Matrix Game Payments To Wachowskis Revealed 22
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamesindustry.biz report discussing the financial terms of the deal made with the Wachowski Brothers for the Matrix games. It's rare that anyone gets to see the kind of financial terms granted to creators of big licenses like The Matrix. But divorce documents for one of the brothers, made available via The Smoking Gun, have revealed a total of 2.75 million dollars will be paid to them with regard to Atari's Enter The Matrix game (and another 2.75 million going direct to Warner Bros), plus an eventual total of 2.5 million dollars going to the Wachowskis for Ubi Soft's The Matrix Online through 2007. More proof, if needed, that games are seriously big business.
Small Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Small Correction (Score:3, Insightful)
Your assessment is definitely correct, however the companies have a pretty good reason for doing such things: Shelling out for the license greatly increases the likelihood of making money. The Matrix game was pre-ordered 4 million times, as far as I know. Without the license nobody would have bought it. The game is okay as it shows another fac
Re:Small Correction (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Small Correction (Score:2)
Hopefully game development will get closer to the movie business in this regard. Some major titles make a lot of money and enable smaller teams to co
Re:Small Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
There are three primary factors that I believe enter into the "suckiness" of most licensed games:
1. First and foremost is the time factor. Many of the licenses are granted with a strict time limitation involved in order to maximize crossover profits with the film or television show being adapted. If the originator (the movie/TV production company) is smart, they'll try to get the license out there as early as possible to allow more development time. An example of a license that was granted early would be Activision/Treyarch with Spider-Man - not only had Treyarch already done Spider-Man in game form before but the deal was done so early that there was little concern about rushed development. This resulted in a polished game and will probably work again for next year's Spider-Man movie and game.
2. Money. Depending on the agreement, video game companies can be looking at making relatively little profit on a game (usually because of high royalties guaranteed to the owner of the property) and so will devote fewer resources to it than they might to an original game where they will garner all the profit. This usually shows up when you get a licensed game home and it turns out that the levels are all almost identical, there are fewer character animations, software bugs, sloppy bland textures, etc. In these cases, the company is indeed simply turning out a game they probably know is substandard just to make a quick buck from cross promotion and name recognition.
3. Sometimes it's just the wrong people that get hold of a license. It might be that the company assigns a property to their weakest development team because they have nothing else on the horizon, they might misread the skills of the team (like having a group that specializes in strategy games try to turn out their first third-person brawler), the prospective lead designer decides to bail on the company after the deal is done, etc.
Of course, #3 is applicable to all kinds of games - not just licensed properties.
In short, yes, to some extent companies DO grab properties just to make a quick buck but sometimes other problems can crop up to make the job that much harder. I personally consider problem #1 to be the worst of the lot since we've all seen what can happen if a company tries to rush a game out the door.
Making any kind of game in this age of extremely high expectations and "instant Internet karma" is a risky prospect. The complications of having to deal with outside influences in the case of licensed properties just make it that much more difficult.
A very large correction. (Score:2)
No, that's way off. The most pre-ordered game is still Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker at 650,000 preorders. There were a lot of Matrix preorders, but the real number is probably around 300,000 -- nowhere near 4 million.
Considering the game itself just broke 1 million units [planetgamecube.com], this only adds further doubt to your inflated numbers.
Re:A very large correction. (Score:2)
That's it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's it? (Score:2)
wtf? (Score:2)
I'll bite... (Score:4, Informative)
Only the tiniest percentage of games will achieve sales figures like that (eg. GTA, Warcraft, The Sims). A "successful" game will sell more than a few hundred thousand copies. You've got to be damned sure you're going to get the sales to support an investment of $3m. Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on your point of view - a strong licence such as The Matrix almost guarantees good sales figures, even if the game itself is no better than average.
I played the game and is not that bad on XBOX (Score:2, Informative)
On the other hand the game is easy to master, the difficulty level is well balanced, the cinematics complement the movie very well and it shows some details about what is going to happen on the third movie. Some missions were a little bit boring (like when you play against the agent Smith) but still the game kept me several hours playing.
Also is very cool to play
How much of that money was... (Score:1)
I have never been more dissapointed in a game experience in my life. The game is not HORRIBLE, but it is so mediocre. Neat effects but the controls are SUCKY (only 3 choices? WHY THE F@(K CANT every game atleast have the HALO controls as an option?)
Fight waves of guards, suddenly the game engine takes over and your character does somehing COOL (only you have no control)
And the driving sequences are pathetic, should never have been in the game.
I do love h
Games and licenses (Score:1)