In our last article, Chris brought up the concept of licensed games and how they make their way onto our children’s wish lists. It is important to understand the politics of making a game that has a television or, especially, a movie tie-in. The rule of thumb is that these games are rarely great games. There are exceptions, but they are infrequent. The fact is that nothing can be more frustrating for a family during the holidays than to get a highly anticipated game as a gift only to realize that it isn’t fun at all. Well, one thing is more frustrating…being the parent who paid $50-$60 for that game and realizing that it was wasted money.

Licensed games are titles that are created to extend the experience which began with the film upon which the game is based. The thought is that if you really loved the movie, you’d like to take on the role of the hero and experience it yourself. The concept makes sense and to the massive entertainment industry, it gives them yet another opportunity to market something based on a successful franchise to its target audience at the height of its popularity. This last part of the equation is crucial. I will reiterate that it should be timed for release at the height of the franchise’s popularity.

This means that as teenagers were leaving the theatre after seeing Spider-man in the spring/summer of 2002, it was important to have a playable game available in the stores that they could buy while the experience of the film was still fresh. With this in mind, the game was released two weeks before the movie and was available accordingly. In the case of the Spider-man games that tied to the movies, they haven’t been bad. (Although the current Spider-man 3 for the PS2 and Wii isn’t highly recommended. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are better.)

The challenge is that to have a game available for the optimum sales window, it must be completed, packaged, and in the stores when the movie is released. This is a firm deadline and cannot be pushed back. There are many developers who estimate game releases and then push them back when they realized that they have unforeseen challenges. GTA 4 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 was delayed from Fall 2007 to a Spring 2008 release. A number of developers (and most gamers I know) would prefer that a game get delayed in order to provide the developers the time needed to fully realize the experience. Sure, we all would prefer to get things sooner, but how many people would rather have pancake batter poured onto their plates at a restaurant instead of waiting until the pancake is finished?

In the case of a firm deadline, game companies have to ship the game in the state it’s in. Since this deadline is understood early on, sacrifices are made during development in order to stay on schedule. There are three aspects to any project (not just games):
1) Time
2) Resources (i.e., money, staff, facilities)
3) Quality
If one of these is firm, then adjusting to handle unforseen challenges falls upon the other two. In the case of a licensed title, you can’t change the deadline so you either have to put more money into the development or you sacrifice the quality of the production.

One of the first (and most notorious examples) of a poor franchise videogame was the original E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. In Howard Scott Warshaw’s (the game’s programmer) defense, he only had 5 weeks to make the game and he told me in a conversation that I had with him a few years back that two of those weeks were spent on coding the title screen alone. He had a firm deadline and no one else in the company wanted to work on a doomed project so his resources were limited. What happened? Quality was sacrificed.

This was only the first of hundreds of licensed games that have not met the expectations of the game-playing public. This is not to say that all movie-based games are bad. Two of the three Lord of the Rings games (all rated “T” for teen) for the last generation consoles (Gamecube, PS2, & Xbox) were excellent. The Two Towers and The Return of the King had co-op play that allow you and your kid to share in the experience. As for The Fellowship of the Ring, you’re better off watching the movie again or, better yet, just pull out the book and read it with your family!