Buying back Champions video game licensing rights?

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

 but Hero has never done anything to annoy potential fans. 

 

*cough*Fuzion*cough*

 

But seriously, while that might be said about Hero Games, Champions Online has done a number of things to annoy fans, which many people are going to associate with the whole property. The lack of new content for years is probably the biggest one, but the developers' very frequent pop-culture references and silly "humor" did aggravate no few players. So did their heavy emphasis on magic as the metaplot for the whole setting, leaving many players complaining it felt like fantasy in spandex.

 

None of that is inherent to the Champions Universe, as I frequently illustrated on CO's discussion forums. But the stink is on it and it wouldn't be simple to wash off.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Duke Bushido]

 

Nope

Edited August 18, 2023 by Duke Bushido
Poorly-thought out phrasing offended a friend. Better to destroy it than make it worse with botched attempt at correction.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah, that's not stuff that would irritate comic book fans in general, just specifically Hero gaming fans, and minor annoyance at that.

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, Simon said:

So the sales pitch is that the company should pay for relatively unknown IP so that their artists/creatives can be constrained in what they do best...rather than letting those same creatives save them time and money by simply creating their own world/characters (and the art to go along with)?

 

The key being that the buyer needs to see enough savings on in-house creative staff to cover the cost of the IP, plus a profit margin.  For Marvel/DC, there is the added benefit of an existing fanbase.  For CU, not so much. 

 

Many developers who work with licensed IP constrain about the constraints imposed on their product.  Buying the IP and taking control solves that, but now you need those in-house creative staff to develop and build on it, so your savings are only one-time, and you lose some getting the in-house staff up to speed with the IP they did not create and were not previously involved with.

[Sketchpad]

8 hours ago, Simon said:

Why would a company pay for a "relatively unknown" IP when they could just create their own (as was done in the very examples you cite)?  What's the sell?

4 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

The only reason would be any savings (time and $$) by using existing material rather than developing it internally.  From the game developer's perspective, Hero's IP is not a great choice as the computer gamers want to see regular content updates, and Hero isn't generating new content nearly rapidly enough to be a reliable source, so all they save is up front "initial world" development.

OTOH, Marvel and DC are not going to sell the IP rights in perpetuity like Hero did, so the developer is always at risk of the license not being renewed. That risk is also avoided by developing the IP in-house, of course.

 

Overall, if there was a huge benefit to be had, Cryptic would either exploit the IP or sell their rights to someone who will.  If they had a Marvel license, I have no doubt Marvel would be shopping the renewal rights around given how cryptic has faltered, but Marvel has a steady stream of new content (Movies, TV, comics) to market a game with their IP. 

 

Agreed that there is no real business case for the CU IP.

 

Well to begin with, cost savings. It would be easier, I would imagine, to work with a relatively unknown IP than something that's considered a multi-media giant. That said, there is a fanbase already built for Champions, and the ability to work with that could be in their favor IF they know how to market it and create the fervor needed for it to be successful. Let's look at Mark Millar for a second. Here's a guy who created a bunch of indie books (as well as some mainstream ones) that moved beyond the comics. Wanted, Kingsmen, Jupiter's Legacy... the guy cranks these things out almost like he's printing money. They're okay books, the movies can be fun, and some have even gone on to video games. Is he a great writer? That's subjective. What he is is a decent businessman. He hitched his wagon to Netflix a while back and is basically a content creator for them. Pretty much every comic he makes is owned by the streaming giant, and gives them a golden goose to make new works with. 
How does this apply to Champions? It's a similar concept, but needs a person/team to bring it some visibility. Why is D&D 5e doing so well, even amidst the crazy OGL steps they made? They have streamers and influencers buying into their brand. Critical Role, Dimension 20, and a slew of other shows hammer D&D into the brains of all that are watching. People want those kind of games, and to emulate those kind of groups. Add in that they have their own video game branch, and the money from Hasbro, and they can make slip ups and still land on their toes. For Champions, or any game IP, to be successful these days, you need people to see it, play it, folks to talk about it outside of its own groups, and people to understand it. Achieve these three things, and you'd see things change for the IP, and for the game as well. 

