Apparently Namco Bandai's problem wasn't with the people making "Splatterhouse" at Bottlerocket. It was the management, or at least its deal with them.

According to a source close to the project, and several others familiar with the situation, Namco Bandai has quietly opened a new office in San Diego to finish production on its game "Splatterhouse" and recruited between 10 and 20 designers, artists, programmers, producers, and other staff from Bottlerocket Entertainment to work on the game.

Remember that Bottlerocket was the original developer on the game, but in February, publisher Namco Bandai took the game away from it and canceled their deal for an unspecified "performance issue," according to Makoto Iwai, COO of the company's American operation.

In the meantime, work has continued on "Splatterhouse at Namco Bandai's internal team that made "Afro Samurai." But switching developers is a difficult process since there's no internal memory of why a game is the way it is, what went wrong in the past, and so on. Getting the game out by later this year, as promised, would be difficult.

So Namco apparently has a solution: Re-hire the key folks who were making the game. Many were of couse available since Bottlerocket has been in financial straits, first because Brash went bankrupt, killing "The Flash" (and likely leaving Bottlerocket, like many other developers, in the hole for hundreds of thousands of dollars), and then because of "Splatterhouse."

As I reported yesterday, Bottlerocket has now been tapped by Genius Products to finish production of "Scratch: the Ultimate DJ." But for the past few months it has been without an assignment and even that new game likely isn't enough to keep all the folks working on "Flash" and "Splatterhouse" employed.

So when Bottlerocket couldn't afford to keep many of them, it's little wonder many on the "Splatterhouse" team took Namco Bandai's offer to finish the project they started.

Of course, we still don't know exactly why Namco canceled its contract with "Bottlerocket" and whether its plan was nefarious in any way, or it's simply executing a necessary backup plan. Either way, it's clear it wasn't entirely unhappy with the work being done at Bottlerocket since it's hiring many of their employees to finish the game. The unspecificed "performance" problem must have had to do with the developer's management, or the terms of the deal the publisher had with them.

Namco Bandai reps didn't respond to a request for comment. Bottlerocket CEO Jay Beard declined to comment.

Now that it has gotten the game's source code back from its courtroom nemesis 7 Studios, Genius Products is tapping a new developer to complete production on "Scratch: the Ultimate DJ": Bottlerocket Entertainment.

Several sources close to the project confirmed the news.

Those of you who have been paying too much attention to video game industry news will recognize several layers of irony here. For one, the reason San Diego-based Bottlerocket is available to take on this assignment is that it recently had a game it was working on, "Splatterhouse," taken away by developer Namco Bandai. So essentially, its last game was yanked by an angry (petty?) publisher and as a result, it's now taking on as an assignment a game yanked from another developer by an angry (petty?) publisher.

Furthermore, Bottlerocket and 7 have both been in a bad financial situation this year, which contributed to their problems on "Splatterhouse" and "Scratch," for the same reason: the collapse of Brash Entertainment. 7 was working on "Fun Park" and "9" for Brash, while Bottlerocket was doing "The Flash." When Brash went bankrupt, both developers were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And of course, as I previously reported, "Scratch" started life as a game at... Brash. Now we're really entering Alanis Morissette territory.

So now Bottlerocket is about to start (or already started? I'm not quite sure) work to complete "Scratch," while 7 Studios is finishing up "Space Camp," its casual Wii/DS game for new parent company Activision, and likely talking about doing some kind of spin-off or sequel to "DJ Hero" while dealing with being a defendant and plaintiff in court with Genius Products, its former publisher.

And all three of the past half-year's biggest disaster stories in video games -- the bankruptcy of Brash, Namco taking "Splatterhouse" from Bottlerocket, and 7 Studios' legal tussle with Genius -- have become intertwined.

Tragedy or comedy? Hard to say. But I'll have more on the intertwined story soon.

A Genius executive didn't respond to a request for comment (no surprise since the company has only communicated through publicists through its lawsuit against 7 Studios and Activision). A Bottlerocket executive declined to comment.

Turns out there's a lot more backstory to "Scratch: the Ultimate DJ" than Genius Products revealed in its lawsuit this week.

(Update: Genius' request for an immediate restraining order against Activision and 7 Studios was just denied by a judge. However, the suit still continued.)

For one thing, Genius wasn't even the first publisher of the game. "Scratch" has been in the works since early 2007, when Hollywood's dearly departed publisher Brash Entertainment, which went out of business last fall, started working on it with developer 7 Studios. By the summer of 2007, when Brash decided it would focus entirely on games based on movie and TV licenses, it soured on the project. Apparently executives also became concerned about the costs and complex execution of manufacturing and shipping "Scratch'" unique DJ peripheral along with the game.

Genius then bought "Scratch" as part of its move to expand beyond DVD distribution into the video game business (a strategy that has so far resulted in just one release: "Line Rider 2: Unbound"). So when the lawsuit states, "On or about February 26, 2008, Genius entered into a developer agreement with 7 Studios pursuant to which 7 Studios, as the developer, agreed to develop the game for Genius," well, that's pretty misleading. Sure, that may have been when Genius reached an agreement with 7, but it's not when the game started.

Furthermore, the lawsuit's assertion that publishers started to approach Genius with inquiries to buy "Scratch" isn't exactly true either. That may have happened, but it was because Genius was in fact trying to sell the game. By late last year, due in part to higher-than-expected development costs at 7 and also severe financial problems at the DVD distributor that led to a stock market delisting and a sale by previous owner the Weinstein Co. early this year, Genius was looking to get rid of "Scratch."

So when the suit says, "In or about January 2009... Genius received inquiries from a number of notable video game publishers seeking to purchase the Game," that could technically be accurate. But it ignores the primary factor: Genius was inviting those inquiries. They didn't just come out of the blue.

It seems that Genius engaged in talks with several different publishers, including MTV, EA and Ubisoft, but couldn't close a deal with anyone. Then, as the suit indicates, Activision jumped into the mix, partially due to a relationship between Laird Malamed, senior VP at "Guitar Hero" division RedOctane, and 7 Studios CEO Lewis Petersen.

Activision, of course, was interested in "Scratch" due to its similar upcoming "DJ Hero" game (which itself started life at Vivendi Games before that company merged with Activision). It's tough to believe the nation's biggest third party publisher saw the game as a major threat, given that "Scratch" is coming from an inexperienced competitor and doesn't have "Hero" in the title. Nonetheless, it clearly wanted the game, perhaps to integrate parts of it into "DJ Hero" or perhaps to use as a spin-off from or sequel to that franchise in the future.

That's the reason why it decided to buy 7 Studios as well -- so it would have the game and developer. But when Activision and Genius couldn't reach agreement on a deal to buy the franchise, the "DJ Hero" publisher went ahead and bought 7 anyway. That's where things get a bit sketchy and, the sources, I talked to say, where Genius may have something to its case.

Though it had a relationship with Activision from working on budget Wii/DS title "Space Camp," 7 Studios is certainly not a prominent enough developer to be bought purely for the talent. It's only worth something along with "Scratch." So one has to wonder why Activision would go ahead and buy 7 without being sure it could get the game. At best it's a risky move and at worst indicates the "DJ Hero" maker may have been hoping to pressure or interfere with the competing title in some way.

Nonetheless, I understand Activision and Genius were continuing to talk up until when the lawsuit was filed. The fact that Genius not only sued, but aggressively informed the press, indicates that it's now looking to negotiate publicly and get more money than it has so far been offered, either in court-ordered damages or a better sale price.

But Genius is certainly not just an eager little video game publisher that came up with the idea for "Scratch" and then suddenly got attacked by big, mean Activision, as it's trying to portray itself.

Activision's effort to kill the competition to "DJ Hero," its upcoming turntable music game, has earned it a very public lawsuit.

Today Genius Products, the DVD distributor that recently got into the videogame biz, sued Activision Blizzard, along with developer 7 Studios, for allegedly trying to interfere with a contract and misappropriate trade secrets related to its "Scratch: the Ultimate DJ" game in order to benefit Activision's "DJ Hero," which comes out in the fall.

In plain English, here's what Genius and its partner Numark industries, the DJ hardare manufacturer that helped to develop the game's controller, are alleging, according to a copy of the lawsuit

A source at L.A.-based 7 confirmed to the Cut Scene that the development studio has indeed been acquired by Activision. As Genius and Numark allege in their suit, and as I know from previous reporting, Activision was in a very good position to make that deal, since the developer was in severe financial straits after Brash Entertainment went bankrupt and owed 7 $581,000.

