Originality Vs. Established IP In Games 71
Ten Ton Hammer has an article about the differences between developing a game based upon existing intellectual property and the creation of an entirely new story and setting. They make the point that while doing the former may result in an easier time building a fan base, those same fans will often be the hardest to please.
"By creating a game based on a popular IP, the company in question has a huge responsibility to 'do it right.' Unfortunately, not everyone realizes the reality of one little secret — every single fan out there has a different idea of what 'right' is. ... Lord of the Rings is a perfect example. For a person that may be familiar with the movies and little else, it's a great game with an impressive amount of depth and attention to detail. For the mass of fanatical fans that have spent more time poring over every book Tolkien ever wrote than even Tolkien himself, any deviation from the lore of his world is paramount to sacrilege on the most horrific scale."
Tolkien is a really bad example (Score:3, Informative)
You're talking about a guy who spent 50+ years writing the Silmarillion (and died with it unfinished) and would rewrite passages dozens of times. I don't think anyone is quite that obsessed with his work (mainly because someone that obsessed would almost need to stop eating and sleeping to fit it all in).
Re:Ambition (Score:3, Informative)
Omg, you're talking about this game, aren't you...
Actually, no... that game came much later on. (Donkey Kong came out in 1981, while an "official" Popeye game came out in 1983.)
If you look at Mario's earliest character designs, his outfit strongly resembles those worn Popeye and Bluto in the old animated Popeye the Sailor shorts, short of a minor color palette shift. Much of Popeye's influence on Mario is still retained in both the red/blue/white coloring and the trademark hat style shared by both characters.