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Answerman - Why Aren't There More Video Game-Based Anime?

I find it hard to imagine a large mass of the fandom wanting a popular and long running western video game franchise turned into some schlocky anime series. World of Warcraft fared quite well in both its live action movie and high quality cinematic trailers Blizzard does for the game's many expansions. They're expensive to produce, but they work. There was an attempt to make a Warcraft animated TV series a long time ago, but it fell through. Maybe it could hypothetically work if they tried again with a much bigger budget, but I doubt anyone wants such a thing now.

As for Assassin's Creed and Doom, I really can't see an animated series working out for either one, considering their rather grim subject matter. There was that Dead Space: Aftermath animated movie made to bridge the gap between the first two games, but it was quite terrible and didn't do very well with fans at all.

Well, "Persona 5" is quite the hit, "Ace Attorney" still has its fans, and the latest Pokemon is unkillable with handheld fans...

As for Assassin's Creed and Doom, I really can't see an animated series working out for either one, considering their rather grim subject matter.

Animated doesn't nessesarily equate to anime though. Just look at how popular something like Castlevania has become in only four episodes, and that's a nearly entirely western produced show.

Granted it's of a Japanese produced game series, albeit one popular in the west. Thus it's not a 1:1 comparison to something like Halo or whatever. But I honestly don't think that matters much when talking adaptations.

Other game genres didn't escape unscathed either. Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Panzer Dragoon, Salamander, Wizardry... even the rare Super Mario Brothers OVA are all barely remembered today, and for good reason.

I mean, say what you will about the OVAs and how awful they were, but as someone who likes to gather developer and conceptual insight to the video games and anime ova unison back in these times, I've had a lot of wealth of knowledge from gathering dev books and translating them, especially for cult classics like Toshinden and Gowcaizer. And as how Tekken the Motion Picture is hyped to be the most awful OVA to ever exist, having played the games, the Motion Picture is more of an accessory than an actual show. It's a fun watch when you've got the lore down, but it does do things un canon. Even for something like Psychic Force, which also had an OVA, it seemed wayyyy too rushed and had a lot of logic and plot holes despite its excellent production values. This taught me a valuable lesson regarding not just adapting video games into anime, but also their core contents: just make a show, and don't think you'll ever outdo the Street Fighter II The Animated Movie by making shortcut OVA movies. Seriously, the ideas and creative contents for all of those series were brimming with potential more than even Street Fighter, and could have made a goldmine of anime for the 90s. Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer was My Hero Academia before My Hero Academia, Fatal Fury could have been a martial arts anime done like a 1990s US primetime like Xena and Walker, Texas Ranger, Psychic Force was the true X Men the Anime, Tekken could have been a mystery martial arts thriller with elements of crime and drama, and Toshinden could have been an alternate history historic fiction 1990s world with strong themes of tackling social issues, sociopolitical commentary, mysticism, divine transcendence, and real world historic and religious allusions and references, but c'est la vie.

The "average gamer is 35" bit is interesting; do kids not play video games anymore? Or is it just going by purchasing patterns? I imagine that the average game purchaser was also 35 in the 80s and 90s, since that would have been around the age their kids were excited about video games.

Most AAA western games aren't popular in Japan. Unless a western company pays a Japanese company to make an anime, don't count on Japan caring enough to do so. I also imagine western companies would want some degree of control over the production. and that never turns out well.

It's important to remember most animated adaptations of video games are meant as little more than advertisements. Games that have sold 10+ million units aren't really going to be introduced to new audiences through animation. It's likely a person interested in video games would've already heard of the property by then.

I find it hard to imagine a large mass of the fandom wanting a popular and long running western video game franchise turned into some schlocky anime series.

There are two things about video game adaptations in the modern age that I think are damning for film adaptations, at least when directly adapting them. First, games that tend to lack a consistent story (most notably Mario) often only make up for it in gameplay to the point of reliance. The interactive nature of gameplay is always lost in translation, and trying to replicate it results in poorly executed sequences that appear to be fanservice rather than part of the plot.

Second, it could be argued that games that DO have a focus on story have actually superseded film and television in telling a narrative. Unlike film, you can tell a single narrative over several hours; unlike television, there’s a far greater ability to really go above and beyond with the production without having to worry about budget; and unlike comics, there’s a sense of interactivity that allows a consumer to create their own narrative.

In regards to anime, I think the bigger question is why we haven’t gotten AAA video games based on anime, not the other way around, and the simple reason is that there’s a lack of demand.