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MCVUK: Sony’s Spider-Man is proof that the right license still has the ability to shift big units
- Thread starter patapon
- Start date
Well, Batman Arkham happened so WB did something right. And fortunately (and unfortunately because of lootboxes), the Middle-Earth series.
WB/EA did well with the Harry Potter movie games up to Half-Blood Prince. Every HP game after that (bar LEGO) was shite.
The developer should not be forgotten, even with a big budget the game could turn into a clusterfuck.
Goldeneye did this 21 years ago, this is nothing new.
But licensed games are also inherently less profitable than self-owned IPs, due to the need to share royalties. You also have less creative control, tight deadlines to deal with and you have no ownership of the game (want to re-release it years later? Good luck! Want to keep it on store shelves past the movie's theatrical run? Too bad!)
And good luck trying to make a name for yourself by living off of licensed games. Look at what happened with THQ, and countless developers during Gen 7. You are promoting and selling someone else's brand, using up resources that could've been used to build up your own instead.
It's a double edged sword.
But licensed games are also inherently less profitable than self-owned IPs, due to the need to share royalties. You also have less creative control, tight deadlines to deal with and you have no ownership of the game (want to re-release it years later? Good luck! Want to keep it on store shelves past the movie's theatrical run? Too bad!)
And good luck trying to make a name for yourself by living off of licensed games. Look at what happened with THQ, and countless developers during Gen 7. You are promoting and selling someone else's brand, using up resources that could've been used to build up your own instead.
It's a double edged sword.
I mean the game doesn't even have to be that "good". Established franchises sell. In this case not only the Spider-Man brand but Sony, and Insomniacs track record.
I'm fine with them calling it whatever they want as long as it's in the vein of the first two.
great game. great license. it was obvious it was going to amount to great sales, especially since we've been starved of spiderman games in general for a while now...not to mention the popularity of the tom holland version and avengers. the problem with a lot of the previous spiderman games is that they were MOVIE licences games though, rush job cash-in's and little else, even the much loved spiderman 2 was, outside of it's swinging mechanics, shit. and then the license was just passed around barely established developers and given no time and no money. all the things you need to make good games. that shit never works and publishers caught onto that. it's why there are so few movie tie-ins anymore.
the approach sony/insomniac/marvel had with this latest game is the best way to approach licenses though imo. they're not directly tied to the movies but feel close enough to scratch that itch. it doesn't have to tie in with a movies release so you have time to perfect it. and you can tell an original story and you have more creative freedom. chronicles of riddick is another good example of doing it right.
i do think any movie license when handled after the fact has the potential to be a great game though when given the time and money to make them.
not to mention it's still ridiculously popular. the universe even lends itself to spin-offs that don't even center around harry. but i would love to see what a developer could do with the license with lots of time and lots of money, instead of just churning out some crap that ties into the release of the movies themselves (which is what all the EA games were)
the approach sony/insomniac/marvel had with this latest game is the best way to approach licenses though imo. they're not directly tied to the movies but feel close enough to scratch that itch. it doesn't have to tie in with a movies release so you have time to perfect it. and you can tell an original story and you have more creative freedom. chronicles of riddick is another good example of doing it right.
i do think any movie license when handled after the fact has the potential to be a great game though when given the time and money to make them.
not to mention it's still ridiculously popular. the universe even lends itself to spin-offs that don't even center around harry. but i would love to see what a developer could do with the license with lots of time and lots of money, instead of just churning out some crap that ties into the release of the movies themselves (which is what all the EA games were)
Batman: Arkham Asylum was an Eidos/Square Enix game, WB Interactive then bought Rocksteady and made it their own franchise. So I'm not going to give them credit for that, especially since the series didn't really evolve after Arkham City. I kept hoping for a proper Batman open world game that isn't just a playground with enemies everywhere and it never happened.
And I wouldn't say the Middle-Earth series is fortunate. I wouldn't consider those games particularly high quality, you put them next to Spider-Man and they honestly look mid-tier. And they make horrible use of that world, coming off like awful fan fiction.
NeverRealm's the only WB studio I think consistently gets things right (though they have their own lootbox bullshit).
Same. Don't care about Harry Potter that much but I will absolutely buy a game where you play a student at Hogwarts and it doesn't follow the books/movies.
The game fells like a movie sometimes. It's an awesome job by isonamic and Sony. This games deserves all the big spots. I buy everything with this quality asap
Imagine if Sony gets the Star Wars licence after EA basically fucking it up and the success of (Marvels) Spider-Man. The quality games, the outrage and controversy.... it would be crazy.
Not going to happen, obviously, but the thought is kinda fun.
Not going to happen, obviously, but the thought is kinda fun.
But WB Interactive collaborated with Eidos/Rocksteady with Arkham Asylum. If WB Interactive can collaborate with other non-WB studios for a WB game such as AAA Harry Potter that'll be great.
Me trusting a WB studio to make a AAA HP, DC or non-Arkham Batman?? Never. Not after the BS they have done recently.
