The Cut Scene - Video Game Blog by Variety

THQ nabs Marvel's Super Hero Squad. More Marvel games to come?

In tomorrow's Daily Variety: THQ has nabbed a long-term deal to make games based on Marvel's upcoming animated series aimed at little kids: "Super Hero Squad."

Makes pretty obvious sense for THQ, which has had a lot of success with kids games based on the Nickelodeon and Pixar licenses.

What's notable here is that THQ is banking on a license before it's a success. Well, sort of. Certainly the Marvel heroes are well known. But in their incarnations as brightly colored little guys with big heads, they're new. The "Super Hero Squad" series won't hit TV until 2009 and Marvel doesn't even have a network signed up to air the show yet (though it surely won't have much trouble finding one).

I spoke to THQ CEO Brian Farrell and Marvel's head of videogames Simon Phillips for the story and they both commented that they hope this is the start of a longer-term relationship between the two.

It's especially important since THQ's lucrative deal with Pixar is likely coming to an end. There's "Wall*E" this year, "Up" next year, then in 2010 Disney Interactive is adapting "Toy Story 3," then THQ has "Newt" in 2011 and the deal is up. A lot of people in the industry will be shocked if Disney Interactive doesn't start making all the Pixar-based game after that.

Here are a few other interesting comments from Farrell:

You just made a deal for DreamWorks Animation's 2010 film "Master Mind" and now this. Are you on a new licensing spree?

We're all about building big entertainment brands in the videogame space and we think this Marvel deal is more of what we have done very well. If you look at the Dreamworks deal, I think the reason we won that is execution. They’ve seen that we outperformed "Shrek 3," which is a great videogame property, with "Ratatouille," which isn't obviously one. It's about our ability to understand that younger demo space and execute well on the game, marketing and at retail.

But you recently said on an earnings call that both "Ratatouille" and your Nickelodeon games last year didn't sell as well as you had hoped. What's the reason for that?

If you look at game quality in the kids space, we lead that. Last year, "Ratatouille" was a great film, but didn’t translate well into any consumer products. We've done over 4 million units of "Ratatouille," which a lot of people blown away by for a property that doesn’t translate.

We have a great relationship with NIckelodeon. We’d love to see a new hit property from them.

Your deal for "Master Mind" is just a single movie. But given that DreamWorks Animation's long-term deal with Activision is ending, are you hoping to be their new partner for a while to come?

The "Master Mind" license does include sequel rights, or if becomes series. We don’t like one-off deals. We like long term deals... and to the extent that there's a sequel or a series, it can be long term. For us it’s about building a relationship.

THQ sold $1 billion of Nickelodeon games? We've known that for three months

Just because a publisher issues a press release doesn't mean we have to print it as news.

Case in point: THQ brags in a press release headline that "THQ's Nickelodeon Portfolio Surpasses Billion Dollar Mark as Company Announces Extensive New Lineup for 2008." The same day, numerous game websites run stories with a headline focused on that $1 billion number. They include Kotaku, Joystiq, 1up, IGN, GameDaily, the Escapist, GameIndustry.biz, and probably plenty of others. (Note: I'm not including sites that just reprint press releases, clearly labeled as such, with no introduction or comment.)

For the record, that's old news. THQ announced that in February as part of its last earnings report, when it stated, "During the quarter, total lifetime Nickelodeon franchise net sales surpassed $1 billion..."

I understand why THQ wants to re-emphasize that fact as it unveils its new slate of Nick games, but I don't think journalists should be re-printing it as exciting news.

Just as importantly, nobody should be taking it as evidence that THQ's Nick games are doing great (as several of the sites linked above did). Along with that February earnings report, THQ CEO Brian Farrell said on a conference call with analysts that "In a very competitive year for kids titles, ‘Ratatouille’ and our Nickelodeon titles did not perform to forecast." (As I wrote on this blog at the time.)

So, THQ revealed the details on its upcoming NIckelodeon-based games. There's the actual news.

Activision and DreamWorks breaking up in 2010

Activision's relationship with DreamWorks Animation has been probably the most stable in the videogame biz for as long as I've been covering it. It's like that marriage you thought would last forever.

While other movie studios constantly flirt with different videogame publishers -- and vice-versa -- Activision has consistently put out two games per year, based on every single one of DreamWorks' toons (save for a little spat over 2005 bomb "Wallace and Gromit," which DWA just distributed for Aardman). Hell, sometimes they've been so in love that Activision has put out extra games based on DreamWorks characters, like "Shrek Super Slam" and this fall's second "Kung Fu Panda" game.

