ABSTRACT
The authors do not know the formula to make a good game, but they do recognize the formula for making a bad one. This chapter goes through the time-tested rules that inevitably lead to bad game design and production. A special emphasis in this chapter is placed on that perennial source of bad games: film and television licensing. What are networks and movie studios doing wrong, and why do they keep doing it? What incentives are set up in funding and royalty splits that actually make the recipe for terrible games? How is supervision continually mismanaged? Why is video game development run from the marketing department and marketing budget, complete with minimum guarantees, instead of considering the game a creative endeavor? Finally, how might all of these problems be corrected?
