{"id":91484,"date":"2019-04-05T21:07:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T21:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/340285"},"modified":"2019-04-05T21:07:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T21:07:00","slug":"the-complicated-process-of-making-licensed-video-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/04\/05\/the-complicated-process-of-making-licensed-video-games\/","title":{"rendered":"The complicated process of making licensed video games"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It\u2019s a strange experience working on a project, knowing that it is not going to turn out well, knowing on some level that it\u2019s not even really intended to.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Level designer Steve Rhoades on making licensed video games. <\/em><\/p>\n

The process of making a game is already deeply involved, but there are more things to consider when making one based on a licensed property. Add stakeholders, scheduling concerns, and navigating legal channels to the mix, and it can get pretty complicated. <\/p>\n

A few developers involved in making licensed games took the time to speak with PC Gamer<\/a> about what it’s like. <\/p>\n

“For arcane licensing reasons we only had permission to use Wesley Snipes\u2019 likeness in one place\u2014the box cover\u2014but Mr Snipes could not appear anywhere in-game,” said Tom Forsyth, former programmer on Blade 2<\/em>. <\/p>\n

“Of course Blade had to be in the game and he had to look as close to the Blade in the film as possible, but without looking too much like Mr Snipes who played him in the movie.”<\/p>\n

“No, this didn\u2019t make any sense to anybody else either. So the artists were driven mad sending both concept and in-game art to the publisher, and every even week it would be \u2018this looks too much like Snipes\u2019 and every odd week was ‘this doesn\u2019t look like Blade’.”<\/p>\n

Likeness aside, there are also complications when creating licensed games based on TV shows when multiple parties are involved. <\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a strange experience working on a project, knowing that it is not going to turn out well, knowing on some level that it\u2019s not even really intended to,\u201d said Steve Rhoades, level designer for The Sopranos: Road to Respect.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I remember meetings at a table with at least four or five folks from HBO present,\u201d Rhoades recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of teleconferences. 7 Studios\u2019 process was pretty document heavy by modern standards, and I wrote every level design doc for that game. My life for a few months was revising each document based on HBO feedback, then sending the doc to THQ, revising for their feedback, rinsing and repeating.”<\/p>\n

Be sure to check out the entire piece over at PC Gamer<\/a>, its definitely worth the read. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It\u2019s a strange experience working on a project, knowing that it is not going to turn out well, knowing on some level that it\u2019s not even really intended to.” – Level designer Steve Rhoades on making licensed video games.  The process of making a game is already deeply involved, but there are more things to consider […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}