Licensing: My Archnemesis

By Rich Redman

A couple of you fans have asked us about TGM getting licenses for Urban Arcana, GeneTech, or other properties. You have to dig around our personal websites to realize that the Mechanics have worked on licensed products like Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game, Pokémon, Diablo, and Star Wars, and those are just some of the ones that got published! When we talk about licenses, it's with the voices of experience. I wanted to take a few minutes and explain why I advise my partners against licenses, but it took days to write and then they got all cranky because it was a lecture on licensing and not an opinion piece. They even accused me of being out of rants! So now they're getting what they asked for.

Licensed properties suck, every one. They are all crass attempts to use a known property or name to sucker you into parting with your hard-earned cash. "But Rich," I hear you say, "Starship Troopers didn't suck. It wasn't the same as the book, but it's a pretty good SciFi movie." You're right. It is a pretty good SciFi movie. In fact, I have no idea why they needed the title of a 40+ year-old novel to sell it. Personally, I thought McHale's Navy was a pretty good action-comedy. It took some giant, and to me uncomfortable, steps away from the TV series however. So either you get something decent that didn't need a license, or you get something awful that uses your enjoyment of the license against you.

Licensed properties suck to work on, too. First of all, if you're working on a license, you want your product to come out while the property is still hot. There is, for example, no point in releasing a Gilligan's Island RPG right now. If someone re-made the series or tried to make a movie franchise out of it, then maybe. This need for close-to-simultaneous release means you're working on something that isn't finished yet. (I'm trying to avoid ranting about a certain computer game license I worked on when the computer game wasn't out and the 3.0 rules hadn't been finished yet. Urge to kill … rising … must ... change … subject ….)

The approval process itself also sucks. No matter how much you love a license, no matter how good a writer you are, you don't know the license as well as the licensor. I don't care how huge a drooling fanboy you are (and some of my best friends are huge drooling fanboys about one thing or another), the people whose employment depends on that license know it better than you do. They have access to documents (like story bibles) that have never been made public. They know confidential business decisions that they can hint at but not state explicitly. So it's a frustrating process of constantly submitting and re-submitting drafts, arguing for compromises that strike a balance between the integrity of the property and the needs of game play. I saw a license stopped dead in its tracks because the author of the original property (no hints; I don't like licenses but I hate lawsuits worse) couldn't stand the idea of anyone else creating the kind of information necessary for an RPG world. You want to be polite, you want to maintain the relationship, you want the chance to make money, but then again you want pound their heads against the table until they tell you everything you need to know instead of waiting for the next draft to tell you something new that's also wrong. All those turnovers stretch your production time out to just about infinity. Might as well face it, the licensor already has its money, from the property and from what you paid for the license. Heck, your contract has a guarantee in it that is a minimum you have to pay every year. So if you don't make your release date, the licensor doesn't care.

The money sounds good, but also usually sucks. Very, very few licenses are actually profitable for the company producing the derivative products. There are exceptions, sure. The d20 license and the OGL are awesome! Of course, they're also free. Businesses pursue licenses for reasons besides money, though. A license can earn you publicity and leverage. Suppose there was a big science fiction movie. As a business, you might decide that license is worth having for the prestige and publicity it brings to your company. As an additional benefit, some distribution channels that don't normally carry your kind of product are willing to because it carries that license. That big science fiction movie might have lunchboxes, action figures, play sets, posters, Halloween costumes, plastic model kits, and more in every department store, toy store, and bookstore in the world. Those channels might not normally carry TCGs or RPGs, but if yours has the science fiction movie's license, they might be willing to try. Once they get used to dealing with you, they may be willing to accept more of your products, even if those don't have that license. Being a familiar sight on store shelves lends your business legitimacy, meaning you can get business loans or more licensing deals on better terms. This idea seduces a lot of people into signing licenses. Then royalties start gobbling up revenue, guarantees come due, and they wind up breaking even or possibly losing money.

Don't even get me started on how much negotiating a licensing agreement can suck. I guess some people out there like stupid animal dominance games and enjoy the process of jockeying for the alpha position, but I don't. If someone else has the leverage, I'm willing to acknowledge it and see how it'd used. If they piss me off, I can always walk away. If I have the leverage, don't fight with me about it or I'll use that leverage to demonstrate my power. I don't have to rule with an iron fist. I don't have to crush other people to make myself feel good. I just want us to agree on who has the power and then get on with business.

I don't mind the nondisparagement clause in licensing contracts. I don't talk explicitly about other businesses whether I respect them and their products or not. Having a licensing agreement with them wouldn't change that. By not talking, I avoid all disparagement issues. What sucks is having a corporate partner. I don't care how good a partner that licensor is, it's another person who has a say in what you write and how you write it. Chances are that person has nowhere near your experience as a game designer and thinks that his greater knowledge of the property makes up for that. No! Shut up, sit in your corner, and when I have questions about the property, I'll ask. Still, I can't really blame them. I've seen too many licensees who don't talk to the property owners, produce a complete and completely screwed up product, forcing them into last minute re-writes. Believe me, signing a license means you have a corporate partner-even if that's just the d20 license. What you do affects your partner, and that gives the partner an obligation to get in your grill. Personally, I like being an independent company. We can do pretty much what we want when we want with no one looking over our shoulders. You'd have to work pretty hard to make me consider giving that up.

Don't get me wrong. If a license is worth having, it's worth paying for. I certainly understand businesses with properties (licensors) wanting to cover the expenses of administering their licenses (lawyers who draw up contracts and amendments and advise on the details of the contracts, licensing managers who develop and execute strategies and review in migraine-inducing detail the various licensed products, etc.). I see the role-playing potential in many properties, including BladeRunner and Aliens. I wholeheartedly bought into Ryan Dancey's explanation of how networks of players benefited game companies (and, in fact, The Game Mechanics benefit from it every time you buy one of our products). I also know that networks don't translate into money on the corporate bottom line. I think you should act to protect your property, including insisting on periodic reviews during the design process. Doesn't mean I like being on the receiving end.

To recap: Licensed properties suck, working on licensed properties sucks, the approvals process sucks, the money sucks a lot more than you think it does, and negotiating a licensing agreement sucks. Licenses take away some of your creative freedom and increase your production cycle while simultaneously making it critical to release your product in synch with the license. The bottom line for me is ego. If I write a licensed product and it kicks ass, I'll never be sure whether it was my writing or the license. If I write my own product, then flip, flop, or fly, I take the credit or the blame.

Your Turn

You've read what Rich thinks of licenses, but maybe you have a different experience or even some questions about Rich's past projects. Click through to our message boards to ask a question or let us know what's on your mind.