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Low Score? Low Paycheck.
May 25th 2004, 22:07 CEST by Caryn According to this article, Jason Hall wants to base a publisher's pay on the review scores for a licensed game. Here's a snip: 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 escalating royalty rate kicks in to help compensate us for the brand damage that's taking place," says Hall. "The further away from 70% it gets, the more expensive the royalty rate becomes. So, frankly, if the publisher delivers on what they promised -- to produce a great game -- it's not even an issue." This is interesting because it's not a model (at least that I'm aware of) that's being used elsewhere at all in the entertainment industry. As the article starts off saying, Hollywood doesn't currently pay its talent according to how many thumbs up the movies get. So will it work? Will Hall's proclamation ensure quality games made with Warner Bros.' licensed properties? Do the developers on the board think this will work, and is it a model that could be extended outside of a licensed brand? |
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Topic: Low Score? Low Paycheck.
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#75 Charles Quote from the strip: "We're only going to pay them for good games. It doesn't seem that weird to me." As I've asked before: if Warner Bros. doesn't want their brands damaged in the first place, then why is Hall advocating post-release measures to decide what to pay a publisher after they've released the game -- potentially having already damaged the brand -- instead of hiring an internal oversight section to ensure that the game is good before it gets released with WB's brand intact, which is presumably why they hired Hall in the first place? "See, Canadians believe Jesus walked on water. We just figure it was winter when he did." - Squeaky
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Dancing cows! Fetch this space frisbee, human. Fetch it, and gaze upon your ruined world!
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As I've asked before: if Warner Bros. doesn't want their brands damaged in the first place, then why is Hall advocating post-release measures to decide what to pay a publisher after they've released the game -- potentially having already damaged the brand -- instead of hiring an internal oversight section to ensure that the game is good before it gets released with WB's brand intact, which is presumably why they hired Hall in the first place? It's a deterrent. A poorly conceived one. Thrrrpptt!
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As I've asked before: if Warner Bros. doesn't want their brands damaged in the first place, then why is Hall advocating post-release measures to decide what to pay a publisher after they've released the game -- potentially having already damaged the brand -- instead of hiring an internal oversight section to ensure that the game is good before it gets released with WB's brand intact, which is presumably why they hired Hall in the first place? Well, I've sort of said this before, but I'll rephrase anyway. It's not something you can trust to one person. Just because one person finds something fun doesn't mean anything. Also, it may not even work if you had a panel of five people. You'd need specific types of people for specific genres, perhaps with a cross section of people who don't normally like that kind of game thrown in for good measure. It just seems like the kind of thing that would be extremely difficult to set up accurately. Also, who are they going to hire? Steal game journalists? I doubt a big company wants to risk anything with people who have no formal training and just post to a webpage for a living. So what do they do, get mainstream people for the positions? How will they get good opinions at that point? It just seems to me like they'd essentially have to reproduce what already exists in the public arena of game review magazines, sites, etc. Just because they hire a few people, and those few people play their game and say "Yeah, this game is great!" Doesn't mean that in the end the game will actually be good in the public eye. Shit, you look at some of those more mainstream game reviews, and you wonder what crack they were smoking. It would be the same thing with any panel they created internally, IMO. "I'm not asking for much; just a job that meets the minimum legal requirements set forth by my country."
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But the point stands that by the time the reviews have come out, it's already too late. The crappy game has been made, the license has been damaged. Nothing will fix that. It seems odd to try to set up some ex post facto deterrence based QA without trying to..you know...make good games to begin with. I refuse to believe that the production of a quality product is so mysterious. Can you make/predict a massive hit? No. But you can certainly make something that's reasonably bug free and non-completely-crappy, which is all a licensee can expect from what's basically a promotional tie-in. |
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Well, I've conceeded already that using the public reviewers is not an optimal solution, I'm just trying to provide arguments for why they might think it's a good idea. "I'm not asking for much; just a job that meets the minimum legal requirements set forth by my country."
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Really, what they need to do is call in reviewers to do a 'pre-review' near the end of the game's dev cycle. Sort of as a project audit, I guess. Call in a few of the major guys, get early potential reviews, and then go back to the drawing board, or whatever, from there. "I'm not asking for much; just a job that meets the minimum legal requirements set forth by my country."
