In my short career in this industry, I’ve worked on 4 licensed titles. Initially, I had no contact with the Licensors, but since moving into the role of Project Coordinator, one of my responsibilities involves liaising with our Licensors. Here’s a step-by-step run through of how to get a licensed character approved to appear in the game:

(Let’s call this character Fred the Fish, solely made up in my own head and any references to any real licensed character is purely coincidental)

1. Licensor sends over what they have on Fred. This includes turnarounds, existing 3D models or maquettes, concept sketches, animation references. This normally comes directly to me. I then forward these to the Lead Artist, character modellers and animators.

2. Internal task/workload processes ensue and once this is done, the character modeller assigned to Fred will get started on a 3D model of Fred that can be used in the game.

3. Fred the 3D model Fish now gets sent over to the animators for rigging and animation. Fred’s character modeller will also create a short turnaround movie of Fred, posed in a Fred-ish type pose.

4. Once the turnaround is approved by the Lead Artist and the Project Director, I then send this turnaround back to the Licensor and await their approval.

5. In the meantime, animators have spent some time researching how Fred animates by looking through all Fred footage. Based on what Fred needs to be doing in the game, they start rigging and animating Fred. Once these are done, Fred appears fully animated in-game.

6. After some time, the Licensors will send back their feedback on the Fred turnaround. I then forward this feedback to the other Production staff as well as the Lead Artist. A meeting is then held in order to determine what needs to be done to Fred if the Licensor has not approved the turnaround.

7. Character modeller will work on the revisions required and once again a new turnaround movie is generated and submitted to the Licensor. This process ( Step 7 and 8 ) repeats until we obtain approval.

8. On the animation side, a build of the game gets sent to the Licensor once it is in a fairly stable condition. The Licensor is then able to view these in-game animations and approve or disapprove accordingly. If the animations are disapproved, revisions are carried out. Once again, a back and forth process ensues until finally all parties are satisfied with Fred the Fish.

It’s all sounds like a fairly straight forward process. However, factor in deadlines and technical or resource limitations and all of a sudden, it all becomes somewhat a tricky challenge.

Firstly, a bit of background is needed. The titles I’ve worked on have been games targeted at kids, average age range 7-12. The age range where it’s the parents doing the buying. And whether or not their kid is screaming for the next GTA, Fred the Fish is what they’re getting for the holiday season. As the United States is the biggest market, this means we have a non-flexible deadline of Thanksgiving.

So all of a sudden, we’ve got to schedule in multiple Fred revisions requested by the Licensor. Don’t forget that Fred isn’t the only 3D model needed in the game and chances are he isn’t the only licensed one either. So Fred revisions, other in game models, revisions for all other licensed characters, all before that non-flexible deadline…it all boils down to 3 possible solutions.
• Hire more character modellers. Just keep them coming through the door to juggle this influx of work and then kick them all out because character modellers aren’t always busy through out the entire project.
• Work those modellers to death; surely they won’t have any problems with 18 hour days right?
• Manage Licensor feedback carefully. (Just in case my sarcasm doesn’t come through very well on paper, this one’s the right answer…)

I’ve heard the most insane feedback in my time:
“His neck needs to be 1/5th thinner at the base.”
“That shade of blue on his coat pocket is not quite blue enough. Make it a little blue-er.”
“I can’t see the ears on this character that’s standing waaaay back there in the background of the game, who even on a 1000in TV is only ever going to be about 0.5in tall.”

I’ve exaggerated that last one a bit, but not by much. It wasn’t his ears that were the problem, it was his fingernails.

When I first started hearing these feedback notes, I was certain that these Licensors were, well, a bit loopy to put it lightly. But now that I’ve worked with them, I’ve come to the conclusion that hey, they’re just trying to do their job to the best of their ability. Just like how we’re trying to make a good, fun, high-quality game in the short time that we’re given.

Our in-game 3D Fred’s neck is most definitely 1/5th thicker than his original 2D counterpart. Most probably because if it is any thinner, the animators wouldn’t be able to animate him. But the Licensor’s don’t know that, they’re paid to point out possible problems and differences that might compromise the integrity of their property. Most of the time, we spend some time explaining these things to them, and they’re usually very understanding.

Meeting up to discuss what needs to be done is where we manage Licensor feedback so that it will not cause any significant negative impact on what we need to do to ship the game. Some things we obviously can’t ignore, like “Fred is a Fish, not a Hippo”. But neck thickness, especially at the expense of being able to animate him to the best of our animation team’s ability, or ears/fingernails on tiny characters are the ones that we try explaining our way out of. If we really can’t talk them out of disapproving the character, then we either do what they want and hope everything works out fine; or worse case scenario, we cull that problematic character.

In my opinion, one reason why getting characters approved is difficult stems from the fact that we send nice, big turnaround movies for approvals. Turnarounds where the Licensors are able to see every little detail of the character. Though we often explain that in the final product that character is only ever going to be the size of your thumb on your 42in TV, giving them a tiny thumb-sized turnaround isn’t going to yield the best result either. The Licensor often does not like the idea that their character is not going to be the biggest thing on screen. They only soften towards that way of thinking once they see their itty-bitty little character running around having tons of fun in a build of the game. But at the same time, we can’t wait til all work is done in order to show them their character in the final product. Because even though Fred might look really, really cool, he’s still not meant to be a Hippo and by that point in time, we’re at the end of our deadline and totally screwed.

A little goes a long way and understanding what Licensors do and trying to explain to the Licensors about what we do will help immensely. It’s a symbiotic relationship. We need their license in order to sell Fred the Fish Sings the Alphabet Song (also completely made up), because Fred the Unknown Hippo Sings the Alphabet Song isn’t going to sell as well come Thanksgiving. And they need us too because being able to say “Hey kids, guess what Fred the Fish is doing this Thanksgiving? That’s right, you can watch him on TV and now you can also Sing the Alphabet Song with him on your PS2/PS3/Xbox360/Wii/DS/GBA/PC” is going to bring in that little bit more cash.

And note to character modellers, don’t shoot the Project Coordinator. We’re only the messengers. I really don’t have any problems with Fred’s neck, or his fingernails, and he does make a sexier Hippo than a Fish.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under How To: Design, RESOURCES. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.