Popularity of Shows Based on Video Games Ready to Surpass Comic Book Adaptations From Marvel, DC

Many fans of the “Fallout” video game series are likely already burning through the first season of the TV adaptation on Prime Video. “Fallout” Season 1 bowed on Amazon’s streaming service on April 10, and initial reviews suggest that critics are just as excited about the show as those who spent thousands hours playing the games. Adaptations of video games have often been a tricky nut for studios to crack, but new data from Ampere Analysis shows that as the quality of such projects has improved, so too has their popularity.

• Ampere’s data found that search volumes for video game adaptations have risen, while comic book adaptation searches have fallen.
• Fan perception of the quality of comic book adaptations has fallen, and studios are responding by making big changes to their comic franchises.
• “Halo,” “The Last of Us” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” have all been popular among viewers, marking an upswing in quality for video game adaptations in recent years.

For many years, audiences suffered disappointment after disappointment when studios tried to adapt their favorite video games to the screen. The 2022 “Resident Evil” series on Netflix was so poorly received that many industry observers began to wonder if video game adaptations would ever be a successful content genre for studios.

But in the last few years, more high-quality productions have helped video game adaptations gain popularity among fans. Shows like “Halo” on Paramount+ and “The Last of Us” on Max as well as films like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” have shown audiences that video game adaptations can work, so long as the studio adapts them with the same love and care that fans show by pouring their free time into such games.

Ampere’s new research quantifies the rise in popularity of video game adaptations as compared to comic book adaptations. Its data shows that average consumer search volumes for major comic book shows and movies has declined since 2021, while the search volume of video game adaptations has risen. In September 2023, search volumes for the two genres reached equality for the first time.

Ampere has been tracking the rise of video game adaptations for years. In 2022, it released a survey which found that roughly two-dozen video game adaptations were released every year, and that the number was growing to stoke fan engagement even further. A 2023 report from Omdia showed that audiences saw the quality of video game adaptations improving over the years, which helps to explain their rise in popularity.

Will Studios Abandon Comic Franchises in Favor of Video Games?

The data from Ampere shows that video games could be the next big well of intellectual property that studios scramble for, especially since comic book adaptations are waning in popularity. Disney CEO Bob Iger has denied that audiences are experiencing franchise fatigue when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but his actions speak louder than his words. Marvel has pared back its release schedule, and is no longer pumping out new series for Disney+ as fast as it can.

Warner Bros. Discovery has executed an even bigger reset with DC, bringing on director James Gunn and producer Peter Safran to oversee DC adaptations in late 2022. Thus far, all of the DC projects released under Gunn and Safran’s purview have been holdovers from the previous DC universe, but the duo is finally ready to start afresh with characters like Superman and try their hand with a franchise that has struggled to compete with Disney and Marvel thus far.

WBD is also behind the production of “The Last of Us” series, so it is not resting on its DC laurels. Disney may want to consider acquiring the rights to a popular game franchise of its own in the near future; box-office returns and streaming engagement for its Marvel titles have faltered in recent years, and Ampere’s data shows that video game adaptations are now just as popular as comic-themed shows and movies among audiences.