EA: “Movie-game business is falling apart”

Talking to Develop, EA Games prez Frank Gibeau has admitted that – for EA, at least – the movie-to-game stuff isn’t working out. 

Asked if the publisher intends to push out any more James Bond games after Blood Stone tanked, he says, “No, absolutely not. We dumped that licence because we felt like we needed to own more intellectual property, and we don’t like where James Bond is going with all the creative limitations on it. The percentage royalties you have to pay the licensors are going the wrong way for publishers. The margins are being squeezed. And, to top it all off, the movie-game business is falling apart.”

I’m not convinced it was ever in one piece, mind you. I could probably count on one hand the number of decent games adapted from films (DEBATE IN THE COMMENTS, GO GO GO).

“Considering the total amount of money we have to spend on those types of James Bond games, and the total amount of man-hours we had to put into them, we thought; hell, let’s work on our own IP. The guys who made James Bond games for us, well yeah, they went on and made Dead Space,” adds Gibeau. “And look where we are now; what would you rather publish, retail and play – the latest James Bond or Dead Space 2?”

Oooh, oooh oooh! I know the answer!

http://www.develop-online.net/features/1065/A-Frank-discussion-with-EA