General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
While playing Fallout 3 and reminiscing about the series on gametrailers.com retrospectives, I wonder about something...
Does anyone know why there have been so many problems getting RPG companies to license their products.
From GURPS and Fallout, to Warhammer and Warcraft and even Champions to City of Heroes, it seems like there's interest but it all falls down at the end...
What gives?
As an aside, now that Bioware no longer needs the D&D license, how come there hasn't been a company to supplant Bioware/Black Isle?
Surely, a game developer would want to become the next Bioware and as such, would be trying to follow their model?
Does anyone know why there have been so many problems getting RPG companies to license their products.
From GURPS and Fallout, to Warhammer and Warcraft and even Champions to City of Heroes, it seems like there's interest but it all falls down at the end...
There is interest in RPG worlds, not RPG systems.
Nobody will pay so that they are allowed to use a specific rules system, the games companies are experienced enough with creating them so that they don't need that. What they will license are established settings with a fanbase which will increase sales.
For example no game company will pay only to e able to use the D&D rules system. They will pay in order to use the FOrgotten Realms, Eberron or other D&D settings.
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What gives?
As an aside, now that Bioware no longer needs the D&D license, how come there hasn't been a company to supplant Bioware/Black Isle?
Surely, a game developer would want to become the next Bioware and as such, would be trying to follow their model?
You mean like Obsidian, the guys who made Neverwinter Nights 2?
ALso, its the Publishers who own the license and decide which games are made, not the developers. The D&D license is still with Atari and they contract developers to create a game.
Besides, every major PnP setting had PC games.
D&D had, among other things, Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter Nights 2, White Wolf had Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: Redemption and DSA recently had Drakensang. The only major setting without a proper game is Shadowrun, but that's because RPGs are not in Microsofts portfolio and they hold the license (I don't count that shooter as "proper" Shadowrun game).
In the early days of PC gaming, licensed RPGs were even more common, thanks to SSI and others, but as the costs of PC games increased people got more picky of what they are licensing.
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
RPG publishers are notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to licensing their IP. For many, I think it's because their system is the lifeblood of their company at the time that licensing is sought, though for others, I think it has more to do with a need to retain all intellectual control.
The best example that I can think of is Metagaming's Fantasy Trip system, which was designed by Steve Jackson (of Steve Jackson Games), but which the owner (Howard Thompson) refused to part with when Steve Jackson attempted to license it in the wake of Metagaming's demise.
In the end, Steve Jackson ended up reimagining the basic TFT system as GURPS, though rumor has it that he continued to attempt TFT acquisition several times in the following years. To date, it still hasn't happened (though some arrangement apparently now exists between Thompson and Dark City Games).
The only major setting without a proper game is Shadowrun, but that's because RPGs are not in Microsofts portfolio and they hold the license (I don't count that shooter as "proper" Shadowrun game).
Aparently you forgot the Shadowrun game for the Sega Genesis. That was an RPG, and it was really fun.
Actually, the first Fallout game was going to use the GURPS system, but when talks fell through, Black Isle had to ditch GURPS (which had already been implemented) and rebuild it as SPECIAL.
Aparently you forgot the Shadowrun game for the Sega Genesis. That was an RPG, and it was really fun.
No, I didn't forget it, but I was only considering (more or less) recent games. I probably should have said that.
In the 80s-early 90s it was quite common to have PnP PC games. That trend declined, together with the whole RPG genre.
PS: There was also a Shadowrun game on the SNES and imo it was better (fluff). If only the controls were a bit better.
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Originally Posted by jdrakeh
Actually, the first Fallout game was going to use the GURPS system, but when talks fell through, Black Isle had to ditch GURPS (which had already been implemented) and rebuild it as SPECIAL.
Bioware? Wasn't Fallout from Interplay?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jdrakeh
It was also released for the SNES. And, yes, it used a modified version of the Shadowrun tabletop rules.
No, that were two different games.
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
Both the SNES and Genesis games use modified versions of PNP Karma system, etc. I haven't played the Mega CD Shadowrun game or the most recent 2007 game, however. Can't speak to either of those.
[Edit: You're right about the games being different, however. I seem to recall identical sequences in both, though.]
What? jdrakeh said "Black Isle"! Which was the development studio - Interplay was the publisher.
Cheers, LT.
Hm, strange. I didn't think Black Island made Fallout. The style is very different from their recent games.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jdrakeh
You're wrong about this, however. Both the SNES and Genesis games use modified versions of PNP Karma system, etc (also, both games are virtually identical, save for some exploits in the SNES version). I haven't played the Mega CD Shadowrun game or the most recent 2007 game, however. Can't speak to either of those.
The system is of course the same, it were just two different games.
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
Last edited by Derren; 9th November 2008 at 10:18 PM..
Part of the problem is that RPG licenses don't really have much to offer to videogames these days. Look at something like City of Heroes. If it had been a licensed Champions game, would it have been better off? Even without an established name behind it, it did fine enough on its own.
Really, videogame makers have two choices:
1) Use a licensed IP for their game, which comes with the risk of legal issues and creative control from the IP holder.
or
2) Create their own IP, which may be licensed out to other people later for profit.
In order for choice one to be worth it, the benefits need to be outweighed by the possibility of the licensed IP drawing in a large pre-existing fan base. Unfortunatly, the fan base of most table-top RPGs is not big enough to make a license really worth it most of the time. It takes a very powerful IP like Star Wars to attract highly skilled videogame developers.
Hm, strange. I didn't think Black Island made Fallout. The style is very different from their recent games.
It was made by Interplay's RPG division, which was renamed Black Isle the year after Fallout was published. And what recent games? The last thing BI made was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (which I think was an action game with RPG elements, sort of like Gauntlet or Diablo) in 2004. Before that, they made Fallout I and II, Planescape Torment, and the Icewind Dale series, and assisted in making the Baldur's Gate series and Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (which I never heard about before).
Black Isle was mostly remade in 1998 (when lots of people left to form Troika), and killed off in 2003.
Speaking of which, I wonder when the first D&D 4th Edition CRPG is going to be announced. It will be likely set in the new Forgotten Realms, I imagine, though I can keep hoping for a proper Eberron CRPG...
I kind of wonder if the new rules (more particularly immediate reactions and interrupts) will preclude real-time games back in favour of turn-based... But then again, Bethesda was fine with changing around the Fallout combat system and VATS to suit their own purposes...
__________________ -Kaodi
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
-Iago, Shakespeare's Othello, Act III. Scene III. Lines 180-186.
Another issue with licensing is that the game developer will often have to get their content approved by the owner of the property. Depending on the property and the owner that can be a painful process involving a lot of reworking of material until it is accepted. In the end it is sometimes the case that rather than leveraging the brand recognition of a licensed property it's less hassle to come up with your own IP and have the freedom to do as you like, especially if you've produced some good games and are able to rely on the brand recognition of your development company itself.
Another issue with licensing is that the game developer will often have to get their content approved by the owner of the property. Depending on the property and the owner that can be a painful process involving a lot of reworking of material until it is accepted. In the end it is sometimes the case that rather than leveraging the brand recognition of a licensed property it's less hassle to come up with your own IP and have the freedom to do as you like, especially if you've produced some good games and are able to rely on the brand recognition of your development company itself.
Which is what Bioware has done now.
Now, IP holders approach THEM (the new Star Wars MMO) but you still need a bevy of games to prove yourself to the audience.
I mea, how many people here have played MDK and/or knew about Bioware before BG?
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