There's no doubt that Genius' core allegation about why Activision bought 7 Studios is correct: It  wants to avoid a "Guitar Hero" - "Rock Band" situation on the DJ gaming front. If it couldn't buy the competing title outright, it did the next best thing: Buy the competitors' development talent. That way they're, at the least, not exactly incentivized to do their best work on "Scratch" and also won't be available to work on any sequels or spin-offs.

In fact, they could easily end up working on "DJ Hero." Freestyle Games, which Activision acquired after it picked up the "DJ Hero" series when it merged with Vivendi Games, is making the first game. But if it becomes a big hit, the publisher will surely need more developers to work on spin-offs and sequels. Which means it could keep 7 Studios very busy.

However, all that doesn't mean Genius's suit has any merit. That depends on whether 7 Studios, under Activision's direction, has been violating its contract by witholding its work in order to delay "Scratch's" release, as well as sharing proprietary technology with its new corporate owner.

That's a matter of what the contract says. But Genius CEO Trevor Drinkwater seems pretty confident in his position. "We believe that Activision is attempting to sabotage the release of our much anticipated game and prevent it from getting to market prior to the release of 'DJ Hero,'" he said in a recently issued press release.

Genius and Numark are picking a very public fight with Activision by not only suing, but issuing a press release (and even calling this reporter to make sure I was aware of it). That only happens when all attempts at private discussions have failed and the plaintiff wants to embarass the defendant in public. Which, of course, is often a good strategy with a corporate behometh like Activision Blizzard that, for better or worse, isn't particularly beloved by gamers (even though they love its studios like Infinity Wars and Blizzard).

Genius and Numark are looking for "substantial damages," along with the immediate return of all "Scratch" code and products and an injunction preventing 7 and Activision from using any confidential information they have received.

Activision Blizzard reps haven't yet responded to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, I'm told that work continues on "Scratch," even if the developers have no idea who, if anyone, will release their game.

More updates to come, most likely...

(For those who want to read the entire lawsuit, which Genius's publicists have oh-so-helpfully emailed out to the press, Destructoid has uploaded it here.)

If I had been in business with Brash, I wouldn't want to brag about it either. Nonetheless, it's amusing to see the company erased from corporate history.

Today Majesco announced its deal with Fox to publish the "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" video game, which I reported two weeks ago. Included in the press release was this quote:

Of course, Majesco isn't "creating" a "Night at the Museum" game at all. The game was created by Brash -- or, more properly, developers Pipeworks and Amaze under Brash's supervision. Majesco simply bought publishing rights to the completed game. It's the equivalent of complimenting Ubisoft for its great work creating "Wheelman."

Still, if you gave video game rights for one of your top films to a publisher that went bankrupt in little more than a year, you probably wouldn't bring it up either. Just remember, Majesco has always been making the "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" game. And Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

Pyramid Head, say hello to your new brother Jigsaw.

Konami has confirmed an earlier Cut Scene report that it bought the rights to bankrupt publisher Brash's in-production video game based on "Saw." It will be released this fall on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 to coincide with Lionsgate's "Saw VI." (As you've probably noticed, Konami provided us with the first ever screenshots from the game as well).

Though there's obviously no sequel plans yet, the Japanese publisher is undoubtedly hoping "Saw" will become its second survival horror franchise, alongside "Silent Hill."

"Because we have leadership in the survival horror genre, we're passionate about it and wanted to find another property on par with 'Silent Hill," explained David Daniels, director of marketing for Konami.  "'Saw' has grossed over $600 million worldwide and sold over 28 million DVDs, so we felt like it was a great opportunity to align ourselves with one of the most successful horror film franchises in history."

After Brash went bankrupt last fall, rights to the game reverted back to movie studio Lionsgate, which considered but ultimately rejected the idea of handling publishing itself. Konami then picked up the license and engaged developer Zombie, which was handling production for Brash, to finish "Saw" under its direction.

The game's plot will be original, tying into but not directly adapting any of the films. As "Saw" fans might expect, gameplay will center on torturer Jigsaw's signature traps, turned into puzzles. Players control a character in an asylum who has to decide whether and how to solve the puzzles and save Jigsaw's victims.

"One of the big pillars of 'Saw' is the maniacal, twister serial killer Jigsaw's very unusual traps and you can expect that's something we'll carry forward," explained Daniels. "Some traps will even be a direct translation from the movies, particularly the iconic ones fans love."

Daniels declined to comment on whether actor Tobin Bell will voice his character Jigsaw, but I've confirmed from other sources that he will. No word on whether anyone else from the film is involved, except that the producers at Twisted Pictures have been consulting.

Brash had a lot riding on "Saw." It was going to be the company's first AAA title, its first not based on a kids' movie, and its first sure to earn an M rating. As I was reporting on Brash's demise last fall, employees repeatedly said "Saw" was one of a few games in development they had been counting on, if the cash hadn't run out, to help turn around the company's reputation for low quality.

Konami has the opposite problem. Its signature franchise is one of the two biggest in survival horror, along with Capcom's "Resident Evil" (although whether that still qualifies as horror after the last installment is an open question). It doesn't have much to gain with "Saw," critically speaking, but it has lots to lose if the game doesn't measure up. The last thing Konami needs is to lose its survival horror credibility by putting out a mediocre licensed title.

If it works, however, Konami could end up with a pair of horror franchises that complement each other well: One that screws with gamers' minds and the other their stomachs.

"'Silent Hill' is more about psychological terror, but 'Saw' for us is more about graphic, intense horror that overwhelms you," explained Daniels. "We want players to turn away from the screen for just a moment because of the visual intensity."

With only two months to go until the theatrical release, Brash's "Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian" game has been picked up by Majesco.

A source close to the game confirmed the deal, as did a search on the ESRB's ratings website.

Licensor Fox and Foundation 9, parent company of the game's developer Pipeworks, have been looking to find a new publisher for the game since Brash went out of business in November. But apparently it was a close call, with the deal only coming together in the past few weeks, and final details still being worked out now. (Don't confuse it with Majesco's own "Escape the Museum" that comes out Tuesday.)

I'm told that Ubisoft was very interested and almost picked it up, before ultimately deciding to pass. It was shopped to numerous other publishers, but many were concerned about the extremely short timeline. A source at one publisher said they were interested in the game when they say it last month, but simply didn't think they'd have enough time to put together a marketing plan building up to the film's Memorial Day weekend release.

For Ubisoft and most other publishers, "Night at the Museum 2" wouldn't be a big deal -- just a blip on their slate. But it is a big deal for Majesco. The relatively successful but still tiny publisher of "value" titles hasn't released any games based on movies since 2006's horrible "Jaws Unleashed." In addition, it will be only the second game ever released on the Xbox 360 by Majesco, which has been focused on Nintendo's Wii and DS for the past few years. Of course, given its kid appeal, "Night at the Museum 2" will also be released for Nintendo's two consoles.

"Night at the Museum 2" is the last Brash game set for release this year to get a new publisher (save for "Prison Break," which appears to be consigned to the video game dust heap). "Tale of Despereaux" was already released by Atari and "Six Flags Fun Park" by Ubisoft. "Saw" has been picked up by Konami, though the Japanese publisher has yet to announce the deal. It remains to be seen whether any publisher want to pick up Brash's games in the works for 2010, like "Clash of the Titan," "Superman," "The Flash," etc. and pay to finish production.

Reps for Majesco haven't yet responded to a request for comment.

When Kathy Vrabeck ankled (one of my favorite Variety “slanguage” terms – meaning that fuzzy grey area between quitting and getting fired) Electronic Arts late last year, it was a shocker. The Activision veteran had only been at the videogame giant a little over a year and was heading its fastest growing and arguably most important division – casual. But she left for “personal reasons” (the oldest excuse in the book when you’re being pushed out) and Sims label head Rod Humble added casual to his internal empire.

It’s perhaps even more of a shocker, however, to see where she’s ending up: Legendary Pictures, the private equity financier behind movies like “The Dark Knight,” “300” and “Watchmen.” According to several sources, Vrabeck is in final negotiations to take a post at Legendary. I’m not sure exactly that her title will be, but it will apparently entail overseeing new business in videogames and broader digital entertainment.

Vrabeck is one of the best known executives in the videogame world, having worked her way up to president of publishing in the brutally competitive corporate culture at Activision before taking her job as a label president at EA. She’s also one of, if not the, most successful women in the videogames business.

