It’s safe to say that while large organizations are always pleased to hear good reviews of products tied into licenses they own, they probably care a hell of alot more about the amount of capital said products bring in for them. Based on that assumption, the recent announcement by Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment stating that publishing royalities will be directly influenced by the crticial acclaim of titles is both surprising and commendable (given the success of sub-par titles such as Enter the Matrix).
This idea can largely be attributed to the advent of sites such as game-rankings which tally and average the ratings given to games from a variety of publications. Using such sources, WBIE now has the ability to accurately guage the general consensus of their games. WBIE senior vice-president Jason Hall stated that games which do not reach a minimum of 70% on such sites will result in the publisher having to pay higher royalty fees for the license and future licenses. He goes on to explain that the further below 70% a game sinks, the more money will have to paid.
Hall claims that the new strategy is being implemented to prevent and hold developers accountable for ‘brand damaging’ that occurs whenever consumers come to associate the quality of a game, with the name attached to it. Captial gains for WBIE aside, this is a great deal for gamers as it will very likely help to limit the amount of sub-par games based on licenses they’d love to see given the proper treatment. Given this boon, its highly commendable that WBIE would risk relations and possible deals with development houses in order to produce a superior product.
Some are not happy with this arrangement however, most notably the makers of the wildly successful Enter the Matrix. Bruno Bonnell, CEO of Atari and publisher of Shiny’s foray into the franchise. “[Enter the Matrix] sold $250 million worldwide, that’s what a big major motion picture makes. And Warner Bros. would penalize us because we didn’t achieve 70 percent? Are they joking?”
Hall stood firm in response to the incredulence from Bonnell – who stated such a deal was an insult to Atari, reiterating the goal of creating better games, not simply best-selling ones. “Sales do not equal quality.”
