SweetieGames

For my birthday this year, I had a last minute change of plans and ended up seeing the new Mario Galaxy Movie with my best friend. We saw the previous Mario Bros animated film back when that came out, and it was okay, but I wasn’t holding out much hope based on the online reaction I had seen to the Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But I was pleasantly surprised! As someone who played the Mario Galaxy games on the Wii back in the late noughties, I thought it was fun and nostalgic. Not necessarily cinematic excellence, but fun. And Yoshi was there and he’s my favourite character in the Mario franchise, so that made it even better.

One thing that did strike me though was the lack of establishing the world. I get that this is a sequel, but even the first film didn’t go out of it’s way to explain why things are the way they are in the Mushroom Kingdom. I feel like if I had seen either of these films as a child, with no context of the previous Mario games, I would have no idea what was going on. And as a kid who enjoyed stories deeply, these films probably wouldn’t have resonated with me in the way they did for me as an adult who enjoyed playing Mario on her pink DS back in 2009.

However, it’s becoming increasingly common for people to be exposed to video game characters and stories for the first time through the medium of film and TV shows. There’s more film and TV adaptations of video games than ever before, and unlike some of the earlier attempts to adapt gaming for TV and film audiences, these are well made and extremely popular. I have friends who haven’t touched a game in a long time who loved the Arcane series, based on League of Legends. Speaking to my colleagues at work, I learn that they really like the Fallout TV series despite never touching the Fallout games. Now we’ve even got popular gaming content creators producing gaming films, with Markiplier’s Iron Lung grossing $51 million worldwide and Jacksepticeye announcing that he is producing a film of one of his favourite video games, Bloodbourne. While many of the people who will watch these films will be fans of these creators, there will also be plenty of viewers who are exposed to the stories for the first time through these films rather than their original work.

Times like these really showed me that gaming should have always been a respected hobby. Even today, gaming continues to be demonised and looked down upon. I spoke in the past about how I had medical professionals tell me that I should have “outdoor” hobbies rather than playing video games. That they aren’t good for mental wellbeing. They are unhealthy and played by people with no social life. But those same people will enjoy the story of a video game given to them in a different format. I understand that gaming isn’t for everyone; it can be stressful and it can also be expensive! I hope the increase in respected or even just fun films and TV shows for all ages will introduce more people to gaming as a respectable hobby with gripping stories and interesting characters.