Full-motion video
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Full-motion video (FMV) is a
The early 1980s saw almost exclusive use of the
As the
Arcades
The first wave of FMV games originated in
The use of
The limited nature of FMV, high price to play (50 cents in an era where 25 cents was standard), high cost of the hardware and problems with reliability quickly took its toll on the buzz surrounding these games and their popularity diminished.
After only a few years, the technology had improved and Laserdisc players were more reliable. In addition, costs had come down and the average price to play a game had gone up. These factors caused a resurgence of the popularity of Laserdiscs games in the arcade. American Laser Games released a light gun shooting game called Mad Dog McCree in 1990 and it was an instant hit[7] and then in 1991 with Who Shot Johnny Rock? American Laser alone would go on to lease almost a dozen Laserdisc games over the next few years and many other companies again rushed to release titles using the technology. Dragon's Lair II, a title which had been shelved years earlier, was released by Leland to strong sales. Time Traveler further pushed the technology by using special projection technology to give the appearance of 3D visuals.
Again, the fad passed quickly. The limited nature of the Laserdisc hampered interactivity and limited replayability, a key weakness in arcade games. American Laser, the chief producer of Laserdisc games during this era, had stopped making arcade games in 1994 and most other companies switched over to newer technologies around the same time. With the rise of
Home systems
In 1984, a home console system called the
By the early 1990s when
Also, the "multimedia" phenomenon that was exploding in popularity at the time increased the popularity of FMV because consumers were excited by this new emerging interactive technology. The personal computer was rapidly evolving during the early-to-mid 1990s from a simple text-based productivity device into a home entertainment machine. Gaming itself was also emerging from its niche market into the mainstream with the release of easier-to-use and more powerful operating systems, such as Microsoft's Windows 95, that leveraged continually evolving processing capabilities. Some games like the Tex Murphy series combined FMV cutscenes with a virtual world to explore.
Video game consoles too saw incredible gains in presentation quality and contributed to the mass market's growth in awareness of gaming. It was during the 1990s that the video/computer game industry first beat Hollywood in earnings.
FMVs in games today typically consist of high-quality pre-rendered video sequences (CGI). These sequences are created in similar ways as computer generated effects in movies. Use of FMV as a selling point or focus has diminished in modern times. This is primarily due to graphical advancements in modern video game systems making it possible for in-game cinematics to have just as impressive visual quality. Digitized video footage of real actors in games generally ended for mainstream games in the early 2000s with a few exceptions such as Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War released in 2006, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars released in 2007, Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure released in 2014, Her Story released in 2015, the 2015 reboot of Need for Speed, and Obduction released in 2016.
Formats
The early 1980s saw the almost exclusive use of the Laserdisc for FMV games. Many arcade games used the technology but it was ultimately considered a fad and fell out of use. At least one arcade game, NFL Football from Bally/Midway, used CEDs to play its video. Some 1970s era Nintendo games used film and projectors. formats had the advantage of offering full frame video and sound without the quality problems of compressed video that would plague later formats like CDs.
With the re-popularization of FMV games in the early 1990s following the advent of CD-ROM, higher-end developers usually created their own custom FMV formats to suit their needs. Early FMV titles used game-specific proprietary video renderers optimized for the content of the video (e.g.,
Other examples of this would be
An exception to the rule was The 11th Hour, the sequel to The 7th Guest. 11th Hour featured 640×480 FMV at 30 frames-per-second on 4 CDs. The development team had worked for three years on developing a format that could handle the video, as the director of the live-action sequences had not shot the FMV sequences in a way that could be easily compressed. However, this proved to be the game's downfall, as most computers of the day could not play the full-resolution video. Users were usually forced to select an option which played the videos at a quarter-size resolution in black-and-white.
As FMV established itself in the market as a growing game technology, a small company called
With the launch of consoles with built-in optical storage (the
Duck's
As the popularity of games loaded with live-action and FMV faded out in the late 1990s, and with Smacker becoming outdated in the world of 16-bit color games, RAD introduced a new true-color format,
In the late '90s, Duck largely shelved its support for the console market (likely fueled by the direct support for DVD support in newer generation consoles) and focused its formats instead on internet delivered video. Duck went public as
Windows Media Video, DivX, Flash Video, Theora and WebM are also now major players in the market. DivX is used in several GameCube games, including Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike.
See also
- List of interactive movies
- Interactive movie
References
- ^ "立体CGを駆使したVDゲーム 〜 未来の宇宙戦争 〜 フナイから 『インターステラー』" [VD Game That Makes Full Use of 3D CG – Future Space War: "Interstellar" from Funai] (PDF). Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 226. Amusement Press, Inc. 15 December 1983. p. 24.
- ^ "Looks at Lasers: The Shape of Games to Come". Computer and Video Games. No. 26 (December 1983). 16 November 1983. pp. 86–7. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
- ^ "Overseas Readers Column: 21st AM Show Of Tokyo Held Heralding The Age Of The Video Disk" (PDF). Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 223. Amusement Press, Inc. 1 November 1983. p. 34.
- ^ Gorzelany, Jim (April 1984). "Going Full Cycle". Video Games. Vol. 2, no. 7. pp. 24–29.
- Cash Box. November 12, 1983. pp. 30–4.
- ^ Javy Gwaltney (August 4, 2018). "When FMV Ruled The World And Why It's Coming Back". Game Informer.
- ^ Colin Campbell (October 25, 2018). "Before Red Dead Redemption 2, Mad Dog McCree was Western gaming's sheriff in town". Polygon. Vox Media, Inc.
- ISBN 9789287129048.
- ISBN 9789287129048.
- ^ "Business Week". Business Week (3392–3405). Bloomberg: 58. 1994. Retrieved January 25, 2012.
Hollywood's aim, of course, is to tap into the $7 billion that Americans pour into arcade games each year — and the $6 billion they spend on home versions for Nintendo and Sega game machines. Combined, it's a market nearly 2 ½ times the size of the $5 billion movie box office.
- ^ Gillen, Marilyn A. (February 18, 1995). "Film Developments: Studios Expand Into Multimedia, And Game Companies Draw On Hollywood Talent, To Meet Consumers' Great Expectations". Billboard. p. 69.
- ^ "Smacker video Technology". RAD Game Tools. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
- ISBN 9780816067862.
External links
- FMV WORLD - The Home of Full-Motion Video Games
- The Rise & Fall of Full-Motion Video - Retrospective on the genre and why it failed
- What is Full Motion Video