Previously on Extra Credits we talked about the unusual approach that
Games Workshop was taking in licensing out their IP to different studios.
This new strategy of theirs seemed like it would either
revive the struggling company or
fail spectacularly.
Well, a year has now passed.
And just a few weeks ago, James came to a realization:
Every SINGLE game he was in the middle of playing was based on some Games Workshop IP.
So I guess we better look at Warhammer again.
We learned two things from
James's "accidental" delve into the Warhammer universe.
First:
an intervention might be in order.
But second: well basically
that their plan worked;
that the way Games Workshop has been licensing their IP
seems to have been successful.
So let's look at what they did and try to figure out why it worked.
Just to recap though,
what was this bold plan that Games Workshop had to license out their worlds?
Basically, they licensed their IP
to anybody with a pulse and a machine capable of compiling code.
On its face, you can see how that might turn out very, very poorly.
This could have ended in a mountain of bad games
that sunk the value of their IP for years.
Buuut, that didn't happen.
They not only got a host of decent games like
Blood Bowl and Battlefleet: Gothic Leviathan and Warhammer Quest
But they also actually got
a handful of really quality games like
Mordheim and
Vermintide and
Total Warhammer (which, by the way, that is what that game is called, don't anyone dare try to tell me it isn't).
But, OK, why did this work?
Well, first of all, not all of the licensed Games Workshop games WERE hits, but I'm guessing
you don't really remember those.
You're probably aware of at least a few of the pretty good games I mentioned before, but what about
Snotling Fling, Doomwheel, Storm of Vengeance
If any of those
do ring a bell, I bet
you haven't given any of those games thought in a very very long time.
And that
is by design.
The first key to the Games Workshop's shotgun approach to licensing seems to be
Sublicensing
Sublicensing is the fine art of
taking a BiiiG property and breaking off
all the little things that you might conceivably license from it as separate IPs.
Often, this is done in broad strokes.
Like how The Silmarillion is technically a different license than the Lord of the Rings.
Or how all the Marvel characters were licensed separately and often to different studios.
(At least until
Disney consolidated them.)
But the folks at Games Workshop are going buck wild with this.
If you look at those subpar games that I listed before, notice how... two of those
are licenses for just a single Warhammer unit.
One solitary unit from a game with literally hundreds of them.
That is like taking
the Lord of the Rings license, and breaking off the...
Farmer Maggot character into his own solo license for some studio to try to build a game around.
It's kind of brilliant in a way.
Because if you look at all the Warhammer brand games that have come out,
it appears that Games Workshop gives the really small, inconsequential licenses
to studios that they aren't 100% confident in.
That way if the studio
blows it, well...
then Games Workshop just lets that game quietly vanish into obscurity
and their brands doesn't take that much of a hit.
But if I were to wager a guess, I would bet that they tell all of those studios that
if they nail it, they'll be given
a meatier piece of the Warhammer license next time.
And this allows Games Workshop to try studios out.
Embracing the successes and leaving the failures to wither without much cost.
So that's what's happening with the small licenses.
The medium-sized ones go to teams that Games Workshop knows can deliver, but
they aren't mega studios.
These mid-size licenses might be something chunky like
a Spacemarine chapter, but just as often
there'll be some
expansion or a
spin-off that has its own unique feel.
These are your Blood Bowls and your Vermintides.
This allows Games Workshop to get a variety of products, without those games
competing too much with each other mechanically or thematically.
And then the core licenses:
40k and
Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
Those go to the AAA studios who are able to go big and make stuff like
Total Warhammer and Dawn of War.
We should also talk about
Games Workshop's marketing approach though, because
they know that the popularity of their IP will
automatically create some initial visibility for all of these games, without heavy marketing investment.
And that allows them to wait and see how a title is initially received before
investing more money marketing it.
You'll notice that
almost all of their low- and mid-tier licenses... They don't seem to get much of a push
unless they look like they're gonna do really well.
And even then, that push comes way later in the cycle than usual,
sometimes not until after launch.
Moreover that push comes
through Games Workshop's existing marketing channels like
their stores or
their magazine, and not through Games Workshop
spending any additional money.
This allows them to save their
marketing muscle for the titles they know are good, or at least
the ones they know are gonna appeal to their audience.
And they let the rest just quietly slide into oblivion.
Because the Warhammer licenses are just that darn huge and widely known
this approach seems to be working.
And, actually, let's talk about that IP.
One of the advantages things like Fantasy Battle and 40k have is that they are
incredibly fleshed out properties. Between
the games,
the books,
the game books, and
the miniatures, Games Workshop IP
has hundreds of characters and locations at their disposal, all of them
packed with detail and flavor,
and with a lot of established mechanics.
This pre-existing depth not only gives Games Workshop the ability to sublicense
down to the micro level like they do, but also provides
a detailed blueprint for any company working with their IP, which reduces the risk of companies producing
conflicting or disjointed games under those licenses.
More than that though,
this pre-existing depth also provides an interesting reinforcing effect
to their shotgun-style licensing.
Having such a broad and robustly built out set of universes means that
each game can serve as a rabbit hole leading towards the others.
It's a lot like the Marvel Universe effect:
Each product introduces you to and gets you excited about some of the others.
But the final piece of this puzzle
is IP quality control.
Not GAME quality control, mind you,
quality control of the IP Itself.
The quality of the games may vary pretty wildly, but
IP quality control helps to ensure that
everything published under that IP
stays true to that IP.
And Games Workshop is very good at this.
I think GW probably realized very early on that they had
neither the capacity nor the resources to micromanage every one of these projects into being good.
But what they did have
was a large number of people
who are very intimately familiar with the worlds and the lore of their own tabletop games.
And when you look at the slew of Warhammer titles that have come out,
it looks like Games Workshop is putting that strength to use.
Because even the bad Warhammer games still have that
proper Warhammer flavor.
Games Workshop may not be able to control the quality of all those games,
but they almost certainly asked for final approval on how everything looked and felt. And this means that
even when people hated one of those licensed games, that hate
is much less likely to transfer over to actual Games Workshop products.
Heck, if they're lucky, anybody who plays a bad Games Workshop license product will say to themselves:
"Well that was disappointing.
I want to play a good game set in this universe."
All of which leads to
more sales for their core games,
more people knowing about their universe, and
the value of their IP increasing.
So it would seem that this shotgun approach to licensing where
even the smallest dev has a chance at working with a tiny splinter of this major IP...
It can be effective.
It requires some very specific variables from the company and from the IP itself,
so it's not an option for most companies; but it does mean that
for a company like Games Workshop,
licensing exclusively to AAA companies for enormous fees isn't the only option anymore.
We'll see you next week.