Game Matters

The Warner Revolutions

Under the direction of Jason Hall, ex-CEO of Monolith, the game licensing group of Warner Bros. is rolling out a new plan to insure the quality of games that are based on their movie properties. In short, the plan will penalize publishers for making licensed games that score under 70 percent on various sites that publicly rank games, such as GameRankings.com. The penalty will be an increased licensing fee. This tactic, hopes Warner's Hall, will give a strong incentive to publisher to make better games, otherwise face a higher licensing fee.

While I love the end-goal of making better licensed-based games (who wouldn't!), I do not think this plan has a chance...

o This plan cannot overcome the fact that most movie (or television) licenses -- 99.9% of them -- do not have the genetic material necessary to become good games. So, even with razor sharp incentives inches behind a publisher's back, it's just not possible to make a compelling video games from a movie license -- with exceedingly rare exceptions. With all the media product that spills from Hollywood each year, not including kid oriented product, I'm guessing 5,000+ original productions (not including each episode of a TV series), maybe one to three per year have potential in the video game world. And often none.

Turning to Hollywood is a folly.

o It's dangerous to let reviewers know that they have potential power in the contractual license-fee equation. Rather than use aggregate sites like GameRankings.com, it'd be smarter to select two dozen or so well respected review sources worldwide, and not reveal who these sources are. I can see publishers being very leery of signing any licensing deal that puts their fate in the hands of reviewers who know that they are playing a part in how the publisher itself gets paid.

o Third-party developers working on a Warner license should be concerned that their publishers will merely pass the pain along to them. So, if the game's ratings don't reach 70 percent, then the developer, not the publisher, takes a revenue hit. If this happens, then Warner's plan has no sting.

o A better way for Warner to spin this deal is to allow publishers to earn a better licensing rate for high review scores (rather than penalize them for low scores). For example, scores above 80% result in a reduced licensing fee for the publisher, since value is being added to the overall brand. Scores above 90% get a better break still for the publisher. The idea is simple: Reward for doing good, rather than punish for doing bad.

o Finally, what if the game industry turned Warner's plan against the movie industry? For example, what if Eidos could penalize Paramount Pictures for making a Tomb Raider movie that wasn't "fresh" according to Rotten Tomatoes? Anyone think that a major studio would ever sign such a deal?

Nope. Neither do I.

In the end, I don't see Warner's plan lasting long. Or am I wrong?

Punishing gameplay

Just answered an email from a designer asking for advice on his about-to-be-released game. Without getting into specifics, he said that his game consists of a limited number of sets, each with a number of levels. In pre-release playtesting sessions, gamers complained that when they would die on a particular level, instead of restarting at the beginning of the current level, the game would restart at the beginning of the set, which might be several levels back.

More information the designer gave me: Once a level is solved, he said it's like a puzzle that you can then redo fairly quickly again. The designer wanted gamers to restart at the beginning of the set (rather than the current level) in order to lengthen the game's actual play time, otherwise he was fearful the game might be too short.

So with that background, here was my advice:

Steve, I stand firmly on my view that players should not be forced to re-conquer old territory. There's rarely anything more frustrating than being forced to replay a long area they've already defeated. A short area is maybe okay, but I have a 30-second rule-of-thumb that I live by: Never force the player to replay more than 30 seconds to get back to where they were. Boredom is the issue.

Now then, this rule-of-thumb can be relaxed for games that are in essence a series of short puzzles. This is what it sounds like with your game, as it's divided into # sets of # levels/puzzles. I side with what your players are telling you, that's it's better to have them restart on the current level, rather than all the way back to the beginning of the set. The way it's being done now seems like arbitrary punishment, and every review of the game will slam this aspect of the design. Guaranteed. And you don't need that. Plus, online buzz of the game will also be harsh. And that leads to fewer, rather than increased, sales.

Without seeing the game it's hard for me to offer a solution. My first thought is to simply design more levels, so that the game lasts longer. But if levels are hard to design, then that's probably not a good solution. Maybe including the level editor, to extend the life of the game and encourage player-driven content?

Otherwise, I'd recommend a reduced price for the game, appropriate for the play length. But, I'd avoid at all costs forcing players to restart at the beginning of the set. That's just too severe, and the backlash will kill the game.

Anyone have better advice in this case? Is it okay to force players to replay several levels, even short ones, just to get back to where they were? Do gamers mind replaying longer sections after death, or should games avoid this design blunder if at all possible?

Brandishing books

I've been following some of the biz and marketing blogs the last few days, mostly because I wanted to see how the Business Blog Book Tour (BBBT) would play out. I learned about this event thanks to one of my favorite blog stops, BusinessPundit.com. One thing that's come to light is that biz and marketing blog authors have something of a friendly little community going, where they constantly reference each other and write blogs that quote other blogs in their industry.

Anyway, the BBBT is smart guerrilla marketing at work. Seth Godin and his new book, Free Prize Inside, is the subject of this current blog tour, the third of its kind this year. The idea is that for 11 consecutive business days in May, Godin makes a guest appearance on 11 business and marketing blogs, either doing an interview or acting as guest writer on the blog-of-the-day. Today, he appears on What's Your Brand Mantra.

I can't know if this tour actually helps sell Godin's book, but even if only 300 extra books are sold from this tour, I'd guess Godin would be pleased. And for the 11 blogs, they benefit from the cross promotion from the other blogs on the tour, as well as dozens of others not on the tour. Plus, just the act of being picked as one of the tour stops has to be an ego boost for the blog authors.

So, the obvious question: When will we see something like this with game industry blogs? Independent game developers might give thought to mimicking this approach with their latest game release. Might not work, though, simply because, for now, there are far fewer game industry blogs than those for the business in general. Still, clever underground tactics like this should be explored.