Saw on Penny Arcade mention of this article looking at Warner Brothers new plan to base royalties paid to game developers and publishers of WB-licensed titles on reviews, rather than sales.

[Jason] 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 interesting strategy! Its always depressing for me to see computer games sell really well despite knowing they are actually games of very poor quality and will have to go through several major patches before they're really up to scratch (I call these games 'PC games'). I don't know if basing royalties on third party reviews is necessarily a good way to do it, but hey, who knows. It is a somewhat bizarre decision from one of those large companies who you would have thought sales was the only thing that mattered (the article quotes Atari CEO taking exception to the scheme - they sold over 4 million copies of the Matrix game, which scored a review average of around 68%).

Well in a way it seems like a good idea, that way game developers will stop making half-ass games. But there's a flip-side to that coin as well (hehe, always wanted to use that) meaning you'd need to make sure you'll be using websites that aren't biased. If you had me reviewing your game you better make sure it's something f***ing fun to play or I'll can your ass.

8-)

PA bring up a good point in that so many of the 'major' review sites are pretty lame in their reviews - they don't pick the s*** out of all the techical faults. I'm sure you could read several BF: Vietnam reviews without finding a single mention of the bugs that plague it, or the fact that it was released on a version of the engine OLDER than BF'42.

People vote with their wallets. Royalties should be based on profit, not how good a game "journalist" thinks it is. I don't hold game reviewers in high regard because its just someone elses opinion. What you think of a game and what the public thinks of the game in general are two completely different things. As much as it pisses me off that crappy games can sell well, every other entertainment industry suffers the same problem, blair witch anyone?

Blair Witch was an awesome movie. Just because it was made on an extremely tight budget doesn't mean it's crappy though. I think they could've made a s***load more money than they did if they did a worldwide release instead of America first then everywhere else after. Blair Witch 2 was complete ass. I haven't seen ass as bad as that since seeing the goatse man.

I agree. What is to stop the developers hiring people to increase their scores?

It could turn into a business of its own.

I think in concept it sounds alright but there would have to be a lot of policy around it.

i like what they are trying to do.

They know they are going to sell many many copies of a movie related game cause fans of the movie/franchise will buy it, then be disappointed.

By making the company licensing the franchise/name pay more for it if they make a s*** game, they are encouraging a better quality product and hopefully reducing fan disapointment.

Not sure if relying on reviews is the way to do it, but it's better than the current system of having people purchase a game cause they liked the movie and it turning out to be s***.

The only people that would come out of this in a good way are game reviewers. they would be captured by game development companies in about 2 seconds.

Sounds hard to implement. But I'm sure Warner Bros haven't just decided this on a whim, and have actually done their homework on how such a scheme would work.

Lookout for developers seducing reviewers with offers of interviews, merchandise, etc. ;)

Lookout for developers seducing reviewers with offers of interviews, merchandise, etc. ;)

That happens already, with publishers giving developers free copies, plying them with alcohol and food, taking them on fun days of sailing, skirmish or rally driving.

The job of a games reviewer is playing games and soaking up the gifts, while forgetting what it's like to save up eighty hard earned dollars to fork over for just one of the ten new games they'll be exposed to this week.

If it was me, I'd use a blend of the various ideas. You can't rely on a single benchmark to decide bonuses/royalties. I'd factor in the various benchmarks so that not only did it have to achieve a good review score it'd have to achieve good sales. Otherwise you end up with royalties based on bribing a reviewer.

And I am sure Warner Brothers will just sit back and let themselves be ripped out of 'million(s) in royalties' without taking any action whatsoever.

last edited by fpot at 07:08:19 28/May/04

So when are John Laws and Alan Jones going to start reviewing computer games?

^^^ Rukh, nice of you to join us. i didnt think they had the internet on computers where you lived. or, youy know, running water.

I'm posting this from an Internode 512/512 SDSL account.

It's good of you to join us though. I thought you might still be in a lecture or something? (sif you'd go to a lecture on a Saturday!) :)

well i wanted to play against you and plok in squash, but i also wanted a vigorous workout. in the end i decided i would expend more energy sitting on my arse for 3 hrs than smashing you two all over the court.

im mean you two are slower around the court than an Internode 512/512 SDSL account.

stagrrr, stagrrr, stagrrr...

From the sounds of the last time when you, plok and Pete played (you each won one, lost one against one another), you all have a LOOONG way to go before you'd give me much of a run around :)

I thought there would be a more better way to get opinions on games being published and not paying reviewers royalities for bloated games that have a sort of nasty sweetness attached to the playability of them.