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No doubt, his idea needs a lot of tweaking. But I still think his intention is to have better games on store shelves. Maybe have people review the "gold" master before it is actually released, and use that as a metric. I see a lot of people harping on the *how* and not the *what* -- maybe you all agree that it's a worthy goal. Hall proposed something. It needs work. It's a step in the right direction, though. -DKI(ID
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I think these gold masters should be sent to Crappers. We'd sort them out. |
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I am definitely on Greg's side of the fence. Anything that forces some accountability for crappy games is good, IMO. That it needs work is undisputed. "I'm not asking for much; just a job that meets the minimum legal requirements set forth by my country."
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I see a lot of people harping on the *how* and not the *what* -- maybe you all agree that it's a worthy goal. Hall proposed something. It needs work. It's a step in the right direction, though. I mentioned it's a good idea in principle, but using the wrong metric. I then proposed a better solution in #28. So nyah! :) Thrrrpptt!
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#88 Hugin I think these gold masters should be sent to Crappers. We'd sort them out. It would be the death knell of the gaming industry. Machina improba! Vel mihi ede potum vel mihi redde nummos meos!
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Quality control is a great idea! Jason Hall is a genious! You know, that ROTK game really sucked, next time I see that Tolkien dude I'm gonna smack him upside the head. It sure would be convenient if Teh King of teh Monstars could just smack him for me... |
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Speaking of ROTK, I went over to my girlfriend's house because she said her brothers had rented ROTK. I was excited as hell to finally watch the scene with the Mouth of Sauron, and then I find out it's not the director's cut. Is that a future release or something? "hey look at me, i'm DJ Dethstryk, The Square Who Is Not Cool™! i've never heard of Fringe Band X or Scratch DJ Y! haw haw haw!"
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Reviewing gold masters is useless. You can't change the game once its gone gold, so what's the point in having a review at that point? The goal here, as Hall stated, is to ensure that WB's brands aren't damaged. Which requires internal oversight before release. Charles, I don't buy your argument in post #83 that this isn't possible to do. The people at WB don't have to make the game; they have to ensure that a quality product is made with their license. They hired a game developer to make sure this happens. This can't be an impossibility, unless I'm grossly misunderstanding the agreements that entertainment companies like WB make with publishers, but I don't think I am. As Thrrrpptt! said, it's a deterrent, and a poorly conceived one. I don't mean to slam Hall himself, but this strikes me as punishing someone else for a job you should be doing yourself. Since WB wants to ensure quality products from their brands, then they need to make sure the products are quality before they're released. At that point, if Hall is punishing publishers for bad games, then it stands to reason that he should be punished himself for allowing a product that would damage their brand to be released, no? I know there are several other groups in the chain here who are responsible for the quality of the game, but it seems to me that WB and Hall should be the ones making the final decisions, and that they play a significant part if a game is released with their license that damages the brand. "See, Canadians believe Jesus walked on water. We just figure it was winter when he did." - Squeaky
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Yes. November. Machina improba! Vel mihi ede potum vel mihi redde nummos meos!
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D'oh. That was for #93. Machina improba! Vel mihi ede potum vel mihi redde nummos meos!
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Ergo - Got-damnit. Thanks, though. "hey look at me, i'm DJ Dethstryk, The Square Who Is Not Cool™! i've never heard of Fringe Band X or Scratch DJ Y! haw haw haw!"
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Caryn, that's why I put gold in quotations. I was trying to imply they were finished, but not necessarily finished. -DKI(ID
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Jason Hall is the ultimate end boss, complete with ooze. It was in fact so bad, that it gave me cancer. -"Bailey"
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Charles, I don't buy your argument in post #83 that this isn't possible to do. The people at WB don't have to make the game; they have to ensure that a quality product is made with their license. They hired a game developer to make sure this happens. This can't be an impossibility, unless I'm grossly misunderstanding the agreements that entertainment companies like WB make with publishers, but I don't think I am. But, to reuse an example, the wachowski brothers were involved with, and endorsed, the matrix game. So those are the kind of people who'd be making the decisions. Which is why I'm saying that the straight forward solution that you propose isn't necessarily a solution. "I'm not asking for much; just a job that meets the minimum legal requirements set forth by my country."
