http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr..._id=1000517289
Yay! No more Die-Hard titles... EVER!
I do have mixed feelings about this though. For one, developers now have a very strong incentive to slip us some bribes. However, on the plus side... developers now have a very strong incentive to slip us some bribes.
Also Warner Bros should probably have a better system than simply looking at gamerankings.com. You would think they would select some reviewers based on reputation and past reviews and use those for their average. Then add or subract reviewers from their approved reviewer list or whatever.
Overall Warner Bros are moving in the right direction with this. Its about time a movie company held game companies to some standards with their property.
I think this is a great move.
This was a most interesting quote -
Fuck you Bruno. Why shouldn't we get a quality game ?"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?"
And shouldn't game publishers be doing this anyway ? It's basically an admission that they push out games with known problems.Wallis believes that if he were to sign a license agreement with Warner Bros., it would force him to take an extra look at the product to make certain that all the bugs are removed and that the game isn't released prematurely.
Exactly. Problem is so many publishers see the movie games license as an easy way to make money with shit product. Look at the million Star Wars and Star Trek games that are pushed on us."If a game maker agrees to produce a quality game contractually, that's all we need to know," he says. "It alleviates the pressure and the desire on the part of the studio to jump in and make sure things are going well. I mean, why should we when we know that things are going well? It's in the contract."
70%? That's awfully arbitrary of Warner Bros., not to mention subjective on the part of reviewers. I mean, I'm glad that they're looking to impose quality standards, but game reviews are hardly an objective measure.
- Alan
The irony of this is that's THE Jason Hall who founded Monolith and released such half-baked games as SHOGO and Blood 2!
But this is what happens when you put a games guy in charge of a movie production house's licensing arm. He knows that games don't always end up so good or complete, so he's figuring out a way to hold the publishers accountable. I'm not sure this is the right way to do it, but I commend him on assigning responsibility at least.
This is a great quote... and one that shows publishers' lack of willingness to take responsibility for the stuff they produce...
--DaveBonnell maintains that Atari does its very best to make great games that are faithful to the movie property. "Are we proud of everything we do? In most cases, yes," he says. "Do we fail sometimes? Sometimes. Do we feel we have to pay because we fail and because the ratings reflect that? No, absolutely not."
Well, I for one welcome this new reviewer/developer relationship with open arms... and my hand outstreched. Let's see... what's the penalty per % under 70? I'll take 10% of that as my fee. Remember, buy big scores where you can, because we're averaged against the honest guys too.
I only skimmed the article, does it address what happens if the movie negatively influences sales of the game? Like, what if the guys who started The Matrix Online entered into one of these deals way back when they started. I'm pretty sure they began before Reloaded was released in theaters to mediocre reviews, and then Revolutions continued to destroy the appeal of the franchise. Is it entirely the game developers fault now if Matrix Online tanks?
Yes, it should be a two-way street. If the franchise the publisher buys it to gets diluted by crappy cereal toy give-aways, endless cheap cartoon remakes, and pathetic cash-in sequels, then you'd want a slice of your investment back.
They need to make it a two-way street. If the movie sucks, like Van Helsing, they need to cut the game some slack. If Hall really wants to get behind this, he'll also throw in some bonus royalties for games that score high, say over 90%.
Also, if they go by sites like Gamerankings and use user ratings as one of the components of their aggregate score, expect game company employees to begin enthusiastically reviewing their own games.
Can the suck-factor of the movie truly effect the *review score* of a game based upon it? Certainly it will step on sales figures, but I don't think that a bad movie ensures a broken, buggy, lifeless game.
You'll have a hard time selling a line like "The game is great, but we're giving it a 6/10 because the source movie blew" around here. Not that it happens often - in fact, I can't think of a good example, hence:
Here's a trivia stumper...
Name games that were based on movie licenses (Movies based on games don't count!) where the movie sucked, and the game was exemplary. How many can we name?
It doesn't matter if the sales are affected by the movie. They're wanting to look at the reviewer scores.
First off, it's only for WB properties, so devs coming up with their own crap aren't going to be dealing with it. Second, it's just stupid to look at the average review of wonky scoring methods (Let's see here. 6.5 + 80% + 2...out of 5 = peppermint) because they're subjective to the point where even people who give a shit about them use them as a loose guide. And even that's assuming the reviewer cares more about the actual game than whether or not the movie sucked.
We're all fairly aware that movie-based games are usually shameless grabs at cashing in on a hot property, but WB is wanting to penalize devs for doing just that? So, all those other crappy movie games were just naive mistakes? Wha?
It looks like WB is just trying to eek more money out of potential situations where no real or lasting damage is done to their IPs instead of giving them to competent devs with solid ideas. That Atari guy is a douchebag, but WB is admitting that they're shady bastards themselves.
Wow, that last paragraph is REALLY cynical. I think it's fairly reasonable for a studio to hold a games maker accountable for releasing a quality product. They'd hold McDonald's accountable if there was a really crappy toy tie-in or some action figure maker, etc. Game publishers shouldn't be immune from some kind of scrutiny.
