The Future of Game Licensing

Gamasutra has a writeup of an E3 event where representatives of some of the big publishers discussed the future of game licensing. Representatives from THQ, Viacom, and Marvel were there, among several others. From the article: "The perception of quality has also hit the publishers. Gioia noted that at THQ, the company has shifted to where one SKU can cost as much as 15 million dollars. 'Why would I do that unless you're dealing with a substantial license or an original IP?' She argues that you have to be narrowly focused on what will work for your target demographic; properties like The Godfather with mass-market capability are really quite rare. With that in mind, there are plenty of other game size opportunities out there for content producers looking at games; it doesn't have to be the AAA game that so many licensed games seem to be skewing towards."

Comments

Re:Yeah, I now development costs are going up, but

[nelsonal]

Shelf keeping unit. It's sort of equivalent to a UPC code but references the product rather than the code. In gaming it is equivalent to titles if you count each platform as a separate title.