Current Events > they stopped making movie licensed games because enough people hated them

(+) Yeah! (+)

if enough people hate micro transactions and GaaS they will stop making those too

we can do it. we have the power

Nah, fam. Gotta get those waifus.

trivialbeing posted...

if enough people hate micro transactions and GaaS they will stop making those too

we can do it. we have the power

Those games are fueled by a small number of rich people. We don't have the power to do anything.

I imagine they stopped because it was no longer an easy cheap cash grab. It cost a lot less to slap together a game on the PS2 than it does now

Yea because game budgets blew up.

They didn't really stop making them though, and it certainly wasn't because people hated them.

They just stopped making them for consoles because it's too expensive. Movie licensed games show up as mobile cash grabs now. Cheaper and even more low effort.

Robocop is literally coming out soon.

MC_BatCommander posted...

I imagine they stopped because it was no longer an easy cheap cash grab. It cost a lot less to slap together a game on the PS2 than it does now

Yeah, pretty sure the main reason is that development has gotten so expensive that it's not worth it, especially when most are rushed in order to meet the launch for the movie. Gone are the days of a movie getting a game on PS2, Wii, DS, etc. Movie licensed games never went away, they're just mobile games now.

sabin017 posted...

Yea because game budgets blew up.

This, nobody is dropping $50m+ to make a licensed tie-in cash grab nobody wants.

yea, quality games take more money to make these days, and have longer development cycles.

it would be nice to have some kind of "companion" game to a movie you were looking forward to, though.

NGL I actually miss those shitty movie games sometimes. A few of them were decent.

projectpat72988 posted...

NGL I actually miss those shitty movie games sometimes. A few of them were decent.

A Bug's Life was better than the movie tbh

It's less "stopped" and more "there's no new franchises to make shovelware about anymore"

Like you can make a Lion King game. The hell you going to do after they remake the Lion King twice, remake the game?

Tyranthraxus posted...

Robocop is literally coming out soon.

Unless there's a RoboCop movie coming out, does that count as a tie-in or is it just a game about RoboCop?

DrizztLink posted...

Unless there's a RoboCop movie coming out, does that count as a tie-in or is it just a game about RoboCop?

I mean nobody said anything about tie ins, just licensed movie games. Also they made a new Dune game I think last year.

Tyranthraxus posted...

I mean nobody said anything about tie ins, just licensed movie games. Also they made a new Dune game I think last year.

Touch.

MC_BatCommander posted...

I imagine they stopped because it was no longer an easy cheap cash grab. It cost a lot less to slap together a game on the PS2 than it does now

this is the actual reason

you may notice there still are a lot of (although not as many) licensed games, they just aren't tie ins anymore, and they tend to be more serious projects than they used to be. game development became too much of a risk.

Voidgolem posted...

It's less "stopped" and more "there's no new franchises to make shovelware about anymore"

Like you can make a Lion King game. The hell you going to do after they remake the Lion King twice, remake the game?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/switch/272231-disney-classic-games-aladdin-and-the-lion-king

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


I was totally blown away by this one 4-5 years after its release. Some really creative and satisfying gameplay.

Jerry_Hellyeah posted...

I was totally blown away by this one 4-5 years after its release. Some really creative and satisfying gameplay.

And its the canon sequel to the 82 movie according to Carpenter.

DuranOfForcena posted...

but when will they make more games based on movies that were based on games?

It's a TV anime rather than a movie, but there was the recent Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai game. It apparently sucks ass.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a very fun game. Never saw the movie, but I heard lots of people say the game had a better story.

Priere posted...

And its the canon sequel to the 82 movie according to Carpenter.

Oh the plot of the cancelled Ghostbusters 3 got turned into Ghostbusters the Video Game (2009)

They stopped making movie games because phone app games based on them were cheaper and more profitable.

mercurydude posted...

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a very fun game. Never saw the movie, but I heard lots of people say the game had a better story.

Tetris has a better story than X-Men Origins: Wolverine

pokedude900 posted...

It's a TV anime rather than a movie, but there was the recent Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai game. It apparently sucks ass.

It's not so much that the game is bad, but rather different expectations were had for the game. It's way overpriced for what it is. It'd be great for a $30 game or so.

Unfortunately, no matter how much the general gaming population hates microtransactions, too many people keep spending money on them. So they will never stop implementing them in games.

Their days were numbered once 2D Platformers stopped being king.

It used to be a cheap and easy way to pump out big money - the studios could have loads of platformers ready to go, and all they had to do was give it a lick of paint to make it look vaguely like whatever film/show they had bought the rights to after the fact. The most notorious example is probably the Crazy Castle series, which went through an insane number of different licenses (with some entries even being the same game with a different license depending on which country it released in); the laziest example probably being Home Improvement where they put so little effort into making the game fit that you had Tim fighting mummies and dinosaurs.

But as games got more cinematic, more story-driven, more cutscene-filled and more 3D, it got harder and harder to just paste a set of characters and an existing movie plot over a pre-existing set of levels. Ironically, for a game to successfully be recognisable as being based on something else, it had to become more unique. Couple that with longer development time meaning that if you wanted to hit that sweet spot of releasing when the hype for the license was still high, you had to start making the game much longer before the release of the movie etc., so you weren't even sure if the film you were making a game of was going to flop.

And as gaming has become bigger business, the price paid to get the licenses has skyrocketed, so rather than being a cheap way to make a quick buck, putting out a licensed product became a huge financial investment, and thus a huge risk (doing exclusively licensed games is literally what put OG Telltale out of business, because the rights were so expensive that their whole business plan was based on selling enough of the early episodes of their games to be able to afford to make the latter episodes).

The risk/reward ratio just tilted far too far in the other direction to make the idea of pumping out loads of licensed games consistently viable.

It's no coincidence that the most consistently successful licensed games now are the Lego ones, where they've made a USP out of the fact that they actually lean in to making the franchises they have fit into their pre-existing game formula rather than trying to make their game formula fit their franchises - when the same cowboys-on-a-train level shows up in The Lego Movie Game and Lego Marvel Superheroes 2, it actually works because the whole point of Lego is that you reuse pieces to make something else.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Oh the plot of the cancelled Ghostbusters 3 got turned into Ghostbusters the Video Game (2009)

Also a fantastic game

007 everything or nothing was one of the best third person shooters even by today's standards.

I'd re buy it in a instant if it were available on modern consoles.

Toy Story 2 for the PS1 is the GOAT movie game

Mobile movie games make more

No they stopped because it's no longer a cheap cash grab. AAA games back in the day cost a fistful of dollars to make and made back enough to get a profit even if reviews were universally 3/10, so failure wasn't a big worry.

The Godfather was fantastic

Also the LOTR games. Id love for them to be remastered, they still play really well but visually arent that great