Tbh, I never played Middle-Earth...but I know many people loved the first game despite the mid-tier development, and the second game despite warnings of lootboxes and play to win stuff, sold very well.
It's funny, I thought DICE doing a Battlefront game felt like match made in heaven when it was first revealed. Oh man...
I can see with the right push, genre/quality and studio, superhero properties could become like how Netflix saw with their TV shows. But they do need that correct studio who has a love and passion for them and not to just release a licenced game on name alone, like many have done in the past.
The PS4 version sold about 0.51 million 4 weeks after it was released. PS3 was lower (never charted).
As much as I'd love more licensed games (there's about a billion fantasy books that would make fantastic game settings - Mistborn for one), there's always going to be that opportunity cost for these publishers.
They can spend $100 million on a game they have to share the profits or they can spend $100 million and keep the profits to themselves.
They can spend $100 million on a game they have to share the profits or they can spend $100 million and keep the profits to themselves.
Arkham Asylum was prior to the WB Interactive we know now, when they were basically just responsible for licensing their properties out and providing input to the publishers/developers. Around 2009/10 they expanded into a full blown publisher and haven't licensed any of their properties out since, so I don't think they'd be open to that.
They have for mobile games, but other from that, I see what you mean.
A good game with the right marketing will always sell. It's just that licensed games usually fail because the IP owners don't do much with it. Even now Disney still haven't properly leverage their IPs. All they did is hand it over to others to work on. Disney Interactive Studios completely failed and went under. They don't understand the video game industry, and they don't want to invest in it. That's why there is the EA Star Wars deal. It's easier to make some license money without investing a single cent. If Disney was as competent as WB in this aspect, this wouldn't be an issue in the first place. Disney has so much money that they can acquire a studio or pay devs to make games for them. They just don't want to do that. This time it worked because Sony wanted that Marvel brand for a long time, and it helps them sell a lot of PS4s. Not sure if Square Enix is willing to invest as much into their Avengers game.
This.
Licensed games have been marred by decades of shitted out quick movie cash-ins.
Arkham games changed that and now Marvel has also realised you need to give a talent studio both the time and creative freedom to make a quality game.
License alone means little, since we've had Spiderman games for years and they've all essentially sold like shit.
It helps when the license owner stays out of the development process, which appears to be the case in Arkham Asylum and Spider-Man, but not the case in the Star Wars games.
The right license is a license for awareness. You rely on pre-existing brand power of an license to get eyes and attention over your product.
But at the end of the day, a license is just a license. Consumers are more sophisticated than you'd think, a vast majority of people will still decide whether or not a product's quality is worth the purchasing price. And games are not cheap.
But at the end of the day, a license is just a license. Consumers are more sophisticated than you'd think, a vast majority of people will still decide whether or not a product's quality is worth the purchasing price. And games are not cheap.
I think Avengers project and Guardians of the Galaxy might be a game changer.
Spider-Man is well received both critically and
commercially and if Avengers and GotG will be too, Disney might change their policy
Disney Lucasfilm would see Disney Marvel succeed by letting several publisher take care of the franchise and maybe Sony (or MS) would have a deal for an exclusive game for their console
Their games did sell well when they were good. Then Activision stop devoting resources to it and the games got significantly worse. That's when they stopped selling.
It isn't just the license, it's also the quality of the game. Many games with top licenses like Star Wars tanked in sales. This one with the Batman games may be the best superhero game ever. This, plus the popularity of the IP plus Sony's fanbase and marketing budget and know how will do the maths.
I'd say back then PS3 version may have sold better because 1st year PS4 sales vs ~80M PS3 installed base difference and because all LBP fanbase had PS3.
Source? Are these numbers WW or US only? More than 500K first month (retail only I assume) in PS4 only aren't that bad for a game released the first year of a console.
I'd say back then PS3 version may have sold better because 1st year PS4 sales vs ~80M PS3 installed base difference and because all LBP fanbase had PS3.
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Was there ever doubt that big brand names/licenses sell products? Look at how many units cod sells every year, or madden, or fifa. Look how many copies battlefront 1 and 2 sold. Had that not been using the star wars licensed it would've struggled to hit a million, instead it did like 15 million.
Brand name sells. This shouldn't be news to anyone. Wait and see how much the avengers game sells, especially if it's not hot garbage.
Marketing and brand name basically buy success in this industry.
Brand name sells. This shouldn't be news to anyone. Wait and see how much the avengers game sells, especially if it's not hot garbage.
Marketing and brand name basically buy success in this industry.
So, in other words, Spider-Man is not a "safe bet" :)
Apparently, game itself should be good too. Who would know that? Not Activision, it seems.
Yeah, one of the problems with EA's two big Star Wars releases is that they were both timed to come out right before Episodes VII and VIII respectively. BF I in particular seemed to suffer in terms of content because of it (no single player campaign being the most obvious missing feature).
I hope that once this shit deal is over Disney will approach Sony again but this time for a Star Wars game.
While I agree that licensed IP can be a good deal for some talented but under appreciated developers, I don't want to see games take on all these licensed projects. It would really suck if movies and games were releasing the same content all the time.