Fallout: Can Amazon’s show convert TV viewers into gamers?

Movie adaptations of video games are popular in Hollywood.

Fallout, the new Amazon Prime series based on the post-apocalyptic game series of the same name, has excited reviewers and fans alike, with a second season in the works.

Meanwhile, on television, The Last of Us, which received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for its performances and gripping story, surprised many viewers who learned about the game’s original story.

The appeal of video games to Hollywood studios is clear. The biggest games have millions of devoted fans and ready-made worlds for writers and directors to use.

Adaptations can obviously attract viewers. But could this phenomenon work in reverse? For example, could a new Fallout TV show convince viewers to give the role-playing game that inspired it a try?

Interest in Fallout games has increased significantly since the TV show’s release. In Europe, the 2015 game Fallout 4 was the best-selling game this week, with the wide-ranging series accounting for four of the chart’s top 10 slots.

Bethesda, the Microsoft studio that produces the game, has lowered the prices of series titles and even made the multiplayer title Fallout 76 free for a short period of time.

You could also argue that most of these downloads are from existing fans who watched the show and felt nostalgic. But not everyone is so sure.

James Batchelor, editor-in-chief of the website GamesIndustry.biz, said downloads from existing fans weren’t enough to make Fallout popular, suggesting people were checking out the game for the first time. I am.

“It has to be new people, new people who want to try these games for themselves,” he says.

“Amazon Prime has a much broader audience than the console market, and while video games have become big, they are not as mainstream as TV, movies, and streaming.

“And the fact that Fallout is based on a video game will make people interested in seeing the source material.

“It’s the same as going to the movies and then deciding to read a book.”

Newfound interest in gaming isn’t good for everyone. A group of avid Fallout gamers were disappointed this week when it was revealed that a long-awaited fan project was apparently an indirect casualty of the TV show.

Fallout London is a modification (or MOD) that turns your copy of Fallout 4 on the PC into a “game-within-a-game” set in Great Britain.

Project leader Dean Carter said the four-year project, involving volunteers from around the world, was “snowballing” and would be open to the public free of charge on St George’s Day, April 23, the UK’s national day. He said he was planning to do so. The project’s trailer has been viewed millions of times, and the team has tapped two former Doctor Who actors to voice the characters.

But just this week, Bethesda announced that Fallout 4’s delayed “next-gen” update, which improves the game’s graphics and performance, will be released on April 25th.

This means that Fallout London could require weeks or months of additional work. Carter said Bethesda overall has been “excellent in responding to the community” and called on Fallout fans not to target the company, but that they were not warned about the timing of the update. He admitted that he was dissatisfied with the situation.

“What happened is, instead of blinding us from nowhere, manage your expectations, because this is what’s going to happen,” he says. BBC Newsbeat has contacted Bethesda for a response.

As you might expect, there are more gaming-inspired shows and movies on the way over the next year, including Minecraft, the comedy shooter Borderlands, and the third Sonic the Hedgehog movie.

GamesIndustry.biz’s Batchelor admits that not every game is “guaranteed to become a great TV show or movie,” but believes the risk of viewers becoming bored is low.

“Video games are not one genre,” he says.

“There are so many different stories being told and so many different gameplay ideas that can be adapted. And video games are so diverse.

“They’re all so different that it’s not going to be, ‘Oh, it’s about video games again.’

“If you were looking at the Halo series, the Call of Duty series, the Battlefield series, the Medal of Honor series, sure, it would be disgusting. I think there is enough variety.”

One of the exciting things for him, he says, is the potential to show non-gamers “a window into what video games can offer.”

“The Last of Us actually proved that video games can tell really emotional and heartbreaking stories,” he says.

“Fallout shows that video games can create truly imaginative worlds that you want to spend a lot of time on.

“So these adaptations that you’re seeing are really going to help open a lot of people’s eyes to the kind of entertainment that you see in video games.”