Scott Miller is going on again about the importance of owning your Intellectual Property. A key snippet
If you look at the top 40 console games (lifetime sales) since 1995, 31 of them, or 77 percent, are original brands (including sequels within these brands). That leaves just nine out of 40 as licensed game brands. That’s near total dominance in favor of original IP. Some of these top selling brands include: GTA, Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Halo, Crash Bandicoot, Tekken, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid and Driver…
So, if original brands control nearly 80% percent of the chart every year, why aren’t we seeing a LOT more original games in development? It’s clear that the real gold mine in our industry is with original IP (and their sequels and spin-offs). Publishers would be so much better off in the long-run by creating original IP versus licensed games. Owning an arm’s length list of home grown IP should be the goal of every publisher, because it gives them ultimate control of their own destiny and revenues.
Yet we have a large publisher like THQ being out-IP’ed by a little game studio like Id Software, who’ve created three blockbuster IPs, Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake.
Of course, this is nothing new for Scott – it is, in fact, a point he bangs out on his drum about once a month, before delving into the marketing mistake that is Diet Cherry Vanilla Coke. But right after I read that, I went on to read this New York Times article about Electronic Arts, and their overall lack of creativity.
Increasingly, industry analysts and game reviewers are wondering if the company’s dependence on sequels is a sign that it is losing its creative edge.
By year’s end, Electronic Arts plans to release 26 new games, all but one of them a sequel, including the 16th version of N.H.L. Hockey, the 11th of the racing game Need for Speed and the 13th of the P.G.A. Tour golf game. The company also relies heavily on creating games based on movies like the James Bond and Lord of the Rings series, rather than developing original brands.
….
Lawrence F. Probst III, chairman and chief executive of Electronic Arts, dismisses that view….He added that the company had a goal of putting out at least one entirely new game every year, and had several major original games in its pipeline.
One new title a year?!?!? Whoa! Slow down! Let’s not get all crazy here!
It’s not hard to see where the analyst skepticism comes in. This year’s major EA titles include games for Batman Begins, Godfather, and Lord of the Rings. All of which are adding money to the coffers but, if you look at it from Scott Miller’s point of view, aren’t adding long-term value to the company the way the Sims did a few years ago. BB and Godfather are most likely one-off titles. Lord of the Rings and Madden are licenses that may go away eventually. All have license holders that skim a hefty chunk of change out of the coffers. And all put annoying limitations on what the game can or can’t do. Meanwhile, Spore (assumingly, the one original title of next year) is getting huge press, and could spawn infinite expansions and sequels.
EA is trying to change, as this interview with Neil Young about the ‘pod’ development structure in their LA offices suggests. Incidentally, I liked the ‘pod’ concept better when SquareSoft did ‘em and called ‘em ‘Strike Teams back in 1999, but then there you go. Still, I’m not sure the system is working as they’ve envisioned. The reason to make a Batman Begins game is because the Spiderman game did so well when the Spiderman movie came out. But the thing that’s lost on a lot of people is that the Spiderman game was, at it’s core, an innovative title with a standout feature -the webslinging. Having read the Batman Begins reviews, none seem to be able to point out a feature that clearly sets the game apart. I’ve played Batman Begins at the game store, and Return of the King and LoTR: Third Age as well. All are well-done, highly polished, visually and audially astonishing title that were, ultimately, entirely formulaic. In each case, I lost interest in within the hour.
Has EA gotten too streamlined for their own good? How much innovation is the right amount of innovation, and how much should a company of EA’s size and wealth spend on creating new Sims and Need for Speeds? I can understand not to bet all your poker chips in one pot, but EA being optimistic about one new license per year seems very depressing to me as a designer hoping for new innovations to come.
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