 

7 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Sketch, the thing is, what you're talking about was already tried, by Cryptic Studios. A developer with name recognition and experience in the genre, who put money and talent into designing it. The Champions IP already has a reputation among computer game designers, as that superhero game that started off promising but faltered, and that relatively few people play now. The IP was never fully exploited, and what Cryptic chose to do with it often doesn't reflect what the setting is really about; but that's what others in the CRPG field see when you mention Champions.

 

The ones who see its full potential are those of us in this community, and none of us are in a position to exploit it in the computer game field. It's a lovely dream, and playing "what if" is fun, but until one of us with game design credibility obtains a big whack of capital, it's just a dream.

 

Sure. But Cryptic dropped the ball with CO from the get-go, LL. I'm sure there were a ton of us that quickly bought in to play a MMO version of our favorite game, but what we got just wasn't Champions. At least not for me. The graphics were faltering even for the time, the game really felt reskinned, and, for me, it didn't feel like Champions. I always felt bad for anyone who bought a lifetime license, particularly since the game never really got better. IMHO, it felt like Cryptic had this thought about how cool a Champions MMO could be, and then just said "meh" during development. That has little to do with the IP, and more about the company it currently rests with. 

If a decent company was able to get the Champions IP and really do something with it... basically multi-media the heck out of it... I think it could contend with some of the smaller  to medium companies out there. What if someone like Dark Horse or Skybound could produce something new? What would a Champions game look like if Sony Interactive or Insomniac Games took a stab at it? There are more Hero and Champions fans out there that remember the game as something fun... the problem is they needed to be reminded why it was fun. 

I would go into my usual rant about book design and production quality, but I've gotten tired of repeating myself. I'm sure you can find it on the boards if you search my name. Someday I would love to see Champions return to what it was and could've been... heck, I hope I can even help at times...

[Lord Liaden]

6 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Bite your tongue, Sir! 

 

If you had all the NM books and some other Fuzion game, you had a complete-ish game.

 

What's the problem?

 

And the art (except for Grond) was way ahead of anything up to that point, style-wise.

 

 

 

 

 

Right you are.  No irritating insistence on magic being the be-all, end-all for the Champions Universe in the published material; no siree, Bob!  Nothing official choked magic at you as the cause or source of anything, and no one ever had to lump what happens as magic ebbs and flows in the official stuff.

 

"Irritated," you say?

 

Imagine that....

 

 

 

 

Not going to debate either of those with you, Duke. In both cases I'm just reporting what I very commonly heard and read from many disgruntled players. The point isn't whether someone agrees or not, it's what's actually spread among the community. And that affects the perceived desirability of the IP.

[Hugh Neilson]

18 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

Well to begin with, cost savings. It would be easier, I would imagine, to work with a relatively unknown IP than something that's considered a multi-media giant.

 

It would be easier if your goal is to develop your own content. But then, why not just develop all your own content from scratch, rather than acquire an obscure IP - no, the CU is not going to attract hundreds of thousands of subscribers from the ranks of Hero Gamers - that will only provide a starting point because it is not generating much, if any, new content. A multimedia giant regularly spins off new content, so all we need to do is adapt it to the game.

 

18 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

How does this apply to Champions? It's a similar concept, but needs a person/team to bring it some visibility. Why is D&D 5e doing so well, even amidst the crazy OGL steps they made? They have streamers and influencers buying into their brand. Critical Role, Dimension 20, and a slew of other shows hammer D&D into the brains of all that are watching. People want those kind of games, and to emulate those kind of groups. Add in that they have their own video game branch, and the money from Hasbro, and they can make slip ups and still land on their toes. For Champions, or any game IP, to be successful these days, you need people to see it, play it, folks to talk about it outside of its own groups, and people to understand it. Achieve these three things, and you'd see things change for the IP, and for the game as well.

 

D&D is a known brand name.  They won the marketing war. Where would you expect Hero to get the investment capital to publicize their name to a remotely similar extent?

