Warner Bros. Interactive hopes that by charging game publishers higher royalty fees for not making good games based on WB intellectual properties, the traditional bad movie game and other similar licensed games can be avoided.
The WB will refer to popular game review websites (such as GameRankings) to determine whether or not a licensed game reaches a certain rating level, 70% to be precise. If the game is bad enough to get under this score, publishers will be be penalized with an increase in royalty payments to the licensor.
This might seem like a good idea to Warner, and other holders of big-name licenses, but there are those that disagree. One of the most obvious games that would contradict this would be Enter the Matrix, and publisher Atari. While the game sold millions of copies riding the success of the movies, the game was a stinker:
"We sold four million copies. That's $250 million worldwide," declares Bruno Bonnell, Atari's chairman and CEO. "That's what a big major motion picture makes. And Warner Bros. would penalize us because we didn't achieve 70%? Are they joking?"
But [Warner Bros.] would only comment that "sales don't equal quality."
It's not known if or when other license holders are considering implementing a similar program, or if other game publishers would consider agreeing to this sort of deal. For the full article, including some arguments from the publisher's side, click here.
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Originally posted by: Ian Sane
The Atari chairman just said to our faces "we don't care if our games suck as long as we make money". Does he not realize how stupid it is to admit that in public statement?
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But, at Magic Hat Software, a Westwood, MA.-based developer, marketing vp Laura Nixon suggests that the subjectivity of game reviews may not be the best barometer of a game's quality.
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"WB's plan is a great one. As a person that has made one or two crappy licensed games myself (even for Warner Bros.) I welcome the idea someone saying, “hey quit making sh*tty f*cking games you a**hole”. It’s good for the industry and I don’t like sh*tty games any more than the next guy.
Now, with that said am I going to get more time to do them? Am I going to get more money? Are the Movie studios going to quit catering to the lowest bidder and go with the quality studios? The biggest and last question, are the movies studios still going to wait until the last three months of production and insist on changing the entire f*cking game because one of their fat executives played it for five f*cking minutes and didn’t think he liked it? When answer to those questions equal no, then and only then will sh*tty movie licenses quit being produced."
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Originally posted by: KDR_11k
The problem with getting Nintendo for this is:
a. Nintendo is platform exclusive
b. Nintendo doesn't think licensing existing properties is worth it. They either make up their own ones or buy out interesting startups
c. Rare is no longer on board
d. Nintendo uses a lot of freedom with their games, Miyamoto said they make the game first and add a plot later, this wouldn't work properly with licensed games, especially if you have stupid execs without a f###ing clue about game design that want to throw in certain aspects of the movie that have absolutely no place in a video game.
e. Nintendo never delivers on time. That wouldn't be a problem if the stupid execs didn't expect the game to ship the very same moment as the movie. Personally I'm fine with games coming out a long time later, especially since the older the movie the more faded your memory and the more willing you are to accept liberties taken.
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Originally posted by: DrZoidberg
Even if this causes no-one to want to use WB licences to make games, even that's better than pantsy quality licence games.
