Originality is too risky

This is from my Decima ICT Update that I get every week, dated November 16, 2004:

"Video games are artistic and deserve Canadian support: proponents
Mainframe sees better earnings

The creation of original intellectual property in video games development is critical to the industry’s success in Canada, and the government has an important role to play in nurturing firms creating titles outside the mainstream of licensing and sequels, attendees to the Montreal Games Summit in Montreal November 3 and 4 heard. In a session hosted by International Games Developer Association program director Jason Della Rocca, the audience was presented with the conundrum of modern-day games development - whether to pursue established Hollywood properties such as Harry Potter and other movie and TV titles, or work from scratch to develop original games. The answer, says Della Rocca, is that the industry relies on established properties to generate reliable profits for shareholders, but that the industry will stagnate without the creation of new titles. Further, he noted, original IP is the surest path to spectacular success as compared with less risky titles with lower potential upside. Della Rocca pointed to such titles as Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, SimCity, Myst and others as examples of how a new idea can take the game world by storm to create blockbuster success. But, he noted, games publishers are putting comparatively little investment into new IP. He cited statistics that Electronic Arts puts only 3% of its resources into original titles, Nintendo 12%, and Sega 5%. Yet, he says, most of the worst titles to hit the market - those poorly reviewed by gaming enthusiasts, have been based on Hollywood titles and other franchises. He pointed to unit sales and profits to show, however, that while franchise titles rarely reach the highest levels of sales, they are more consistently profitable, and present less business risk to the large, publicly-traded publishers. "