If science fiction movies have taught us anything it is that, after a brief period of peaceful servitude, all computers inevitably wise up, rise up and overthrow their masters. HAL. Skynet and the Terminators. The Matrix. Every damn one of them.You just can’t trust these things.

So it should come as no surprise that what is true in movies is also true of the movie industry. After some 20 years of faithfully cranking out adaptations of Hollywood films, the computer and console gaming industry is finally staging its overdue coup.

‘No more!’ yells the angry, synthetic mob. ‘It is time for you to make adaptations of our products! It is time for us to make more money and draw bigger audiences.’

So here we are, with DVDs of Final Fantasy and Resident Evil piling up at the local Blockbuster and game revenues edging past those of Hollywood. According to a study by the International Game Developers Association, gaming hardware and software sales in the U.S. hit a staggering US$9.3 billion in 2002, surpassing the country’s total box-office take of US$8.1 billion. Another US$1.1 billion is expected this year, thanks to the advent of online gaming, and strong-to-stellar growth has been predicted over the next three to five years by analysts at Jupiter Media Metrix, IDC and Forrester Research.

Gaming is also cutting into TV viewership across the U.S., where 145 million people now spend an average of 10 to 11 hours a week with the likes of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Neverwinter Nights, and not, as networks and advertisers would have it, with Alias, Friends or Joe Millionaire.

To be fair, gaming spiked in 2002 due in part to the introduction of three new game systems: the Xbox from Microsoft, Sony’s PlayStation 2 and the Nintendo GameCube, each of which retails in Canada for roughly $300. Platform sales will level off this year and next. But games will keep selling, at $50 to $70 a pop, and, now boasting photorealistic animation and novel-worthy storylines, will continue to drag customers and talent away from the big and little screens.

Many new and experienced animators are gravitating towards games, attracted by ever-rising standards of excellence, greater creative freedom and, let’s be honest, the fun.

‘I think gaming gives animators a haven for every one of their fantastical or militaristic daydreams,’ says Ron Martin, director of cinematics at Ubi Soft Montreal, makers of the smash hit shooter Splinter Cell. Compared to film, ‘[making] games goes a lot faster. The machines don’t have to be as big, so the talent comes from the use of the tool, not the technology itself,’ he adds.

Splinter Cell, released last Christmas to great acclaim and gangbuster sales on the Xbox, was made entirely in Canada, with 3ds max and character studio by Montreal-based Discreet. It also stars Toronto native Michael Ironside (Starship Troopers, Total Recall) as the voice of the main character, a covert heavy called Sam Fisher.

Discreet now does 40% to 50% of its trade with the game industry, thanks mostly to the strength of 3ds max, which, since its release in 1996, has become the tool of choice for turning out top-shelf games. It also continues to be strong with moviemakers, and was used to animate key scenes in Moulin Rouge, Minority Report and Black Hawk Down.

‘The focus is on making the game development process further streamlined,’ says Dave Campbell, Discreet’s product marketing manager. ‘The 128-bit platforms really helped get game studios to make games faster and more efficiently, and it’s these higher levels of productivity that are helping the industry grow. Now we can take all the lessons we learned from film and visual effects and apply them to games.’

Not surprisingly, many film and TV companies are expanding into games.

‘The quality of animation is absolutely un-be-liev-able,’ intones Dan Fill, director of interactive development at Toronto’s Decode Entertainment, just back from the Game Developers Conference in San Jose. ‘Gaming [animation] is sitting just under feature films and just above television.’

His company is now playing both sides of the field, turning out Web-based games to go along with its many TV properties such as GirlStuff BoyStuff, The Save-Ums!, Angela Anaconda and Olliver’s Adventures. Fill says broadcasters around the world fear they will lose viewers, especially kids, without game and Web properties, but lack the in-house resources to do high-end content. Decode has 30 deals in place in 18 different countries, and recently sold a four-pack of Web games to ABC Australia.

Likewise, Side City Studios in Montreal is almost finished work on Alias Underground, a game based on episodes of the popular U.S. series Alias for Buena Vista Interactive. Side City started out four years ago doing publicity animation, but now does 90% of its business in Web and video games – mostly service work for clients that also include Eutechnyx (Big Mutha Truckers, Street Racing Syndicate).

Upwards of 50 people will spend three to four years, and a few million dollars, to turn out a decent game, and those jobs are becoming more specialized.

‘If you look back a decade or two at Pong and Space Invaders… the same guy who was doing the programming was also doing the artwork,’ says Jason Della Rossa, program director of the IGDA. Now for programmers, artists, designers, writers, musicians and actors, it’s all very advanced and specialized. And you’re seeing more and more schools catering specifically to the needs of the gaming industry.

‘The basics of game design were, for a long time, being done by the seat of our pants. But now we’re starting to fully understand what it is we do that makes a game fun – play mechanics, interactivity, emergence, player agency – all this kind of stuff is only now being understood.’

-www.igda.org

-www.ubi.com

-www.discreet.com

-www.decode-ent.com

-www.sidecity.com