Clash Of The Titans And The Problems With Licensed Games

No one mention God Of War II

We know what you’re thinking; a game based off a big budget movie, it’s going to suck, right? Well, let’s not be to quick to judge. As they say; no one sets out to make a bad game, and with this in mind we recently sat down with Clash Of The Titans producer Tomoaki Nanjo to find out if how he’s been handling what many developers have failed to do over the years- make a licensed game that isn’t total rubbish…

A lot of films have started to take their games much more seriously, James Cameron’s Avatar for one had a lot of ambition behind it, do you think this is a trend that will ultimately help games based on films?

My answer would be yes. A film usually lasts for around 2 hours which is rather limited sometimes, so videogames can be seen as an extended or an alternative way for the film producers to express themselves over an extended period. From the consumer’s point of view, film based videogames can be seen as an extra bonus where they get to experience and enjoy the initial film further and can get closer to trying to understand the director’s thoughts in full.

Why do think developers have found it so hard to make successful games based on films? After all, they should present the perfect template for exciting gameplay?

I believe there are 3 major points we need to look into on this topic.
1 – Lack of development period
In most cases, developers cannot get their hands on the reference assets from the film makers at the ideal time which results in cutting back the development period especially when trying to release the videogame at the same time as the film.
2 – Negative trends in the past
The majority of the players won’t even touch a film based videogames due to the trend which existed in the past of film based titles not being up to scratch when released. As we see from the recent film based titles the quality is much higher nowadays.
3 – Limited market
Film based titles are strongly associated with the film which does tend to limit the size of the market and the audience available to reach for to a certain extent.

In your experience how much does working with a movie studio hinder or help a game? Are there many approval processes or restrictions that have to be abided by or are you left to explore the films universe freely?

Obviously, freedom is restricted to some extent and the themes and the plots of the videogame will need to be kept in line with the original film. As a result, new ideas and features sometimes have to be dropped which I feel is normal whilst developing games in this genre.

In the case of Clash of the Titans, we were given the freedom to an extent where we were able to add original weapons, scenarios and enemies not seen in the film itself although we were in close contact with the film makers in receiving the necessary approvals.

As an overall impression, the basis of developing any videogame seems similar in many areas so nothing changes drastically when working with a movie studio.

Some movie games now focus on events that surround a films storyline instead of replicating its events, is this a better way of approaching a movie license or is there space for both? Other games have even taken to creating entire spin-offs such as the Star Wars games, would this approach work for the average movie tie-in?

This is definitely a talking point which requires attention. All players have different taste and preference which means some would want to re-live the film whereas some would want to experience something extra or an alternative to the original film.

So I don’t think a definite answer exists but if I was to be given the luxury of developing two or more titles based on a given film, the first one would follow the original film in detail whereas the sequel would provide the players with something extra, although the taste or the feel from the original film would remain unchanged.

How have you approached building a game around a film, how do you choose the genre, setting and style?

We usually start looking in detail at the plot, settings and the characteristics of the film. Taking Clash of the Titans for example, we started off by saying to ourselves, the main character is a heroic character, his main weapon is the sword and the enemies are creatures from the Greek mythology and so on . From there, we try to add new values and aspects to the idea, such as the siege attack in the game, to make the content more appealing to the players.

Have developers learnt to be slightly wary of movie game tie-ins, is there an understanding in the industry that they are difficult projects to work on?

Looking at recent trends, yes it can be said that movie related videogame titles are somewhat challenging as projects to some extent. Some of the obvious reasons would be the sales potential and the extra work load involved in the numerous approval process in place. Having said that, NAMCO BANDAI have been developing animation and licensed titles for a while now so you can say that we are somewhat used to the complex approval processes compared to others.