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Analyst: Dark Knight No-Show Cost EA and Warner $100 mln
By Tom Ivan
August 8, 2008
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"I don't think they expected The Dark Knight movie to be this big”
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter says EA and Warner Bros. have missed out on $100 million in sales by deciding not to release a Dark Knight videogame alongside the $400 million box office smash movie.
While the Dark Knight movie has been breaking box office records and associated merchandise has been selling like hot cakes, EA, which has the rights to make a game based on the property, and franchise owner Warner Bros. have ensured that, for the first time in the film-franchise's history, a Batman movie has released without a videogame attached.
A Dark Knight game was in production at EA-owned Pandemic Studios, an EA manager told The Associated Press under terms of anonymity, while film star Gary Oldman said in a recent interview that he had seen a "tiny little piece" of the game.
According to the news agency, ‘Speculation about the cause for the disappearing act has included missed deadlines, Heath Ledger's death, questionable quality and poor sales projections.’
While EA’s 2005 Batman Begins game sold just 587,000 copies, according to NPD figures, videogame industry analyst Pachter told The AP that a Dark Knight game released at the same time as the movie could have sold four million units and generated $100 million, $70 million of which would have gone to the game's publisher and $30 to Warner Bros.
“I think publishers have concluded the only games that work are the surefire $500 million box office kind of games like Spider-Man and Shrek," he said.
“The Transformers game really surprised people how well it did, but the movie was big. I don't think they expected The Dark Knight movie to be this big.”
A Dark Knight game may still be in the works, but the EA manager who confirmed its existence said such a game isn't on the publisher’s release slate through March 2009.
4 million units? That's pretty optimistic, particularly considering it's a game no one has "officially" ever seen (i.e., it hasn't been demo'd to the press, or shown at E3, etc.). I'd call it a number taken straight from his arse, which is where I think most video game analysts pull things...
Typical EA mentality.
The previous movie did very good, but the lackluster game (averaged ~67% on reviews) did not sell amazingly well.
Having another hit movie on the way, one with even greater potential, EA decided to halt production rather than put in the effort to make a good or even great game. Now, seeing the chance to screw over games and make a quick buck, it may scramble to push something out the door.
Bravo, EA, bravo.
Why wouldn't they expect the first Batman film to (FINALLY) be more or less based on the comics to do well?
At any rate, I'm kind of relieved. If it was actually well done you could base a game off of it, but for how these licensed titles actually are, there's something inappropriate feeling about tying in something to a film like The Dark Knight (or The Godfather for that matter).
On the other hand, the game based on Batman Begins was actually decent (especially technically).
Iron Man was an awesome film...but is anyone happy to have terrible games "based" on it available?
Analyst predictions only face a 50% chance of being correct or wrong. In Patchter’s defense I understand his reputation is above average in the industry and opportunity for this title has not been missed yet.
EA made the right choice to release the game when it’s complete and not half baked. The general population has been shifting more and more away from theater movie releases to home releases over the past years. Hollywood will rave how much revenue the opening weekend has brought in, but they fail to mention that this is because of inflated ticket prices when comparing with previous films.
Looking forward and should the game launch, it could arrive shortly after the DVD/Blu-ray release. This would give an opportunity to improve the image of reputation and quality associated with EA that has been damaged over the past years.
I dont think it was even a week ago when we read the headline 'no more licensed crap games from EA' or something like that.
So it clearly not an oversight, its a focus on quality.
Damn if you do damn if you dont... when EA was churning out crap just cause it made money they were an evil empire, now that there may actually be a culture that values quality over qty and $$ ... they are leaving money on the table.
lately ive become a huge fan of EA, and they still have a lot of people to convince, but oh man what a beautiful holiday line-up we have
Lop off heads? That's kinda violent. Dude...relax......why so serious?
On August 8th Ozzman_79 said:
Lop off heads? That's kinda violent. Dude...relax......why so serious?
LOL
On another interesting side-note, I wonder how much money OTHER publishers have opted to leave on the table for not choosing to bring their A-Game over to the Wii. It seems as if some peoples' heads should be lopped off in the boardroom (figuratively speaking, of course) for these types of decisions.