Want to know how to start a promising company, secure $400 million in funding, and then be forced to shut down 17 months later because you’ve run out of cash? If you do, pay close attention to the story of Brash Entertainment, because that’s exactly what they’ve managed to do, according to Variety.
When it was launched in June of last year, Brash Entertainment set out with the goal of becoming the “the leading publisher of high quality theatrical-based video games.” Founded by Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull, Brash had the connections to the film industry (and library) it needed to put out high-profile games, and the connections to get investors on board.
Unfortunately, while Tull and the other Brash founders figured making games based on movies would be a quick way to make loot with little work, they forgot one important fact: the games can’t suck.
And suck is exactly what Brash’s releases have done. Their first two games, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Jumper: Griffith’s Story, received awful reviews from critics, and combined for some incredibly bad returns in terms of investment. (To get an idea of how bad Jumper’s sales were: it sold 16,000 copies total across all platforms in its first month.) While Space Chimps did better with critics, it didn’t do much better with consumers.
Even with terrible sales, things were still looking up for Brash, especially with the titles they had planned for release in the near future: Saw, 300, Prison Break, Clash of the Titans, The Tale of Despereux, and a newly revealed Superman title made in conjunction with Factor 5.
The real death blow likely came last month, when Thomas Tull left the company. When the main connection between your company and the investors jumps ship, more often than not the investors will follow suit, and in this current economic climate that’s enough to end any large scale operation instantly.
As of writing, Brash has yet to release an official announcement on the closure and refused to comment on the situation when I called them. I was also unable to ascertain the status of Brash’s in-development projects, including The Tale of Despereux which was due to release next month. In the meantime, I’ll continue trying to get a hold of someone at Brash, but if the closure is true (and all previous Brash news Variety broke would lean this heavily toward true) there’s a very good chance there’s no one left to answer the phone.
If nothing else, this whole situation just goes to show how hard it is to make a good movie-based game. EA et al have been trying to improve the quality of film-related games for years, and are just now starting to see some generally positive results on the whole. So when the guy behind the movies can’t even manage to help make a halfway decent game… Well, next time I play a movie game that I consider an average game overall, I’ll probably be writing an email to the developers congratulating them on the achievement.
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