Limitations Of Game Licenses Probed

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to game designer Mark Barrett's page, where he has an opinion piece discussing the gameplay limitations of videogame licenses. He references earlier discussions on the subject from the likes of Warren Spector and Greg Costikyan, and says his Enter The Matrix play sessions revealed "..most of what I was doing and seeing had been forced not by design decisions, but rather by the promise of the license itself... [which was] encumbered by filmic conventions and film-related audience expectations, some of which were unrelated (or even antithetical) to a meaningful interactive experience." Do developers just have to rely on luck when it comes to how game-translatable a license is, or can they beat the odds by being smart?

Comments

I can think of only a few that worked.

[SmallFurryCreature]

Star Trek, 25th aniversery. An excellent adventure set in the original and best series. Worked because it was just a good adventure that did something very new. Instead of one long story they had a bunch of shorter unrelated ones, this allowed them to have a lot of possible outcomes for each mission/episode. Every thing about it just acted and looked like you where in an episode. Most importantly as captain kirk you used the same tools as in a series, spock for analysis, the red shirt to get killed and youreselve to talk to alien babes.

The other is X-wing. It perfectly emulated the feel of being in an x-wing. Later on the series watered down in my opinion as they added to many missles being fired at you (can you remember a single fighter targetted missle in the films?)

What made these games great? They took something that was essentialy part of the series. X-wing was dogfighting in space and star trek is basically an adventure story. (Observe problem, let spock think of a solution, let McCoy apply the solution while complaning he is not x, kirk sleeps with green alien babe, go to next problem)

What was also great is that the designers had to really be creative to create the feel of the game as the hardware was then way to limited to just chuck high definition movies and soundtracks on it. (these two games came out on floppies)

If I think about the most recent licensed game I played, Elite Force II, I just don't get the same feeling as when I played those other games. Sure the voices where exactly like in the series. The feeling just wasn't. The ship looked well, empty, the bridge to small. and the constant killing spree seems a bit untrekky to me. In both of the installments you even kill off a shitload of humans.

Perhaps a license can only really succeed as a critically aclaimed game when it is just a good game regard less of the license. Then the license can be used to add something a little bit extra. Where do rather launch from, a stardestoyer or the tiger claw?

Re:I can think of only a few that worked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Golden Eye by UK codeshop Rare is also an game one of the most inovative FPS's, there's a real sense of tension and suspense missing from so many titles. I gree that a licence ads almost nothing to gameplay but as you hint it can help player imersion by providing a rich context in within which the interaction takes place

Re:Developing license property

[Fareq]

I think here you've hit the nail on the head.

Brand owners are very protective. Some will hold the game dev's hand, some will be truly destructive, and others will trust the developer to do what is right for the game.

It is always hard to tell in advance what kind of brand owner you are dealing with, but I believe that the more freedom hte developer has, the better the game could be. Unfortunately, it could be much worse, as well...

So... when deciding whether or not to pick up the license, spend a lot of time looking at the terms of the license, as well as the track record of the brand owner