Dana Massey"Let me regale you with the true story of a game based on a license." Dana Massey looks at the circumstances that create the modern licensed video game.
Issue 40: Casual Friday - Licensed Insanity
- Thread starter The Escapist Staff
- Start date
Original Comment by: lobotron
the only cross promotion game i really enjoyed was chronicles of Riddick and even that was a prelude to the movie ,not "inside" the movie
the only cross promotion game i really enjoyed was chronicles of Riddick and even that was a prelude to the movie ,not "inside" the movie
Original Comment by: GreatBritishProducer
http://scratchinghead.typepad.com/greatbritishproducer/
Lobotron ... I think you have hit a nerve worth discussing. Uncanny as it seems, I was going to reference the same game with my comment. My comment was originally going to state that I believe the developer is in a catch 22 situation because of the publisher relationship. Most developers are not efficient brand machines, it is my opinion that this makes it difficult to acquire IP from film studios; that and the fact of investment in the form of money, distribution and marketing requires a publisher. I don't believe we have an environment where the Developer can capture worthy licenses, but that's not to say we should not do anything about it. So what steps might one take?
- How about reviewing your brand as a developer?
- Then maybe, consider alternate finance models?
- Beyond finance, why not publish using the download route?
- Consider being honest and earnest with the licensee. Talk like the expert you are about how a project can be or should be developed. This would include suggesting short and long term strategic goals for the license in question.
- Be more confident about you're medium. You know what makes a good game ... don't you?
The last point leads me to your reply, lobotron. One of the strengths of developers is their knowledge of how to create a game. A good film does not make a good game. Chronicles Of Riddick developers recognised this (not that Riddick was a good film, it was only enjoyable). In doing so, they supported the license and met their own goals of creating a good game and enhancing their reputation as developers.
The success of fan sites which generate content based on the world they are a fan of is testament to the acceptance for this type of model. The market exists to witness alternate strands of a licensed universe. It is the developers responsibility to make this their creative strategy when negotiating the license games. Developers have to be stronger and less submissive to the film, book and graphic novel industry.
http://scratchinghead.typepad.com/greatbritishproducer/
Lobotron ... I think you have hit a nerve worth discussing. Uncanny as it seems, I was going to reference the same game with my comment. My comment was originally going to state that I believe the developer is in a catch 22 situation because of the publisher relationship. Most developers are not efficient brand machines, it is my opinion that this makes it difficult to acquire IP from film studios; that and the fact of investment in the form of money, distribution and marketing requires a publisher. I don't believe we have an environment where the Developer can capture worthy licenses, but that's not to say we should not do anything about it. So what steps might one take?
- How about reviewing your brand as a developer?
- Then maybe, consider alternate finance models?
- Beyond finance, why not publish using the download route?
- Consider being honest and earnest with the licensee. Talk like the expert you are about how a project can be or should be developed. This would include suggesting short and long term strategic goals for the license in question.
- Be more confident about you're medium. You know what makes a good game ... don't you?
The last point leads me to your reply, lobotron. One of the strengths of developers is their knowledge of how to create a game. A good film does not make a good game. Chronicles Of Riddick developers recognised this (not that Riddick was a good film, it was only enjoyable). In doing so, they supported the license and met their own goals of creating a good game and enhancing their reputation as developers.
The success of fan sites which generate content based on the world they are a fan of is testament to the acceptance for this type of model. The market exists to witness alternate strands of a licensed universe. It is the developers responsibility to make this their creative strategy when negotiating the license games. Developers have to be stronger and less submissive to the film, book and graphic novel industry.
Original Comment by: Dana Massey
http://www.mmorpg.com/
I think you touch close to a good point that I observed recently. I cannot really get into MMOs in my articles (my day job!), but when I was recently over at Mythic to see Warhammer, their Design Manager went to great lengths to explain how Warhammer was a good IP to have and most others - *cough* Star Wars or Lord of the Rings *cough* - were bad.
Essentially, it boiled down to Warhammer being a core of ideals that do not change, but are often brought to light in different directions without a backlash. His example was Batman. Batman never dies, never gets older and never changes, but no one minds cartoon, slap-stick TV shows, Tim Burton movies or ultra-serious movies, so long as they honour the core of what Batman is.