Regular Cut Scene readers know one initiative that will certainly be part of Vrabeck’s purview in her new job: As I reported in October, Legendary has been in talks to acquire “Gears of War” developer and Unreal Engine creator Epic Games. My understanding is that those talks have continued, and gotten deeper, though it’s not clear if it will be a full purchase or some kind of partial acquisition and/or partnership. (Legendary is already co-financing the “Gears of War” movie)

It’s well known that Legendary’s chairman Thomas Tull is extremely interested in video games. He was a co-founder of the ill-fated Brash and resigned from the board in the early fall over concerns about the company’s direction and the quality of its products. Despite the Brash debacle, I’ve heard that Tull remains very interested in videogames and wants to give it another try, this time with more control and better partners.

Nonetheless, it’s not exactly clear what Vrabeck’s hiring means. Will she head up some kind of big digital division, including stuff like online content, or focus primarily on games? Will Legendary become a publisher? Or perhaps fund some games and then partner with other publishers? Will Epic be making games for Legendary or operating completely independently? (As one astute reader pointed out, it could include working on projects like "Lost Patrol," which Legendary acquired last summer with the intention of developing for feature film, the Web, and video games simultaneously)

One interesting angle is that Legendary, like most licensors, probably got back the rights to the games in development at Brash based on its properties (or films it is co-financing with Warner Bros.), like “300” and “Clash of the Titans.” Those titles could potentially continue under Vrabeck’s watch.

So yea, still plenty of questions. But hiring a high powered executive like Vrabeck is an undeniable sign that Legendary intends to be a major player in the videogames space.

One more Brash game has found a new home.

The Wii version of "Six Flags Fun Park," the mini-game collection from 7 Studios that got a Six Flags license slapped on at the last minute, will be published by Ubisoft next month, as this website and this Amazon page indicate.

The DS version was the very last game that Brash shipped before its demise in November..

"Saw," one of the highest profile games left orphaned when Brash Entertainment went out of business, has been picked up by Konami.

Sources close to the project have confirmed that Konami has made a deal with Lionsgate, to whom the rights reverted when Brash breached its contract, and developer Zombie Studios. The game will come out this fall along with the sixth "Saw" film (I almost wrote "Saw VI," but that series is getting so long in the tooth I'm wondering if they'll take a cue from the seventh "Star Trek" movie and just drop the numbers).

Konami is an obvious choice to pick up "Saw," since it has experience selling horror with a little franchise called "Silent Hill." But the game almost took a very intriguing twist: no publisher at all.

Or rather, no traditional publisher. Several sources told me that after it got the game rights back from Brash, Lionsgate strongly considered holding onto it and jumping into the videogame business by making "Saw" its first self-published game. Like every other movie studio (some of whom have gotten into videogames, the rest of whom are considering it), Lionsgate was tempted by potential profits in the fast growing videogame biz. But in the end, execs there apparently decided they couldn't properly model sales, or weren't sure they could market a videogame, and went the safer route of licensing it to a new publisher.

The "Saw" game hasn't been shown publicly, as far as I know. But the many Brash ex-employees I interviewed late last year uniformly said that it was looking really good, nothing like the three embarassments the defunct publisher released in its brief year-and-a-half of existence.

Apparently they've got Jigsaw himself, Tobin Bell, doing voice work and the game looks to be a bloody, violent M that's just as hard as the movies' R. I don't know much about gameplay, but I gather that it's based on the puzzles that Jigsaw likes to rig for his victims in the films. I do know it's for PC, PS3 and 360. Which is a bit of a shame, because while I understand that the typical Wii and DS owners aren't exactly the target market, I can't help but think of all the disturbingly awesome things you could do in a "Saw" game with a touch screen or a Wii-mote. (If it's a hit, maybe they'll use the "Dead Space" example and follow it up with a Wii version).

As is common with movie licenses these days, Konami's deal with Lionsgate is long term, meaning that if the first one's a hit, the games could become just as much of a never ending -- and never endingly profitable -- institution as the movies.

Reps for Lionsgate, Konami and Zombie all declined to comment or didn't respond to requests for comment.

(That's a teaser poster Brash made for the game above. Unsurprisingly, whoisjigsaw.com isn't working anymore.)

I haven't been spending my holidays doing much kotaku reading, but when a friend send me this post, I really wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Michael McWhertor at Kotaku read this long, slightly crazy interview with GameRepublic head Yoshiki Okamoto and came up with the following nugget o'news, which was apparently hidden so carefully that 1Up, the site that conducted and posted the interview, didn't even realize it was noteworthy:

Folklore Dev Was Working on Tom and Jerry for Brash

The evidence? Deep in the middle of the interview (conducted before Brash went under) comes this exchange:

1UP: You're working on a movie-based game for Brash Entertainment. Even if you can't say what license that is right now, how is the project coming? How hard is it to work on a movie license? You haven't done that kind of project before, have you?

YO: Actually, we're working on a Tom and Jerry movie/game tie-in [laughs]. Yeah, when Brash is ready, we'll both announce the game together. But technically, this isn't my first movie licensed project.

Hopefully I don't need to explain to Cut Scene readers the many contextual hints that make it obvious Okamoto wasn't being serious. Even beyond this exchange, though, it was a totally tongue-in-cheek interview during which Okamoto gave 1UP Editor James Mielke marital advice, complained about how women don't dig him, and said, "I used to have a girlfriend that I was riding too. But I went out to the parking lot to get her the other day and she wasn't there anymore."

And of course there's just common sense. Brash picked up a few crappy licenses in its day, but Tom and Jerry? Which, by the way, is not a movie. And then assign it to a fairly well regarded developer like GameRepublic? That should strike most knowledgeable readers as a bit suspicious. And probably merit more reporting. Like a Google search.

Which would have turned up that I have previously reported the movie license GameRepublic was actually developing for Brash was "Clash of the Titans." Many other sites have since picked that up (like this IGN listing), so I'm not just assuming everyone has to read this blog.

So, ummm, yea. There's nothing wrong with quickly linking to all the interesting videogame news on the 'Net. That's what sites like Kotaku do best. But sometimes a little more diligence may be in order.

[This post slightly edited by me a few hours after posting when I realized it was a bit too snippy]

We interrupt this top ten games of 2008 countdown for our final videogame review of the year in Variety: The Tale of Despereaux.

As loyal readers and videogame business nerds (mostly the same, I hope) know, Atari is distributing this game after the demise of Brash. But the origin of the game is a bit more complicated. While Brash funded and oversaw production of the PC, PS2 and Wii SKUs (as well as a 360 SKU that disappeared), licensor Universal Studios was actually overseeing the DS version. Wanna bet which version was pretty good and which sucked?

The answer is obvious, I suppose. Poor, poor Brash. Here's what our critic Chris Dahlen had to say in today's Daily Variety:

The DS version... is a straightforward platformer with elements as old as the first “Super Mario.” Players jump, scurry up walls, swing on nails and solve simple puzzles. The graphics are surprisingly good for Nintendo’s handheld system, with lovingly illustrated levels including the mazelike chutes from the kitchen to the coalmine-like castle dungeon. The rat’s coliseum, where two rather clever boss battles take place, rewards combatants with a colorful three-dimensional backdrop and silhouetted rodents who jeer from the stands...

By contrast, the Wii version proves that there’s nothing as irritating as a platformer that doesn’t quite work. The look and idea are very similar: Despereaux has to navigate one level after another by scaling giant books, jumping from candle to candle or hitching a ride on a moving cup. While the mouse-eye perspective should make the world engaging, the environments lack atmosphere, even in the dankest, most sewage-swamped depths of a dungeon. Poor visibility and dark colors occasionally obscure the path even in well-lit areas, and the camera frequently looks the wrong way or loses track of Despereaux altogether.

It looks like the last game to see a release that was produced entirely under Brash's watch won't exactly bolster the company's reputation. Though there's still a good chance some of the games in the works for next year which will probably see the light of day ("Night at the Museum 2," "Saw") will at least show Brash can start developing a good game.

As for Universal, its new videogame publishing initiative -- which reps the studio's first entry into the space since it sold Universal Interactive to Vivendi nearly a decade ago -- is off to a solid start, critically speaking, at least. After the film's soft opening (due in part to the weather, but oh well), commerical prospects for the game might not be so great.

Full review: The Tale of Despereaux videogame

The first of Brash's many orphan games has found a new home.

As I'm reporting in tomorrow's Daily Variety, Atari has bought North American publishing rights for the PC, PS2 and Wii version of the game from Brash (though not the 360; so much for that). It has also picked up the deal Brash made to distribute the DS version for Universal, which is funding and producing that game itself. (Details on the original deal between Universal and Brash are here)

I've been hearing for a little while that Atari was going to pick up a few of Brash's completed games that need a publisher ASAP. Apparently it didn't (or hasn't) bought the completed Wii version of "Six Flags Fun Park," but "Despereaux," which needs to come out before the film's Dec. 19 release date, was more appealing.

