Kathunter's Personal Space

While this news is quite old by now, a random visit to my.yahoo's movie review aggregation service prompted me to blog about Paul Hyman's May 21st article in the Hollywood Reporter.

"Warner Brothers has begun charging video game publishers that license its brands a fee that fluctuates according to what reviewers think of their games. The result, insists Jason Hall, senior vp of Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment, will be better games."

"The game industry has had its time to exploit movie studios all day long and to get away with producing inferior products," says Hall. "But, with Warner Brothers, no more. Those days are over. And we mean it. This isn't just lip service. Honestly, the bad games are over."

Hall's strategy now is to turn to game review Web sites -- such as GameRankings.com, Metacritic.com, and GameStats.com -- that aggregate scores given to games by critics at game sites and magazines. Games based on Warner Bros. Licenses must achieve at least a 70% rating, or incur an increase in royalty rates.

"An escalating royalty rate kicks in to help compensate us for the brand damage that's taking place," says Hall. "The further away from 70% it gets, the more expensive the royalty rate becomes."

[Enter the Matrix] "sold four million copies. That's $250 million worldwide," declares Bruno Bonnell, Atari's chairman and CEO. "That's what a big major motion picture makes. And Warner Bros. would penalize us because we didn't achieve 70%? Are they joking?"

But Hall would only comment that "sales don't equal quality."

So tonight I am trying to decide what movie to watch this week, and check out the reviews for "The Chronicles of Riddick". I heard Blizzard took their staff to see the movie, and thought I would see what everyone else thought.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: F
Chicago Sun-Times: C+
Chicago Tribune: C
Cincinnati Enquirer: B
New York Times: C
USA Today: C

For a total average score of a C as of tonight. Now depending on what you consider a C, this film distributed by Universal may or may not have received the 70%. By the way, as of tonight, the video game for Xbox is the highest ranked game on Gamerankings with an average score of 89%.

I know this hardly ever happens, we were all shocked, and I understand Hall is trying to avoid Matrix and T3 repeats, but this scenario does beg the question: had Riddick been a Warner Title, would Warner be obliged to pay VU Games for the "brand damage that's taking place"? I am going to be interested to watch upcoming Warner licenses -- EA's "Catwoman" and THQ's "The Polar Express" in the next few months. Actually haven't played Catwoman yet.

In the movie/game license business it is all about time to market, and as long as that is the first item on the agenda, we will continue to have problems.