I hate the majority of licenced games

[Artimus Gigan]

They seem destined to forever clog the shelves and deprive good games of their space, and accumilate some kind of dustfilm that later becomes a nutritious crust that will be regularly eaten in the post-nuclear world...being with all the regular food being gone and all.

Anyways there always seems to be a gamut of them, and overly excessive ammount and the majority of the games probably spent more on the boxart than the actual game content. The prime repeat offenders seem to be the assorted Nick Toons games, pick any one of them and it's probably what a level of hell looks like. Then there's the movie of the month games, The Matrix, Aeon Flux, Monster House, etc. Which never seem to be in short supply, due to the constant stream of movies being released and the emphesis on product tie-ins. I think the only company that have relatively good track record is Lucas Arts.

I think if anything the rising cost of game develoopement may cause a culling of the herd, I mean they pretty much comprise 80-90% of any given bargain bin

They're still selling factory sealed licenced games at a rediuced price that appeared on the PS1 in some chain stores(Wal-Mart, K-Mart and TRU mostly), people just don't buy them and retailers can't seem to get rid of them.

Maybe it's like the Fruitcake analaogy, where it's only bought at one season during the year...then again especialy in the case of the movie games it's one time only and then never agin

[Chad Bonin]

I think if anything the rising cost of game develoopement may cause a culling of the herd, I mean they pretty much comprise 80-90% of any given bargain bin
Rising cost of game development?

This is not a universal truth. Yes, development will rise generationally, but not dramatically in most cases.

- The DS was nicknamed the "Developer's System" due to ease of development and cost.
- The Wii is considered the most developer friendly system some ways, due to the fact that if you could develop for the GCN, you can develop for the Wii. Same architecture, more horsepower.
- The XBox 360 is also moderately easy in comparison; the fact that it's a PC-In-A-Box would imply that if they can create a PC game, a 360 game isn't far off. Not that developers would sink big money into a small Live Arcade game, but that is always a possibility.
- The PSP is a portable Playstation, hence the title. If they could develop for the PS2, they could for the PSP.

The most notable exception would be the Playstation 3, noted for being unfriendly for developers, and the slight increase in cost to Blu-Ray (that's not to say other systems don't have a similar problem; the DS requires unique Cards, and the PSP UMDs).

Still, there's a good chance that the PS3 will get it's fair share of games based on franchises; I'm sure many people in the entertainment business have been cultured to believe that the PS3 will continue a line of dominance of consoles.

[Pc-Famicom64]

Buy Tiny Toon Adventures (by Konami) and or Duck Tales (by Capcom) on the NES (of wher ther still sell used NES games), ther both great games. :anime:

[Nin-Nin69]

It has taken me a while to understand this further and I now know why companies do this. Making a licenced game is an easy paycheck for a game designer.

Another company is funding you for a game based on their franchise and supplies you with any references that may go along with it. Sure the outcome of the game could still be bad and they cut corners in production to make the deadline, but it's easier to make money this way than making something from the ground up. Even if you don't make it big with sales, that particular company will still pay everyone off plenty.

Do you know how many bad licenced games are out for the GBA? One of my teachers helped make the Kim Possible games and those were less of a challenge than doing something like God of War. I too hate all of these bad titles on the shelves, but if I'm forced to do this atleast I'll be getting paid up front. :cool:

[Demonic Raven]

The Aladdin and Lion King games from back in the Genesis/SNES era rocked..but such days are gone.

[Lord Dalek]

I think the bad blood twoards licence titles is probably because back in the 80's and the early 90's certain companies like the notorious LjN inc. farmed out all their titles to scab companies like Probe, Radicall, and Beam Software. These companies then hashed out glitchy software that had bad graphics, controls, sound, etc. Better companies like Konami and Capcom did all their
stuff in house which is why its consistantly good.

[Anyone00]

General rule of thumb: Movies-to-games and games-to-movies generally don't turn out well.

[TheMecca]

The Aladdin and Lion King games from back in the Genesis/SNES era rocked..but such days are gone.
Lion King for Genesis kicked ass.
As to games now... the only games worth mentioning that were great are the X-Men Legends Series, Spider-Man 2, most of the Star Wars stuff that has come out recently*, not to mention the Incredible Hulk Sequel.

I still can't forgive Activision for making the Fantastic Four game. What a potential hit.

*Star Wars Battlefront series, LEGO Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic (haven't played 2), etc.

[Noukon]

Licensed games are a necessary evil. They pay the bills and allow for the development of original and creative new games that won't sell as well to mainstream audiences.

Every medium has to have an abundance of garbage to prop up the gems.