Atari, of course, has been on a bit of a spree buying homeless movie-to-videogame adaptations of late, since it also picked up Sierra cast-offs "Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena" and "Ghostbusters" from Activision Blizzard in October (details here).

The newly revived publisher also announced some new games in the works at a London event today, including a new Wii music title from the creator of RezHD, Lumines Live and Every Extend Extra Extreme. GameSpot has a good summary.

Atari won't have any time to market the game and will be relying on primarily on some promotions Universal has in the works. But, as is always true, if a kids' movie is successful and the tie-in game is halfway decent, it should sell just fine. Even the famously abysmal "Alvin and the Chipmunks" moved a few hundred thousand units last year. And Brash ex-employees assure me that "Despereaux" is much better.

The deal is so last minute that Brash actually had the game in production when it shut down. So while Atari is publishing, the box art will say Brash. Making this game, in a sense, the last hurrah for Hollywood's (dearly?) departed videogame publisher.

(This is the eighth of eight posts going up throughout the holiday weekend tied to an article I have in the forthcoming weekly Variety that looks at the promise of Brash Entertainment, the first Hollywood videogame publisher, and the reasons it went from $400 million to out-of-business in a year and a half. The article and posts are all based on extensive interviews with nearly a dozen former employees, executives and developers who worked at or with Brash, most of whom understandably spoke only on background. The posts here on the Cut Scene will summarize and expand some of the key points from the Variety article and also provide some interesting details and anecdotes that didn't make print.

You can read the entire article here.

You can see all of my related posts, and get all the important background, on the Cut Scene's Brash category page.)

When other people, be they industry professionals, other journalists, or fans, talk to me about the demise of Brash, I often hear something like this: "Of course Brash failed. Videogames based on movies are always terrible. That's the worst idea for a business I ever heard."

By releasing just three games, all of which indeed were terrible, and going out of business quickly, Brash did a lot to reinforce this argument. But in fact I think it's not true. If I were going to invest start-up money in a videogame publisher, I think I'd like Brash's business plan.

I probably wouldn't want the leadership Brash had. Or the first few licenses they bought. But consider this: As a start-up publisher, you don't have any established franchises. Investing in new IP is very risky, as the vast majority don't succeed. When you start a new company focused entirely on original games, you're likely to have a string of failures and end up like Gamecock. The core of the business model of all successful videogame publishers like EA and Activision Blizzard are franchises. It's those regular sequels to brands like "Madden NFL," "Guitar Hero," " Call of Duty," etc. that provide the steady cash flow to support risks on fresh properties like "Mirror's Edge" or "Dead Space" (OK, Activision hasn't taken any risks on fresh IP recently, but that's a separate issue).

What's the next best provider of reliable revenue after franchise sequels? Movie licenses. Sure, the profit margins are slimmer, since you have to pay royalties to the licensor, but they tend to sell well if they're based on successful films. Even objectively terrible games like "Transformers" or, hell, Brash's "Alvin and the Chipmunks" can move units.

Brash's plan was to eventually start moving into original properties. Some said it should have happened sooner, but it was supposed to eventually get there. Theoretically, the steady revenue from licenses would be a great way to ease into that, rather than dive in and hope for some early hits to avoid bleeding cash.

Furthermore, there's a lot of room for improvement in movie-based games. They have a bad reputation that's largely deserved. There are some structural problems, mainly having to do with the relatively short amount of time to produce a AAA title if you can't start until the movie's greenlit and have to release it along with the film. But as games like "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay" and a decent number of kid-focused properties have shown, it can be done.

Brash execs thought they'd be the one to prove that it could be done. Obviously they were wrong, since the titles they released displayed all the worst pathologies of movie-based videogame (low quality due to extremely short production schedules).

But if they had done things just a little differently, and if other factors -- some directly in their control, some having to do with the market -- hadn't worked against them, Brash might have proven movie-based games could be a little better and had a reliable stable of successful, if not hugely profitable, franchises with which to build the first successful private equity-funded videogame publisher. Makes plenty of sense to me.

(This is the seventh of eight or so posts going up throughout the holiday weekend tied to an article I have in the forthcoming weekly Variety that looks at the promise of Brash Entertainment, the first Hollywood videogame publisher, and the reasons it went from $400 million to out-of-business in a year and a half. The article and posts are all based on extensive interviews with nearly a dozen former employees, executives and developers who worked at or with Brash, most of whom understandably spoke only on background. The posts here on the Cut Scene will summarize and expand some of the key points from the Variety article and also provide some interesting details and anecdotes that didn't make print.

You can read the entire article here.

You can see all of my related posts, and get all the important background, on the Cut Scene's Brash category page.)

Beside Mickey Mouse, the most common crazy/weird story former Brash employees would bring up to me was "the Wall Street game." Never have I heard a project so bad mouthed by the people who worked on it.

I haven't seen the game myself, so I can't ultimately say how good it is. And obviously it's not done, so nobody knows what the final project will be like. But literally every former Brash employee or partner I spoke to, from the highest level executive to the lowest level staffer, had bad things to say about the "Wall Street" MMO.

Beyond the numerous people who spoke about it, I can also confirm the game is real because Brash filed a trademark (thanks to the reader who provided that link!). That's the logo from the trademark above on the left. (A bull and a bear in the same symbol. Kinda clever.)

What was it? An MMO in which players place virtual bets on stocks, bonds, and other financial products. Basically, you get to be a Wall Street "player." And there would be various real world prizes for the people who bet the most successfully each month. People who worked on it or saw it said it would be funded via subscription and it was more a 2-D interface than a full 3-D virtual world (so it wasn't nearly as expensive as something like "Warhammer Online").

So why did it continue if nobody supported it? CEO Mitch Davis felt passionately about it. He kept the project going despite all the opposition. Some noted his abiding interest in Wall Street given his business background. Others noted that Brash's "Wall Street" game would be a natural partner with Davis's other company, LiveGamer, where he served as chairman. According to its website, LiveGamer "enables a complete marketplace solution for the player-to-player trading of virtual items." So the synergies are obvious.

Two separate people were hired to work on it early this summer: a producer and a marketing manager. Both had experience in the MMO space. Both worked there about a month before quitting/being asked to leave out of total frustration with the project.

What did people dislike about it so much? Sources mentioned that it wasn't a real MMO, but a virtual world with betting mechanisms; that anyone interested enough in finance to pay a subscription fee to play the game would probably be making real world investments; and that with the financial market collapsing, the Wall Street doesn't feel that much like a fun game.

But despite the lack of support within the company, Davis persevered. The game remained in development until the end. And it's still alive. I recently heard from several sources that some of Brash's investors, led by Davis himself, have decided to continue financing the game. I'm not sure exactly how the financial details work (are they buying it from Brash? funding it within what's left of Brash?) But it appears to be the only Brash game that's not being sold or returned to a licensor. Which means we may get to see it for ourselves whether Mitch Davis knows something that most of Brash's employees don't.

(This is the sixth of eight or so posts going up throughout the holiday weekend tied to an article I have in the forthcoming weekly Variety that looks at the promise of Brash Entertainment, the first Hollywood videogame publisher, and the reasons it went from $400 million to out-of-business in a year and a half. The article and posts are all based on extensive interviews with nearly a dozen former employees, executives and developers who worked at or with Brash, most of whom understandably spoke only on background. The posts here on the Cut Scene will summarize and expand some of the key points from the Variety article and also provide some interesting details and anecdotes that didn't make print.

You can read the entire article here.

You can see all of my related posts, and get all the important background, on the Cut Scene's Brash category page.)

What does it take for a well funded company to go out of business in under two years? As I detailed before, bad choices, bad luck, bad products... But fundamentally, all that comes down to bad leadership. Well run companies don't typically make bad deals, put out three bad products in a row, or get caught totally unprepared when credit markets dry up.

It's hard to find people with good things to say about Brash's management. Mid- and low-level employees, developers, and others who worked with the company almost universally describe the leadership as arrogant, stubborn, and out-of touch. Not all the time, of course, and some individuals more than others.

As for the executives themselves? Well, they don't seem to have gotten along too well, to put it mildly. There was a lot of in-fighting, and a lot of departments working non-cooperatively, if not at cross-purposes. To give an example, I asked one former executives what s/he thought of another, and his/her reaction was, "Don't even mention that name to me." Me-ow! Suffice it to say that there was a generally high level of tension and some people really didn't like others. As is typical at entertainment companies, there was plenty of conflict between the creative folks and those in sales/marketing, though here it was even higher than usual.

