The Impact of Good Game Design on Popular Licenses?

[diaglo]

Quarter a week?

Luxury...

When I was a young lad doing my chores at the sewage treatment plant we used to get raw fishheads once a month embedded directly into our spinal columns...and were expected to sing out the praises of our parents for doing so!

yeah, i agree. i am lucky.

when i was really good i got to wear the family shoe to walk to school. uphill both ways.

 

[Vpenman]

Gee, between the "Why back in my day..." postings and the Sex in D&D thing, it may not be possible to get this back on track, but I will try one more time...

If licenses are so important to products, how come no licensed RPGs have taken off -- Star Wars, Star Trek, Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings, (insert your favorite here)?

How come for the card games, some games succeed and others don't AND it is not the strongest license that generates the most sales?

Despite opposing views, I do not see DragonBall Z as a stronger license than Star Wars or Harry Potter. DBZ has much less visibility, much less marketing, etc.

I think it is the game that overwhelmingly matters. The reason that the DBZ and LotR card games are successful is because of the quality of the game design and not the strength of the license.

In fact, I believe the reason the licensed RPGs have not done well is because licenses invariably come with restrictions on what you can do with the game design (can't kill Indian Jones, e.g.) that stifles creativity and harms game play.

Victor

 

[Utrecht]

Actually,

I would put a lot of a games success down to the sophistication of the audience. The more sophisicated the audience - the better the game design needs to succeed.

For those CCGs aimed at younger players, by and large the rules are fairily simple and most of the focus is on the collection as opposed to the game aspects of it. All it takes is one kid in a group to gush over a CCG and a fair amount of their friends will end up purchasing some amount of cards. In fact, I would be surprised if more than 50% of all Yu-Gi-Oh cards are actually used in a game.... For example, I have a nephew who purchases a Yu-Gi-Oh booster pack a week - but has no idea how to play the game - his freinds just get together and talk about how tough each card is - based off its artistic/coolness merits.

Compare this to a older person who is more likely to solicit opinion/review a product before purchasing it. Having a appealing license will get them to pick it up - but it will have to stand on its merit to actually walk out the door.

 

[Umbran]

Hm.

Well, nobody buys a game that isn't fun to play. If the game really stinks, no licence connection is going to save it.

Beyond that, though, I don't think there's a way to predict what will be a really big hit. Cabbage Patch Kids. Beanie Babies. M:tG. Survivor. Nobody could predict that any of these things would be as popular as they were. The dynamics for the high-end of popularity are not well understood. Try as you like to duplicate a feat of popularity, it's still basically a matter of luck.