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Capcom announce Duck Tales Remastered WOOOOooo by WayForward
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Originally posted by escobarrr View PostOnly North America ? it's a shame, a lot of people everywhere else want it
Somehow I doubt that. I wouldn’t have thought that DuckTales Remastered sold well enough to warrant a global physical release (feel free to correct me on that if I’m wrong).
Even if that were true, this is Capcom we’re talking about. They’re committed to going digital-only where possible with the majority of the software they make.
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Originally posted by Nu-Eclipse View PostProbably.
That and/or Capcom’s licensing agreement with Disney is about to expire anyway?
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Originally posted by Asura View PostIf they had no competing product, there would be no reason for them to not renew (they're not the publisher so it costs them nothing).
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Originally posted by Dogg Thang View PostWait, explain that to me. Presumably it costs someone something to renew it. What am I missing? How is cost not a factor?
Capcom will, during development, have licensed the property from Disney to allow them to sell the game, and Disney will get a cut of those sales (the precise details might be more complex but that's what it boils down to).
Capcom's license will have lasted for a certain duration; that duration has just ended.
For Capcom, continuing to sell the game incurs pretty much no costs, because any support issues are now probably in the distant past.
For Disney, renewing the contract under the same ongoing terms and allowing Capcom to continue to sell and giving Disney their cut is will cost them money, but you're talking about a couple of days' work for their games publishing department, who are likely permanent staff anyway, so while it isn't truly "free", the cost is negligable. It's "free" when you consider that allowing the contract to expire probably requires some work from Disney anyway, even if it's as simple as making some kind of statement, which some staffer has to do.
2013 was different to 2003. By 2012, the big publishers started to wise up and realised that the old way they did deals, with complex time-limited options for things like voice acting and music, wasn't going to fly in the digital future - so they started planning out their digital game contracts to be ongoing and evergreen. It was more expensive at the start, but ultimately should be more lucrative in the long run. This is different for things like racing games (that depend on car manufacturers for licensing) but Disney own Duck Tales, pretty much.
What that means is that it's going to cost Disney a fractional amount to maintain or pull the game, and Capcom shoulder all of the risk. Disney can't lose money in that scenario, so the logical conclusion is that if they didn't sign, they have a competing product coming up in the near future and this was their "off-ramp" to remove this one.
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That seems to be making some pretty big assumptions of the terms of the deal unless the info is actually out there? Which it could well be...? Most of the licensing deals that I would have come across would not be anywhere near as simple as just Disney getting a cut of the sales. There would be up front renewal payments, minimum sale guarantees that have to be paid regardless of what the game actually sells and so on. And that's assuming no licensing conflicts elsewhere, which you bring up. I have no idea what this deal entails - if it is simply that Disney just get a cut of sales then, yeah, I see what you're saying. But that would seem very unusual.
And I'd also say that that lots of elements still contain time-limited deals in certain areas to this day. There is certainly almost no licensing deal that is allowed run forever but even things like voice actors often still have renewable payments after certain time periods and music is still subject to a lot of conditions. Licensing and the legalities of all the pieces is still a very complex area and probably always will be.
But I guess what this comes down to is that I don't know the conditions of this deal. Are they really as simple as a cut of the sales?
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Originally posted by Asura View PostAbsolutely; this however's probably the reason they're not renewing. If they had no competing product, there would be no reason for them to not renew (they're not the publisher so it costs them nothing).
This is Capcom we’re talking about here. I’d personally put it down more to a combination of not wanting to pay the expense to renew the licensing (because, well, Capcom) and the game probably not doing well enough to warrant it in any case.
But I digress. Turns out that I had about a fiver left in my Wii U/3DS eShop account so I was able to download it for £3.95.Last edited by Nu-Eclipse; 09-08-2019, 17:31.
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Originally posted by Dogg Thang View PostMost of the licensing deals that I would have come across would not be anywhere near as simple as just Disney getting a cut of the sales. There would be up front renewal payments, minimum sale guarantees that have to be paid regardless of what the game actually sells and so on. And that's assuming no licensing conflicts elsewhere, which you bring up. I have no idea what this deal entails - if it is simply that Disney just get a cut of sales then, yeah, I see what you're saying. But that would seem very unusual.
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But I guess what this comes down to is that I don't know the conditions of this deal. Are they really as simple as a cut of the sales?
A good example (admittedly on the simplest end of the scale) was back when Chillingo were a big publisher; they just took a flat 20% of revenue in all their contracts. Apple/Google took 30%, Chillingo took 20% and the developer kept 50%.
Again, royalties are a thing and union rules can complicate those (I saw a thing with McCauley Culkin recently where he says that he regularly still gets cheques in the post for 20 cents, 10 cents, 50 cents because some commercial he did in the 80s has had a clip shown on TV somewhere) but the push is been to try and simplify those too.
It's all because digital products offer a regular, potentially endless source of revenue, as opposed to something like movies on VHS, where Disney would commit to a run of say 200k tapes of The Little Mermaid, and have to work out specific deals for each batch with the various parties. Licensing deals are still timed, of course, for products like Duck Tales.
All I'm saying is that in the digital era, with a product that was primarily digital, Disney have no reason not to renew. Take, for example, Warhammer: Dawn of War on Steam, the game from the early 2000s, which was also based on a license. It probably sells practically nothing today, maybe as little as a handful of copies a month, but there's just no reason to pull it unless it's felt that its presence somehow harms business. When their renewal comes up every few years it's probably just "continue the status quo"; it may even have a rolling licensing deal where the company actually has to intervene to end the deal. This is doubly interesting when you consider how Disney shook up their interactive division a few years ago around the time they took down Disney Infinity (which saw them take down other stuff too) but the Duck Tales game survived.
I'm willing to bet that Disney have a Duck Tales game on the way, which they'll announce soon.
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Originally posted by Asura View PostA good example (admittedly on the simplest end of the scale) was back when Chillingo were a big publisher; they just took a flat 20% of revenue in all their contracts. Apple/Google took 30%, Chillingo took 20% and the developer kept 50%..
Edit: And yeah, there will almost certainly be minimum sales targets or the license will revert in even shorter times, never mind the full term of the contract. Disney do not let their licenses gather dust. They have far too much control to let that happen.Last edited by Dogg Thang; 10-08-2019, 09:42.
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Originally posted by Dogg Thang View PostEdit: And yeah, there will almost certainly be minimum sales targets or the license will revert in even shorter times, never mind the full term of the contract. Disney do not let their licenses gather dust. They have far too much control to let that happen.
Though I'm still willing to bet it's because they have a game on the way based on the new series. Let's revisit this in 2025
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