Biggest Franchises Without an RPG

[MatthewJHanson]

I think it worked out for MWP pretty well from the popularity of the Cortex system it used, as well as the the price point to get into the game. Marvel's problem is Marvel. They have never kept a license for an extreme long term with anyone in the past with maybe the exception of one company. If anything I think the pulling of the license was probably a regroup tactic by Disney, meaning I think Disney had Marvel pull the renewal of the license in order to do a re-evaluation of the value of the IP and then most likely shift it to a company under the Disney family umbrela.

Actually MWP stated that they chose to end it because they weren't selling enough books. You can read about it here.

Seems like almost any license could make at least a little money if you started out with just pdfs, or had a core system to build from, or let hardcore fans/rpgers write them. The licenses just expire so quickly, and people switch fandoms so quickly. They are competing with Netflix and Wikipedia.

The trouble is that the company giving the licenses is usually guaranteed a minimum amount of money. If you give company X $10,000 for property Y, but you are only able to make $9,000 off of it, you've lost $1,000.

 

[dm4hire]

I stand corrected then. I Kickstarted the Cortex Hack book and everything I saw was based off of people hacking Marvel and Leverage. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[delericho]

Honestly IMHO liscensed RPGs never really pan out. The biggest reason for that is that the Protagonists most important power, I.E. The Plot, is never actually available to the PCs who expect to have free will and are probably going to snipe your big bad in the middle of his introductory monologue anyway.

That's actually one reason the Firefly/Serenity RPGs do quite well - because the show was cancelled early, there's very little accumulated lore to get in the players' way.

Of course, one other reason most licenses fail is that, as Morrus said way up-thread, they're just not necessary - presumably, you're buying the game for the setting, but it's quite likely you're as well-versed in it as the writers (you have watched the same show, after all), or can research just as well using the internet. As for rules, unless they've done an exceptional job tying the mechanics to the setting (which, almost invariably, they haven't), you're probably just as well off adapting Savage Worlds, World of Darkness, or some other game of choice to the universe.

On topic: The Fast and the Furious?

 

[Andor]

On topic: The Fast and the Furious?

There have been Carwars RPG rules for ages. ... God, how long has it been since I played carwars? I may have to do something about that.

 

[Cam Banks]

"Not making enough money" is only part of the equation. The rest is "to afford the license." It would be a terrible shame to say that the reason Marvel Heroic Roleplaying was cancelled is because the game wasn't any good or didn't sell well.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[hayabusa]

Fallout was about to have a d20 Modern campaign setting published until rights issues rose up. Not wanting to trash all of their hard work, the developers filed off the Fallout serial numbers and we got Exodus. Still though, no official Fallout RPG save for a small inset in Tactics for wargaming.