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WSJ: Movie Vid Games Eye Quality
Sept. 20, 2007 -- A lengthy Wall Street Journal feature on the influence of video game ratings at website Metacritic indicates it is also a benchmark impacting video games based on movies. Three years ago Warner Bros., unhappy with game play quality, “began including ‘quality metrics’ in the contracts the studio signed with partners interested in licensing Warner movies for games,” the article states. Metacritic rates each game with a number on 1-100 scale, which is an average of game reviews from other sources; 85 or better is considered very good. The article notes the Activision’s Spider-Man 3 video game rated a 50 for the PlayStation 2 game, versus an 80 for Spider-Man 2 on the same game console. Despite the low rating, Spider-Man 3 is expected to sell 4 million game units worldwide, which is about the same as 2.
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Note from author Robert Marich. Film companies eagerly pursue merchandising deals to translate movies into video games, but such tie-ups are few. It takes 18 months to create a high-end video game from scratch. Film marketers want the games to launch simultaneously with theatrical premiere, but often the video games are not ready.