Please wait while my 
Page 1 of 1
November 3, 2011
...Content Licensing in Gaming
Video games based on movies almost always suck.
Movies based on video games almost always suck.
Why this is true is debatable. But empirically, it’s almost always true.
Something is always lost in translation when characters and brands attempt to cross media. Books <—-> Movies have the same problem. Books <—-> Video Games also generally suck, but this conversion happens less often in general.
I went into Electronic Arts most recent quarterly financials out of curiousity. They have $1BN in content licensing liabilities on the books. They have to pay content owners $1BN to make what will most likely become lame, badly-translated games.*
Zynga will IPO soon, and I have been consistently impressed how they’ve built enduring game franchises that people love without ever licensing content. I wouldn’t be surprised if they dabble with licensing content in the future (because they have a culture of testing *everything*, and so testing games that leverage content licenses is a worthy experiment). But, I doubt Zynga will ever use content licensing as a crutch to support a lack of their own creative style. Zynga’s continued success with their own homegrown brands is really remarkable and generally an exception in the games industry.
* Big caveat: a portion of this $1BN is in licensing fees to sports leagues, and EA’s sports games generally don’t suck. So, this is an important exception, but for the most part, my point still stands.
2 notes
-
petunkas liked this
-
mytangent liked this
-
thegongshow posted this
