Are movies based on video games still 'the worst'?

I crunched the numbers on over 14,000 films to see if video game movies are still the worst rated, investigating why their ratings are so low, and working out if Uwe Boll really is to blame.

Last week, to mark the release of A Minecraft Movie, I shared an old piece on LinkedIn.

It was some research I had conducted six years ago which found that movies based on video games had the lowest average ratings from both critics and audiences of all script sources.

The headline I used was, “Movies based on video games are the worst. No, literally, the worst.” I admit I was trying to be cute with it, but it was accurately reflecting the maths, rather than proffering an opinion. (For the record, I have no strong feelings either way on video game movies).

The post seemed to anger a small but vocal minority, which surprised me. I thought this was fairly common knowledge, and a pretty robust finding.

From the comments, I gathered some valid complaints (it’s an old study, things have changed, and it’s all Uwe Boll’s fault) and some more… er… interesting thoughts (that box office gross is a measure of quality, that Angry Birds 2 was a good movie, and that I don’t do enough research into the film industry).

The former are exactly the kind of notes I love - another point of view that is actionable to test. So I went back to the data to check if anything had changed.

The short answer is no.

Video game movies are still ‘the worst’.

But, but, but - before the video game hordes descend en mass, let’s get a few things straight:

1. This is a mathematical calculation, not a ‘hot take’

2. These average numbers reflect a subjective, taste-based opinions.

3. And it doesn’t matter. If you like a movie, then enjoy it. If you don’t, then move along quietly.

4. There’s a business reason as to why this the case, and it’s nothing to do with video game stories or characters being inherently flawed.

Let’s check in on the maths, and then talk about why this entrenched rating pattern persists.

In short, why do video game movies get rated so poorly?

How many are we talking about?

It’s worth stating up front that we’re talking about a small number of movies. Video games have been the source of just 52 movies for which US box office data is available.

The high point was 2016, which saw six movie releases from video game IP (Assassin’s Creed, Dead Trigger, Final Fantasy XV: Kingsglaive, Pokémon the Movie: Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel, Ratchet and Clank, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter).

A curious quirk of the data is that while we’ve had numerous video game movies in recent years, they are representing an ever-smaller market share of movies released.

While production levels suggest declining interest, the box office tells a very different story. In recent years we’ve seen box office smashes, including:

• The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) - $1.4bn worldwide

• Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024) - $491m worldwide

• Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019) - $429m worldwide

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) - $404m worldwide

• Uncharted (2022) - $401m worldwide

• Sonic The Hedgehog (2022) - $302m worldwide

How bad are they?

Turning to the meat of today’s question - ratings. Movies based on video games have the worst average ratings from both critics and audiences across all sources of intellectual property (IP).

The Metascore provides an average score out of 100, across many top film critics. The overall average across all movies is 58.2. The highest-rated IP sources are movies are those based on real-life events (average of 66.5), with video game adaptations scoring at the bottom at just 37.3.

And it’s not just critics. IMDb users also put video game movies last, with an average rating of just 5.47 out of 10, compared with 6.89 for movies based on real-life events.

To give you a sense of how they compare to all films, the scatter plot below shows the Metascore and IMDb rating for 14,035 movies

Video game movies are in red, and I also added movies based on musicals or operas in green as there are about the same number over this period, and they provide a nice contrast.

What do audiences say is wrong?

In order to get a better understanding of what’s going on, I gathered 10,601 audience reviews from major platforms, focusing only on low scores (5 out of 10 or less, or the equivalent). I then coded what people complained about.

Nearly every review included a complaint about the story and characters.

Plot, character development, boredom, acting, and dialogue dominate the list. Technical aspects like sound, visuals, or cinematography barely register. Even “lack of fidelity to the source” was mentioned far less often than problems with the script.

This suggests that audiences aren’t necessarily rejecting these films because they deviate from the games. They’re rejecting them because they don’t work as films.

But why does the film industry allow this pattern of poor adaptations to continue? It clearly know how to make better films but just isn’t bothering when it comes to video game adaptations.

The reason is to do with incentives.

Why do they keep turning out like this?

Hollywood is a business. Decisions are shaped by commercial potential, not artistic ambition. That means studios will spend only as much time, money and creative effort as they believe is needed to achieve their financial goals.

And when you’re trying to work out almost anything around how the film industry functions, the answer is usually the same - audience.

Let’s look again at the ratings by IP source and consider who goes to see movies in the top-rated categories.

Movies based on real-life events, factual books, and stage plays tend to attract older, more quality-aware viewers. These are people who care about storytelling, quality, and credibility (another word which comes to mind is ‘snooty’). If the product isn’t good, they’ll stay away. Hollywood refers to this type of movie as “execution dependant” and hates it. It means that if they make a bad movie, they’ll be punished.