Conflict, along with frustration with CEO Mitch Davis (more on him in a moment) and the direction in which the company was headed, ultimately led to defections. The first to go was Patrick Sweeney, senior VP of business affairs and general counsel, who left around March. By May, president Nicholas Longano left. Soon after, senior executive producer Jonathan Eubanks, chief creative officer Larry Shapiro, and co-founder Thomas Tull were gone as well. (Were they fired? Did they quit? In most cases, it seems to have been a bit of both)

So who remained? CEO Mitch Davis, of course, along with chief financial officer Bill Chardavoyne and EVP publishing Yasmin Naboa (who originally joined as exec VP sales & marketing), all of whom stayed until the end. Though Davis was in charge, it was Chardavoyne and Naboa who were largely running things day to day, acting, as one person put it, as Davis's "voice."

Why? Because Davis was often not around. Los Angeles-based Brash's CEO lived in New York City and spent most of his time there. In addition to running Brash from afar, he was also spending time on another company, LiveGamer, where he serves as chairman (more on that in the next post). A few people said it wasn't a big deal, that he was still easily reachable by phone. But more often I heard that he was at least somewhat out of touch, with Longano or, after he left, Naboa and Chardavoyne running things day-to-day.

Everyone agrees Davis is very intelligent and ambitious. Several people said he was focused on selling the company within a few years. Which would be difficult, given not only Brash's track record, but given that it had few assets since all of its games were based on licenses. (Though he and Longano did manage to sell Massive to Microsoft only a few years after starting it)

Others said that during Brash's problems this summer, Davis seemed unaware of how serious they were and was telling employees they would be a top ten, maybe even the number six, publisher in 2009. A positive attitude is a good thing, obviously, but many employees apparently took it as naive, out-of-touch optimism and said it only further sunk morale.

Perhaps the most troubling story is that in the last week of Brash's existence, when an all-hands meeting was called and the remaining employees were told that the company was being shut down and they would be laid off, Davis wasn't present. He left it to Chardavoyne and Naboa to deliver the news. (Davis didn't respond to several requests for comment.)

(This is the fifth of eight or so posts going up throughout the holiday weekend tied to an article I have in the forthcoming weekly Variety that looks at the promise of Brash Entertainment, the first Hollywood videogame publisher, and the reasons it went from $400 million to out-of-business in a year and a half. The article and posts are all based on extensive interviews with nearly a dozen former employees, executives and developers who worked at or with Brash, most of whom understandably spoke only on background. The posts here on the Cut Scene will summarize and expand some of the key points from the Variety article and also provide some interesting details and anecdotes that didn't make print.

You can read the entire article here.

You can see all of my related posts, and get all the important background, on the Cut Scene's Brash category page.)

Since I'm about halfway through my series of Brash post-mortem posts, I figured it's a good time to post the "light" one...

In all my interviews with former Brash employees, there was one name that came up almost as much as Mitch Davis: Mickey Mouse. "Did you hear the Mickey Mouse story?" people would ask me, their voice dipping almost to a whisper like they wanted to talk about our alcoholic sister-in-law but didn't want to be the one to tell me she's an alcoholic, in case I didn't know.

Did Brash actually manage to get the rights to make a game with Mickey Mouse? Isn't Disney a bit more protective with its IP than that? What were these people talking about?

Finally I found out from someone who was there. It actually involves the oddest story of a corporate retreat I've ever had. And I've been on a few funny corporate retreats myself.

I want to issue a big disclaimer before I go into the details: This is just a funny story. I don't think this actually reflects badly, or well, on Brash management. The worst you could say is someone hired a weird consultant. In the grand scheme of things that happened at Brash, it's not even a blip. So I'm not posting this as an actual reason Brash went down in flames, or even to be emblematic of any problems. It's just an amusing tangent.

So here's the deal: Brash had a few off-site meetings for staff over the summer. The first was in June with almost everyone, at Shutters in Santa Monica. The topic was essentially "What have we done wrong and how can we improve things moving forward?" There was a "team building consultant" who served as a moderator for discussions and took notes. She had a funny quirk of wearing Mickey Mouse t-shirts. A bit weird, but, you know, it's L.A. and her title is "team building consultant," so it's just barely noteworthy.

Then apparently there was a second off-site just for the sales and marketing staff the next month. The consultant was there again. As any reasonable person would, she noticed employee morale was quite low and stress was high. At one point, during a break, she was talking to a few employees and had this piece of advice (as related to me second-hand):

When you need to center yourself and find a place of happiness, take a Mickey Mouse doll and stick it between your legs. Because Mickey Mouse is what happiness all about. When you're looking for happiness and you need to center, that’s what Mickey Mouse is for.

Don't give me that look. I just report the news, folks. I couldn't make it up if I tried.

More actually serious insights about Brash coming over the weekend as I get breaks and feel like writing more. And again, please don't take this to mean anything more than exactly what it is. It's just, well, if you were a journalist and you heard this story and you had a blog, could you resist posting it?

(This is the fourth of eight or so posts going up throughout the holiday weekend tied to an article I have in the forthcoming weekly Variety that looks at the promise of Brash Entertainment, the first Hollywood videogame publisher, and the reasons it went from $400 million to out-of-business in a year and a half. The article and posts are all based on extensive interviews with nearly a dozen former employees, executives and developers who worked at or with Brash, most of whom understandably spoke only on background. The posts here on the Cut Scene will summarize and expand some of the key points from the Variety article and also provide some interesting details and anecdotes that didn't make print.

You can read the entire article here.

You can see all of my related posts, and get all the important background, on the Cut Scene's Brash category page.)

One of Brash's well, brashest (I had to say it at some point) moves came over the summer, after an unheralded break up with Warner Bros.

When it launched last year, Brash's partnership with Warner Bros. was one of its big selling points. The movie studio, which already had its own videogame unit, would handle worldwide distribution (for a fee, of course) through its home entertainment division. That freed the start-up publisher from the expense of building a distribution infrastructure and establishing relationships with major retailers. It was also part of a bigger partnership with Warner Bros. built in large part of the connections of Thomas Tull, Brash's co-founder, who's chairman of Legendary Pictures, the co-financier of a number of WB's biggest tentpoles.

By late spring or early summer, Brash ended its deal with WB. Some insiders told me it was because relationships between the two had totally soured. Others said it was purely a business decision, as Brash executives concluded they could build and maintain their own distribution network for less money than the fees they were paying Warner Bros. Some also pointed out that by building its own distribution network, Brash would actually have a valuable asset should it ever try to find a buyer (since a bunch of licenses and a brand name aren't exactly worth that much).

The move was kept pretty quiet, known only to some in the industry and none of us in the press. Brash apparently got things together enough to self-distribute "Space Chimps" in July (albeit only to sales of 59,000 in the US, though that may have been due mostly to the low quality and weak theatrical performance of the film). Apparently Brash was doing a decent job setting up distribution in the U.S. -- where there are really only a few key retailers anyway -- but had a tougher time in Europe (not even sure if they were distributing in Asia).

It's tough to say how successful Brash was, since at this point, it's moot. Some say building up internal distribution in a relatively short amount of time was one of the company's notable achievements. Others say it was a waste of resources and an enormous distraction at a time when the company was falling apart.

(It should be noted that Brash isn't the only partner to stop having Warner Bros. distribute its games in North America. Codemasters ended its deal after a year and Empire Interactive worked with WB a bit then stopped. Eidos, in  which Warner Bros. owns a stake of more than 16%, is the only publisher that still does so. )

(This is the third of eight or so posts going up throughout the holiday weekend tied to an article I have in the forthcoming weekly Variety that looks at the promise of Brash Entertainment, the first Hollywood videogame publisher, and the reasons it went from $400 million to out-of-business in a year and a half. The article and posts are all based on extensive interviews with nearly a dozen former employees, executives and developers who worked at or with Brash, most of whom understandably spoke only on background. The posts here on the Cut Scene will summarize and expand some of the key points from the Variety article and also provide some interesting details and anecdotes that didn't make print.

You can read the entire article here.

You can see all of my related posts, and get all the important background, on the Cut Scene's Brash category page.)

Brash managed to release three games in its short existence. They all objectively sucked, to put it bluntly. I'll say that flat out because even the people who worked at Brash agreed. It's one of the reasons there was such low employee morale.

"The thesis of the company was that no game would have less than 15 months of development time," says Jonathan Eubanks, Brash's senior executive producer who departed over the summer and has since started his own company, Invicta, told me. "Senior executives had every intention of making that happen, but there were a host of problems. In the end, our games were not quality offerings and everyone in the company knew that to be the case before they went out."

