Getting Fed Up

Indeed, last week MTV announced that they have acquired the film rights to Atari's Mark Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, the so-overtly-hip-it's-not graffiti game that isn't due out until February of next year. In other words, they have decided to turn this game into a movie before it has proven itself to be successful, marketable and, more than anything, a good product. Not that a sucky game would stop 'em anyway:

"We are eager to continually tap into the unique culture that exists in the video gaming world because these types of projects have a unique connection to the MTV audience," said David Gale, Executive Vice President, MTV Films.

So eager, in fact, that they didn't bother to wait for the game to come out and establish itself as a worthwhile property with a "connection to the MTV audience." Some might see this as little more than a harmless financial risk that would only hurt the dumb investors themselves, but I see it as another bad decision in a process littered with bad decisions. While games with actually interesting plots and characters like Sly Cooper, Knights of the Old Republic or even God of War remain respectfully untouched, an unreleased spraypainting game made by a multi-millionaire fashion designer who claims hardcore street cred while wearing a scarf like the one in that picture gets the MTV film treatment. It's almost enough to make you hate video games.

Or at least love Uwe Boll.