Now, I wont even begin to comment on whether Mythic can pull this off, but at the core, Paul seemed to be onto something I'd never really considered before and you touched on above. You really need a license that fans will accept flexibility within. With that in mind, original IP movies and books may not be good options, whereas large related works (Forgotten Realms, etc.) and games may be good choices. You see other IPs trying to achieve this, such as Star Trek with their novels and largely different TV shows. I think it will be the challenge of IP laden developers to find those IPs that match this criteria.
http://www.mmorpg.com/
I think you touch close to a good point that I observed recently. I cannot really get into MMOs in my articles (my day job!), but when I was recently over at Mythic to see Warhammer, their Design Manager went to great lengths to explain how Warhammer was a good IP to have and most others - *cough* Star Wars or Lord of the Rings *cough* - were bad.
Essentially, it boiled down to Warhammer being a core of ideals that do not change, but are often brought to light in different directions without a backlash. His example was Batman. Batman never dies, never gets older and never changes, but no one minds cartoon, slap-stick TV shows, Tim Burton movies or ultra-serious movies, so long as they honour the core of what Batman is.
Now, I wont even begin to comment on whether Mythic can pull this off, but at the core, Paul seemed to be onto something I'd never really considered before and you touched on above. You really need a license that fans will accept flexibility within. With that in mind, original IP movies and books may not be good options, whereas large related works (Forgotten Realms, etc.) and games may be good choices. You see other IPs trying to achieve this, such as Star Trek with their novels and largely different TV shows. I think it will be the challenge of IP laden developers to find those IPs that match this criteria.
Original Comment by: Charmaka
An interesting thing to consider here is the Uber-licensed. It's already been mentioned, and yes, it's Star Wars. I can't off the top of my head think of any other license which has anything like as many titles associated with it. Some are great, some are abysmal.
The interesting this is what happens when you take a scatter graph where "how good is it?" is one axis and "how closely is it tied to one of the movies" is on the other. The result? Very good correlation. There are a few oddities, like Lego Star Wars (great, yet entirely movie-based), but by and large, the best games associated with the Star Wars license have nothing to do with the movies the license revolves around. KotOR, the Jedi Knight series, Battlegrounds (seems to be doing reasonably well), EaW (ditto).
I agree that trying to match release dates certainly doesn't help, but I think there's another straightforward problem which is that, shockingly enough, games aren't movies. Games that try to be movies are doomed to failure, as are movies that try to be games.
Conclusions? In the first instance, the way forward is to simply allow developers on movie tie-ins to do their own thing in a way which ties in with the license to a satisfactory degree. This will at least allow decent games to be made. However, there's a better option. Take a movie that wants a game to go with it. Make the movie tell a huge, over-arching story but reference say a key battle or past event or prominent individual whose story is never actually told in the film. Then tell that story in the game, with constant references to the film story but without ever properly explaining it. If both are good, then you get true cross-fertilisation - movie-goers will need to play the game to understand that particular detail, and gamers will have to watch the movie to see where it fits in to the overall story. Everybody wins, and game developers are actually allowed to tell a story in a way which is suitable to the medium. And there was much rejoicing.
An interesting thing to consider here is the Uber-licensed. It's already been mentioned, and yes, it's Star Wars. I can't off the top of my head think of any other license which has anything like as many titles associated with it. Some are great, some are abysmal.
The interesting this is what happens when you take a scatter graph where "how good is it?" is one axis and "how closely is it tied to one of the movies" is on the other. The result? Very good correlation. There are a few oddities, like Lego Star Wars (great, yet entirely movie-based), but by and large, the best games associated with the Star Wars license have nothing to do with the movies the license revolves around. KotOR, the Jedi Knight series, Battlegrounds (seems to be doing reasonably well), EaW (ditto).
I agree that trying to match release dates certainly doesn't help, but I think there's another straightforward problem which is that, shockingly enough, games aren't movies. Games that try to be movies are doomed to failure, as are movies that try to be games.
Conclusions? In the first instance, the way forward is to simply allow developers on movie tie-ins to do their own thing in a way which ties in with the license to a satisfactory degree. This will at least allow decent games to be made. However, there's a better option. Take a movie that wants a game to go with it. Make the movie tell a huge, over-arching story but reference say a key battle or past event or prominent individual whose story is never actually told in the film. Then tell that story in the game, with constant references to the film story but without ever properly explaining it. If both are good, then you get true cross-fertilisation - movie-goers will need to play the game to understand that particular detail, and gamers will have to watch the movie to see where it fits in to the overall story. Everybody wins, and game developers are actually allowed to tell a story in a way which is suitable to the medium. And there was much rejoicing.