"Alvin and the Chipmunks" actually sold a decent 360,000 units domestically, according to NPD, though it still lost money. "Jumper" and "Space Chimps" sold a miserable 60,000 and 59,000, respectively, and most certainly lost money.

Besides the fact that their first three games sucked, there's one other thing about which everyone who worked at or with Brash agreed: the titles in development for this holiday season, next year, and 2010 were better. Maybe not all pure genius, but probably destined to restore Brash's reputation as a company that doesn't just make sh*tty games.

Here's a list of them all (or all the ones I found out about anyway) in rough order of when they would have been released (though I'm pretty vague on all the ones after Saw), along with the developer in the cases where I know who that was. Links are to the movies/TV shows on which they were based, when appropriate:

-Six Flags Fun Park (7 Studios)

-The Tale of Despereaux (Sensory Sweep; Fizz Factor)

-Prison Break (Zootfly)

-A Night at the Museum 2

-Where the Wild Things Are

-Saw (Zombie Studios)

-9 (7 Studios)

-Clash of the Titans (GameRepublic)

-Superman (Factor 5)

-300 (GameRepublic)

-The Flash (BottleRocket -- thanks for the tips, readers!)

-Cowboys and Aliens

-Wall Street (an original MMO; more on that soon)

So what happens to them all? I hear that Six Flags Fun Park, for which the DS version was (barely) released by Brash but the Wii version wasn't, is being sold to another publisher and will come out soon.

As for the rest, they're largely back in the hands of their licensors. The studios could the sell in-development game to another publisher to complete and release. In some cases I hear the studios are considering funding development and publishing themselves. In others, especially the further out games that are early in production, they might just be killed.

Warner Bros., it should be noted, has the biggest load to carry, with six properties it owns or co-owns now back in its hands. Though it at least has an established in-house publisher (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) to help sort things out.

On the one hand, its a major pain for these studios. On the other, they probably get to keep the multi-million dollar advances they were paid for the licenses since Brash breached its contracts. So they did get something for, essentially, nothing.

All in all, though, I'm thinking that the studios that were cautious about Brash and never worked with it, like Paramount, Sony Pictures and Disney, are feeling pretty good rightt now.

(This is the second of eight or so posts going up throughout the holiday weekend tied to an article I have in the forthcoming weekly Variety that looks at the promise of Brash Entertainment, the first Hollywood videogame publisher, and the reasons it went from $400 million to out-of-business in a year and a half. The article and posts are all based on extensive interviews with nearly a dozen former employees, executives and developers who worked at or with Brash, most of whom understandably spoke only on background. The posts here on the Cut Scene will summarize and expand some of the key points from the Variety article and also provide some interesting details and anecdotes that didn't make print.

You can read the entire article here.

You can see all of my related posts, and get all the important background, on the Cut Scene's Brash category page.)

When Brash officially launched in June of last year, it announced that it had $400 million worth of financing. (The press release is still online. Check it out here.) Investors included big private equity funds like Abry Partners and New York Life Capital Partners, co-founders Thomas Tull (Chairman of Legendary Pictures) and Bert Ellis (an Atlanta businessman), CEO Mitch Davis and president Nicholas Longano (all of whom, incidentally, should have some nice tax write-offs this year). On Nov. 14, it went out of business. How is that possible?

Even the worst run videogame publisher would have a hard time spending $400 million in under two years. And in fact, sources told me that Brash actually burned through cash somewhere in the $100 million - $150 million range. That's still a sizable amount, but given that the company built up a full scale publishing operation, released three games, was in production on nearly a dozen more (more on those later), paid multi-million advances to studio licensors for all its games, and was in the process of building a physical distribution infrastructure (more on that later too), 9 figures isn't that shocking.

So what happened to the rest of the $400 million? It wasn't quite the "investment" about which that press release bragged. One high level exec, in fact, told me that when he say the $400 million announcement, he laughed. "I had no idea where that figure came from," he snorted.

That's perhaps a little unfair. The truth is that a relatively small portion of it was actual equity investment. The rest was debt to which Brash had access. Problem is, that debt dried up. In part because some investors were upset about the low quality of the three games Brash released this year and its overall performance and strategic direction. But more important was the recent collapse of the credit markets. Even the former insiders with the worst things to say about the company's leadership agree that if we weren't in the midst of an historical financial meltdown, Brash probably could have accessed more cash and stayed in business.

(This is the first of eight or so posts going up throughout the holiday weekend tied to an article I have in the forthcoming weekly Variety that looks at the promise of Brash Entertainment, the first Hollywood videogame publisher, and the reasons it went from $400 million to out-of-business in a year and a half. The article and posts are all based on extensive interviews with nearly a dozen former employees, executives and developers who worked at or with Brash, most of whom understandably spoke only on background. The posts here on the Cut Scene will summarize and expand some of the key points from the Variety article and also provide some interesting details and anecdotes that didn't make print.

You can read the entire article here.

You can see all of my related posts, and get all the important background, on the Cut Scene's Brash category page.)

So why exactly did Brash go out of business? There were a lot of reasons, many of which I explored in my piece. But I also summarized them into a handy list, which I'm providing here. I wanted to make sure I didn't get led astray by an individual with an axe to grind, so these are all reasons mentioned by several different people:

• A lack of experience among company leaders. CEO Mitch Davis had never worked for a videogame publisher and prexy Nicholas Longano had never held a role that senior. No other members of the board of directors had significant videogame industry experience.
• Frequent conflict and lack of communication among the senior execs who served just below Davis and Longano. While most were experienced, many didn't get along and rarely worked cooperatively.
• A leadership vacuum. Davis spent most of his time in New York, leaving others to run things day to day. Between March and August, Brash's senior VP of biz affairs, president, chief creative officer, senior executive producer and co-founder all ankled due to differences over the company's direction. In the last few months, only Davis, CFO Bill Chardavoyne and sales/marketing chief Yasmin Naboa were left to run things.
• An ill-considered deal with Fox. In order to get its hands on desirable properties like "A Night at the Museum 2," Brash agreed to produce videogames based on "Alvin and the Chipmunks,  " "Jumper" and "Space Chimps" in less than a year. The latter two were major bombs and all three were low quality, harming Brash's reputation with partners, the press and consumers -- as well as employee morale.
• Conflicts with Warner Bros., which originally distributed Brash's videogames. By summer, Brash had canceled its deal with the studio and started building its own distribution operation. Some say the move saved money, but others say it was a waste of resources at a critical time, particularly as the industry is moving toward digital downloads.
• A lack of understanding of the film biz. In one example repeated by several sources, Brash was projecting sales of its "Space Chimps" game on the assumption that the film would gross $150 million, similar to past Fox toons like "Ice Age" and "Horton Hears a Who." Execs were apparently unaware that the film wasn't made by Fox Animation and the studio was only distributing it. "Space Chimps" ended up grossing $30 million. (It sounds crazy, right? But two separate high-level sources told me this story unprompted, and a third verified it when prompted.)
• The collapse of the credit market. Despite all of Brash's problems, most insiders say the company probably could have raised more funds and continued had it not hit a moment of need just as the financial markets froze.

This was probably inevitable after Brash stopped paying developers about two months ago and then, last week, shut down.

7 Studios and Zootfly, two independent developers working on projects for Brash, have sued to try and win money they're owed. L.A.-based 7 Studios says Brash owes it $468,000 for its work on "9," an adaptation of an upcoming animated film from Focus Features produced by Tim Burton (one of the few games on Brash's slate I didn't previously know about) and $113,000 for "Six Flags Fun Park," (pictured left) a Wii and DS mini-game collection that's supposed to be coming out right about now (has anybody seen it on shelves?). Slovenian developer Zootfly, meanwhile, says Brash owes it $748,000 for work on the videogame version of the Fox TV show "Prison Break."

Brash had around a dozen projects in development and hasn't been paying developers for a while, so I would suspect more lawsuits are coming.

Mitch Davis, CEO of Brash, didn't respond to a request for comment.

However I did speak to 7 Studios CEO Lewis Peterson. While he understandably didn't want to comment on the suit, he did say that he thought "Fun Park," which is now complete, is a good game and he's hopeful Brash will either manage to get it onto shelves or else find another publisher to pick it up. "I honestly believe it would have been the best game Brash had produced," he stated (probably not with the intention of damning his studio with faint praise), describing it as "like a cross between 'Animal Crossing' and 'Carnival Games.'"

