Game Matters

Electronic Arts seize the IP

Saw this story on BusinessWeek Online reporting that EA, long time friend of the movie-based game, is going steer their floating behemoth into the bluer waters of original IP.  From the article: "EA's ambitious goal is to create more such innovative, internally developed games while lessening the company's dependence on professional sports and Hollywood movie franchises."

As I've stated in this blog many times (more often within the comments section), there are only a limited few linear media IPs that can reliably, consistently cross the chasm into the non-linear games market.  These are IPs, like Spider-Man, Star Wars, Harry Potter, LOTR, and James Bond that have strong characters, a mythology providing a strong story backbone, and built-in hooks that translate into compelling gameplay (web slinging, Bond's gadgets, light sabers, etc.)  I have contended for the past decade that there are less than a dozen linear IPs (out of 100's of 1000's of novels, movies, TV shows, etc.) worthy of being turned into games (not including sports licenses and kids licenses -- kids will always go with what they've seen before on TV and in movies).

Poor EA! Brokeback Mountain, Crash and Munich just aren't game material.  And so they'll have to actually think of their own game ideas!

Publishers need to home grow their original games for three overwhelming reasons:

[1] It's more profitable in the long-term, because original hits add tremendous ongoing stability to a company (sequels).

[2] Home grown hits elevate the company's stock price, because they get full credit for the value of the IP.  IPs can be worth 100's or millions of dollars.  The GTA IP alone is probably worth $800 million or more.  In 2002 the Max Payne IP sold for nearly $50 million.  Bottom-line: IPs add a LOT of value to the bottom-line.

[3] Ownership of an IP allows the publisher to fully benefit from transmedia exploitation (as opposed to being the one being exploited).  What this means is that the publisher benefits from movies, TV shows (Earth Worm Jim and Sonic, for example), novels, amusement park rides, novels, and anything that may stem from the IP.  Again, adding bucks to the bottom-line.

In 3D Realm's history, even recently, we've been approached dozens of times to make games based on movies, including The Matrix and Men in Black.  We've always turned down these offers in less than a heartbeat.  And the reason is simple: We come out much better off by making our own IP, rather than working on someone else's.  Publishers like EA, perhaps, are starting to learn this, too.

Something else interesting from the article, EA is adopting something of a When It's Done attitude: "Another change is that homegrown projects will be given more flexible deadlines. Since these projects won't have hard release dates like sports or movie titles, [EA's president of Worldwide Studios, Paul Lee] believes it makes more sense to develop them until the team feels its idea is fully realized. "In the past we have committed to ship dates with large development teams before we had a game design," says Lee. "That is changing....We're going to have the best games and release them when they are ready."

Next in the news, cheese discovered on the moon...

Forrest Gump'ed

Well, the news is out that Rockstar, a label of Take-Two Interactive, is coming out with a table tennis game.  Does anyone think this is a good match for the Rockstar brand?  Here's what I had to say, in a letter I wrote to executives of the company exactly four years ago...

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Miller
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2002
To: xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Rockstar

I saw the news story below [not included here - ed.], and this line here is the one I want to talk about a little:  "Their games are very unique," said Paul Kaump, an analyst with Dougherty & Co. "They focus on the mature market."

[...snipped section...]

The Rockstar brand has become a true brand, unlike most meaningless, jack-of-all-trades brands in the game industry.  The Rockstar brand, to consumers, is positioned as an adult, mature brand.  Gamers and the press are picking up on this, and further games like DNF and Mafia will help reinforce this.  And brand is only powerful, compelling and meaningful when it's focused on a single, easily-understood meaning.  The Rockstar brand has achieved this.

Most publishers do not know how to make a brand meaningful, which is why most publisher brands are nearly worthless on their own.

And once Rockstar begins shipping games that do not fit this adult image, it too will become diluted, less-valuable, less-meaningful, and less able to attract gamers based on its own merits.  The best way to kill this brand is to make it generic, like the Activision brand, or the THQ brand, or the Eidos brand, or the Acclaim brand, or the Sierra brand, or the Infogrames brand -- all nearly worthless brands that gamers don't care about because these brands do not stand for anything (because they stand for everything).  In these cases, gamers buy the game brands, and don't care about the publisher brands.  But in Rockstar's case, the brand brings value to the table because it stands for something--it is positioned very well.

So, I hope Take-Two understands what they have with the Rockstar brand and maintains the brand's purity and focus.  This will mean that if a good game comes along that doesn't fit the Rockstar image, it should be published under a different label.  For example, if Take-Two wants to publish a game based on N-Sync, then doing so under the Rockstar brand would be a giant blunder.

Scott Miller
www.3DRealms.com

I did hear back from them the next day, and they fully agreed.

In a very recent update on Origin of Brands, Laura Ries writes:  "Preserve your focus: Maintaining your focus is the best way to keep a brand strong. By chasing the latest trend, you unfocus the brand and lose the meaning, credibility and authenticity of the brand."  It's really very simple to make a strong brand.  But it's also incredibly tempting to muddy your own brand, by branching out and satisfying that burning desire to be all things to all people.  When brands become strong, the executives in charge too often forget how they got that way to begin with.  It's all about focus.  Lose that, and you lose the brand's power.

N-tombed

I missed this non-story when it made news, but it appears that several sources have reported that production of N-Gage has ended.  Anyone who's read this blog for a while will not be surprised that I didn't think the N-Gage had a chance in hell.

The final story is that Nokia lost a TON of money on this product, and probably partly due to the distraction of the N-Gage, they lost a lot of ground to other cell phone makers, like Motorola.  Will Motorola one day get the itch to dabble in the gaming market?  If they do, I bet the now-wiser execs at Nokia will cheer loudly in their boardroom.

Here's another interesting link regarding a report by Screen Digest Limited I missed when it was fresh a few months ago.  The report claims that within the coming console cycle, developers are having to once again learn a lot of new technology, which pushes attention away from gameplay considerations.  And because the rising cost increases the risk of financing games for publishers, we're probably going to see more licenses, versus less originals.  Oh, joy.

Marc de Gentile-Williams, the author, commented, "At 30 years of age, the games industry still suffers from an endemic lack of professional management compared to less mature industries such as the mobile telephony and the Internet industries."  I have witnessed this sad reality first-hand.  It's very clear to me that publishers, especially, are generally poorly managed at the highest levels.  I think it comes down to this:  We need leaders/CEOs at the top who know something about making games.  Is there a publisher that has type of leadership?  Not that I know of.