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License to Buzzkill
Five reasons games based on movies, toys, and TV shows almost always suck...

You've heard the horror stories: landfills piled high with Atari E.T. cartridges, Superman 64, ruining the value of your DC Comics collection, and the mere mention of entering a "matrix" inciting seizures. Licensed games' sordid past is enough to make any gamer think thrice about playing anything tied to a hot property. But as development costs rise, such games are an appealing safety net for publishers who can count on licensed content for easy profits. Let's hope the publishers pay attention to these reason licensed games so often go wrong...

Reason 1: They're just products
As Scott Rogers, creative manager at THQ, explains the target audience of these games is made up of fans who buy the toys, the clothing, and the shampoo, so licensed games are often treated as mere marketing extensions of a parent product. Peter Wanat, an executive producer at publisher Vivendi Games, adds, [Developers know] that if we [have] the license for X property, we're going to be able to sell a certain number of units because we'll put it on TV. We'll market it and we'll target it to kids because you know they are far less discriminating."

Reason 2: They have to ship by the premiere
When a game is tied to a movie, the developer is encouraged to ship by the film's theatrical release. "You've got to hit your ship date because you're depending on the marketing push of the movie -- that window of buzz," says Cam Weber, senior producer at Scarface developer Radical Entertainment. On such tight schedules, developers are forced to choose between fixing bugs and adding features. Neither choice benefits the consumer. "You're cutting quality," Weber says. "You're cutting depth to try to make a date."

Reason 3: The bully factor
When you're in charge of a licensed game, you're caretaking someone else's intellectual property. Whether dazed by star power or intimidated by the power tie, developers are frequently compelled to comply with the suits' wishes, even at the detriment of the overall product. "Producers are so anxious to just please their counterparts on the Hollywood side that they basically get bullied," Wanat says. "Then the game comes [out], and the producer is caught like a deer in headlights when he realizes he way overpromised what he can deliver."

Reason 4: They suffer from copycat syndrome
These days, it seems like every other game is modeled after Grand Theft Auto. In the world of licensed-game production, borrowed gameplay mechanics are even more commonplace. "You don't have time to innovate," says Weber, "so what you get is a lot of very safe, very tried-and-true features that the team has done before with a license slapped on top of it."

Reason 5: They clone the flick
Consumers buy licesned games because they offer an extension of a beloved property's universe -- an experience that goes beyond what the camera captures. But more often than not, this concept translates into experiencing exactly what you've watched at the theater or on TV. "You saw the f***ing movie," Wanat points out. "If you play a game where you saw the movie already, you know how it ends. What f***ing fun is that?"