Movie director slams game publishers for lack of support

Uwe Boll, the director of videogame-based movies House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark, has slammed games publishers for failing to provide promotional support for films based on their licences.

In an exclusive interview with our sister site, Eurogamer, Boll said: "A lot of videogame companies are wrong in how they support videogame-based movies, because they get a fee for the licence and then don't do anything to promote the movie."

"They don't do videogame tie-ins, they don't do cross promotions... They count on the fact that the movie will support the game sales, but they're not willing to spend any money in cross-promoting anything. This is not healthy."

Boll argued that publishers should follow the example set by companies like Marvel, who are "very good at cross-promoting and working together with the film companies." As a result, Boll said, comic book movies make more money than videogame movies - even if the books themselves sell less units than videogames.

Boll said he has been a victim of the problem on more than one occasion, stating: "Sega did nothing for House of the Dead, and Atari did nothing to support Alone in the Dark. They developed Alone in the Dark part 5, parallel to my movie, and then they closed the LA facility and never finished the game. And I was standing there alone in the rain with my movie."

"The reality is that a lot of the videogame companies are quite sloppy - they are happy to sell the licence, but then they don't give a sh** about it, and this is not the right approach."

To read more and find out why Boll is angry with the gaming press, why he thinks the Halo movie will be a failure and why he may give up making videogame-based movies all together, visit Eurogamer.net.