Topic: Bad Games, Bad Reviews, Fewer Profits

[WindyMan]

Warner Bros. will start raising royalty fees for games that make a mockery of its properties.

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.

[CaseyRyback]

Hall knows about quality but his games never sold when he was with monolith (please pick up NOLF 2 for 10 at EB and see what I mean). I hope with Warner Bros. he gets better exposure for his games.

[Geos]

"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?"

My problem with this is that really Atari didnt sell 250 million, the movies did. Considering how badly the games were done i can only assume any company could make that much as long as it was backed by the movies. In fact a good game based off the title im betting would have made quite a bit more. If it wasnt for the movies they would have made 0.

Im glad there doing this because there allot of good movies which i would like to see made into games worth playing. It also makes sense from the movie producers side because selling crappy games with their name on it cant be good for the franchise.

[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?

[Arbok]

Quote
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?

heh heh, noticed that too. This comes on the heels of the next Godzilla game coming to all systems but the one it did best on (Gamecube). If I had any faith in Atari, it's now gone.  I think Warner Bros is on to something here, though, I mean has there ever been a good game based on a WB license?

I also like WB's comment: "But [Warner Bros.] would only comment that "sales don't equal quality."" Translation: Enter the Matrix was crap, and they knew it.

[Windrunner]

The only thing that worries me here, is that WB will erm...

Well, let's face it.  Atari is a crap company as it is.  But WB wanted Matrix out in a certain time frame.  Would WB be able to demand the game be released, without it being finished, and then raise royalty rates because of a rushed product?  Doesn't seem real far fetched, actually.

I like the idea... there just has to be give and take.  

And yes, Atari basically coming out and saying "our game sucked, but we still should get money" was a pretty good time.  We all know that Atari can't get games right (Neverwinter Nights' bugginess, Matrix's lack of polish, Temple of Elemental Evil's overall craptasticness).  

[Nephilim]

good on Disney
If you didnt know, disney is in big money probs
I have not seen 2 impressive games made using disney people since Snes (aladdin and lion king among others)
only game since then has been kingdom hearts

[Jonnyboy117]

I like the fact that Warner Bros. actually cares about the quality of its licensed games, but I don't think this is a particularly good way to enforce quality.  It's too indirect, besides all the questions of journalistic ethics that come up (i.e., moneyhats).  A better approach is to have someone from Warner Bros. oversee development of each game to ensure that things are going smoothly and that the game is up to standard.  This person would have the authority to delay the game, cut underdeveloped features, basically whatever is necessary to make sure the game is up to par for the licensor's standards.  It would simply have to be a factor in the publisher's financial risk...and considering how utterly safe most licensed game deals are and how they have hurt the development/publishing environment for original titles, that would be a fine thing IMHO.

[Infernal Monkey]

Man, WB would be charging Atari $10, 000 per copy of Terminator 3, then. It's a good thing though, I'm tired of developers making half arsed games just because they know it'll sell on it's name, alone. Look at Superman 64. ;___;

[DrZoidberg]

oh what, the game that was #1 in Australia for a brief moment. AUSTRALIA = WIN!

Even if this causes no-one to want to use WB licences to make games, even that's better than pantsy quality licence games.

[SatansNemesis]

Developers are going to suffer on this one. They are forced half of the time to make those pathetic games because of bad time frames and over expectation on the part of the publishers. I recal reading several developers diaries where they wanted a little more time for quality purposes but the publisher forced them to go gold too early and there were under developed features and bugs left and right. Developers are cought between a rock and a hard place and will have to work around this by cutting back on features. Even if they are great features, the games would have to be trimmed down to ensure timely milestones. Look at Rareware games: Banjo-Kazooie was delayed for over a year by nintendo for quality assurance. Return of the King had less than a year to be made, and even though the game engine was already set up, the 2-player mode had a few bugs in it that were really frustrating (i.e. the escape from the paths of the dead level...) that in a month or two could have been fixed. Games based off of movies should be started as early as possible to ensure quality work time before the essential deadline of its namesake film's release.  

[ruby_onix]

IMO, this is great news.

I'll give major credit for this development to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, for having the brilliant insight to sue Ack-lame over the fact that every one of their MK&A games sucked. Who'd have thunk that all those crappy games might one day save the industry? Not me, that's for sure.

IMO, this'll probably cause some hardship as it shakes up the industry (assuming it catches on), but better games can only be a good thing.

My only complaint is that I already think too many people pay too much attention to a review's "score number", and not enough attention to what the actual review says, but every licensor can come up with their own system to gauge the quality (now that they know that maybe it's a good idea), and I'm sure that some of them will put more "judgement" into their systems, like some of them might actually read some of the reviews, or (heaven forbid) they might actually play the games.