It's also true that it works both ways. Eidos might be unhappy with some decisions made on the Tomb Raider films for example. But see, this is all in the contract up front. If you sign away to a movie studio to let them do what they want with your game or the studio lets the games maker just make whatever they want, then there's no recourse for action. Hall's simply looking for a way to hold the games maker accountable because he's been there and knows the shortcuts. It's right there in the article.
--Dave
I thought this was a thread about the Chronicles of Riddick game that comes out next week, which looks amazing. Has there ever been a case in which a game was more successful than its movie counterpart? I think what's going to happen to a lot of people is, they'll end up seeing the movie on account of the game.
I hope people see the movie without even worrying about the game. Twohy is a great director and Pitch Black was a great film that demanded more exploration of the Riddick character.
Isn't the game by the Enclave guys? That one looked pretty too but was fairly braindead in the gameplay department IIRC.
--Dave
Do the movie studios hold themselves accountable for bad reviews?
Someone at the studio inevitably faces the music when profits are down and/or a franchise is ruined. So yeah, they do.
--Dave
Perhaps there should be some reciprocity here: If a developer buys or develops for a license, should they be reimbursed for the damage to their reputation and lack of sales if the movie bombs?Originally Posted by Timemaster Tim
*edited out and moved*
Hey, this is an awesome system! Hey Warner Bros - can I get my ticket investment back for any of the movies you make that suck balls?
I love this part, too:
"The game industry has had its time to exploit movie studios all day long and to get away with producing inferior products,"
Whew! No more teams of 30-40 guys working on their first game exploiting major hollywood studios!
edit: I would love to see more high-quality movie-licensed games. Hey, I'm one of the suckers that bought Enter the Matrix. But if you want to make sure a game lives up to your standards, why don't you review it inhouse before you release it? For god's sake, no studio would release a $100 million movie without screening it for test audiences until all flavour and substance has been processed out
Well, mainly I think the mentality is (rightly so) that the role of a games magazine/site is to sell their product through *previews*, and the review scores are a bonus if they're good but negligable if bad because the previews already made the sell.
Point -> Who cares about a review score? They know what they're going to get without having to bring in a trained ninja review squad to tell them. As the article said "We only rated a 66.8 average but hey, we made 250 million!" They don't care.
I still want to find a website where I can read a preview that says "Well, they flew us out to their offices to play the game, and let me tell you it bites thus far." Just one, and I'm a subscriber for life.
Maybe because I would write that is why I don't get many invitations to dev houses?
PS - Dear Red Storm... I moved. I live 5 miles away from you, how about inviting me over?
We don't really want reviews of games that are still significantly unfinished, do we? They show you the game and the multiplayer isn't in yet, and you write what? "The multiplayer bites thus far"?I still want to find a website where I can read a preview that says "Well, they flew us out to their offices to play the game, and let me tell you it bites thus far." Just one, and I'm a subscriber for life.
One word: Waterworld!
I would think any future Matrix game will have to overcome some apathy toward the franchise itself. I think the same can be said for Star Wars games taking place during the prequel era. They could be potentially knockout games but they have a hurdle to overcome out of the starting gate that an unlicensed property or one with a franchise in good standing (the way Star Wars games used to be) won't have.You'll have a hard time selling a line like "The game is great, but we're giving it a 6/10 because the source movie blew" around here. Not that it happens often - in fact, I can't think of a good example, hence:
It's great that someone finally decides to introduce a semblance of quality assurance since the game publishers themselves obviously couldn't care less, as the Bonnell quote shows. The 70% review score criterion is a cheap way out, though. The film studios should put licensed games through an in-house testing process, like console makers do. That should be feasible with the profits from a big license game.
I think the concern is that the studios are clueless what qualifies as a good game and wouldn't know the first thing about hiring specific testers, etc. Who could they trust to give them an objective opinion- the game makers themselves? A site like Game Rankings probably makes a lot of sense to them- "oh, its like Rotten Tomatoes but for games, we get it!"
Something similar did result in a lawsuit. I recall that Activision launched filed a lawsuit against Paramount claiming that Paramount was running the Star Trek franchise into the ground, thus devaluing the Star Trek Game license.
Dave Long:
"The irony of this is that's THE Jason Hall who founded Monolith and released such half-baked games as SHOGO and Blood 2!"
Wow, the man isn't even in the right century, let alone the right decade.
You may want to take another look at Monolith's more recent catalogue before you talk.
That is a stumper...All I can come up with is that Disney's Treasure Planet game, which is supposed to be really good --- but for all I know the movie was good too. I never even try movie-franchise games, for the obvious reason.
Tron comes to mind.
The Wild Wild West Adventure game was pretty solid unlike the movie.
And, if you've been given a contract to make a licensed game for $50,000 - when the $50,000 is gone - the game ships.
-Walt
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