One of the issues I have with modern media franchises is the reason I quit watching anything MCU a fair bit before other people were dropping off, and it is one of those things that I know is killing the MCU when I talk to people about it, is the the fact there's two fucking much to keep track of to keep up with the thing you like. I tried to do the whole follow the entire MCU thing, there were too many characters I didn't give a fuck about so I tried to reduce myself down to just watching the movies featuring the characters I cared about and even then I couldn't keep up because by skipping a movie about someone I didn't give a shit about I was constantly at a loss of what's happening. The movies became incapable of existing on their own and then they started dragging the goddamn TV series into it. A movie is different from a TV series in quite a few ways and liking to watch one does not necessarily mean you want to watch the other. Yet Disney seems to think that I want to watch every single movie, regardless of the character, and every single TV series, regardless of who they are about, in some particular bullshit order that you will only naturally do if you're constantly on the bandwagon and watching it all as it comes out to construct a linear series of events because how everything is a tangled mess. So rather than watching some of the movies I, and I know others have made a similar decision, have decided to watch none of them.
When it comes to adapting video games, like the Fallout show, if they are going to actually make these shows canon and have an effect on the events that take place in future games people who want to follow those narratives now have to go and sit through a completely different form of media. That's the issue with this crossover shit. When it exists for a different audience over there that's fine, but when you are going to try and make it part of the same canon that's going to cause issues, because it's another thing you have to keep track of to understand why shit's on head in the next game.
It's similar to the shit show that is Halo under 343. Under Bungie there were essentially two books that were important to the larger plot that covered events not directly in the video games. The first is the Fall of Reach, which is a direct prequel to the first game, then there is another book whose name is escaping me at this moment that is a prequel to the Fall of Reach which covers what Master Chief's mission was that put him on ice for the start of Halo 1 and why he wasn't doing much during the Fall of Reach. I think there is another novel that covers how the Arbiter got to Earth between Halo 2 and Halo 3, but there's not really any questions of what is going on there as much as the prequel to Reach as that eventually got revised and turned into a game. The thing is I never felt the need to have to read any of these books to follow the plot of the Bungie games. Everything I needed to understand what was going on and what was relevant and how I got from point A to point B between games and missions was in the games. I needed a single media format to enjoy the story of John Halo turning a losing war against the Covenant into a victory for humanity and then punch the Flood in the face on his way out. Even the side games that are Reach, which was just a video game adaptation of a prequel novel as I previously mentioned, and ODST both can be understood in their larger context through just the games alone. Reach starts us with what we need to know, shows us what we need to see, and then at the end we see the Pillar of Autumn fly off to begin Halo 1. The context can be understood within the game. ODST takes place during events we saw another angle of in Halo 2, so it just all fits in fine within the context of the games.
Once we get to the 343 made games I do not fucking know how we go from one game to the next. Well I do because I have read all the fucking retarded books bridging them, but I shouldn't've had to. Halo 4 isn't too hard for me to wrap my head around how we got from Halo 3 to Halo 4. The Master Chief has been missing and on ice for years so him suddenly reappearing and being a bit confused with what's going on and immediately going into action is perfectly fine, we even see him wake up on camera and proceed to kick ass like it is nothing, it is a recurring trope of the series by that point. Chief goes into stasis, Chief wakes up, Chief kicks ass, game ends. He's a badass so let him do it, no issues. Then we get to Halo 5 and did you not read the various books that bridge the gap? Fuck you, you don't get to continue on with any understanding of how we got from Halo 4 to Halo 5 or why everything has gone crazy, the threat is never explained in game because the explanation is in the books. If you go from Halo 5 to Halo Infinite you are still going to be confused what the fuck is going on. You might have played the Halo Wars RTS games, which are a totally different genre from the FPS that the main Halo series is and therefore appeal to a different audience, which will give you a tiny bit of context but not enough. Most of the context of what is going on to set up Halo Infinite is found entirely different media formats in the form of books and short animations.
Please note: I'm not saying don't make a spin-off TV show. I'm not saying don't write a side-story in a novel. I just know that in the current climate of all of this bullshit they are going to do everything they can to try and force you to need to watch their fucking adaptations just to follow the basic flow of events, and therefore they will try to make this shit core content. They won't let it exist for a different audience, they will do all they can to make it something their core audience also has to go put up with to keep track of shit rather than letting it exist on its own. This stuff won't be a spin-off or side-story, it will be part of the main story and they won't put anything in the games to catch you up.
When it comes to making a movie about a game that is roughly covering the same events or is covering a disconnected set of events, just don't go pants on head stupid about it in a way that's insulting to the original game audience and keep your tone in line with the game. Also don't try to make it something that I need to go off and watch so I can follow the core plot of the video game series. Don't do that with movies, books, or other media either.
Despite what boomers like to think, video games are now one of the largest media forms out there. Even with a current rough spot they are kicking the ass out of TV and movies as far as the entertainment industry goes and have been for a while. They are officially mainstream. There is actually a good chance that the general TV audience has also played the popular mainstream video games in this day and age. There's a lot of guys in their fifties now who come home after work, play some of the most popular video games, eat dinner, and then sit on the couch to watch the most recent big thing TV show before going to bed. They then repeat this each day when they aren't busy with the wife, kids, and other obligations. These audiences aren't completely separate anymore and in many ways the TV shows are more merchandised to the games than anything and anybody who knows about where TV and movies make their money knows that it's merchandising. Don't think games aren't doing the same to their own degree. Things have flipped from games being merchandise for a show or movie to the show or movie being the merchandise for the game.
Also for full conspiracy theory: I think part of why Sony is making so many games that might as well be movies and not games is because they intend to adapt them into TV shows and movies later on if they get popular. Remember Sony has a film and TV branch. They can do it all in house and double dip.
EDIT: Rewrote some shit to actually make sense and communicate ideas I wrote when I had just woke up and was retarded at communicating.
