Why Are Movie Licensed Video Games So Bad?

After playing The Golden Compass we all had to wonder here--why are movie games so terrible? Sure, there are exceptions. Spider Man was great, for example. However the vast majority of liscenced movie games are low-quality shovelware that are often less fun than just throwing the disc around in a game of frisbee. Why is that, and is there any hope for change?

Some things don't look good. The Golden Compass, for instance, reeks of being pushed out of the door in order to meet a strict deadline. It ends abruptly, but almost blessedly so because the concepts of the game are so shoehorned in that it's not very fun to play. The people who made the game are the ones responsible for Earthworm Jim and other hilariously fun games, so why couldn't this deliver?

As Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute. People buy with recognition, not with quality, especially seeing as you can't really inspect a game's quality sitting on the shelf. Parents often want to buy their kids something recognizable that they like and get on with their day--and kids love anything with their favorite characters on it. Unfortunately this has been exploited quite a bit, leaving kids to blissfully (or not!) play games simply because their favorite cartoon face is featured in it.

However there is hope on the horizon. Gaming is gaining in popularity, and soon the parents themselves might have a better idea for quality. Also, as machines get more powerful and easier to develop, writing tedious details of code might be less of a concern and more resources can be devoted to designing a solid game. Even with the most powerful systems out now, there are still a lot of limitations but we might see the increased power of future generations go more toward making development easier so that the games can be better designed, much like recent web technology has gone from stuttering text-and-small-icon only web pages in the early 90s to interactive experiences with video and real-time response as of late

There is hope that in the future there will be less bad video games based off of licenses as the development cycles can shorten, but keep in mind that better technology still leads to badly done websites--so they'll never go away, but we can all hope that it makes things better!

For more on video gaming, visit http://gamer-revolution.net to read about Mass Multiplayer Online Games like World of Warcraft or fun single player console games like Super Mario Galaxy and discussion on the social impacts of gaming.

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