‘Fallout’ success: video game nostalgia spans multiple media, explains expert
Mention the name “Fallout” to a dedicated gamer, and you might well see their eyes light up with nostalgia. Following on the heels of HBO’s smash hit video game adaptation “The Last of Us,” Amazon Prime’s new “Fallout” TV show racked up high scores with critics and audiences alike. Only a week after the show’s April premiere, Amazon renewed it for a second season.
“While it might seem strange to think of relatively new media like video games in terms of nostalgia, the ‘Fallout’ franchise has been around for some 27 years, with its first game released in 1997 and eleven total games released so far in the years since,” said Virginia Tech media expert James Ivory, who answered questions about the appeal of “Fallout” and what its success could mean for the future of entertainment media.
Q: What is it about this oddball show based on a quirky video game that translates into such wide appeal?
“The series has been praised for capturing the game’s distinctly recognizable post-apocalyptic future tinged with influences from mid-20th Century art and pop culture. Whereas other successful adaptations of video games to television and film such as ‘The Last of Us’ rely on specific stories and characters already endeared to their audiences, ‘Fallout’ leverages the distinctive aesthetic and expansive setting of its long-standing library to seamlessly beget new stories in a familiar space. The adaptations are evidence that popular video games present not only endearing characters and stories, but immersive narrative worlds.”
Q: Can we expect multi-episode television adaptations of video games to become more and more common?
“Some of us who have not been around video games a lot, especially in recent years, may think of video games as simple entertainment toys without much complexity to their experience, but video games can provide a combination of narrative, mechanics, and social context that supply users a complex experience that rivals that of any book, film, or series. Video games can present emotional events, ethical scenarios, and sophisticated character portrayals in unique ways that can make video game stories a very important part of their audiences’ lives.”
Q: Is there anything that the cross-media success of ‘Fallout’ demonstrates in terms of the future of entertainment?
“In my area of study, I find it pretty interesting watching more and more big intellectual properties coming from video games across to other media rather than the reverse. Toys have long been a fruitful merchandising avenue for popular media franchises. For example, George Lucas made more money from ‘Star Wars’ via licensing and merchandising than via the box office. For some time, video games might have been considered an element of this merchandising of movies and film, with mixed success. Cases like ‘Fallout,’ though, show that video game intellectual properties can provide such rich and meaningful experiences for their players that we are now as likely to see merchandising, movies, and more derived from video games.”
About Ivory
James Ivory is a professor of media studies in the Department of English at Virginia Tech. His primary research interests deal with social and psychological dimensions of new media and communication technologies with a focus on the content and effects of technological features of new entertainment media, such as video games. His expertise has been cited in The Washington Post and USA Today.
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