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I think the point here is that WB doesn't want to expend any effort. They could do the job themselves prior to release, and arguably correct some potentially brand-damaging games before they hit the market. But that costs money. Going to GameRankings.com and looking at the aggrogate score costs nothing, and is probably something Jason Hall does anyway. |
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Last I checked, it's pretty damn hard to determine whether a game is going to sell well or not. This new theory by Jason Hall is...interesting and as some have mentioned, an idea in the right frame of mind...that we need better quality games. Plain and simple. I don't think it will work to anyone's advantage long term unless they add clauses into the system...for instance, if your game sells over 500,000 copies, the reviewers can blow it out their ass. On the plus side, maybe it'll help development houses get a fucking grip. Not all of them, but from what you guys have said and what I've read elsewhere, way to many still don't know how to produce a product. They don't know how to design things in advance, plan for testing and balancing/adding of features and ship in some sort of time frame. I am by no means saying it's easy, but the guys who are already doing it are making better games because of it. Being an outsider, I don't understand how any development house could get away with saying, "yeah, 1 year" and not mean it. Or how publishers can add things to the process during the development of the game, at random times (from what I hear)... What kind of contracts are you crazy bastards signing? Are they written on bar napkins? "1) Lighting?! Must be Zeus!" - Jibble's view on Faith
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When you pay peanuts you get monkeys. twenty-two mega-ton, I ain't ever seen so much fun
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But see, the focus isn't whether or not it sells well. The focus is whether or not it's a good game. Two different things. A game that sells well that sucks (which is possible, hooray for marketing blitzes), will do more damage to a brand than a great game that sells almost no copies. If the game doesn't sell that well, it's not doing any harm to an IP if it is actually a good game. "I'm not asking for much; just a job that meets the minimum legal requirements set forth by my country."
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Being an outsider, I don't understand how any development house could get away with saying, "yeah, 1 year" and not mean it. *snip* What kind of contracts are you crazy bastards signing? If you don't lie about how long it will take, you aren't going to get the contract to begin with. "I'm not asking for much; just a job that meets the minimum legal requirements set forth by my country."
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I don't have any sales data, but I remember Mega Man being claimed to have weak sales. Once the (first) sequel was released, the series took off like a mofo. The first game was really good, if a bit difficult. -DKI(ID
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Caryn The people at WB don't have to make the game; they have to ensure that a quality product is made with their license. I'm curious as to what lead you to believe WB, or any major studio for that matter, has any ability to recognize quality. These are the same people who greenlighted Pluto Nash and Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. Ghost Ship, Fear Dot Com, Kangaroo Fucking Jack, and Catwoman! For god's sake, it's not even released yet, and I can tell you that whoever is working on that deserves no royalties! MattP I don't think it will work to anyone's advantage long term unless they add clauses into the system...for instance, if your game sells over 500,000 copies, the reviewers can blow it out their ass. You've just indirectly endorsed the Tomb Raider series, you realize. Saving Throw vs Humanity
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Last I checked, it's pretty damn hard to determine whether a game is going to sell well or not. I wonder about this. I bet you could predict game sales pretty well from just a few basic things like development budget, marketing budget, whether or not it uses a well-known IP, and what platforms it's for. There would be a few exceptions, but I bet you could predict pretty well across games. If I had access to all this data for a bunch of games I could analyze it pretty easily. Thrrrpptt!