He also noted an interesting fact about the game: It was never intended to be tied into Six Flags. 7 Studios sold it as an original casual mini-game adventure to Brash last year, before 2K's "Carnival Games" (with which it has many obvious similarities) had even been released. Apparently Brash inserted the Six Flags license mainly as a cosmetic addition just a few months ago in hopes that would help boost sales (and also, I guess, maintain Brash's stated mission of only working with licenses).

Also noteworthy in Brash news today: Former president Nicholas Longano, who left in May, has re-surfaced, per Digital Media Wire, as the co-founder of Music Mogul, a soon-to-launch virtual world for aspiring musicians and fans.
 

Several sources have confirmed for me that Brash Entertainment is ceasing operations as of tomorrow.

Not too surprising given its many problems, as I reported last week. In a nutshell, the few games it managed to put out sold poorly, it wasted money on some ill conceived ideas, and talented executives fled as they saw how things were going.

Since co-founder Thomas Tull left the board, I understand that the investors who had committed $400 million when Brash launched last year had pulled out. So Brash was simply out of cash.

Now the question is what happens to the many projects in development, from "Saw" to "Superman" to Night at the Mueseum 2" to "Tale of Desperaux," which was supposed to come out next month. I'll be following that for sure, as well as continuing to report on how things managed to go so very, very wrong.

Former Brash Chief Creative Office and CAA videogames agent Larry Shapiro has landed a new gig as president of Oddworld Inhabitants, Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna's development studio best known for (duh) the "Oddworld" games.

Larry used to be Oddworld's agent when he was at CAA (pre-Brash), so it's perhaps not surprising he's working with them again. It is more surprising that Oddworld, which hasn't had a new game in a while, is taking on a president, demonstrating that despite their relative silence, they must have some promising stuff up their sleeves.

Lanning himself had been president, but is stepping aside to let Shapiro take that role while he'll focus exclusively on creative. Sherry McKenna is still CEO.

"No one is more in stride with us than Larry. We both see the same future landscape," Lanning said. "It's a petty radical departure from the contemporary landscape. While we think there’s a number of barriers to break through, we think there are tremendous opportunities on the other side of the barrier."

Shapiro similarly hinted that he's hoping to push Oddworld into new frontiers, which probably means they won't just be trying to sell $20 million AAA disc-based games to publishers.

"I have a great opportunity to add value to a company and to work with people who I am inspired by and who look to where the industry is going and not where its been," he told me. "We intend to break the model of where games are today in a unique and entertaining way."

It'll be a while until we find out exactly what Oddworld's up to now. But I do know it won't be the "Citizen Siege" animated movie that it was previously working on with Vanguard Entertainment (details here). McKenna told me there were "creative differences" and the rights are reverting back to Oddworld.

Shapiro is the first former senior exec at Brash to land a new job that I've heard of. As I reported last week, the company is in pretty dire straits. Sources are telling me there's just a "skeleton crew" left trying to sell off properties to other publishers and/or make deals with studios with which they made licensing deals to return the rights.

Like several ex-Brash employees I have spoken to, he didn't want to go into much detail about what was apparently an unpleasant experience. But he did make this one rather pointed comment about what he wanted to do:

I wanted to make Brash the Miramax or HBO of videogames, but sales marketing and finance wanted it to be Majesco.

Ouch.

More on Brash coming soon.

More problems at Brash Entertainment. As I'm reporting in today's Daily Variety, the troubled movie-license focused videogame publisher has laid off 20 staffers, is working with studios to either return licenses or sell them to other videogame companies, and is searching for new cash or a buyer.

Brash acknowledged the layoffs in a statement. But I've already been hearing from numerous sources of the company's latest problems. Apparently it has stopped paying developers, at least temporarily. And it has been talking to the studios from which it has acquired licenses to either return some of those properties or sell them to new publishers. Basically, Brash doesn't have the cash to continue. It's trying to find more, or a buyer.

Seems weird, doesn't it? Just last year, Brash launched and announced it had raised $400 million. And even the worst run company couldn't burn that much cash in a year. As it turns out, only some of that money was immediately available. The rest, which was supposed to be available for future needs, has apparently dried up amidst the financial crisis. Though the recent resignation of co-founder Thomas Tull, who has the Wall Street connections and headed up the private equity funding, probably didn't give investors a lot of confidence.

Brash only confirmed that two games are still in the works: "Six Flags Fun Park" and "Saw." That leaves a long list of titles in limbo: "Tale of Desperaux," "Prison Break," "Night at the Museum 2," "Clash of the Titans," "300," and one other that it hasn't announced and hasn't yet been reported: "Superman." Remember when Brash announced it was working with "Rogue Squadron" and "Lair" developer Factor 5 on an unannounced game? Turns out it was "Superman."

Getting information from Brash was even harder than usual since among the many no longer working there is EA and Ubisoft vet Tiffany Spencer, who was VP of corporate communications. The question is: Who's left? I'm still waiting to find out how many employees remain at Brash. But based on what I've heard from sources, it's not many.

Full Story: Brash Entertainment short on cash

Also see: Thomas Tull leaves Brash

Brash Entertainment CEO Mitch Davis has responded to my recent reporting about executive shake-ups at his company, including the departure of co-founder Thomas Tull and Chief Creative Officer Larry Shapiro, following on President Nicholas Longano in the spring.

But he didn't respond to me. I guess not everyone likes me. He did a Q-and-A with GameDailyBiz that basically addresses most of the points I brought up. The key details:

-Davis says that Tull resigned "due to a conflict of interest." No indication on what the conflict is. It would have to be more than just the fact that Brash is licensing IP from Legendary, since it has been doing that since its founding. However, the sources I interviewed last week indicated that Tull had disagreements with others on the board, including, one would assume, Davis, and was dissatisfied with the way Brash was being run and its products. So I believe it's a more complex story.

-He grants that the first few games haven't exactly been up to snuff and that the company has had to make changes. "Good games take time, and it's fair to say that we were overly ambitious in putting out three games in our first year of business. We certainly took our lumps on those titles....  After our first few games did not meet expectation we decided that we needed to upgrade our staff and realign our business." Later on, he says even more artfully, "We have systems in place, and feedback on what has and hasn't worked. We're making changes to refine our business so that we can meet our goals."

-Toward that end, Davis says the company "is putting an end to short-cycle games." That probably means no more titles like "Alvin," "Jumper" (right) and "Space Chimps" that were made in under a year, with quality that shows it. "Many of these games are already in production with development cycles of up to three years," he notes. "That's an unusually generous schedule for a movie based game, and can be seen as an indication of quality as we will be able to spend more time in pre-production and concepting, more time developing technology and more time testing—really just giving ourselves time to get it right." That's obviously a change in philosophy for the company.

-Lori Plager, who used to be senior director of brand development and licensing for Activision, has been hired as senior VP of intellctual property. Davis says she is taking the role formerly held by Shapiro.

I just wrote about co-founder and board member Thomas Tull leaving Brash. As I noted, president and co-founder Nicholas Longano split in May. But I just found out that I actually missed out on another high profile departure.

Turns out that Larry Shapiro, who left his position as co-head of CAA's videogame department last year to become Brash's Chief Creative Officer, left the company in July. That's three high profile departures in the span of five months during only the company's second year of existence. You know how I said below that Tull leaving is not a good sign? Now it turns out it's an even worse sign than I had thought. Brash is, pretty undeniably, a company in turmoil.

It's usually not a good sign when a co-founder and board member of a company, one who played a key role in raising its capital, resigns after less than two years because he's disappointed with its products and direction.

But that's what's happening at Brash Entertainment, where Thomas Tull -- who's also the chairman of Legendary Pictures -- has left the board. Full details are in this article in tomorrow's Daily Variety.

I should note up high that I couldn't get a comment out of Tull, so this is all based on what I heard from industry sources. But what I heard won't really surprise anyone who's been following the company. As I wrote in tomorrow's article, "Tull is believed to have been disappointed with the quality of Brash's games, as well as the company's strategic direction." Gamers know that means titles like "Alvin and the Chipmunks," "Jumper," and "Space Chimps," all of which got largely negative reviews (including in Variety, as the links will tell you). "Alvin" did sell decently, perhaps not a surprise given how successful the movie was. The other two, not so much.

He also must not have been optimistic that Brash's upcoming slate is going to turn things around. That includes announced games like "Six Flags," "The Tale of Despereaux" and "Saw," as well as unannounced titles we've gotten wind of like "300," "Where the Wild Things Are," "Clash of the Titans" and "Night at the Museum 2." Maybe overall it was the general idea of just doing licensed games, which so far has resulted in titles developed quickly to meet movie release dates.