BTW, does anyone else find it funny that Nintendo tried to put similar "quality control" measures into place, way back in the NES days, but third parties weaseled out of the situation by courting Sega, until they dumped Nintendo for Sony (who by most accounts is even more oppressive now than Nintendo ever was)?

[Termin8Anakin]

It's good and all that WB are trying to take such extreme measures to protect their franchises and make good games, but aren't the game testers meant to have looked at all the bugs and problems with the game before it's released?

How about going to the same lengths as filmmakers and their movies: let a TEST AUDIENCE play the game to see what they think of it. Be it random people off the street or game reviewers (most likely the latter), have people who have had NOTHING to do with the game play it, and give their take on it. If the audience doesn't agree with it, fix it.
Simple as that.
There's no real need for all this strict law enforcement style intimidation.
I agree with what JonnyBoy said too.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Revolutions needed a test audience...

[thecubedcanuck]

" 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? "

Its not his job to realize or even care about that. His job is to make as much money as possible for his company. That is what a CEO is paid to do. Besides, less than 5% of people who play games will ever see the quote anyways, and out of that 5%, close to 0% would have bought Enter the Matrix regardless. So no harm, no foul.  

[RABicle]

Be quiet Cubed Canuck, you filthy capitalist.

This is easily the most filthy quote from the full article:

Quote
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.

Laura Nixon is now on my idiot list. I mean what else could be a better barometer for a games quality than what people think of it? She goes on to say that the reviewers may just dislike the genre of game and that they can be biased. That would be somewhat relevent if WB wern't going to base their judgements on Gamerankings.com which average the review scores from at last 20 friggin publications.

I say we boycott Magic hat software, congratulate WB for having the balls to tell crappy game companies where to shove it and blow up Atari's headquarters. No really, they mustn't be allowed to exist. I say we do it at night, to reduce casulties.  

[thecubedcanuck]

"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."

That is why they use an average. Find 20 reviews, remove the 5 highest, remove the 5 lowest, take an average of the remaining 10, and voila, a relatively fair average that cannot be considered biased at all.

[The Omen]

I like the idea at first glance, but it won't work.  Too many fat cats can throw money, swaying reviews.

[jasonditz]

On the other hand the fat cats are on both sides, so its possible they'll sway the reviews both ways.

I really don't blame WB for this at all. A bad enough video game could potentially damage the value of the license. Just look at Star Wars versus, oh... say... ET.

[jasonditz]

Interestingly enough though, the cube version of Enter the Matrix did receive 70.6% at Gamerankings, the Xbox version 71.5%. The PS2 version was in the high 60's.

Seriously, it sounds like in this case it would've gotten exactly what it was designed to get, which is for Infogrames/Atari to put a little more polish on a potentially good game before releasing it.

[nickmitch]

Wait, wait, wait....
Let me get this straight.
Theoretically; bad games=bad sales. And now; bad sales=more fees.
However; bad sales=low profits. AND low profits + more fees=no money.
So by the transitive property bad games=no money.
So I've thusly come to the conclusion that WB can cause 3rd parties to go broke.
Which'll only lead to no more licensed games or better games. Either way we all win.
Thank you Geometry

[mouse_clicker]

Tycho posted a great email he got up at PA:

Quote
"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."

 

[savanna03]

if WB is really concern about the quality of their properties, they should only look at one publisher and that publisher is NINTENDO...  comon tell me one movie to game better than GOLDENEYE 007.  i think this is the only properties that NINTENDO ever gotten base in a movie.  NINTENDO and RARE didn't fumble it, they nailed especially with the REVIEWS and GAME SALES.  

[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.

[savanna03]

Quote
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.

a.  hey so was GOLDENEYE 007 and yet it keep topping the charts from month after month after month.  why would WB complain if the games are only exclusive to one console and yet it still manage to sell compared to a multiplatform one and its on the bottom of the sales chart.

b.  it could be true but know one really approach NINTENDO for their licence property except KONAMI.  NINTENDO(SK) develop THE TWIN SNAKES internally.  if someone like WB make a deal with them do you think they will not accept it??? maybe or maybe not.

c.  yeah i know RARE isn't with them anymore but hey NINTENDO can get someone like N-SPACE or KUJU very easy and make them the next RARE.

d.  so was METAL GEAR and yet it work.

e.  that is true but NINTENDO is improving on schedules.  i cant remember when the last game that they ever delay a game on GCN or GBA line.  it is always on time now.