Movies based on videogames...

I'd personally love to see some of the Dragon Age stuff made into a movie. (I'd like to hope that they can make a decent movie out of a game where there's a tonne of lore).

I don't understand why they can make amazing movies based on comics, and not make decent movies based on games; could it be that the games that they've made movies of, don't have much of a story to work with? So they're forced to come up with their own adaptation that core fans are bound to hate?

The Metal Gear series would make great movies if they weren't already "movies'.

Obligatory video.

The only way to make a good, profitable movie would be to compromise the game's universe with a nice, original story to go with it. And even then it would not be quite it. So the safest option would be just to leave those two entertainment sources as they are, separate and each doing what it does best.

Had a full response typed out and hit f5 by mistake so excuse the quality on this response  

Everything i'm saying is my opinion and not fact

Is that hard to make a good movie based on a videogame
 
It is tricky to make a good movie based on a videogame because everyone's playthrough of a game is a different experience, whether it be a small or large difference, everyone's playthrough differs in one way, shape, or form. Games are dynamic and movies are static. It is very hard to meet everyone's expectation of a game's movie because everyone looks at a game in a different way (slight or major). It is also hard because the movie needs to appeal to the crowd of people who haven't played the game or it wouldn't sell well. 

Common pitfalls of existing movies based on videogames?

•  The movie deviates from the lore of the game to make the viewing experience "better" or easier to understand

•  The movie alternates any plot point of the video game

•  The movie needs to cut out significant content because of timing

•  The movie fails to appeal to every possible crowd

How would you adapt the source material?

In an ideal world I would make the movie following the source material as much as possible, because to me it is important to preserve the original writers intention, tone, and themes.

Of course the ideal is not the best, the ideal would not sell because it would only truly appeal to fans of the source material

For the movie game to succeed it would need to be understandable enough to appeal to as much people as possible without having to do heavy digging, but also have things that the people who are familiar with the source material would appreciate

 
What videogame would you like to see in the big screen?

World of Warcraft - I know it is coming but I really want it to be good

Anything Metal Gear would be pretty cool as long as they don't ruin any of the story.

Something I actually want to see, but I know it probably wouldn't happen would be a counter strike movie that kind of mimics how the game plays but in a dramatic way

Recently we've seen at least one film take inspiration somewhat from a video game so in the broader sense you could say it was 'based' on a video game. The film in question would be 'Hardcore' which apparently wasn't awful, the main thing was it's fully first person perspective.

However I don't really think games can ever translate onto the big screen successfully without some massive reworking and major talent. Aside from some games, removing the interactive element also removes a lot of the narrative the player would construct in their head. I feel our actions in video games contribute a lot more towards the characterisation than we think. A good portion of our understanding of the world is gained through playing which probably wouldn't be as entertaining to watch, considering a lot of games have a play time of over 3 hours at least.

The only way I'd really consider it possible is as people have said would be to take the world and build a story suited for film around it, rather than retelling a video game in film format. You could definitely go much further into detail than I did here but for a quick response this is a couple of my main points.

The Chronicles of Riddick was one of the first 'good' movies to be based on a videogame, if my memory serves. And by good I mean more than 6/10 rating.

It's not easy making a movie based on a video game AND keeping it interesting.

Technically Escape From new York is the most successfull video game movie ever made, it's basically Metal Gear Solid.