There were already signs Brash was having problems in the spring when president Nicholas Longano ankled (Variety's term for the nebulous nethworld between quitting and getting fired). But Tull is a bigger deal. As well as running the company that co-financed huge movies like "300" and "The Dark Knight," he's very into videogames, as evidenced by Legendary's involvement in the "Gears of War" and "Warcraft" films. Brash was his vehicle to get into the business and he helped to build it on the same private equity model, including one of the same financiers, that he used for Legendary.

So what's next for Brash? They've certainly got lots of high profile licenses to work on. I've seen the DS version of "Despereaux" and it's not half bad. Perhaps they hunker down and keep doing what they're doing, but try to do it better. Or perhaps Tull's departure augurs a larger shake-up and a re-thinking of how to use what remains of the $400 million the company raised just last year.

A Brash rep declined to comment.

Update: Contrary to my article, it turns out Chief Creative Officer and former CAA videogame department co-head Larry Shapiro left in July. Apparently I can't even keep track of all the high level departures at Brash. More details in the next post.

We just posted my review of "Space Chimps" today and while I certainly didn't like the game, it does appear to be significantly better than Brash's first two games, "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and "Jumper," which other Variety reviewers whom I respect really savaged. "Space Chimps" does have piss poor graphics and very unoriginal and sometimes ill-fitting gameplay, but it has a few platforming sequences that are pretty compelling and it's a perfectly functional package, which is more than you can say about some videogames based on kid movies (working at Variety, I've played more than my share).

If you're interested in the entire review, you can read it here.

I did want to note one thing, though. A small enough part of the game that I didn't mention it in the review: The flying level. There's a bizarre sequence in the game where the chimps are soaring on the back of an alien through a cave and, at least in my limited experience, it may just be the worst flying level ever produced. The game basically controls where you go, with the player only able to move the winged alien (which I'll just call a ship from now on for the sake of convenience) along a two dimensional plane as he moves. The game's movements seem almost specifically designed to induce nausea, with the ship constantly twisting and turning in the cave, often directly into the stalactites/mites, instead of staying in the big open space in the middle.

But that's not the really terrible part. The thing that drove me absolutely crazy is that the reticule (yes, this alien thing can fire lasers of some kind) is directly behind the ship. Not in front of it, so you can see where you are firing. Directly behind it, so it always looks like you are firing into yourself. Of course the lasers pass through your ship and into the enemies that you fly in front of. But it's a truly stupefying design mistake that's also, of course, distracting beyond measure. I know very few people reading this have probably played "Space Chimps," but based on description alone, can anyone think of a worse flying level in a video game?

(I couldn't find a screenshot of the flying level, so you'll have to make do with this more adorable image of a monkey's butt)

Exclusively in Daily Variety tomorrow... and online now for your reading pleasure: Just a year after launch, there's a shakeup at Brash Entertainment.

The Hollywood-based publisher that's using $400 million in private equity money to exclusively do games based on movie, TV and music licenses has lost its president Nicholas Longano (pictured right). A Brash rep confirmed that he has "exited" the company after I heard the news from several sources.

He wasn't officially fired, as far as I know, but it seems safe to assume you don't voluntarily leave a company you co-founded one year after it launched if everything's going swimmingly.

Longano, as most of you probably know, ran game advertising company Massive with partner Mitch Davis until they sold it to Microsoft. Davis remains in his post as CEO and is taking over the president responsibilities from Davis as well.

The two of them founded Brash with Legendary Pictures head Thomas Tull, who tapped a lot of the same funding sources he got for Legendary to invest in Brash, and Atlanta businessman and Massive investor Bert Ellis.

Longano is still an investor, so he'll remain involved to the extent that his money talks.

Brash has certainly had problems in its first year in terms of gamers' perception. It's first two games, "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and "Jumper: Griffin's Story," were both developed on very short cycles in order to meet a movie release date and were critically bashed. People inside Brash admit that they didn't exactly put their best foot forward with those games.

But in the process of reporting this story I thought it would be interesting to find out how they did commercially, even if gamers didn't give 'em any respect. It turns out "Alvin" did OK, selling 281,000 units in the U.S. according to NPD. But "Jumper?" It has sold an astonishingly low 16,000 units since February. That's gotta hurt.

On Variety.com:
-Brash President Longano Exits
-"Jumper: Griffin's Story" review
-"Alvin and the Chipmunks" review
-Brash Entertainment launch story

In tomorrow's Daily Variety, Tom Chick reviews "Jumper: Griffin's Story," the second game from Hollywood publisher Brash Entertainment, and he's not too kind. Terms like "tedious," "dull," "bottom of the barrel" and "pointless" all pop up. Here's the first paragraph of Tom's review:

The tagline for "Jumper" boasts that "anywhere is possible." But gamers excited about that idea will be sorely disappointed by this uninspired, cheap-looking adaptation. Instead of giving players the power to teleport around the world, it shunts them through a series of tedious fisticuffs, one dull room at a time. Odds are slim that "Jumper: Griffin's Story" will generate even a fraction of the companion pic's opening weekend B.O. success.

And you can read the rest of it here.

Interestingly, there's no review yet on 1Up, GameSpot, or IGN. The only other review I can find, in fact, is at msxbox-world.com (never heard of it either) and they give it a 3.5. It seems like review copies didn't go out until a few days after the game was released, but given that it has now been a week since "Jumper" hit stores, it also seems like most videogame publications just aren't interested.

MTV's Multi-Player blog went to a San Francisco event for the videogame press sponsored by Hollywood's resident videogame publisher Brash Entertainment and got one juicy detail -- well, more like a guess that I'm ready to call definitely true.

Brash had demo stations set up up for "Jumper," based on the Fox/Regency pic that comes out next week (MTV's verdict: "blurry textures, constantly hiccuping frame rate and low-polygon character models didn’t inspire much confidence in the final product"), this summer's "Space Chimps," and next year's "Saw."

But it also showed a trailer for a 2010 release, probably with the intention of demonstrating that its  slate consists of much more than games made in a year or less, like "Alvin and the Chipmunks," "Jumper," and "Space Chimps." Apparently it's a mythological game. Multi-Player guesses it's "Clash of the Titans." I would say that's definitely true, and not only by process of elimination (Multi-Player makes its guess because the only other likely license, "Jason and the Argonauts," is at Codemasters).

This is certainly the game Brash is working on because, as Variety has previously reported, Legendary Pictures is developing a remake of the cult classic "Clash of the Titans" movie. Brash is all about movie licenses and has a particularly tight relationship with Legendary since its co-founder, Thomas Tull, is chairman of Legendary. Plus I have heard talk about a project like this from several sources. Combine all that evidence and I'd call the conclusion that the game Brash was showing was "Clash of the Titans" a no-brainer.

(This event also explains why Brash went on the "announcement spree" I wrote about last week. They had to have something besides "Jumper" to show.)

Hollywood's resident video game publisher Brash Entertainment went on an announcement spree this week, indicating someone over there wants to change the press strategy, or at least start making some noise.

First came details about the "Saw" game. We all knew Jigsaw and friends would be coming to vidgames, of course, since it was part of Brash's public unveiling last spring in the pages of Variety. But we found out this week that it's going to be a truly next gen affair, possibly Brash's first, and also that it's not coming out until October of 2009, presumably along with the movie "Saw 6." (no, that's not a typo)

That'll be two and a half years from when Brash first talked about the game, an indication that development probably isn't going as fast as hoped. Nonetheless, company obviously thinks the "Saw" game is going to be a big deal, since it has already launched a website.

The other announcement was "Space Chimps," which comes out this summer. But while numerous websites picked it up as if it was fresh, the fact that Brash is doing a game based on the animated feature that Fox is distributing this summer for Vanguard and Starz about, well, chimps in space is old news for Variety readers. We first reported that Brash is doing a "Space Chimps" game back in November, as part of a story that also broke news about the "Jumper" game that comes out this month.

What's notable here is that up to now, Brash has been incredibly conservative about announcing their games. They only talked about the "Jumper" game three months before it came out, and they did the same with "Alvin and the Chipmunks," their not so hot first release. For whatever reasons, they have decided to loosen up, spilling some details about games that are five months and 18 months out.

Nonetheless, there's still a lot going on at Brash that we don't know. I've reported that they are working hard on a "300" video game for consoles, though we have no idea when that's coming out. I've heard rumors about several projects it has deals for with Fox, Warner Bros. and Universal. But I have also heard rumors about games that they had deals for that never ended up going into production, so who knows what'll end up being real. Suffice it to say that it'll be very interesting to see what (if anything?) Brash actually brings to market in the 2008 and '09 beyond "Space Chimps" and "Saw."