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Charles But see, the focus isn't whether or not it sells well. The focus is whether or not it's a good game. Two different things. A game that sells well that sucks (which is possible, hooray for marketing blitzes), will do more damage to a brand than a great game that sells almost no copies. If the game doesn't sell that well, it's not doing any harm to an IP if it is actually a good game. If the focus is whether a game is quality or not, I would NEVER leave that up to reviewers to decide...but that's just me. If you don't lie about how long it will take, you aren't going to get the contract to begin with. Boy howdy I can't wait to get into this industry... and sadly enough, I'm being serious. Bailey You've just indirectly endorsed the Tomb Raider series, you realize. The first 1 or 2 Tomb Raiders weren't the most evil thing created, imho. And the first one, if I remember correctly, was pretty spiffy (in terms of tech) for it's time. "1) Lighting?! Must be Zeus!" - Jibble's view on Faith
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I wonder about this. I bet you could predict game sales pretty well from just a few basic things like development budget, marketing budget, whether or not it uses a well-known IP, and what platforms it's for. There would be a few exceptions, but I bet you could predict pretty well across games. If I had access to all this data for a bunch of games I could analyze it pretty easily. Didn't Scott Miller say he could predict the same thing? "1) Lighting?! Must be Zeus!" - Jibble's view on Faith
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If the focus is whether a game is quality or not, I would NEVER leave that up to reviewers to decide...but that's just me. I would, if it is a large consensus view. Despite Gabe's Black & White zing, I still stand by my statement that gamerankings.com is right a LOT more often than it is wrong. One miscall out of thousands of rankings is hardly an argument to the contrary. And Charles is absolutely right, re: sales vs quality. Lots of games related to movie IP sell tons of copies but in the long run just harm the IP more than they help it because they suck ass. This is exactly the sort of thing Jason Hall is trying to avoid, otherwise he'd just make the payment to the publisher a percentage of total sales. Funny that when he tries to implement a system that emphasizes quality over sales quantity, so many people are attacking him. I don't think the system he proposes is ideal, but its a lot better than any counter-examples anyone else has suggested, and I do think it is absolutely worth trying. Comment Signature
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To be fair, Scott Miller swims in money. "hey look at me, i'm DJ Dethstryk, The Square Who Is Not Cool™! i've never heard of Fringe Band X or Scratch DJ Y! haw haw haw!"
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The first 1 or 2 Tomb Raiders weren't the most evil thing created, imho. And the first one, if I remember correctly, was pretty spiffy (in terms of tech) for it's time. The first Tomb Raider game was amazing at time of release and essentially defined the entire 3rd person action adventure genre (not to be confused with the 3rd person 3D platformer, that was being defined at about the same time by Mario 64). However, that doesn't change the fact that the sequels are harming the IP but still managing to sell millions of copies each based solely on brand/IP. Comment Signature
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Also, tits. "hey look at me, i'm DJ Dethstryk, The Square Who Is Not Cool™! i've never heard of Fringe Band X or Scratch DJ Y! haw haw haw!"
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Mostly tits. Saving Throw vs Humanity
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Funny that when he tries to implement a system that emphasizes quality over sales quantity, so many people are attacking him. I don't think the system he proposes is ideal, but its a lot better than any counter-examples anyone else has suggested, and I do think it is absolutely worth trying. Well as I said, I like the spirit of the idea... To be fair, Scott Miller swims in money. But in terms of quality and sales, did Max Payne 2 help or the hurt the IP? The first Tomb Raider game was amazing at time of release and essentially defined the entire 3rd person action adventure genre (not to be confused with the 3rd person 3D platformer, that was being defined at about the same time by Mario 64). However, that doesn't change the fact that the sequels are harming the IP but still managing to sell millions of copies each based solely on brand/IP. I agree and that's what I was trying to say... I'm just not as articulate as you...a former/current troll. I should go shoot myself now I'm thinking. "1) Lighting?! Must be Zeus!" - Jibble's view on Faith
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I seem to recall MP2 was generally looked upon as hurting the IP, for whatever reason. Saving Throw vs Humanity
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To be fair to Scott though, he bullshitted his way into a sweet sum of money for that IP. Will he be able to do that again now though with the Max Payne IP taking a swift dive after being sold...? "1) Lighting?! Must be Zeus!" - Jibble's view on Faith
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The people at WB don't have to make the game; they have to ensure that a quality product is made with their license. They hired a game developer to make sure this happens. This can't be an impossibility, unless I'm grossly misunderstanding the agreements that entertainment companies like WB make with publishers, but I don't think I am. Of course then you have the conflict of interest. The publisher wants to pay as little as possible for the game, and if they are reviewing it before shipping they have an incentive to rank it poorly. The rankings would almost never go into bonus territory, and you'd be at the same point where things are now, where people cancel projects. By the way, if signatures weren't for perverts, I'd totally sig this.