But just like with my parents (whoa! too personal?), even the most seemingly perfect relationships can end suddenly. So it is with these two, as DreamWorks Animation announced that it is moving onto THQ starting with the fall 2010 movie tentatively titled "Master Mind." Activision is already committed to make games based on DreamWorks toons through spring 2010's "Shrek Goes Fourth."

What's the reason? According to DreamWorks, it's simple: It went out to the market for "Master Mind" and THQ made the best offer. Activision, for whatever reason, wouldn't or couldn't step up to the plate.

The THQ deal may just be a one-time fling, however. DreamWorks isn't making any commitments. What happens in 2011 and beyond? Will it commit to THQ? Try out some other suitors? Go back to Activision?
We'll have to wait and see. Love can be fickle.

For more details, check out the story on Variety.com.

Battle of the Bands: bad controls and stereotyped characters on the wrong system

THQ's new music/rhythm entrant "Battle of the Bands" is out and Variety critic Leigh Alexander doesn't have too many nice things to say about it. She likes the core idea: "A competition between two genres of the same song... players can be privy to a disco 'Blitzkrieg Bop' or even a surprisingly lovely Spanish-language mariachi version of Def Leppard's 'Photograph,'  only to hear the genre flip again when the other team, controlled by a friend or the computer, has its moment in the sun."

But the controls aren't up to par, the graphics are "terrible, even for the underpowered Wii," and the characters designs "aim for edgy but land squarely on obnoxious."

Leigh makes two particularly important points I wanted to highlight. One is that if you define your characters entirely by the musical genre they play, well, you're not going to get the most racially sensitive characters. So we end up with "some questionable portrayals of redneck country singers and bling-bling black rappers." Maybe "Resident Evil 5" isn't the only game that could use a little more racial sensitivity in a diverse world.

Also: It's understandable that developers want to make more games for the Wii given how well it's playing and given the relative lack of quality games for the console. But as Leigh says, "only certain types of games make solid Wii titles." And a game that requires precise timing and movement detection isn't one of them, since we all know the Wii's motion sensor more gets the gist of what you're doing then exactly what you're doing. "This one," Leigh concludes, "probably would have worked better as a timed tapper on the DS, along the lines of "Elite Beat Agents."

Read the whole review right here.

THQ, Disney Interactive, and Disney's new animated slate

Yesterday Disney unveiled its feature animation slate all the way through 2012, as we detailed at length in Variety. It includes two movies a year -- in most cases one from hit factory Pixar and one from the less successful (these days) Disney Animation Studios.

That has some big implications for THQ and Disney Interactive Studios, the Mouse House's own videogame publishing arm. As I reported in February, DIS got the rights to publish a game based on "Toy Story 3," which comes out in 2010, but THQ still has one game left in its deal with Pixar, which was made before the animation studio was acquired by Disney, after this year's "Wall*E" (which looks like it could make a natural puzzle/exploration game) and next year's "Up" (pictured left, about 78 year-old on some kind of adventure with a little kid -- a movie starring an old man looks like even less of an obvious game than "Ratatouille," which didn't do very well for THQ).

So we can probably assume that one of Pixar's two 2011 toons (2011 is an odd year in which Pixar will actually have two games) will turn into a game for THQ -- either "Newt," a romantic comedy about two mismatched amphibians, or "The Bear and the Bow," a mythical adventure set in Scotland. I think it's safe to bet which one THQ would prefer to get, but we'll see whether it has to deal with the romantic comedy instead.

Another question left unanswered... THQ made the original "Cars" game, which was a big hit, plus this year's follow-up "Mater-national." But does it get to keep making "Cars" games through 2012's "Cars 2?" Does it lose that right at some point? I'll be looking into it.

Meanwhile, there's a lineup of Disney animated films  for which we can safely bet DIS will be making game adaptations. They include all of the Disney Animation Studios releases: this year's "Bolt," 2009's "The Princess and the Frog, 2010's "Rapunzel," and 2012's "King of the Elves." Also, as we already know, it's doing the game based on Pixar's 2010 release "Toy Story 3." And then there's a good chance it will do one of the Pixar films -- either "Newt" or "The Bear and the Bow' -- in 2011 and probably "Cars 2" in 2012.

THQ, Midway, Atari stocks surge on EA's bid for Take-Two

Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks that EA's bid for Take-Two signifies a period of consolidation coming to the videogame business. Take a look at the performance of several small and mid-sized publishers' stocks Monday, none of whom had any news of their own:

THQ: Up 10% to $9.65

Midway: Up 7% to $2.19

Atari: Up 13% to $1.61

Anybody want to take bets on how many of those companies, along with some European publishers like Eidos and maybe even Ubisoft, will still be independent a year from now?

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.]