Are licensed games always terrible?

What is a licensed game? -Basically any game that is created using an existing world and/or characters, rather than original ones.

Generally, the announcement of a ‘licensed’ game is accompanied by thousands of cries of ‘…licensed games are always terrible, they’re going to ruin it’

…and by and large, I’d have to say it’s true. I could run off a list of 50 licensed titles that have been just awful.

A few particular ‘lowlights’ include:

– Superman 64

– StreetFighter: the Movie (how did they manage to ruin THAT?)

– White Men Can’t Jump (Jaguar)

…and, of course, the infamous
– E.T. the extra Terrestrial (Atari) 

 …which was so bad that apparently there are hundreds of thousands of copies buried somewhere in New Mexico

But just why are so many of them so bad?

Cash is King

The most obvious reason is CASH. Licensed games are often released to tie in with movies or TV shows about the source material. In fact these days any sci fi or fantasy blockbuster seems to necessitate a game tie-in.

The effect of this is 2-fold:

1) The developers are generally given a very small window in which to actually make the game. These can be as little as 6-9 months or less (ET famously had only 6 WEEKS in development!!!!)

The powers that be may only decide late in the filming that they want a game to tie in, but it still has to be ready on or before the film is released. If you miss that window, you miss a HUGE amount of sales to excited kids, fans and impulse purchasers.

Most developers actually do well to make a game that is playable at all in that sort of time frame.

2) They just don’t NEED to be good. The fact is, if they are coming off the back of a big franchise or box office hit, people will buy it on the name alone. Sadly there are a lot of companies that would rather make a quick return than a good game.

Representing the Franchise

There is a second reason that these games tend not to be well received. Most gamers and fans alike will tell you that it’s because ‘they didn’t represent the film well’. 

…I don’t think that’s the real reason though.
Lets look for a second at the licensed games that are actually REALLY GOOD.

I would put forward:

Batman Arkham City

Or (one of my ALL TIME FAVOURITE GAMES)

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

What sets these apart from The sucky licensed games?

 They are based on a world, but NOT on a specific movie

Movies are awesome.

I love to sit back and enjoy a carefully crafted spectacle with a well written plot and brilliant acting.

…or, failing that, with explosions and Eliza Dushku.

…but games are different. Gamers generally want to exist in a world. They want to feel they have CONTROL over that world and their actions in it.

If you are making a game of a movie you only have 2 choices;

-you either follow the plot and just play it out on rails, or

-you add a bunch of content that wasn’t in the film, and risk destroying the link.

If you play Iron Man: the Movie, you already know what’s going to happen. Not just to you, or the plot as a whole, but to every character you come across. There is no surprise, and a very limited sense of control or progression. We are given the viewer’s perspective in a medium where we are supposed to be the actor.

BUT if you set a game in a pre-existing fantasy world with original characters and an original story, you give the fans exactly what they want. They get to visit familiar settings and favourite characters …they get to use lightsabers and batterangs… but they get to (at least feel like) they are carving their own destiny in that setting. They aren’t playing out someone else’s story, they are making their own.

…and that why, in my opinion, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay didn’t end up in a landfill in New Mexico.

So that’s my take on the problem with licensed games.

Anyone got any other thoughts?

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