Hollywood and game makers are becoming wary of each other.

[Shin Johnpv]

see by doing this by charging them more when a game is less then meeting expectations your forcing developers albeit through an artificial means to make good innovative titles

[gamevet]

Maybe the movie industry should hold themselves responsible as well. Look at Atari's E.T. as a fine example. Atari paid Speilberg and company a boat load of money, for the license. Did they even care that the game was a pile of dung? No, they did not. They made a ton of money off the deal. Atari, on the other hand, lost their ass. Did this hurt sales of E.T. to video at all? Probably not, as one product, really has nothing to do with the other, except having the name plastered on the title.


If a movie company feels fit, to offer a game license for their product, they should just be happy with the fact, that someone paid for the product name.


Warner Brothers, is just looking for an excuse, for the Matrix:Revolutions, not doing as well in the box office, as they thought it would. Their product sucked, just as much as the game did. The game could have been the best game ever, but I highly doubt it would have made the movie a better hit at the box office.


If movie companies, like WB, want to hold game developers responsible for the product they make, then maybe they should take the time to play the game themselves, before letting the game company release it to retail. It's called quality control, the same thing they should be doing with thier movies.


The radio industry suffered, from a little tactic called payola. Would'nt this same kind of effect happen in the game magazine industry, if such a thing were to be applied to licensed games?

[Bacon McShig]

I don't know if you noticed, but a swarm of unnecessary commas descended upon your reply.

But yes, I agree, there's no reciprocity to what WB is trying to do. You make a bad game and we'll charge you, but if we make a bad movie oh well. What if this scare tactic does make for a higher quality game, but then the movie it's based on turns out to be shit and serves only to drive people away from the game? If WB doesn't hold themselves to the same rules, then the dev is out a lot of money, and they're a lot less equipped to deal with that than WB would be.

WB has only themselves to blame for the bad perception of their games. Case in point, all of the Cartoon Network games by BAM! have been crap. If they really cared about their image, they'd have dropped them after the first couple of turds, but NO, they've probably made about 20 shitty games based on WB cartoons, and WB keeps letting them. I'm sure there are plenty of devs who would have jumped at the chance to do a great Batman Beyond or Powerpuff Girls game when they were in their prime.

[Diff-chan]

This whole thing is rediculous. Does WB have the right to clause up their liscensing agreements like there's no tomorrow? Sure, I wasn't at all combating that. What I was combating was that fact that the clause seems to be a mighty big loop hole for the studio to acquire unnecessary penalties based on nothing more than arbitration.

They will look at the fucking GameRankings average. March your ass over to GameRankings and you'll see there are more than just GI and EGM to weigh the scores on.

Quite frankly, the defense you guys so often give to the game industry at the expense of others is hilarious. When game pirates get caught, FUCKING GOOD! When the RIAA or MPAA cracks down on movie/music pirates, it's the evil corporations cracking skulls. And now this. If this was some game company telling movie studios their RottenTomatoes score had to be above 70%, you'd all be sucking the game company's dick for their great move.

Look, WB just wants to protect their product. The product they spent a shitload of money developing and marketing. They are entitled to do with it what they see fit. If the movie turns out to be crummy, whatever - the GAME DEVELOPERS signed a contract to make a game BASED ON THE MOVIE. So it's completely reasonable that WB sets the terms of it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this move and to be honest Im surprised it didn't come 10 years ago, considering how long developers have been raping movies. I mean, seriously, so many of you have bitched for so long about the quality of movie-to-games, so why are you pissed when a movie studio is trying to do something about it?

Oh, and the NFL is a bastard with their license too. They have a right to be.

You make a bad game and we'll charge you, but if we make a bad movie oh well.

Don't be stupid. Of course WB is not gonna put that in their contract. That is something the game companies have to work on in negotiation. BUT, I would say, if they make a bad movie, don't license the damn thing for a videogame.

Shit! Look at what this guy from WB said:

But Hall would only comment that "sales don't equal quality."

Isn't that the same thing you asshats spout endlessly? He's on your side.

[Compass]

Part of the problem comes from the reviewers aswell.

Games like Dungeon Seige and DK 64 scored extremely well despite being complete turds and a lot of games get preferential treatment, a lot of magazines like Hyper(in Australia) for example gets a few money hats from developers for their games to get scored slightly better.

Then there is the first impressions which casuals base their purchase on that are often decieving in videogames.

I loved DK64. Best scavenger hunt game on N64 after Mario.

[Damian79]

Do you also happen to like hammering nails into your balls aswell?

[Shin Johnpv]

For once I agree with DiffusionX

Ill keep saying it but i honestly DO NOT see what the problem is with trying to force develoeprs to NOT MAKE CRAP based on liscences to for fucking once put out a decent liscenced game

I dont know whats so bad about that

I love the Samurai Jack series and Id kill for them to finally make a GOOD Samurai Jack game and maybe this will make it happen

[Jeremy]

Damian sums up the DK 64 experience pretty nicely. Great final boss battle, hellish time actually GETTING to the boss battle. Also, I'd like to apologize for my Bob Saget knock earlier, as my earlier statement would seemingly lump him in with DK 64-quality comedy, and that's simply wrong.

[Bacon McShig]

BUT, I would say, if they make a bad movie, don't license the damn thing for a videogame.

Ah, but if a game is to lauch near release of the movie, it needs to start development when nobody will have any idea what sort of quality the finished movie will be like. Not to mention that the movie studio perpetuates making the games being unpolished by pressuring the game's deadlines. A lot of games not tied to liscences, that have minimal restrictions on their timetable, end up being bad, so it's really no big surprise that a game that's got a lot tighter schedule to work in ends up being substandard. There's two ways to remedy that: The studio cooperates with the game developers from day one of pre-production, with maximum disclosure of resources relating to the movie, to give the game as much development time as possible, or the studios resign themselves to the fact that a fully-realized game need a respectable amount of time to be worked on, which in many cases will mean that it ships at least a few months after the movie comes to theatres. Those are the only real options if quality is what they're really after. But that won't happen, because what they're really after is maximum profits for the short-term, and that means pushing a game out the door when it has the strongest product awareness.

They're saying "we want a delicious chocolate cake in half the time most delicious chocolate cakes require to make", and then throwing a hissy-fit when corners are cut.

[Compass]

well, i don't even remember the final boss fight. i do remember hours upon hours of exploring huge levels, collecting colored and golden bananas and blueprints and stuff and having lots of fun watching the percentage counters go up. but if you don't like this formula then it's not surprising you wouldn't like dk64.