| abstract
| - The problem is that Licensed Games tend to be mediocre at best. But why? There are two ways to sell video games: Quality of game, and reputation of name. Most video games that sell fall into at least one of the two categories. Game developers could take some time to develop an original property made with care for the end product and the idea of developing a brand new franchise. Or, they can just buy up the name of something everyone already knows. A much easier way to make money is to make mediocre games based on licenses — a TV show, or a movie, or a comic book, or a work of literature, or anything really (and we mean anything). These games don't require nearly as much effort to make, since they're pretty much counting on the people buying them because of familiarity. Of course, the ability of licensed games to sell on name alone is a major reason for their poor quality, but it's hardly the only one. Developers are often pressured by movie studio execs to have the game ready for release alongside the movie (which, in the studio execs' eyes, practically equates these games to tie-in action figures, lunchboxes, and other low-grade merchandise), which can shorten development time. Stretching the plot of a 100 minute movie into a twenty hour game can lead to a lot of filler material or serious diversions from the movie's plot. Licensed games also attempt to emulate the most popular genres at the time in an effort to maintain appeal — side-scrollers and Fighting Games were popular in the 1990s and more recently, Grand Theft Auto clones and shooters are common as well. Sometimes they will be a confusing mesh of gameplay genres as the developers attempt to figure out just what their license could be used for to fill up enough game time to push it out the door, and that's assuming the product isn't chock full of Game Breaking Bugs because of the short Q/A window. And despite what one might expect with a title based on a lucrative property, there is often ironically less money available than usual for a company to spend making a licensed game; a not insignificant amount of the funding that would normally be channeled into the title's actual development is instead used up before development just to buy the license in the first place. Of course, movies based off video games don't tend to go over well either, for much of the same reasons...and yes, this Trope carries over into other game mediums. There are exceptions, of course. A pretty good chunk of these were either released years after the source material or were based off of a franchise that had been running for years, thus relieving the time pressure often inherent in licensed games. Not to mention; Pinball games tend to be the biggest wide-spread aversion, as it's very hard to screw up pinball. This Trope is so widespread, it's probably easier to list only Egregious examples. Exceptions should be listed here. See Spiritual Licensee for a way some games go around this, intentionally or not. Quite often, this Trope is a result of a product being Christmas Rushed. Note: Due to the ephemeral nature of most licensing deals, and the general impossibility of straightforward conversion of other media into video games, examples are listed by video game generation rather than by medium of origin.
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