Capcom wants to make Hollywood games

Not only is Capcom rather intent on getting their game licenses into the silver screen – especially in the cases of Street Fighter, Resident Evil, and Onimusha – they are also rather intent on getting some silver screen licenses into the gaming world. According to Hollywood Reporter (quite a different source from those which we are used to), they’ve taken a step towards that by hiring Germaine Gioia to fill the newly-created post of Senior VP – Licensing in Los Angeles.

Check Ms. Gioia’s resume and you’ll find good experience in taking Nickelodeon IP and turning them into GameBoy sellers for THQ. Now you know what Capcom is looking out for – no, not Nickelodeon (or even Cartoon Network, for that matter). They’re looking to get IP from that industry and negotiate to turn them into games to add to Capcom’s catalog. Now the question is: why? The answer:

Gioia said that with next-generation gaming development costs reaching peaks of $10 million-$12 million to develop a game for a single platform, Hollywood licenses become important to reach a broad enough audience to have sales of close to a million units at launch.

Fair enough – and the games industry has always used popular movie IP and franchises to make games, albeit with decidedly mixed results (hey, Rare’s Goldeneye was great, but only one or two EA follow-ups to the Bond games could even hold a candle, for example). Capcom is simply institutionalizing the process within its corporate structure. Fair enough. Now we’re wonder how a Borat game might turn out…

Not only is Capcom rather intent on getting their game licenses into the silver screen – especially in the cases of Street Fighter, Resident Evil, and Onimusha – they are also rather intent on getting some silver screen licenses into the gaming world. According to Hollywood Reporter (quite a different source from those which we are used to), they’ve taken a step towards that by hiring Germaine Gioia to fill the newly-created post of Senior VP – Licensing in Los Angeles.

Check Ms. Gioia’s resume and you’ll find good experience in taking Nickelodeon IP and turning them into GameBoy sellers for THQ. Now you know what Capcom is looking out for – no, not Nickelodeon (or even Cartoon Network, for that matter). They’re looking to get IP from that industry and negotiate to turn them into games to add to Capcom’s catalog. Now the question is: why? The answer:

Gioia said that with next-generation gaming development costs reaching peaks of $10 million-$12 million to develop a game for a single platform, Hollywood licenses become important to reach a broad enough audience to have sales of close to a million units at launch.

Fair enough – and the games industry has always used popular movie IP and franchises to make games, albeit with decidedly mixed results (hey, Rare’s Goldeneye was great, but only one or two EA follow-ups to the Bond games could even hold a candle, for example). Capcom is simply institutionalizing the process within its corporate structure. Fair enough. Now we’re wonder how a Borat game might turn out…