Things or methods like "public opinion" and "market research"

Maybe even 'user reviews'

It works for start up companies, can't they survey gamers and have a sort of official ideal where they are paid money after they give their opinion.

Gaming magazine royalities, all well and good. But it is the PUBLIC and US who are buying the product.

OMG you can’t actually expect companies to go talk to their customers can you ... if that where to happen it would be the end of man kind … Fire would rain from the sky, water would turn into acid, cats and dogs would get along … total anarchy.

Seriously I think that doing Customer Feedback is an excellent idea, as it is the only true way of finding out what their Customers actually think of a product.

Reviewers are not the best way of finding out what your customers really think, primarily because Reviewers often are not customers themselves. They often don’t purchase the game because they have some expectations that it will be fun, they get given it by their workplace (who often get free samples from game companies).

Reviewers are still moderately important in the whole food chain of purchasing stuff. Primarily to attract new Customers (the ones that haven’t been following the development of the Game), or to tell fans how the development is going. They shouldn’t be there to indicate how the fans actually felt about the game.

Wouldn't it be equally fair to require WB to pay a penalty for releasing films that damaged the license?

Idealy a reviewer should not care if the movie was crap or not, they are reviewing the game not the movie.

I'm all for basing royalties off the quality of the game, but like others I have doubts that reviewers are the people to ask.

ps. that would be a 512/512 Adsl account wouldn't it stagrrr?

Idealy a reviewer should not care if the movie was crap or not, they are reviewing the game not the movie.

I think the point being made is that the company developing the game loses out because the movie sucks, therefore, less interest in the game, therefore should they get some kind of rebate. Reviewers dont really factor into that part of the equation :)

ps. that would be a 512/512 Adsl account wouldn't it stagrrr?

clipto: no idea. it was rukhs assertion. my point was just that he sucks at squash; just like plok who lost to me the last game we played.

Well god damnit my second paragraph still stands!

I think its the best idea to come out of the gaming industry for a long time, it forces quality.
The reviewers have to be totaly independent from the industry and have some sort of policy to stop a "cash for comments" type of senario from happening.

Its not like they could give a 70+ rating to a game thats complete garbage without public backlash, if they put some effort in doing it properly and somehow manage to monitor the whole process, hopefully the industry will think twice and spend money on making the actual game rather than hyping it up to the maximum to get sales, especialy in the motion picture to game catagory, everyone one of the games ive played in this catagory have been complete garbage.

I think its the best idea to come out of the gaming industry for a long time, it forces quality.

Haha

The reviewers have to be totaly independent from the industry and have some sort of policy to stop a "cash for comments" type of senario from happening.

How exactly do you enforce that? That's right you can't.

Its not like they could give a 70+ rating to a game thats complete garbage without public backlash,

That's right they can't ... oh wait they already do

if they put some effort in doing it properly and somehow manage to monitor the whole process, hopefully the industry will think twice and spend money on making the actual game rather than hyping it up to the maximum to get sales, especialy in the motion picture to game catagory, everyone one of the games ive played in this catagory have been complete garbage.

I don't think many development companies, at least not pure Game Development companies actually start off attemping to make a game that is s***. Game Development is very complex to get right, and thus expensive.

I don't think anybody here wants them to make s***ty games, but using game reviewers (who are already easy to bribe at the moment) is a pretty retardo idea.

As has been mentioned above Reviewers are often not wanting to play the game, heck they might not even like that kind of game to begin with. Doing surveys of people who actually bought that game is a much more accurate mesure of it your game was popular amongst the people who bought it than some dickwad reviewer who is only reviewing this product to get a pay check.

Way to overanalyze an opinion typo.

If its done the right f***ing way it would enforce quality, i didnt say it would be possible..maybe if they kept the whole process in the publics view, use a variety of reviews from diffent sites and differnt people, involving the public and set up a BBS for discussing reviews for each game, or even surveying people like you mentioned. It wouldnt be that far fetched. Regardless if it works or not, its a decent idea, which im suprised a development company even considered putting foward

last edited by cobz at 08:07:31 01/Jun/04

stagrrr: The last game you played against him? What about the one before that? :)

(The last 4 games against plok I've won, and the last 3 or 4 against Pete)

If its done the right f***ing way it would enforce quality,

Oh really?

i didnt say it would be possible

But what if it was done in the “right f***ing way”?