction to the Warrington film festival movies competition before canning the console versions. Having said that most console buyers would have been buying it for the weaker management side of the game, as movie making and taking part in the online community would be hard work with a console. So may be they were right to can them.
    Edited by 1 at 07/02/06 @ 15:44

  • neuroniky #31 6 years ago

    Let me say it clearly: IMHO (and I underline IMHO) Peter Molineux is a very bad GAME developer. He is a great designer. He has a lot of ideas. He has programming finesse. He knows probably more about AI (intended as the branch of maths and IT, not as the AI needed for a game) than mny mathematicians around the world. Still, he is not able to create games that are actually fun. The Movies? Very good (almost great, if only they left more freedom to camera and light placement...) movie creation tool, 10 years old mediocre gameplay. Black and White? Don't get me started on it, let's just say a LOT of websites consider it one of the most overrated game of all times... including the ones who previously gave it 9.8 ratings before discovering 5 levels, resetting the AI of the creatureafter one of them, playing against random environmental effects in another... again, gameplay simply just wasn't there. Dungeon Keeper? Nice. For a couple of hours. Then it got so boring and repetitive it was just pointless to play. Magic Carpet? Great techdemo, for sure. Theme Park? Rollercoaster Tycoon anyone? Thats the difference between having the idea of the game, and creating a great game.
    I think the more Molineux gets old, the more the games get less and less coherent. After Syndicate and Populous 2, nothing reached excellence again, and most games reached mediocre status at best if you carefully evaluated their gameplay without getting blinded by the ideas behind them (often not working as intended... take Fable in example: lot of ideas, nice graphics, a combat system easily outclassed by even Secrets of Mana on the SNES, nonexistant story, laughable quest that had even less content than your average MMORPG, and a game that many people ended up liking jut because they were so afraid of they hype they bought it thinking it was s**t).

  • kangarootoo #32 6 years ago

    @neuroniky

    This is an issue of semantics really. For me, a designer is simply a job description and I'm not sure you can be a good designer AND a bad developer. One is a subclass of the other in my book.

    Anyway, the real point is that PM is a figurehead. In a company of Lionhead's size it is pretty unlikely he has much to do with anything as far as day to day development goes. He may " guide the vision" and all that nuts, and maybe play the games and feed back to the teams, but you shouldn't forget that a whole shit load of other people put in the hours that create the end result.

    A lot has changed since the days of Populous.

  • JediMasterMalik #33 6 years ago

    Stories changed look at pczone.co.uk and in the news section.