IPs or intellectual Properties for
long, are intangible objects, brands, logos, characters, film, music and much
more, basically a blanket term for the fruits of the human mind, and usually
are the property in question in cases of copyright infringement. Star Wars and
the characters throughout the Star Wars universe are all Intellectual Property,
property that can change hands, change ownership and franchises can be built
around. In the gaming universe this translates to the beloved mascots from our
childhood, the Marios, Sonics, Megamans and the worlds they belong to. Although
these IPs are originally owned by the artist who crafted them, the rights to
them are usually given up to a large studio or publisher in exchange for the
funding to make their project come to life. When a game studio is bought out by
a publisher or group of investors or whatever not only do they consume the
brand and their employees but also the IPs that belong to that studio, which
sometime leads to these properties being abandoned and unable to be continued
because of copyright laws, but that’s a topic for another day. (*cough* Metal Arms *cough* *cough*)
So, why bring this up? We all know
what IPs are, I bring this up because there’s a lot of talk of big publishers
and developers leaving games behind to explore other markets, particularly
mobile games. Mobile games are very attractive, a console doesn’t have to be
made for them there will always be cellphones and they’ll only get better with
time and more importantly the product that is videogames is far more profitable
then the hardware they are played on or played with. Also Mobile games tend to
be less complex, easier to make and easy to integrate micro-transaction into.
In a world where investors are more important than consumers anywhere where
profitability can be increased, it will be, we will continue to see this trend
of companies being attracted to this market. You can make as many mobile Mario
games or Final Fantasy games as you want, they’ll never be able to fill the
shoes of their predecessors and they won’t be able to satisfy the gamers who
gave that IP any value in the first place as much as their console
counterparts.
What I see happening or rather what
I hope will happen is that we will see less abandoned properties and instead
companies start licensing the rights out to make games with these IPs to other
studios. Nintendo could stop making Pokémon and Mario games right now and just licenses
rights out to these games to the highest bidders, make this an annual thing and
they’d never go poor. When it was rumored that Konami was stepping out of the
videogame market to dedicate themselves to mobile gaming this is what I was
hoping would happen to the Metal Gear and Castlevania franchises. Imagine the
amazing games that could come out of this, a lot of developers especially the
younger people on their staff grew up playing these games and would understand
the caliber of excellence that the community is expecting from them. These IPs
are an extremely profitable product to offer and the companies with these under
their belts could not produce anything with them and still make sh*t tons of
money.
Admittedly there are a couple
problems with this idea, just as everything else has. A couple that come to
mind one first and foremost is quality control, even if Konami wasn’t working
on a Castlevania Project it can and does reflect badly upon them if the game
comes out subpar. We saw these with the Zelda and Mario games that came out on the
Phillips CD-I. Another issue I’m sure is splitting up profits, would the
original property holder make more money as the game makes more sales or will
they only get that one-time payment, I simply don’t know enough on this topic
to speak on it but don’t doubt for a second that these companies will milk
every penny they can out of these IPs.
Games take a long time to make when you back a
kickstarter project you’re probably going to wait a year if not easily 2-3
years before that product is in your hands. Especially with new IPs which a lot
of these project tend to be, because you’re creating a universe from scratch. “But
Ta we see sequels for games every year, year after year” good point reader, and
this is because once the property exist assets can be reused and carried over
from one project to the next cutting development time significantly. On this
subject Koji Igarashi, the mind behind the kickstarted BloodStained: ritual of
the Night and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night said that the first Castlevania
game he worked out took over 2 years and from their they reduced time and cost
by reusing these assets to make yearly releases. I bring this up because if you
spend all this money on getting the rights to continue a franchise you’re in
love with how can the original license holders protect you during that
development time from maybe larger companies pumping out a game before you or
undermining your release with better marketing. Lastly, I’m not saying these
are the only problems, just ones that come to mind, what about just sheer
pride? What if you don’t just want whoever gets the highest bid to make your
game, well these property holders are well within their rights to pick and
choose only the most passionate studios to continue their franchises.
What do you guys think? Leave a
comment below, be sure to follow my blog if you want to get updates on the
Tasting Gaming series, I’d love to hear any feedback positive or negative, keep
it decent and feel free to follow and Tweeter me @Playanexus, and remember
folk, keep on gaming.
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