Licensed titles and their significance to the gaming world

Imagine if us Kiwis were to play EA Sports’ Rugby games or Sidhe Interactive’s Rugby League titles without getting the chance to don the jersey of an All Black or a Warrior. What about playing Smackdown vs Raw but you lace the boots of Triple B not Triple H? There is no doubt having an authentic license can help make or break a game in terms of its popularity and sales.

Hence, the stronger license is obvious chances are that the accompanying game will be just as popular. In the realm of Pro – Wrestling, no other organisation reigns supreme then the WWE. The Smackdown series showcases exactly how popular WWE has become and over ten years since the first game was released in 1999 the franchise has shipped over 37 million copies worldwide. In direct contrast with the WWE is TNA wrestling which released its own game last year called TNA Impact. However, since TNA does not garner as many viewers as the WWE (TNA programming is not even on NZ screens) sales of the game were lower than what both companies were expecting and both Midway and TNA agreed there will not be a sequel.

Something that always seems to thrive however is people’s fascination with sport. No other jersey is more recognizable to us Kiwis than the All Black jersey brandishing the national logo of the silver fern. Thankfully EA’s Rugby titles are fully licensed with every team and player having the correct names and jerseys. Criminally, Zinzan’s World Championship Rugby released in 2003 only had the official license for the England team while the All Blacks were not called the All Blacks they known as plain old New Zealand. As for the players they all had different names but at least they resembled the All Black team back in 2003. Even though the game was still enjoyable, Rugby 2004 and its many follow ups still outsold the title solely because of the lack of official licenses in the game.

Evidently, this is the same case in the U.K as for several years FIFA goes head-to-head with the Pro Evolution soccer series leading up to the busy Christmas season. Unfortunately, for Konami Pro Evolution Soccer has never beaten FIFA in terms of overall sales and popularity. Likewise when EA knew how profitable it would be if Madden became the only licensed NFL title in the market and in 2005 they did just that and Madden is consistently number one in the US video game charts.

Speaking of being number one, many box office movies also have licensed video games to tie-in with all the hype surrounded with it. X-Men Origins: Wolverine came out earlier this year and while the movie may not have lived up to expectations the tie-in game was surprisingly very playable and many say the game is actually better than the movie it’s originally based upon. A far cry from the old stereotype that games based on movies is always appalling, X-Men Origins: Wolverine shows that a good game can come out of a movie.

Crossover titles of game and other licensed media has also proved to be a winning formula. Kingdom Hearts was a mix of both Disney and Final Fantasy characters and was released to both commercial and critical acclaim in 2002. The game went on to sell an impressive 5.5 million copies even outselling Final Fantasy XII. The follow up featured even more Disney and Final Fantasy favourites and even though it failed to outsell its predecessor it was arguably a better game.

Last year Midway teamed up with DC comics to release Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. Considering the massive success that was The Dark Knight it was a smart move on Midway’s part to heavily promote that Batman is a playable character in the game. The heavy promotion of Batman paid off for Midway as the title went on to ship a respectable 1.8 million copies. Ed Boon (creator of Mortal Kombat) was happy for the game’s success he is already starting early work on a new Mortal Kombat title.

Whether a license truly makes a game more playable is still debatable however, you cannot deny the commercial success associated with many licensed games and the more people who will be attracted to the gaming industry the better it is for all of us – as this will mean there will be more games for us to play.

Damian Seeto