King Kong 2005 Hit Or Flop

[Emerenciana Mcgreal]

SkullIsland: Rise of Kong was released on Steam on October 17, and if you use any of the various social media platforms you've probably already seen clips and stills from it. The various algorithms have all reached the same conclusion: this thing is comedy gold, and people are revelling in a dunkfest at its expense. In particular, it's being compared to Daedalic's Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which has been unfairly labelled by some as the worst game of the year (it's not great, but such a label is ludicrous).

This business model is a long-established way of keeping the lights on for small and medium studios, to the extent even the likes of PlatinumGames operate in the same way. What's also notable is that the studio's original games have much better reviews than the licensed stuff, with the latter being archetypally average. Skull Island: Rise of Kong definitely fits the bill here, and its aesthetic skews younger, perhaps hoping to attract some of the audience for Netflix's Kong: King of the Apes and in particular the recent Skull Island animated series (the rights for King Kong are an utter mess incidentally, and have been for the character's entire existence).

So Skull Island: Rise of Kong is fairly typical of the older style of licensed games. It's an uncomplicated 3D platformer with a bit of jank, a big brand that will hopefully shift a few copies, and some chronically bad cutscenes. I suspect the brand is the main factor in its unwelcome viral popularity: everyone knows what King Kong is, and then comparing it to another recent high-profile flop seems an obvious step.

There's even a vestigial Peter Jackson link between this and Gollum, with Lord of the Rings' contemporary popularity overwhelmingly due to his film trilogy, and the director having also helmed a King Kong reboot that saw a lavish Ubisoft tie-in game. Plenty of people have been comparing that 2005 title to this new release, but this seems wildly unfair. 2005's Peter Jackson's King Kong was a surprisingly ambitious and in places very fun game that was made by one of the world's biggest developers with Jackson's involvement, and the concept of being a true companion piece to a Hollywood movie. The comparison to Skull Island: Rise of Kong is perhaps a no-brainer in terms of subject matter, but also feels rather pointless. These are simply games produced on a different scale, with different levels of resource.

But Skull Island: Rise of Kong is not some unfairly maligned gem, either. It is obvious that this is a game that, quite outside of its basic combat and questionable visual style, has some serious bugs and glitches, particularly it seems during cutscenes.

These days, releasing a game with these kinds of problems is almost asking for it, and the internet has certainly delivered. People are poring over this game to find the flaws and justify that "worst game of 2023" tag, and, it has to be said, are finding dodgy moment after dodgy moment.

Skull Island is now the latest subject of a feeding frenzy. It's perfectly natural to criticise bad games, and lord knows I've written some reviews in my time that are on the meaner end of the spectrum. What's a little odd to watch is how, when this is combined with the virality of social platforms, it's not enough to say a game's bad and terrible: it has to be ripped apart, made to look even worse than it is, and labelled as "shovelware" or, even more ludicrously, a "scam".

The language around bad games is often silly and overblown. This applies especially when it comes to those who play games to make content about them more than to enjoy them. Skull Island is fair game for criticism nevertheless, and things probably wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the $40 price tag, which its negative Steam reviews focus on. There is one that made me laugh: "Iguanabee games," writes Zin, "more like iguannebee rid of this game from my Steam library."

I've been playing videogames a long time and there have always been bad, awful, trashy ones. I've played a ton. You could say exactly the same about books, movies, music, you name it, and the weird thing is that the bad ones are often fun regardless or have some redeeming silliness to them. rarely is something so utterly dire I feel I've wasted my time, even if I wouldn't recommend it.

But there's something about our ecosystem where it's not enough to say something's bad: These products are treated as an affront, framed as attempts to hoodwink the consumer, and ripped to shreds without any sympathy for the nature of the beast. I suppose, at least in that sense, the King Kong licence really does fit.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as \"[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike.\""}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Rich StantonSocial Links NavigationRich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Now before you get upset think about it, they waited Acouple months to publish anything, The viralmarketing went BOOM!... in japan, here it didn't fair too well. I remember another movie that did that.

Finaly We all want godzilla to do good but if you think hard to the hidden information the long wait for the trailer. Maby not as many people know as we think I want this movie to do good so spred the word and help do the movie good.

"the damage has been done."?! WHAT KIND OF NEGATIVE TALKING IS THAT?! There hasn't been any damage done to this film, it just starts its marketing like any other big budget film would. I remember the 2005 King Kong film starting it's marketing in December of 2004, and Pacific Rim's marketing did the same thing in 2012, so this isn't any different. You are apparently confusing the difference between movie marketing and how a movie is executed, depenging on what direction the director is going for. Big budget films ALWAYS makes their first trailer debut in December, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I sorta knew Godzilla was going to make his first trailer debut in December. But overall, no damage hasn't been done to the movie, it's just all the false speculations that made you think like this.

I dont think it will be a flop - but its also not going to be close to the big hit of the year either. It's got a decent amount of competition around the time it comes out - and I dont thinka lot of parents are going to be taking young children to this after they see the trailers lol. All of that is fine by me. As long as it does well enough for a sequel to be greenlit immediately, I dont care if it does just ok.

Im actually proud of Legendary - if they only cared about making the most money possible, this would be a very different movie...maybe they would have showed some chick with big boobs washing a car in the trailer (*ahem Transformers) and thrown a few big name (but not necessarily talented) actors into the film. So many movies nowadays feel focus group tested. This Godzilla is going to be something different-which means its a little bit of a risk. But if its as good as it looks - word of mouth will carry it and it will do just fine.

I dont think so, I think it will do really well. They did an excellent job of casting this movie. Brian Cranston just won the Grammy for best actor in a TV show people totally adored. So that will bring in a ton of viewers who may not know Godzilla but will be enticed because of him.

It will be hyped to high heaven I think and for good reason it looks ah-mazing. I wasn't a fan before, now I am after seeing this level of actor choices, the gorgeous effects and the care that the people making the movie put into it, it all looks fantastic and I can safely tell you other people I know who would normally not be stoked to see it are now too. This movie is special people can feel that, it's gonna be big.

People want to see the classics done well, I know a lot of older people that didn't watch the newer Godzilla movies because they thought they got stupid. Seeing this new version, they are excited to see Godzilla again.

Of course this movie could flop. But there's no evidence in the first post that supports that possibility, especially in relation to Cloverfield. Cloverfield did well both domestically and worldwide for a 1st quarter movie. It made its budget back seven times over.

If pacific rim showed us anything no matter how good a movie is it will be beaten out by movies around it if they have a bigger name associated with it(I don't think any1 would say Grown Ups 2 is better than Pacific Rim, actually is was almost universally hated but it did better than Pacific rim in the box office) So Godzilla has 1 week to itself before X men comes out the week after and kills a huge amount of its potential audience.

Godzilla is known worldwide, it's been around longer than probably most of our life-times. I seriously don't think it'll be a flop. Cloverfield was an only movie and it still did rather well and that was based of the point of view of a camera guy.. Imagine what Godzilla will do, fighting monsters, destroying the cities, realisim. I don't think this movie will be a flop, and if you think so, well I feel bad for you man

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