[MUD-Dev] Movies bigger than games? (was Re: Digital Property Law)

[greg underwood]

------Original Message------
From: Matt Mihaly
Sent: March 28, 2001 3:53:20 AM GMT
> On Sun, 18 Mar 2001, Koster, Raph wrote:
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From:
>>> Matt Mihaly
>>> Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2001 10:44 AM

<header cleaned up for brevity's sake>

>>> Merchandising from games is trivial compared to merchandising from
>>> movies.

>> Er, Pokemon?

> Touche. That is, however, only one product, and the only video game
> I can think of that's ever spawned any serious (ie multi-billion)
> level of merchandising. Movies, on the other hand, do it pretty
> regularly.

Pokemon was not created solely as a [video] game.  In fact, the
cartoon was released first.  However, the entire thing was planned
from the beginning as a multi-level deal, with the cartoon just
being the starting point.

There was an article on Salon about WotC in general, where they
mention some of the details on Pokemon.

Article is here:

  http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/03/23/wizards/index.html

the specific page:

  http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/03/26/wizards_part2/index2.html

and the relevant comments about half way down the page:

  "Nintendo of Japan designed the Pokemon property from the ground up
  as a prefab fad whose innate collectibility could be exploited
  across multiple media. ... Through video games, comics, television
  shows, movies, toys and trading-card games..."

It's all very similar to the close tie-ins cartoons have had with
their associated action figure line.  Sometimes it's hard to tell
which came first, usually they're thought up at the same time.  A
Sprite commercial made fun of this, talking about a fictional
movie/product line for Slug Man or some such.  Unfortunately
adcritic.com doesn't seem to have the commerical up... I would have
loved to have linked to it... ;).

-Greg
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