Arkham sells 2M, Warner gets serious about DC licensing

by Justin McElroy on Sep 10th 2009 9:15AM

You might have heard the news yesterday that Warner Bros. has shaken up DC to better do battle with the now Disney-owned Marvel. Part of that strategy, according to the L.A. Times, is making better use of its IP in licensed properties like video games.

While the move is definitely Marvel-inspired, we have to imagine part of the impetus comes from the success of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which, according to the article, moved almost 2 million units in its first month. Taking games more seriously is a smart move on DC's part ... lets just hope they leave the things that are working alone.

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Tags: batman-arkham-asylum, dc, false, Microsoft, warner-bros, wbie, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (81)

Selling the game for $40 in canada would seem to help as well. Wasn't there a 50% off deal in the US???

Regardless, great game + popular character = $$$

No I paid full price. It's one of the best games I've played in a long time. I thought it was short, but it's like Halo 3 in the way you can up the difficulty and it's almost like playing a different game the second time.

Forgot to mention that is was a great game so that helps as well!

I hope they realise that the buzz about how good a game it is is probably at least half of why it's selling. It would be very easy for them to fall into the Activision trap and start farting out rushed games based on gritty characters left right and centre.

This is good to hear. Great games should sell well. Its also nice to have a AAA release in a month other than November or October.

We'll buy them! I promise!

"Ya know our numbers show we can make more money on a great video game than on a shitty one!! Go figure!"

Q1 says hi.

wing- great points..

that is part of what i liked about batman:AA. he was very vulnerable to gun fire, so if you messed up with gunners around, you were pretty much screwed and you had to play the game somewhat tactical. It almost resembled MGS tactics on a small level.

what would seem like something so easy for batman to do because he is a superhero ( take people down with guns ), became somewhat of a challenge when you actually had to play the game...
making batman feel more like the human being he is inside the suit.
i never really had a superhero game play that realistic before.

They damn sure better get serious...no more shitty Superman games(i.e. Superman dies from NON-Kryptonite or Non-magical or Non-doomsday reasons).....Make a Justice League game that does the Justice League JUSTICE....Do NOT make another MK vs. DC simply because DC Heroes DONT Kill...(aside from some Watchmen and a few others).....DO Try to turn out some GOOD IPs for Flash, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, etc....They can do it and Arkham Asylum proves that...just damn sure do it right

Superman 64?

I'm confused, are you saying that Superman 64 was a good game?

Because I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Super Mario 64.

yea that bullshit....I mean I understand Superman is a HARD person to make a game with simply because he doesnt have many Vulnerabilities....sure a MEGATON Explosion can knock the wind out of him....Kryptonite makes him weak...he is pretty much defenseless against magic and Darkseid and Doomsday can make him bleed...

but hell the robots in Superman 64 being able to kill you? BULLSHIT

DC heroes have killed when they really had to.

Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord
Green Lantern Corps members have killed Sinestro Corps members

"no more shitty Superman games"

^ Superman 64 is the perfect example.

I said a FEW others....

Exactly Tiger

The reality is that Superman doesn't make a compelling game.

He's invincible.
He can move faster than you could reasonably control him without playing the whole game in bullet time motion.
His only weaknesses are too predictable to build a game plot around.
Being Supes isn't as fun as Spidey, Batman, or a dozen other characters.

Hell, I'd rather have a Green Lantern game.

Green Lantern would be incredibly difficult as well, given what is possible with the ring.

true they would have to give the ring some limitations....I mean if they could ACTUALLY pull off a Green Lantern Game where I can make a boat then a Mech Suit THEN a giant gorilla just to beat some guys ass I'd be ecstatic...

Damn dawg, you need to work on your English

WiNG

In terms of speed, I'm sure that's what they said when Sega first started making Sonic the Hedgehog games.

In terms of everything else, you just have to look at Batman. I'm sure early-on a lot of people said "How do we make a good Super Hero Batman game? He doesn't have any super powers?"

Easy. You build the game around the hero. Put the hero in a world where his strengths and weaknesses matter. With Superman, it would be real easy to put him in a situation where his enemies were armed with Kryptonite in some way, allowing them to be a real threat. What if there were a giant Kryponite filled Asteroid that hit Metropolis and the effects were stronger in some of the areas of the city? Limiting Superman's abilities, or taking them away altogether?

I'm just spitballin here, but like I said, you build the game around the character. That's how you make a good superhero game.

I think the best thing to do with superman is to make a smallville-like game. where he has to learn his powers. put him in space away from the sun, and let the main villain for the first game be Lobo. Just keep away from Lex Luther.

If he must be all powerful, he can't be on earth it will never work. They can even take a page from Arkham and start the game with him falling through a portal or something and making his way back to the yellow sun, give him a power suit or something so he would have to conserve energy.

I agree. So far NO ONE has mentioned the EA Superman game for the Xbox 360 by title. That game wasn't bad but no where near the new Batman. By contrast, Batman is a super hero because of his intellect; Batman is a super detective. To make a game based on that isn't hard honestly.

It's just most games focused on his agility and fighting power and the bad guys usually lacked character - and lets be honest, Gotham's villians are just as much a draw as Batman is. Batman also has a dark personality which lends him to great writing.

Superman... now Superman is completely different. With Superman, because he can fly, giving an open world is probably more suited than a corridor crawl like what Batman was. Also, giving people kryptonite guns sounds seriously lame, it really does, because there would literally have to be a full fledged army armed with those guns and that sounds dumb.

