Warren Spector on Licensing 326
An anonymous reader writes about an "interview with Warren Spector about his thoughts on licensing movies for games. From the article: 'At these Hollywood meetings, the same thing has happened to me more than once, with multiple people...I describe the game I want to do. I tell them I can deliver you a triple-A title for this cost...Spector names a high figure; no one has ever yet written a check that big...They think it over. Then they say...What could you do with twice as much money?'"
What is a "triple A" title? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:1, Interesting)
Let me get this straight.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Warren Spector has never once made a liscensed game.
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no slump!
This so called "slump" is just political marketing on the part of the big studios. There is no slump as far as they are concerned. In fact, their theaterical revenues went UP 10% from $797M to $870M for the first 3 quarters of the year.
REF: http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/US205MPA.htm [edwardjayepstein.com]
The real hit has been to indie and otherwise non-MPAA films, they are the ones that have been losing out at the box office. You can find more details in the pair of articles here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2123286/ [msn.com]
Re:OT: remedial website design (Score:5, Interesting)
Neat (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me get this straight, this is the same Hollywood who the MPAA claim are losing thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars a year from piracy, right? Yeah, they sound really strapped for cash alright...poor bastards.
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't so far from the truth. My grandson recently was given for his birthday the game that was released with the recent Star Wars movie. After initial trouble installing it (it didn't like his video drivers or something), he probably played it for about an hour before he had enough of it.
He told me about it the last time I saw him. I believe his quote was, "Gramps, this game fucking sucks." He's not one to swear much, so I knew he was truly disappointed. I suggested we play a good old game of Monopoly, and so we did. And you know what? He had fun. He improved his math skills, too.
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:3, Interesting)
Does he take into account:
a) Inflation, and
b)Market Growth
Because if he does not, these may not be the highest grossing releases of all time. This misconception can also be seen in media stating that oil is 'at an all time high', while failing to realize inflation.
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:4, Interesting)
Which the studios adore! Due to an anachronistic accoutnign quirk video and DVD profits for a film get booked at a flat 20% of gross income. The remaining 80% is written off as "production and marketing expenses" regardless of how much it cost to produce or market the DVD. Given that most studios now have their own in house production and marketing of DVDs, and given that these days production and marketing costs are nothing like 80% of the gross income on DVDs, that's a huge amount of money going straight to studio coffers that never has to be booked as gross income for the film, and hence need not be shared with any participants signed up for a percentage of (not just net, even gross!) profits.
That is to say DVD is an absolute goldmine for studios because, for accouting purposes, they barely make any money at all, yet they make the studio a fortune.
Watch out for the coming trend: Simultaneous theatre and DVD release so that the studio can do simultaneous marketing and save themselves even more of that "80%". A very basic DVD will be released the same time as the film. Various higher quality with added features and new deluxe editions will then be released to milk the DVD business for all it's worth.
Don't think the studios are concerned about DVDs. They love them. The only people who should be worried about DVDs are the theatre owners who insist on putting 20 minutes of ads before the movie.
Jedidiah.
Don't do it - it's a trap! (Score:3, Interesting)
So then they give you 60% of the original amount of money discussed (after all, noone had ever cut a cheque that big before), and they hold you to delivering on the "2x as big a budget" pie-in-the-sky dreaming version. This, after all is how the state of the art is advanced -- stretch goals.
Cheers,
Richard
More IMAX movies is the answer (Score:3, Interesting)
The ONLY reason I go see a movie these days if its at the IMAX, which is well worth the money IMO, the resolution, screen, and audio are the best, they all have standard theatre seating, and its so fracking loud people talking and eating snacks doesn't matter. I saw Batman Begins 2 days ago.
To save the box office they need to 1) upgrade theaters and 2) raise, yes raise ticket prices.
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:3, Interesting)
Which (IMO) is why they want to get into the game market.
Why would you goto a theater? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. 30 minutes of commercials.
2. Talking idiots
3. Cell phones ringing every 5 minutes.
4. Air conditioning set at "cryogenic"
So screw em, I'll stay home and if I want to see a movie, I'll goto the library and checkout the DVD for free.
That all the movies are now remakes/ripoffs of movies from 20 years ago doesn't help either.
Bucket of hooey (Score:2, Interesting)
He is being naive and idealistic. It is so easy to look at the flaws in licensed games and think "I would have done X Y and Z differently", when you were not behind the scenes and do not know the reasons why X Y and Z are so flawed.
Imagine for example that you are the developer and you have some GREAT ideas for a licensed game. Publisher takes those ideas and talks with the movie Licensing Department A**holes (LDA from hereon). The LDAs say "no, you can't to X with our character" and "You can do Y but only if you do it this way...". And then those things in turn affect part Z.
What do you do? Well first you argue with the publisher. But they are just the messenger. You might be lucky and some members of the development company will get to attend one of these meetings with the LDA along with the publisher, but that goes nowhere either. Why? Because the LDA aren't game players. They aren't even movie-makers. They are LICENSING people. Suits for the most part. Not a creative bone in their body. They don't understand artistic license, games, and especially not what makes a game great. They just want to hear "it's like Grand Theft Auto". That makes them drool. Then they go and give you a list of 20 things you can't do.
And the publisher, who is supposed to "go to bat" for the developer on these issues can;t do anything because they are faced with contracts and risk of losing the license if they don't bow down to the LDA gods.
Warren Spector hasn't experienced this. He will learn the hard way. Just watch.
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the track record of the World Bank, the IMF, and the US economy prior to Greenspan's arrival, we can pretty much presume that anyway.
Re:Hollywood's next move (Score:2, Interesting)
Uhm... most of those involved with the IMF can be labelled as incompetent. Prescribing currency devaluation to troubled economies is not a sign of intelligent thought.
The trade deficit is troubling. But realize that a reasonable and not insignificant percentage of that can be attributed to one thing: China
With an artificially low currency that is still pegged to the dollar, it essentially targets the US as a dumping ground for China's exports, artificially raising the import figure, while at the same time the excessive piracy rates reduce the US's export figure (connecting us back to the topic).
This will evolve into an interesting symbiosis, as I think that China needs to keep the US economy heathy enough and may use it's currency evaluation to tweak the US trade deficit if the deficit looks like it may cause economic instability in this country.
But make no mistake about it, China is in the driver's seat.