Also, a bad non-licensed game might be cancelled or delayed. Thus, many licensed games are designed in a manner that has nothing to do with the plot or general style of the franchise (for example, The Riddler, instead of giving Batman riddles, might just blast him with a rifle throughout the entire boss fight).Īnd despite what one might expect with a title based on a lucrative property, there is often ironically less money available than usual for a company to spend making a licensed game a significant amount of the funding that would normally be channeled into the title's actual development is instead used up before development just to buy the license in the first place. So games based on these franchises tend to completely miss what made the franchises popular to begin with. Perhaps worst of all, many licensed games are made by people with little (if any) knowledge of the franchise they are licensing. Sometimes they will be a confusing mesh of gameplay genres as the developers attempt to figure out just what their license could be used for to fill up enough game time to push it out the door, and that's assuming the product isn't chock full of Game Breaking Bugs because of the short Q/A window. Licensed games also attempt to emulate the most popular genres at the time in an effort to maintain appeal side-scrollers and Fighting Games were popular in the The '90s and more recently, Grand Theft Auto clones and shooters are common as well. This can happen late enough so there is no time to alter the game to more closely match the finished property. Sometimes the diversions are not the fault of the developer, but rather down to the game being based on a draft or early version of the property, only for the final product to radically depart from the initial concept - a character heavily featured in the game can be cut entirely or a major concept is removed or changed due to poor audience tests. Stretching the plot of a 100 minute movie into a twenty hour game can lead to a lot of filler material or serious diversions from the movie's plot. Developers are often pressured by movie studio execs to have the game ready for release alongside the movie (which, in the studio execs' eyes, practically equates these games to tie-in action figures, lunchboxes, and other low-grade merchandise), which can shorten development time. Of course, the ability of licensed games to sell on name alone is a major reason for their poor quality, but it's hardly the only one. It helps that the writers are often dedicated borderline fanboys who are in the business for love (it's not likely to be for the money), and who know the subject-matter inside out. The situation varies in the Tabletop RPG world some licensed games are pretty poor, but many are okay and some are famously good. Pinball games tend to avert this, as it's very hard (but not impossible) to screw up pinball. This is most obvious in Video Games, but it also applies to Board Games and Trading Card Games. Given the built-in customer interest and sales potential in a licensed property, there's considerably less incentive for developers to make an actually good game. Or, they could just buy into an already-popular property via licensing permission to build a game around a TV show, or a movie, or a comic book, or a work of literature, or anything really ( and we mean anything note Although the last one was pretty good.). video and card game developers could take some time to develop an original property made with care, imagination and the ultimate goal of developing a brand new franchise. Most games that sell fall into at least one of the two categories. There are two ways to sell games: Quality of game, and reputation of name. The problem is that Licensed Games tend to be mediocre at best.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |