Hollywood Gamers Digital Convergence in the Film and Video Game Industries [Paperback]

For years, major film studios have licensed products related to their most popular films; video game spin-offs have become an important part of these licensing practices. Where blockbuster films are concerned, the video game release has become the rule rather than the exception. In Hollywood Gamers, Robert Alan Brookey explores the business conditions and technological developments that have facilitated the convergence of the film and video game industries. Brookey treats video games as rhetorical texts and critically examines several games to determine how specific industrial conditions are manifest in game design. Among the games (and films) discussed are Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, Spider-Man, and Iron Man.

With his clear, concise, and enthusiastic writing, Robert Alan Brookey provides an informative and timely contribution to the new and emerging fields of game studies and media industry studies. . . . Hollywood Gamers proves to be a rich source for scholars interested in the various levels of parallels and interdependence that goes on between the film and vieo game industries.In touring the half-world of film-games, Brookey shows how brands are cross-marketed and why the production of multimedia brands has failed to live up to the talk.

Acknowledgments
1. Playing Together
2. Playing the Games, Being the Heroes
3. Coppola Sleeps with the Fishes
4. Marvel Goes to the Movies
5. Disney Saves the World(s)
6. What Shall We Play Next?
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Highly recommended. All levels. June 2011

Robert Alan Brookey is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northern Illinois University and author of Reinventing the Male Homosexual (IUP, 2002).