Every summer brings blockbuster action movies. Every summer those movies bring video game tie-ins. And every summer those games bring disappointment - both to players expecting to enjoy them and executives who think they might have a hit on their hands. Look at the past few years, and the poor sales and reviews for Transformers are no more surprising than the movie itself. If you didn't know that this game would stink, you probably thought the robot that turned into a truck would die in the last scene.

So why keep making them? You can't kill an idea - even if it's a bad one. Theoretically, Hollywood and the video game industry were supposed to supply each other with concepts and properties that could live lucratively ever after. The main benefit is obvious: Just as a certain number of people are willing to see a pirate movie based on a Disney ride, a certain number of people will buy the game based on that. On the Hollywood side, studios are eager to defray the cost of moviemaking before the camera starts rolling, and video game companies can write checks early. On the game side, it simplifies everything: Along with a property, game companies are licensing a marketing campaign and its attendant press coverage - if a $100 million blockbuster spends $50 million on promotion, that's about 10 times the marketing budget for most games. Then there's the ego boost for a young industry: Hollywood holds out the possibility that game executives can go to parties where people who talk about their guild membership aren't referring to "World of Warcraft."

It all makes so much sense until you get to the games, almost all of which are awful. And since game sales are more responsive to reviews - if a movie cost $60, wouldn't you listen to Mr. Ebert? - quality matters. It's hardly a coincidence that most movie games are hack jobs.  It now takes longer to make a game than a movie - yes, really - so releasing a game timed to a move's debut often means a rush job. Securing the rights to a movie can cost over $5 million, which means there’s much less money to spend on game development. And since the best development teams want to work on their own concepts, movie adaptations are sometimes handed to relative beginners.

As a result, movie tie-ins have the opposite of their intended effect. At this point, they have what some executives call "negative brand equity," a sophisticated way of saying that "everyone knows they'll suck." Just as with the blockbusters they're based on, nobody needs to read the reviews.

Bonus round: I understand that the Transformers are trying to disguise themselves as Earth vehicles - Camaros, cop cars, and fighter jets - to pass unnoticed among us. But didn't the giant metal scorpion kind of stand out?