John Wick Hex and Tron Catalyst dev Mike Bithell thinks licensed games have evolved past ‘lunchbox tie-ins’ because ‘the people who played licensed games are now bosses in the companies that are licensing IP’

Speaking to Bithell Games founder Mike Bithell on the release of the studio’s latest game, Tron: Catalyst, I had to get his take on the current state of licensed games. The days of every movie getting a PS2 tie-in have long past, and we seem to have settled into a new era of smaller-scale spin-offs like those made by Bithell, and monster triple-A projects like Insomniac’s Spider-Men.

“It has fully split. Like, there is that big gulf between the games,” said Bithell. “That’s more generally just a theme of the industry right now, in terms of there isn’t a middle class anymore.” But another factor, according to Bithell, is that the companies in charge of licensing properties out have a fundamentally different view of them than back in the ’90s and ’00s.

“The companies who own this stuff want interesting stories in their worlds,” Bithell said. “I remember going for my first meeting on John Wick, going into a room full of classic⁠—exactly what you imagine when I say ‘Hollywood boardroom’—a bunch of execs all sat there, very fashionably dressed, very cool execs, and the guy who’s in charge is like, ‘So Mike, we want to make a good game like GoldenEye.'”

To be clear, they didn’t want him to make some kind of ‘GoldenEye, but John Wick’ type of game. “‘We like your strategy idea, but it needs to be good, like Goldeneye was,'” is how Bithell characterized the counter-pitch.

“It was this moment that I had in that room just going, ‘Oh, so the people who played licensed games are now bosses in the companies that are licensing IP.’ I remember that being very exciting to me, because now it was this generation of gamers who had actually grown into those roles, and we’re now in charge.

“It definitely feels like we’re not a lunchbox tie in anymore. We’re not just, ‘I’ll put something on a shelf so the gran can buy it for the kid who likes the movie.’ I think IP owners see this as a way of expanding and exploring the worlds that they create.”

Bithell also points to the maturation of developers from the late 2000s, early 2010s indie scene to explain the rise of smaller-scale licensed games like the ones he makes. “There is the generation of indies who’ve professionalized to an extent, where they can work in the processes of working with an IP holder,” he said. “We are able to show up to a meeting and act professional.”

Bithell freely admits that this can be a double-edged sword, though: “There is a horrible thing to realizing that you are the exact dinosaur that you were rebelling against 15 years ago,” he said. “I love that the new generation of indies probably doesn’t think it’s cool to be making the kinds of games I make. That’s how it’s meant to be.

“And one day they’ll get old as well, and another generation will come along. And it’s cool. It’s how we as an industry move on, and how, more importantly, as an art form, we move on, because you have these new voices doing cool stuff.”

Tron: Catalyst is available now on Steam, and while it released too late to get a price drop in the Steam Summer Sale, the rest of Bithell Games’ catalogue, including Thomas Was Alone and John Wick Hex, are all on sale for steep discounts.