Licenses to drive

Eurocom isn't the first name that springs to mind when discussing British development teams, but the company has been producing games for 16 years, and has over 70 titles under its belt.

But if the name doesn't ring bells, the franchises it's worked on certainly will. Batman, Harry Potter, Ice Age, Spyro, Buffy, James Bond - Eurocom are the go-to guys for games based on licensed IP.

GamesIndustry.biz caught up with Hugh Binns, co-founder of Eurocom, to discuss the pros and cons of developing games attached to heavy-weight licenses, the company's plans to develop original IP and its aspirations for the future...

Hugh Binns: We've always preferred to keep our heads down and let our games speak for themselves. The confidential nature of our developments has often limited what we could talk about anyway.

We are well known and respected within the publishing and licensor community, and our track record for hit titles is as strong as any independent developer anywhere in the world. However, we want to raise our profile to help with recruitment. We have a great deal to offer experienced staff and graduates, but many haven't heard of us or don't realise the sort of opportunities we can offer to them.

The majority of Eurocom titles are based on licensed IP. Does the team have a desire to create its own IP in the future - to work on a title wholly owned by Eurocom and featuring its own design and ideas?

It's been a goal since we started the company 18 years ago, but solely developing original IP is the riskiest business model and rarely successful unless balanced with lower risk developments.

We feel very fortunate we've had the opportunity to work on so many top tier licenses. They are creatively interesting, very secure, offer big budgets and the chance to work with top talent from film and animation has really helped us develop our skills.

Typically we have four to five projects in production and one will be an original development - the most recent being Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, licensed to THQ. We've enjoyed critical success for our original games but haven't yet achieved the major commercial success we've enjoyed from our license based games.

We've learnt valuable lessons from our previous original developments, and creating an original triple-A franchise is one of our most important objectives for next-gen. It's something we are actively working on right now.

Do you feel that games based on licensed product and brands get bad press? They are often cited as being generic or mediocre to appeal to the lowest common denominator and reach the widest possible market.

There are still too many rubbish licensed games that are obviously rushed and buggy, and don't seem well designed to appeal to their target audience. Generally though, I think the standard of licensed games has steadily risen and many have a good mix of innovative features along with more familiar mechanics.

I do think many of the best licensed games are marked too low, especially by the hardcore press. It's very difficult for a game based on a mass-market license to achieve a score beyond the mid-to-high 70s.

What are some of the challenges encountered on working on such well-loved and high revenue earning brands such as Bond, Buffy and Harry Potter?

There are challenges with any license. There is often a limited amount of time due to a critical release date, which can be compounded by the number of dependencies around assets and reference delivery.

Approvals can also be challenging. There are generally many stakeholders involved with licenses and you have to take the time to fully understand everyone's view and come up with a creative approach that makes for a great game whilst remaining faithful to the underlying IP.

There are many opportunities in developing licensed games as well though. It's fascinating to be able to work with, and contribute to, such rich characters and worlds.

More recently, we are seeing far more IP owners and creators who see games as more than just a licensing opportunity and want to use games as a medium to develop and expand their work. It's a much more collaborative process now and we see far more support and direct involvement from licensors, and often from the original creators themselves.

What are Eurocom's main priorities when working with publishers such as EA, THQ and VU Games? Pleasing the publisher, or pleasing the consumer?

Generally publishers and developers both look to please their consumers. There is typically a wealth of research and focus testing undertaken to help understand how best to achieve that. Publishers will already have a direction in mind when they approach us, and sometimes have a very clear brief of the game they want. Occasionally you can get a creative difference during development, but you just have to make your case and work it out.

UK music, movies and television is often cited as the best in the world. Would you like to see more licensed titles based on brands considered truly British - Dr. Who, Spooks - these brands that really help raise the profile of UK creative entertainment?

Of course, and it's great to see the success of the likes of Harry Potter, James Bond and Lord of the Rings worldwide.

The financial side of very UK-centric content is always going to be challenging though. No matter how strong the subject matter, the biggest publishers won't want to make the sort of investment needed in marketing to build awareness globally unless they own or control the IP.

It could work for some of the mid-tier UK based publishers but there are less of those around these days. The budget publishers would be interested but probably won't be able to give the developers the time and budget to do justice to the subject material. In time, Xbox Live Arcade or e-distribution could be an option perhaps, and smaller budget handheld development could be viable.

You've proven that you can work on the biggest licenses and produce hit titles, so why hasn't one of the big publishers snapped up Eurocom? How difficult is it remaining independent in today's market?

It can be difficult to be an independent, but that's always been the case, and we've had plenty of practice at it by now. We've not wanted to be snapped-up.

What does being an independent developer mean to Eurocom? If a publisher came knocking asking you to name your price, would you have to stop and think about it?

We are happy being independent, and it's been a very successful course for us. It's has it's own challenges but gives great freedom to pick and choose the games and genres we work on, our technology and our publishing partners and platforms.

It means we can control our own destiny and make the investments we think we need to secure our teams' future and advance the company, which is particularly important at this time of transition.

What can we expect from Eurocom during the next-generation of video gaming? Will Eurocom continue to work across all available formats, or does it see any particular formats as having an upper hand?

We think we are very well positioned for this generation and looking forward to showing what we can do, particularly in terms of overall quality, gameplay innovation and technology. We have a number of triple-A next-gen projects underway.

We have a strong relationship with Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft and intend to support all three manufacturers. We expect a further broadening of the market with this generation, and that all three manufacturers will establish a strong and viable market for us.