Summer has officially kicked off. For most, that means vacation, relaxation, and blockbuster movies. For us, that also means movie tie-in videogames.

Gamasutra has done some research through Nielsen on the subject, and found movie license games are at the top of “online buzz” and intent to purchase list. They concluded that movie license games are “finally getting more respect from gamers”.

From the study, the top of the games list is X-Men Origins: Wolverine, followed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and even Terminator: Salvation. What a strange turnout. Of all movie tie-ins, I didn’t expect Terminator to gain significant attention.

Also, The Godfather II and Ghostbusters have generated noticeable buzz for each of their respective release times. Batman: Arkham Asylum, despite being two months away from release is climbing the charts in buzz.

Lately, it seems that movie-related games have generally been doing better, in both critic’s eyes and the public. What this means for us is that people outside the industry are taking this videogame thing more seriously, and in turn we’ll (hopefully) have a higher number of quality games for the future. Considering the past, there were some really bad movie games back then, and some better left forgotten.