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Seems to me, dev's are having a hard enough time making a game by committee as it is. Fixing it by committee doesn't seem to be an improvement. Patriots don't need grammar or spellings for rid the world and tyranny. - Leslie Nassar, 3/28/2004
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#100 Charles But, to reuse an example, the wachowski brothers were involved with, and endorsed, the matrix game. So those are the kind of people who'd be making the decisions. Which is why I'm saying that the straight forward solution that you propose isn't necessarily a solution. The Wachowski Brothers weren't game developers who were hired by a media company to develop games based on their licenses. Hall and Co. are game developers, hired specifically for their game development expertise so that they could be the knowledgeable ones at a media company like WB to handle the games made with their licenses. #107 Bailey I'm curious as to what lead you to believe WB, or any major studio for that matter, has any ability to recognize quality. These are the same people who greenlighted Pluto Nash and Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. Ghost Ship, Fear Dot Com, Kangaroo Fucking Jack, and Catwoman! For god's sake, it's not even released yet, and I can tell you that whoever is working on that deserves no royalties! Same answer as above: we are talking about a guy who is a game developer -- Jason Hall -- who was hired specifically to prevent the situation you just described, and as far as I know, since he was just hired recently, the titles above, or at least some of them, are the whole reason WHY he was hired. #111 Your Friend Funny that when he tries to implement a system that emphasizes quality over sales quantity, so many people are attacking him. Why is it such an alien idea that the company who owns the licensed brand should be the ones who give it their stamp of approval before the game is actually released, and that this stamp of approval means that THEY are ultimately responsible for the quality and should be the ones whose payment gets garnished when the review scores are low? Why is the concept of them needing to be responsible for their own child's welfare such a difficult concept for people to grasp? "See, Canadians believe Jesus walked on water. We just figure it was winter when he did." - Squeaky
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And bear in mind that I'm not saying that because the WB should be watching their licensed games carefully that they should be great quality. I'm saying that if the game's coming out aren't great quality, it's WB that should be ultimately responsible, not the publishers or developers, who Hall is advocating punishing instead of actually monitoring the quality of their own licenses. "See, Canadians believe Jesus walked on water. We just figure it was winter when he did." - Squeaky
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And when I say the publishers and developers shouldn't be responsible, I don't mean that. I mean that WB should share the blame. There, I think that clears it up. "See, Canadians believe Jesus walked on water. We just figure it was winter when he did." - Squeaky
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Being game reviewers isn't WB's core competency. You should always focus on your core competency. This is what Jason Hall is attempting to do. He is right to do it. Comment Signature
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I think one more post should do it. "1) Lighting?! Must be Zeus!" - Jibble's view on Faith
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#124 Your Friend Being game reviewers isn't WB's core competency. You should always focus on your core competency. This is what Jason Hall is attempting to do. He is right to do it. Wait, you're telling me that a game developer's core competency does not include being able to tell whether a game is crap or not? Huh. "See, Canadians believe Jesus walked on water. We just figure it was winter when he did." - Squeaky
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Caryn I think we're just on different wavelengths here. I like the idea of higher quality games being put out, but I cannot possibly imagine WB being objective about reducing royalties as an incentive. Furthermore, I don't see Jason Hall's presence as any sign of quality assurance, in light of his track record and based on my own personal opinions of the products he's worked on. Saving Throw vs Humanity
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Planetcrap Consultants Inc: Brutal Honesty Guaranteed I'm telling you we're sitting on a goldmine of fees. A goldmine! |
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#127 Bailey I think we're just on different wavelengths here. I like the idea of higher quality games being put out, but I cannot possibly imagine WB being objective about reducing royalties as an incentive. Furthermore, I don't see Jason Hall's presence as any sign of quality assurance, in light of his track record and based on my own personal opinions of the products he's worked on. Sure, I can understand that. However, people here seem to be telling me that it's not WB's or Hall's responsibility to see that games made with their licensed brands are quality games, games that don't hurt their licensed brands. They're saying that Hall is taking responsibility for this by putting the burden of proof on game reviewers after the games have been released. I just don't believe that. Hall was hired to head up a games division at Warner Bros. He's a game developer. If he wasn't hired for his expertise to ensure that the brands remain undamaged -- which logically implies that he would be overseeing those games prior to release, and therefore should be taking part of the blame if those games come out poorly instead of punishing only the publishers -- then what was he hired for? "See, Canadians believe Jesus walked on water. We just figure it was winter when he did." - Squeaky
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