Surrounded by Naysayers

There is a special currently airing on HBO called BOFFO! Tinseltown’s Bombs & Blockbusters in which various figures from the film industry relate stories and theories on what separates a classic film from a disaster. The consensus: most of the time, it’s luck. 

I have commented before on some of the similarities between making movies and making games. One of the tales told during this special really drove the point home for me.

Tom Rothman, the head of Twentieth Century Fox studios, commented that during the filming of Titanic, the press was constantly hounding him about what a flop it was going to be. The movie had a huge budget and was taking a long time to make, and reporters were circling like sharks in the water aching for blood to be spilled. Despite his attempts to assure them that the movie was looking very good, the press wanted a bomb because that would make a better headline.

Of course, Titanic proved to be a phenomenal commercial success. Of the experience, Rothman had this observation: “We are a business surrounded by naysayers.”

Uh, yeah, that hits pretty close to home.

One has to look no farther than discussion boards like the the long-runnning Fires of Heaven site to find threads on every current, past, and upcoming game in which there are people either predicting failure or explaining with crystal-clear hindsight exactly why existing games have already failed. Even if, from a financial standpoint, they haven’t.

It’s not like some reasonable posters don’t try to act as the voice of reason; but predicting doom and gloom is both easier and more darkly satisfying to some folks than allowing for the possibility of success. This is hardly unique to films or games; the same principle sells tabloids on supermarket shelves and fuels thinly veiled gossip shows like Entertainment Tonight. The higher the profile of the actor, film, game, or whatever, the more people salivating over its failure. I daresay that all of us have been guilty of this at one time or another.

Will this ever change? No, of course not. Naysayers will always be around no matter what happens. To last very long in this or any other industry that comes under public scrutiny, one must develop a thick skin and be able to move forward, whether a given project is a huge success or a colossal failure. Nobody sets out to make a bad movie or a bad game, but making movies and games is hard work and the line between greatness and mediocrity is razor thin.

Many of us wouldn’t have it any other way. Well… most of the time.