Superman would require a different set of puzzles and like the EA version of the game, Superman fails when too many humans die or too much of the Earth is destroyed. You need to think in reverse when it comes to an indestructible character. EA was close with their game IMO, but it lacked the proper tone and character types.

Superman is Invulnerable, not invincible. Key difference. In Wario Land, for instance, you were invulnerable, but you could sure as hell get smacked around by whatever, much like Superman can. Building a game with this in mind wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing

Are you kidding me? You think that Superman isn't a suitable character for the video game world?! Yeah, you're right, being able to fly at super-sonic speeds, lift mountains, shoot beams from my eyes, have freeze breathe, x-ray vision, and have bullets bouncing off my chest would suck for a video game.

They just haven't made the right game yet. The Hulk had success and he's a good example of extreme power and being almost invulnerable, too.

Hopefully they put the effort into the next Superman game. There's so much possibility. Imagine an entire global map where you can fly to a different country all together. You can actually lift a sky scraper in the air. You take nuclear missles and throw them into the sun. There's so much possibility...

it's simple, just set it on New Genesis or something where everyone is super powerful just like him. Hell, you could even put it on New Krypton now that that's going full swing

I could be wrong but I thought New Krypton was near a RED star...meaning noone had powers....

How are the Nolan Batman films "Marvel inspired"? I loved X2, but the Marvel films do tend to be more... popcorn flicks. Nolan's Batman is serious business.

Indeed. If you take Batman out of Nolan's films, you still have an epic action movie.

The same can't be said about the X-Men movies.

Hopefully Batman: AA is just a sign of things to come. It really is time for DC to step up to the plate in terms of it's video games. A few good Batman games aren't going to cut it against the handful of good-great titles that Marvel has.

Speaking of which, I really need to refocus on finish AA....

wait wait wait...a few good batman games and a handful of good-great titles from marvel???

first off this batman game was amazing not just good. second, what are they good-great games from marvel?

Marvel vs. Capcom 2?

The only DC character to ever produce a good video game is Batman. And yes, Batman AA is great. It's the best Super Hero game ever made. But it's just 1.

Think about when Marvel and Activision first did Spider-Man: The Movie. And then topped that with Spider-Man 2. You also have Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The Marvel Fighting Series of games (vs. Capcom, vs. Street Fighter, etc.). The X-Men games on Genesis. The Wolverine game was good. Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction.

There have been higher rated games that star Marvel Super Heroes than DC Hereoes is all I'm saying. And I'm glad DC has finally gotten a taste of the sweet life with Arkham Asylum. They just need to take special care of their IP's so that Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, etc. can get the same treatment.

Personally, I'd play it safe it give 'em ALL to Rocksteady.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 & 2. X-men Legends 1 & 2. Epic dungeon crawlers are epic.

MvC2 and spiderman 2 were strong titles. the rest of those...no better than the ok superman games that were released. Maybe I'm crazy but I think think those alliance games are just a cop outs...throwing a bunch or marvel skins on a beat em up.

I would say a couple amazing batman games is better than a slew of ok games

I think what makes Arkham Asylum so amazing is how hilarious the Joker's walk is.

@Space So you would say that Superman 64, one of the worst video games ever created, is on the same level as say Hulk Ultimate Destruction or Ultimate Spider-Man? Or what about Superman Returns?

A "couple" of amazing batman games? What's the second amazing one?

Marvel Ultimate Alliance was not a great game. It's the exact same concept of x-men legends and gauntlet legens. give me a superhero game where I can actually feel like the hero. I understand that there were soo many heroes in the game that they couldnt design the game around one to capitalize on all of his/her abilities, but I'm not buying a game where the only reason I know im playing as Spidey is because the name above my health bar says "Spiderman".

@Doctor John Smith:

Batman on the NES was good. Batman Returns and Adventures Of Batman & Robin for SNES were awesome.

I think the 2 million copies should cover the marketing costs.

haha it'll do more than that!

Man... I hope this means they will copy Batman AA and make "good" games. Today's gamer usually knows a few months in advance if a game will be good or not. You make a good game and people will buy it.. this is true for every system except the wii. Not trying to insult the wii but damn they had some great games that hardly sold anything.

and they've had some stinkers that have sold heaps

I love articles like this, when people get to act like it's some sort of astonishing revelation that there is a connection between quality and success. I mean, I suppose if you work in a big media industry like movies or games, that simple idea can get obscured. Nice to see the lesson land home every so often.

I want to see a good Hellblazer game. No Keanu Reeves, please.

Come on, Constantine is one of my favorite movies.

And, call me insane, but I thought Keanu did a pretty good job.

"astonishing revelation that there is a connection between quality and success"

You have to forgive people. After looking at worldwide sales charts most of this year, can you blame people for being surprised when a great game FINALLY sold well?

What tmac said.

I think one of the things that really helped Batman along was that Rocksteady made it a point to put the game out there. Every week you were being bombarded with new videos and new info about the game. And even though some people criticized them for showing so much before the game was released, I think it was the right move.

People want to know what they're going to be playing in a video game. Unlike some games where every trailer involves 100% footage from cutscenes and zero gameplay.

@storm, I understand what you are saying and in a way you are right...but I think while 30% of this games success CAN be attributed to advertising and riding the coattails of chris nolan's great Batman movies (which have given people a newfound respect for the dark knight) 70% is actually because it is a great Damn game and people saw that.

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Arkham sells 2M, Warner gets serious about DC licensing

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