Suppose Your Favorite Gaming Franchise Hits It Big…

[Jumpin]

curl-6 said:

Jumpin said:

Ah, given your post was right after mine, I assumed that response was to me. Or at least had something insightful to say relating to the topic (except for TV shows).

Simply my two cents on the matter referenced by Holodust, Leynos, and yourself. I'm inclined to agree with the initial comment that it's a "modern curse". 

I'm not sure I'd say a series blowing up is necessarily the same thing, mind. It can be, but I'd say games breaking out into a wider audience tend to have a much better track record than Netflix.

Generally speaking, if I'm watching an adaptation on Netflix, it's from a series I'm already a fan of. And while I do quite enjoy The Witcher and Castlevania (at least the first series, the new Castlevania kind of lost my interest), I think it's alright to have a difference of opinion.

That said, I agree that games are better than TV show adaptations... just generally speaking. While I like The Witcher on Netflix, Witcher 3 is one of my favourite games of all time, and the Witcher book series is one of my favourite fantasy book franchises of all time (probably only second to Tolkien's Middle Earth books). So, while I do regard the show as lesser, I found there is a lot that was enjoyable about it (well, at least for me).

But even if I didn't enjoy any adaptations, I wouldn't agree it is a curse. The show sparked a lot of new enthusiasm for the games and the books. While I think, ideally, they'd make a show that everyone could enjoy and it wouldn't offend/repulse anyone, I don't think that's realistic in this climate. By that, I mean the way people look at TV shows and film today, games to a lesser extent, is through interpretive lenses. And a lot of it is identity motivated, so there are these lines that they believe are sacred. Too many white people, you piss off the cosmopolitan-proponents, too many non-white people and you piss off the racists. And then there is the whole "True fan" identity, that is largely based on a nostalgic or purity view that they bake into their identity, and then get offended like a heresy has happened when something violating their internalized ruleset occurs. But this interpretive lens paradigm is not just fandoms, but a wider shift in media interpretation as a whole (already in the weeds here, but I think comedy is a good example of where this has been especially true). That's probably where I come from on this.

But just to be clear, this isn't about people that just fucking hate The Witcher (Netflix) or Netflix adaptations. :D