WB Using Game Reviews To Calculate Royalties

Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter for its article discussing Warner Bros. Interactive's decision to use average review scores in calculating the royalty rates videogame makers must pay to WB. The article explains: "Games based on Warner Bros. licenses must achieve at least a 70% rating [calculated via GameRankings.com and similar services], or incur an increase in royalty rates", with WB's Jason Hall commenting: "An escalating royalty rate kicks in to help compensate us for the brand damage... the further away from 70% it gets, the more expensive the royalty rate becomes... If the publisher delivers on what they promised -- to produce a great game -- it's not even an issue." However, Bruno Bonnell, CEO of Atari, makers of Enter The Matrix, which didn't include this contract clause, comments: "We sold four million copies. That's $250 million worldwide... and Warner Bros. would penalize us because we didn't achieve 70%? Are they joking?"

Comments

Re:Very reasonable

[Kanasta]

maybe i should start a review site then.

Chopping of your penis, branddamage ?

[88NoSoup4U88]

Ifso, One of those Wacho... Washo... Wachi... Wachowski brothers, will be in big biig trouble :D

Re:The fix is in

[abandonment]

the REALLY brutal part about this is that the money that the publishers have to pay to the game magazines to get the good ratings ALSO comes off the revenue from royalties that the developers might (emphasis on the word MIGHT) make off of the game.

so if you would have made $100,000 in royalties off a game (and this is probably high for a typical game, most don't see ANY royalties at all), suddenly you need to pay out an extra $100,000 in 'bribes' to get good ratings, otherwise the licensor docks you even MORE of your royalties than their corrupt accountants do already.

it's a lose-lose situation for developers.