 

[Ninja-Bear]

4 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

It would be easier if your goal is to develop your own content. But then, why not just develop all your own content from scratch, rather than acquire an obscure IP - no, the CU is not going to attract hundreds of thousands of subscribers from the ranks of Hero Gamers - that will only provide a starting point because it is not generating much, if any, new content. A multimedia giant regularly spins off new content, so all we need to do is adapt it to the game.

 

 

D&D is a known brand name.  They won the marketing war. Where would you expect Hero to get the investment capital to publicize their name to a remotely similar extent?

 

Well If i won that huge lottery, I could use it as a tax write off? 😁

[Lord Liaden]

At this point you could call it a charitable donation. 😈

[Duke Bushido]

Nope

Edited August 18, 2023 by Duke Bushido
As above

[Sketchpad]

11 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

It would be easier if your goal is to develop your own content. But then, why not just develop all your own content from scratch, rather than acquire an obscure IP - no, the CU is not going to attract hundreds of thousands of subscribers from the ranks of Hero Gamers - that will only provide a starting point because it is not generating much, if any, new content. A multimedia giant regularly spins off new content, so all we need to do is adapt it to the game.

 

 

D&D is a known brand name.  They won the marketing war. Where would you expect Hero to get the investment capital to publicize their name to a remotely similar extent?

 

 

I stand by what I said. There are ways to bring popularity to the brand without spending a fortune. It would need more serendipity than money in many ways. The right group, with the right story can create the right ripples. In a dream line up, taking super-streamers and gaming Hero would be awesome, and potentially create something amazing for Hero and Champions. The problem is, that group hasn't been found yet to tell that story.

 

And D&D may have won the battle, but the war still rages on, Hugh, and there's no end that I know...

[Hugh Neilson]

The war certainly rages on.  I think it was a huge shocker some years back when Pathfinder briefly outsold D&D.

 

Wars require financing and troops.

[Lord Liaden]

16 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

 

It would need more serendipity than money in many ways.

 

 

Serendipity is unquantifiable and unpredictable. The odds of the kind of serendipity you're talking about for Hero are up there with winning a major lottery. Most of us have imagined what we'd do with a big lottery prize, but no one who's realistic bases their financial plan around it.

[Sketchpad]

7 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

The war certainly rages on.  I think it was a huge shocker some years back when Pathfinder briefly outsold D&D.

 

Wars require financing and troops.

 

Pathfinder still occasionally outsells D&D. I wouldn't be shocked if you see D&D dip a bit when Critical Role brings out more of their own systems, or when Kobold Press releases their new game. I agree with the troops statement... but financing is all in what you can bring to the table. 3PP could really help Hero and Champions become more visible, particularly if they're of a good quality. 

 

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Serendipity is unquantifiable and unpredictable. The odds of the kind of serendipity you're talking about for Hero are up there with winning a major lottery. Most of us have imagined what we'd do with a big lottery prize, but no one who's realistic bases their financial plan around it.

 

Maybe. But there are other ways to help a game outside of spending money. Don't get me wrong, buy products and all. But many of the popular games haven't gotten that without some serious work. That work doesn't necessarily equate to more money, but rather doing serious promotions. In a world where the internet is a low rent resource, there are better ways to create decent promotions. 

 

Let me ask everyone... if Hero (or any company for that matter) offered a Kickstarter to help them become more popular, would you support it? What would you expect in return? What do YOU think we (as fans) need to make Champions a better product line? What does Hero need? Yes, this has been asked before. But seriously... I'm not talking about "if I won the lottery" fantasies. What could Hero do right now that would make the game better for you?

 

Edit: What do you think Champions' main competitor is? What's Hero's?

Edited August 18, 2023 by Sketchpad

[Lord Liaden]

Are you still talking about a Champions computer game? We've had many discussions over the years about how to "help" Hero Games tabletop.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Sketchpad]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Are you still talking about a Champions computer game? We've had many discussions over the years about how to "help" Hero Games tabletop.

 

True. I'm straying too far from the topic. My apologies to the OP. This is a discussion for another thread, and another time.