That creates commercial pressure to get things right. If the execution is weak, box office suffers, meaning that producers seek to raise the bar from the start. More time is spent on the script; only higher-quality products make it through the myriad of gates from development through to release.

On the other end, we have movies adapted from video games, legends and past movies. These are typically aimed at younger audiences, who are more influenced by branding, trailers, social media, and peer buzz.

They prioritise fun over narrative quality or emotional depth. For studios, that’s a different kind of audience - one that doesn’t punish poor quality in the same way. They can spend heavily on marketing to inflate that brand appeal and move the dial with their deep pockets. The brand is king here, not the script.

If a studio knows it can release a brand-heavy, effects-driven action movie and still pull in big numbers, it has no incentive to aim higher. The critical response becomes secondary. The financial model doesn’t rely on strong reviews.

The result is what we see in the data. Video game movies often underperform on narrative and character development because they don’t need to do more. The business case doesn’t demand it.

Compare that to movies based on real-life stories. Those have to pass a higher bar to justify their budget. The audience is less forgiving, and the quality of the product matters more to its success.

This isn’t a creative failure. It’s a business outcome.

Epilogue - Is one man actually to blame?

One of the LinkedIn commenters threw the blame at the feet of one man - Uwe Boll.

Uwe Boll is the German director of House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, and In the Name of the King, to name but a few. He’s a controversial character not only because of his poorly-reviewed movies but also for his forthright approach to critics. In the past he’s challenged critics to boxing matches and described himself as “the only genius in the whole fucking business”.

So what do the numbers say? If we remove Uwe Boll’s contributions to the canon of movies based on video games, does that improve the picture?

Well, actually, yes.

Removing Uwe Boll’s video game movies raises the cohort’s average IMDb score to 5.62, placing them above movies based on religious texts (5.53).

So while the margins here are so small as to be essentially meaningless, the following statements are technically true:

• Uwe Boll is the reason video game movies are rated as ‘the worst’.

• Uwe Boll is keeping God from coming last.

Do with that what you will.

What I did was email Uwe.

I asked Uwe Boll why he thought video game adaptations were so poorly reviewed. He said:

Not all of them got bad reviews - but the majority and I think for two reasons:

• They are not good and for a long time b-movies in comparison to the a-list comic book based films. Now a lot of them have the same budget as the comic book films and we have especially as TV series better productions like THE LAST OF US.

• Critics who love the arthouse and Oscar winning films will never fall in love to action, sci-fi, horror genres.

That last point is especially strong. In horror we’ve seen the rise of the term “Elevated Horror” which often is a shorthand for "I liked this horror film but I don't want to admit it so I'm going to pretend it's a whole new type rather than update my worldview".

I think there's a similar impulse in how critics treat video game adaptations. Maybe we need to invent a term for such film - "Prestige Mayhem", "Refined Chaos", "Artcore Action".

I also asked Uwe what he thought about his role in bringing down the average rating of video game movies:

My films came early and got bad reviews but made money. Over time they look better and better and got a cult following. What was better HOUSE OF THE DEAD, BLOODRAYNE or BORDERLAND? HOUSE OF THE DEAD made over $20m profit.

Look at the movies today and how many very expensive movies making no box office at all and of course no home video revenues. IN THE NAME OF THE KING sold over 4m DVDs and Blu Rays worldwide - that times were great for indie filmmakers like me.

Now we have some tech companies fighting about marketshare, spending $300m on Russo Brothers Crap. Are their films better as ALONE IN THE DARK? 15 times more expensive YES….. but better? Did they ever did films like RAMPAGE, STOIC, ASSAULT ON WALLSTREET or DARFUR like me? Could they do films like this?

I’m grateful for Uwe for being open to chatting. During our conversation the topic of my work for Guinness World Record came up and Uwe semi-cryptically said “I think the one record I hold is enough“.

I didn’t know what he was referring to so afterwards I looked it up. Yup, he holds the record for Lowest-grossing movie based on a videogame.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the lessons filmmakers could take from Tyler Perry’s career. I’m starting to think the next one should be about the unstoppable Uwe Boll...

Notes

The data for today’s work came from Opus / The-Numbers, IMDb, OMDb and Metacritic. I used Opus’ definition of IP source and focused on movies which logged a domestic theatrical gross.

Today's research focuses solely on films adapted from video game IP. I excluded titles based on other types of games, such as board games (Battleship, Clue), tabletop RPGs (Dungeons & Dragons, InSpectres), and toys (My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite). The goal was to look at movies whose narrative, characters or worlds originate directly from a video game.

Uwe has a new film out soon, although not a video game adaption. He didn’t ask me to, but I offered to put the trailer here as a thank you to being open to chatting.