The Gaming Outpost

There is currently a renaissance going on in the computer game industry. It seems that more truly excellent products are coming out than ever before. From the simply stunning Half-Life to genre benders like Heretic II to upcoming products like Kingpin and Daikatana, the age of pure game design is back. Coincidentally, there’s one thing all four of the mentioned games have in common: they are all built on id Software’s Quake 2 engine. Sure, there are countless modifications and additions but, underneath, they are all running on the same year old piece of code.

Now, you’re asking, what does this have to do with gaming? Well, it seems that computer game developers have discovered a little secret, one that helps them make better products: licensing. Rather than try to build their own engine from scratch, a great deal of developers are turning to other people’s work as a basis for their own. This may sound like a shortcut or an excuse for not doing your own work, but the final products being released more than speak for the foolishness of that. This is something the gaming industry would do well to learn.

How many times have you picked up a new RPG because the setting appealed to you? You read it and loved the world. Then you got to the rules. Several weeks or months later, after you’d converted your new game to a better system, you’re ready to play. That is, until the first sourcebook comes out. Then you have to go back and continue building your conversion, wasting time that should be going into the creation of particularly evil adventures for your players. This isn’t the way things should work. If a company is going to put a product on the market, it is their responsibility to make sure it is the best it can possibly be. And, if the best isn’t good enough, they shouldn’t release it in the first place. I know that making a rules system is difficult, I’ve made a few myself. In fact, getting something that’s playable while not being broken can take years of development, time that most companies don’t have. The solution? Pay someone else for his system.

I should point out that this has been done a few times already. R. Talsorian’s Fuzion is a perfect example of a licensing system that was moderately successful. And now, Oroborus has entered the scene. Will they succeed? I certainly hope so. The main argument against licensing a system is that the game designer doesn’t have the monetary resources to do it. But isn’t it worth the risk?

Let’s use GURPS as an example. Now, I know that many of you have problems with the system but, for the sake of argument, pretend it’s perfect in every way. Okay, so Startup Games wants to release their new RPG, Really Cool Fantasy (RCF). They have a great setting that they know people will love. The problem is, they’ve been developing the setting around AD&D and they aren’t very happy with the rules. The manager of Startup Games loves GURPS, however. Let’s pretend Steve Jackson Games has a licensing program where they will let Startup use their system in exchange for a small portion of the profits and the rights to publish any additions to the system made by Startup in an upcoming Licensed Games Compendium product (I’m basing this on the licensing plan for Oroborus, if it sounds familiar). The manager of Startup has to make a choice. On the one hand, he can quickly put together a system for RCF and send the game out to store shelves. Maybe people will look past the shoddy rules and see the glory of the setting. Maybe they won’t. On the other hand, Startup could use the GURPS system. Yes, they would take a slight monetary hit in their profits. But what do they gain? They gain a system with name recognition and the rights to put a logo on their book that is sure to catch the eye of prospective buyers. They get a system that is tried and true, one that people know so they won’t have to introduce their group to yet another set of rules just because they want to play in a new setting. And, most of all, they get the time that would have gone into developing their own system; time that can be put into other things like the setting or advertising. The money they loose licensing will more than be made up for in the increased sales their game will get.

I know that many game developers out there don’t want to admit that their system isn’t the greatest. They may love it and play it all the time. But how many systems out there are terrible? How many games out there would benefit from having better rules? How many times have you turned down the purchase of a product because you didn’t want to have to deal with a new dice mechanic? System licensing would solve all these problems. If it works for the video game industry, a place where countless millions are at stake, why can’t it work for our much smaller community?