Video Game news site Gamedaily.com has a story up here about an apparent new IP incubator company to be founded by Scott Miller of 3DRealms and Jim Perkins, a former SVP of GT Interactive. The story is based on the brief existence of a web site (now showing just a logo) for a company called Radar Group. The story states that “Radar Group is an original IP incubator that will aim to take video game projects into cross-media properties such as films, TV shows, novels and toys.” The story goes on to quote more from the site regarding the company’s plans with “We build into our original, co-created IP the hooks to make for both a great game and a great film.”
Hmmmm now Scott Miller is obviously a smart guy and thinks this is the way to go but personally I can’t remember a “cross media” project that has been a meaningful success. By that I mean a project designed to be successful across multiple media, instead of taking a success from one media and moving it to another. It takes a lot of passion, dedication and hard work to make a great creative product, be it a film, comic, game or book. Trying to make a game, which is also suitable for a film (or vice-versa) is adding an extra level of complexity to an already difficult creative process. Designing a game to include elements because they are suitable “hooks to make for both a great game and a great film” is a quick way to dilute creative vision and make the creative process harder. In the 20 years I have been in the industry I have been pitched a multitude of cross media projects designed to be a great game/comic/film. None of them ever succeeded.
Cross media products are a bad way to make creative products…. of course as business people love the media convergence concept such a business model is are a great way to attract investment.
OK, here’s one:
http://www.pokemon.com/
“Since 1998, the world of Pokemon has generated $14 billion dollars in revenue for Nintendo”
I don’t know any of the people responsible for Pokemon personally, but I’ve met a large number of people who claim to, or who have done business studies on the phenomenon, and who all independently claim it was very explicitly designed to be a cross-media success, maybe not from the very first seed of an idea, but certainly as a core part of why / how it got funded, developed, and marketed.
No?
True, there is always an exception to the rule. Pokemon, like WOW is to some extend a freak and many other products developed in the same way have failed to emulate anything like the same level of success.
In addition the cross media nature of such toys is, as you point out, a facet of Marketing. Toy companies developing products like Pokemon routinely pay for the creation of cartoon shows as adverts for the toy.
In my view that isn’t the same as creating a great toy (which you develop with a view to it also being a film/TV etc) which someone else will want to pay you to get the TV rights for.
Pikachu is really the cutest pokemon.:*”