A new driving force

While filmmakers have been attempting to expand the reach of their movies by launching games, it is the latter that is the driving force of entertainment now, said Tim Fields, vice president of Kabam.

According to Xie Enwei, head of the Chinese team of Microsoft Xbox, Quantum Break, a video game published by Microsoft this year, is a good example of that.

“It’s a game and a movie at the same time,” said Xie.

“The storyline and characters in the game and the film come together seamlessly.” In the game, four episodes of the story will unfold and it will feature real characters played by actors such as Shawn Ashmore and Aiden Gillen.

Xie added that developing a game alone is not sustainable in today’s entertainment climate, and that industry players can look to success stories such as the Halo game franchise on Microsoft’s Xbox console for inspiration. The game has since its inception in 2001 been turned into animation series, films, novels and merchandize, and is still going strong. The next installment of the game, titled Halo Wars 2, will be available on the Xbox One console in early 2017.

The China finals of the Halo World Championship 2016 took place at the Xbox pavilion during China Joy. The winner of the global competition will take home a whopping $2.5 million in prize money.

Microsoft’s Xbox console has been playing an integral role in helping Chinese game developers tap into the overseas markets. More than 700 Chinese studios have joined the Xbox games platform and earlier this year, 18 new games from China had an experimental showcase in the US.

zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn