Warner Brothers wants to charge video game publishers that license its brands a fee that fluctuates according to what reviewers think of their games. Basically, publishers must pay more royalties to WB for licensed games that get poor/bad reviews (less than 70%) from the game industry.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"The problem, according to Hall, is if game publishers license Warner Brothers intellectual properties and then build low-quality games, which not only degrades the intellectual property involved but contributes to the bad reputation among gamers of titles made from movies.

Hall's strategy now is to turn to game review Web sites -- such as GameRankings.com, Metacritic.com, and GameStats.com -- that aggregate scores given to games by critics at game sites and magazines. Games based on Warner Bros. licenses must achieve at least a 70% rating, or incur an increase in royalty rates.

"An escalating royalty rate kicks in to help compensate us for the brand damage that's taking place," says Hall. "The further away from 70% it gets, the more expensive the royalty rate becomes. So, frankly, if the publisher delivers on what they promised -- to produce a great game -- it's not even an issue."

But it is an issue for some game publishers, including Atari, whose slate of recent titles includes a game based on Warner Bros.' "The Matrix Reloaded" called "Enter The Matrix." (The shooter title scored 66.8% on GameRakings.com for the PC version and 66.9% for the PlayStation 2 version.)"


Full article: here