The Cut Scene - Video Game Blog by Variety

How licensed kids games are like "Hostel" and "Big Momma's House 2"

Here at Variety, we pride ourselves on reviewing literally every movie that's released and doing so as early as we can. But even we occassionally get stumped when studios don't screen their films for critics, the industry, or at festivals. Then we're stuck waiting until the movie opens and running a review a day or two earlier.

Typically, they're mediocre-to-terrible horror movies or comedies aimed at teenagers. "Snakes on a Plane," "Big Momma's House 2," "Hostel," etc.

And of course it makes sense why the studios won't show those movies to critics. If it's sure to get a bad review and you're targeting an audience that doesn't use reviews at all to cue them what's coming out and whether they should see it, why bother to screen it?  If a huge movie like "Iron Man" or an "adult" film like "No Country for Old Men" didn't get review, critics would be publicly asking why. But because they mainly target adult readers, the only reason any critic is going to mention "Hostel" before it opens is if they get to see it and give it a bad review. So let them ignore it and count on teenagers seeing the ads, chatting about it online, etc.

In videogames, I'm starting to discover, we have a similar model. Only it's not horror or comedy. It's licensed kid games. Think about it... is there any genre that more regularly gets whacked by game reviewers than movie licenses aimed at kids? Is there any audience less likely to be looking to IGN or EGM or G4 for what to buy than little kids and their parents? Is there any way GameSpot would be writing much about "The Spiderwick Chronicles" game if it didn't get a copy?

Of course at Variety, since our core audience is still entertainment industry professionals, writing about any and all licensed games is important to us. And as with movies, we really try to run our reviews in a timely manner. But I've discovered the hardest ones to get are always the kids licenses. "The Golden Compass," "Alvin and the Chipmunks," "The Spiderwick Chronicles," "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," just to name a few recent examples.

I'm not criticizing the publishers of these games. I totally understand their marketing strategies. Even if the game is good, the best reviews they can hope for in most outlets (though not Variety, to be fair to us) are probably "it's not as bad as I expected." And the core demographic to whom they're marketing won't care. So it's no surprise that the soonest they're willing to send a review copy is several days after the game comes out.

Compare that to games aimed at either a broad audience or "core" young male gamers. "Iron Man," "Rainbow Six Vegas 2," "Lost: Via Domus," "Turok," etc. In those cases, I'm often e-mailed several weeks in advance offering me copies. And/or I often ask for and get (or get for one of our freelance reviewers) code to play on a debug machine before retail units are even ready. Why? Because the potential buyers of those games read and care about reviews.

As I said, I'm not blaming publishers at all. It's not their job to make my life easy and sell copies of Variety / boost readership of our website. Their job is to sell games the best way they know how. But for the record, if you saw me in Best Buy last December sheepishly asking a clerk, "Do you have any copies of the 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' videogame? I know it just came out today," try not to judge me. Now you know why.

High School Musical soaring, Ratatouille bombing: the latest in kids' game sales

Most videogame blog readers aren’t particularly interested in kids’ games, for obvious reasons. But as data has come in for 2007 sales, some really interesting stories have emerged.

THQ has grown its business on large part on kids licenses in the past few years, primarily based on Nickelodeon Shows and Pixar movies. But as part of a disappointing holiday earnings report that saw net income fall 75% to $15.5 million, neither license worked. “In a very competitive year for kids titles, ‘Ratatouille’ and our Nickelodeon titles did not perform to forecast,” CEO Brian Farrell said succinctly on a conference call with analysts.

(It’s worth noting that Disney/Pixar in general had trouble licensing “Ratatouille” products, since the main character is a not-so-adorable rodent It’s also worth noting that last year’s “Cars” continues to be a huge success. THQ specifically mentioned follow-up game “Cars: Mater-National” as a solid seller.)

So if Nickelodeon and Pixar didn’t work in kids games this year, what did? The same things as on TV and, as we just saw this week, the movies: “Hannah Montana” and “High School Musical.” That’s good news for Disney Interactive Studios, which has been on a bit of a tear recently, underneath the radar of many of the mainstream game press.

Take a look at these statements from the Walt Disney Company’s earnings report, released yesterday: “[Consumer products] operating income growth was primarily due to increases at Merchandise Licensing and Disney Interactive Studios… The growth at Disney Interactive Studios was primarily due to the success of new self-published titles based on 'High School Musical' and 'Hannah Montana'  in the current quarter, partially offset by higher video game development costs.”

Just last week, as part of a press release announcing a spring date for its third “High School Musical” game in under a year, DIS noted that it shipped 3.8 million units of the previous two in 2007. That’s a hell of a lot of games, and a very healthy business considering that, based on what I’ve seen, the development costs were probably a fraction of  typical best-selling titles.

Ironically, a lot of people have noted how Disney Interactive seemed to be in a bad situation since the most valuable titles in its parent company’s library – the Pixar pics – have been licensed out. Last year, however, DIS turned out to have the right film and TV properties  at the right time.

[That being said, it's widely expected that when THQ’s deal expires in 2010, Disney Interactive will eagerly start handling the Pixar games.]