Blockbuster Inc. – And just like! The Movies!

Whilst it’s the only movie studio management game in recent memory, Blockbuster Inc. still doesn’t quite manage to topple The Movies.

It might be nearly twenty years old, but Lionhead’s The Movies is something of an oddity in the video game landscape. There are shockingly few games about running a movie studio in spite of the fact that it would fit the genre quite well. We manage theme parks, zoos, hospitals, and schools, so why not a film company too? Blockbuster Inc. attempts to bring back the sub genre, and whilst it isn’t as strong as that cult classic, it’s still a very impressive product for a three-person team.

Starting with an empty plot of land, you’ll place offices for writers and producers, as well as amenities for your employees and sets where the actual filming takes place. With buildings in place, you’ll then hire producers, directors, writers, and actors before assigning them to roles in the movie of your choice. Pick a genre, choose the team who will make it, then decide which sets to use for which scenes and let the magic happen. Each scene will be filmed and given a score, and once completed you can either release the movie or order reshoots for the lower scoring scenes. After release, critics will rate your movie and you’ll start bringing in money to do it all again.

There isn’t a story, which isn’t too surprising, but there also isn’t much of a goal in Blockbuster Inc. You run an up-and-coming movie studio beginning in the decade of your choice, going from the 1920s through to the 2010s, and your goal is to make money and research new film making techniques so you can release more films to make more money. There are other movie studios competing with you, as well as an annual award show, but you can pretty much ignore all of that if you want to.

I feel this lack of direction is probably the game’s biggest weakness as you never really have anything to work towards that can’t be achieved without some patience. You’ll wait for movies to finish, sit around whilst research points build up, and await the next day after everyone has gone home for the night. There really is a lot of waiting around, especially when it comes to researching new genres and equipment. Seeing as the goal is to make money so that you can make more money, I could see some people being put off by there being a lack of, ironically, direction.

But for those who like a cosy game, Blockbuster Inc. fits the bill quite nicely. I quite enjoyed the routine of setting up movies to film, managing training of staff, and putting money into advertising campaigns. The difficulty isn’t too high, even on the harder settings, so I didn’t find myself worrying about finances too much. It’s a nice time to play, and I would find myself losing more time as I fell into a one-more-film mentality of wanting to see how well the next one would do. That addictive quality is hard to replicate, and the devs seem to have nailed it down. 

Brilliantly, there’s a solid suite of customisation options too, allowing you to really micromanage if you want to. Whilst you can get by simply using default sets for each genre of film, you could, and really should, use the set designer to build a set with all the props you could want. Not only does this increase your studio’s prestige, which gives you various benefits, but it also makes your films look more interesting if you decide to direct your own scenes. That latter feature has quite a bit of detail too. You can have your actors just do the default actions for the style you chose, or you could set up which actor is in which scene and what that scene will look like. It’s not extensive, and you won’t be creating any masterpieces, but it’s fun to mess about with different moments in your films. You can even download your completed feature if you want to.

At this point it’s fair to say that if you liked The Movies, you’ll probably get on with Blockbuster Inc. just fine, but it is worth mentioning that I had a few performance issues with the game. This isn’t an ugly game, but it’s also not the most visually impressive piece you’ll ever see, which is why it was surprising to find my computer dropping below 60 FPS quite regularly. My PC isn’t the powerhouse it once was, but it’s also no slouch. I think people may find they need to tone the settings down even though they thoroughly exceed the recommended specs.

Aside from that though, Blockbuster Inc. is a solid movie management game, especially considering the size of the development team. This isn’t going to reshape management games, but it’s absolutely a solid modern take on an underserved subgenre. If you were a fan of The Movies and wanted a modern spin on it, this will certainly fit the bill.

Blockbuster Inc. is available now on PC.