When Quality is Job #735

[HaemishM]

Everybody's a critic.

[WayAbvPar]

Reviews are far too subjective (and easy to 'buy') to ever enforce this type of agreement. The idea is noble, but it will never fly.

[daveNYC]

Not that I like companies like EA, but I think it's pure shit that WB want's a company to pony up X million dollars for a movie license, and then "no royalties for j00!" if the game is a dud.

If they want to enforce some dubious level of quality in the games that they authorize, they should just talk to Lucasart's lawyers and draw up some agreement similar to what they used with SW:G.

Not that this would make for a quality game (hell no), but they would have full control over the product, and no excuse if it fails to live up to expectations.

This policy is just a lame attempt to shift all the risk onto the developer.

[cevik]

If they want to enforce some dubious level of quality in the games that they authorize, they should just talk to Lucasart's lawyers and draw up some agreement similar to what they used with SW:G.

No.

If they want some quality in their game they need to stay as far away from that agreement as humanly possible.

[daveNYC]

If they want to enforce some dubious level of quality in the games that they authorize, they should just talk to Lucasart's lawyers and draw up some agreement similar to what they used with SW:G.

No.

If they want some quality in their game they need to stay as far away from that agreement as humanly possible.

What they want right now is phat l3wt for the license, more phat l3wt from the sales, and the ability to skim more l3wt from the developer's cut if it doesn't measure up to some standard.

This isn't an attempt to improve game quality, it's an attempt to have their cake and eat it too.

[Velorath]

I think it would be less hypocritical if they decided that the reviews of the games had to at least be close to reviews of the movie they're based on.  After all, it doesn't make sense to churn out a movie like Catwoman which from the trailer is looking like a can of shit concentrate, and then expect someone to make a good game based off of it.

[HaemishM]

Fuck, I can't even imagine a good masturbation episode out of Catwoman, who the fuck thinks they could possibly make a good game?

[Furiously]

So - instead of the studio maintaining some sort of control/review of the product they just decide to leave the royalties up to reviewers?

I would think protecting your license would be best served....I don't know...by having some say in it before it hits the street? Maybe by looking at the design documents? Early builds? Being involved in the QA process?

I hope this goes the otherway too. Movie studio's have not done the most stellar job of converting good games into good movies...

I'm inclined to agree with DaveNYC - this isn't about raising the bar - this is about being able to screw a developer when they release a deer hunter based on someone elses IP.

[schild]

I read about this on /. yesterday, but your article made me smile. Thanks for covering this.

More seriously, I personally think that if a game can't get a 7.0 from game reviewers that expect much less than US then there is something wrong with them. Sometimes I do want to fine those fuckers who put the trash on the gaming shelves at stores. Suffice it to say, I'm actually not quite sure which side of the argument I stand on. I'll get back to it when Half Life 2 comes out.

[HaemishM]

I would have no problem if it was the movie industry that did this, considering that movie criticism at least has SOME standards applied to it. Granted, most movie criticism, especially in newspapers, is barely above the level of a high school book report, but at least there are some things they all kind of stick to. But most game reviewers, even and especially the ones who write for pay web sites, like Gamespy or IGN, can't even measure up to that. And they don't care to, because so long as they write glowing reviews, their webmag keeps getting new "exclusives" and the reviewer gets free games.

And while I'm the last guy to consider critical writing to be a worthy literary endeavor, there is some merit in having good criticism available about products we're expected to spend $50 on.

But I'm with Furiously; if I'm an executive, I'd rather apply my own standards to whether or not the game is worthy of good royalty rates. There's too many reveiwers out there that are too easily bought.

[Mesozoic]

I'm somehow reminded of the assertion that the makers of the last Tomb Raider movie made - that the low ticket sales for their shitty movie were the result of a poor TR game.  I wonder if movie execs just have it in their head that their IP is being harmed by bad games, even as they shit out low quality movies with unoriginal themes and cut-and-paste scripts.

[daveNYC]

They seem to believe that Tomb Raider has as much brand value as Coke, and they forget that Coke came up with New Coke.

It takes years to build up a brand image, and even then all it will do is give you the benefit of the doubt.

[AOFanboi]

Some other guy on some other site mentioned the reverse problem: Warner Brothers movies that suck, with noone punishing the movie company. Okay, Enter the Matrix was a turd, but if they had waited until after Matrix Reloaded's release, the publisher might have wanted to drop it so as not to be associated with that stinker.

As for Tomb Raider, wasn't it the other way around? The game publishers blamed the lacklustre sales of Angel of Darkness on the lack of success for Paramount's movie sequel released around the same time?

[HaemishM]

No, it was definitely the movie people saying that the suck-ass game contributed to the suck-ass movie's suck-ass box office, at least as much as I can recall.

[SirBruce]

Right, the Tomb Raider movie folks blamed it's poor box office on the poor game, whereas the people making Star Trek games blamed poor game sales on Paramount for making poor Trek movies/series as of late.

Bruce

[A_Leech]

From the article:

The game must score at least an aggregate 70% on reviews on a number
of game review sites. If the game doesn't, WB pays significantly less royalties.

versus the actual article...

Games based on Warner Bros. licenses must achieve at least a 70% rating, or incur an increase in royalty rates.

 You need to do a better job of proofreading your articles for content, or you need to do a better job of reading for content. WB isn't the one paying royalties; it is the GAME COMPANIES that pay royalties to WB. And, those same companies might pay an escalating percentage if the game sucks.

[HaemishM]

The intent is the same. WB makes more money (or loses less money) if the game sucks according to the critics. My article was really just kvetching at the idea that game criticism, which is in a state of shittiness unparalelled in modern times, should be in anyway a determining factor for whether a developer gets paid (or has to pay more licensing fees).