For awhile there was discussion about how bad licensed games sort of died off or at least moved to mobile during the 7th generation, and some people said they even missed them. Now of course licensed games never went away entirely, but they mostly seemed to be higher budget and more ambitious affairs, like the Batman Arkham games or Beatles Rockband. And of course there were still occasional THQ style trash games, just not at the volume there used to be.
Well that volume seems to have returned. I started noticing it a few years ago, with games like the Hotel Transylvania titles and that Nickelodeon Kart Racer game, but it's been picking up steam, to the point where this week there were three licensed releases, only one of which (Transformers) looks like it could be any good at all.
The thing is, not only do these games look bad but they look unbelievably cheap. Say what you want about PS1 era licensed games like A Bug's Life or The Grinch, but they generally attempted to match the style and production values of the time, with varying degrees of success. These all look like cheap PS3 games, at best, and appear to have PS1 era game play. They aren't interesting in the way some of those older games were, they just seem cheap, except they cost $30-40. And they're far from alone. There's that King Kong game coming out soon, and more Paw Patrol games than you can shake a stick at. There have been a couple Fast & Furious cash grabs. The list goes on.
I don't know who is buying these. Kids I guess? Grandma's? But while I do have nostalgia for some of the licensed games of my youth, those were often at least interesting even if they were bad. They often attempted something but didn't have the budget or skill to achieve it. These seem like they're probably a lot less broken but also a lot less interesting. I played the Ice Age 3D platformer from 2019, and that one was mildly interesting just because of its bonkers story and very odd aesthetic choices, but I also bought the first Nickelodeon Kart Racer for $4, and that one is pretty competent from a technical perspective but totally soulless. I think they're doing a 4th one soon, as well as a second version of the Smash Clone.
Game Mill and a few other companies are churning this stuff out, but unlike THQ they've learned the lesson from mobile of "play it safe, don't do anything ambitious, just hit the bare minimum and shove it out to shelves." It feels sad in a way. When I was a kid we all had our licensed games that we'd defend for whatever reason even if a lot of them were bad, just because they did something weird or interesting. Cool Spot. The Cheetos games. Pepsi Man. None of these were great but they weren't much worse than other bad games. I remember ind of liking Avoid the Noid. And there's a whole cottage industry of Youtubers and other video creators dragging this stuff out of obscurity to gawk at it.
I feel like the modern versions won't get nearly as much attention and the kids who receive it will barely remember it. Even as a notable weirdo who played Balan Wonderworld I can't bring myself to have more than a passing interest when it gets really really cheap.
I am, however, kind of curious about the economics and business model here. I'm interested in how a lot of companies make money in the vast glut of games we have these days. Backwards compatibility is fantastic but it also means that all the platforms have many thousands of games available and nobody has played them all. Given 10 years or more of games at our fingertips who is choosing to play that Survivor game?
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