The 'Fallout' fallout
Amazon's "Fallout" series reflects the growing crossover between video games and Hollywood.
Unless you’ve been inside playing video games, you’ve probably noticed that Hollywood is making a lot of video-game adaptations lately. And they have been something that game adaptations had historically not been: successful. From the billion-dollar grossing “Super Mario Bros. Movie” to HBO’s critically acclaimed and Emmy winning “The Last of Us,” game-based movies and shows are having a moment — one that is likely only getting started. Can the momentum last? Both the movie/TV and game industries probably hope so.
The latest example is Amazon Prime Video’s “Fallout,” a series based on the popular game franchise of the same name by Bethesda. It looks like the show is another hit, notching 2.9 billion viewing minutes in the US in its first five days, according to Nielsen. The measurement company said that 70% of that was dedicated to the first four episodes (Amazon dropped all eight at once), which equates to around 2 billion minutes. Based on that, I estimate around 8 million people watched half of the season in that time just in the US, and more likely finished. For comparison’s sake, the season finale of HBO’s “House of the Dragon” was watched by a little over 9 million people in 2022. Not bad!
But what makes the “Fallout” show unique is that it isn’t adapting any specific game or story from the “Fallout” franchise, but is meant to take place in the same world as the games. In other words, it’s “canon,” or fact within the “Fallout” universe, same as the games. As game news site Kotaku noted, in response to fans’ concerns that the show retcons some of the games’ history, the show takes place further in the “Fallout” timeline than any of the games.
It makes sense to tell a new story considering the games are open-world role-playing games, with each taking place in a new locations featuring new characters. It’s not like “Last of Us” game, which already told a cinematic-like linear story from beginning to end. It would have been easy to say that the TV show was just that, a TV show. By making it canon to the games, the series reflects a growing intersection between games and Hollywood that is likely to continue.
That intersection isn’t just about adaptations, but blurring the line between the two industries. The “Fallout” Amazon series is the best example yet of a cross-media game adaptation, but other cases are muddying the waters even further. Disney invested $1.5 billion for a minority stake in “Fortnite” maker Epic Games with the intention to create a “persistent universe” that will be “interoperating” with “Fortnite” to give players “opportunities to engage” with Disney content and characters. More recently, Netflix also announced a “digital theme park” within Roblox full of characters and games from its original shows.
Both Disney and Netflix were already in the games business in vastly different ways. Netflix started offering mobile games as part of a user’s subscription a few years back (it has aspirations to expand onto other devices), and has since bulked up its in-house gaming apparatus as well as licensed popular games like “Hades” and a three-game “Grand Theft Auto” package. Disney, meanwhile, has licensed its IP to game studios since shutting down its own game division in 2016.
But the Epic and Roblox announcements are a noteworthy step in the evolution of the worlds of gaming and movies/TV. The video-game industry is a massive business; while consumer spending on games last year was slightly down from the record pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, total spend was still above pre-pandemic levels, something that has not happened in the movie industry with theatrical box office (as I previously noted here, and observed that gaming is benefiting from storied franchises, perhaps at the expense of big-budget originals like “Starfield,” while the movie industry’s long-running franchises crash and burn). After years of failing to make both their own successful games and successful game adaptations, media companies are giving the game industry another look in a multitude of ways.
That re-evaluation reflects the shifting nature of the movie and TV businesses. The pandemic, and the resulting rise of streaming, forever changed how people consume entertainment, or at least accelerated the change. Young people are more likely to enjoy watching TikTok or YouTube, or playing video games, than going to a theater (unless they are given a reason to take part in a social-media trend). Theatrical ticket sales are still struggling to get back to pre-pandemic levels (which may just be the new normal) and the streaming business has proven harder than expected for some companies.
If legacy media wants to survive this phase and compete with streaming-first and tech companies like Netflix and Amazon, it’s become imperative to align with the gaming sector (that’s not to say the game business isn’t having its share of struggles, including widespread layoffs, but that’s a story for another day). It’s not just Disney that has realized this; Warner Bros. Discovery is putting more emphasis on gaming after “Hogwarts Legacy” became the best-selling game of 2023. And Sony, which owns a movie studio in Sony Pictures and a game console in PlayStation, already has plenty of synergies in that regard.
All told, the future of media and entertainment could come down to what companies can best find common ground between movies/TV and gaming. The “Fallout” show wasn’t just a hit because a lot of people watched it; it also led to a major boost in players for the games. I contributed to that, and am currently 40 hours into “Fallout 4,” a nearly decade-old game that I had never played before but started because A) a new update was just released, timed perfectly to the show, and B) I loved the show.
62% of “Fortnite” players are reportedly between the ages of 18 and 24. If Disney’s “Fortnite” universe can ignite interest from young people for Disney brands, that can go a long way. If Netflix’s Roblox “park” leads to more interest in its own video games, that’s a win. If the “Fallout” show gets people to buy “Fallout” merch from Prime, that’s more money for Amazon.
In other words, get ready for games to inform movies and TV even more in the coming years, for better or worse. The surge in game adaptations has gotten a lot of press, but Hollywood’s love affair with gaming goes far beyond and is about much more than that. I’ll be waiting with bated breath to see who crawls out through the fallout.
Beyond the Traverse
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” topped the box office over the weekend
Eurogamer wrote a scathing piece about Xbox after it closed three game studios
Disney CEO Bob Iger says Marvel will release AT MOST three movies and two shows per year
Warner Bros. is making a new “Lord of the Rings” movie, subtitled “The Hunt for Gollum.” I’m tired.
You’ll soon be able to sign up for a Disney+, Hulu, and Max (oh my) bundle