How comic book characters become video game heroes

• The Smurfs: Mission Malfeuille, Marsupilami and the Secret of the Sarcophagus, Asterix & Obelix: Slap them all!…. 

  Several games adapted from comics are coming out these weeks

• Behind all its games, a single French publisher, Microids, which has made a specialty of adapting comics and exploiting existing licenses.

• Its CEO Stéphane Longeard explains to

  20 Minutes

  how the titles are chosen, how the negotiations go, how important gameplays are ...

This fall, the heroes of comics are leaving their boxes to squat the screens and especially the consoles.

Not the heroes of comics or manga, with for example the 

and

, but heroes from home.

 with 

on October 26,

and

on November 16 and, finally,

Next Thursday, no less than three games adapted from Franco-Belgian comics will be released in the space of a few weeks, all from the same publisher, Microids.

In good memory of the Infogrames games

A key player in the French video game landscape for almost 30 years, the company is known for its original creations such as Syberia or

, but also for its use of existing licenses such as

, Agatha Christie and therefore comics. Its current CEO, Stéphane Longeard, worked through the Infogrames studio, which in the 1990s developed some of the most famous comic book adaptations in games with

,

,

or

.

“I then created my Anuman Interactive box, which was bought by Media Participations in 2009, then we bought Microids to support the group's development in digital and see what could resonate in video games.

”It should be remembered that Média Participations is the fourth largest editorial group in France, with the houses of Dargaud, Dupuis, Le Lombard, Lucky Comics…

Big licenses and classic gameplays

If it is easier to adapt its “house” comic book heroes, Microids has established historical relationships with rights holders, and even competitors, such as Hachette for Editions Albert René, IMPS for the Smurfs and even Moulinsart for Tintin, which a new game is currently in development. "Making a comic costs between 50,000 and 100,000 euros, but for a video game, add a few zeros", comments Stéphane Longeard. From one to seven million euros in budget. "So we need very large licenses, with an international aura, and deploy them over the long term, not on a single game."

The type of game, the gameplay, is also important, and the president of Microids assumes not to "reinvent hot water": "You need what I would call classics, gameplays that have proven themselves.

Inventing a new concept is a risk-taking that is not always possible with certain licenses.

Our

game

and its suction system have been compared to

.

Like a review.

But me, it suits me well to be compared to the benchmark.

"He also puts forward budgets without

, from" two million euros for

 to ten times more for

.

A price that can be found on the shelves, with ours at 30-40 euros and Nintendo at 70 euros ”.

A matter of time and trust

Microids games are also, in a way, derivative products and part of an ecosystem reminiscent of those of Disney. “

is a license that had an international aura with the Disney animated series 25 years ago,” explains Stéphane Longeard. The new game accompanies a recurring comic, the Spirou amusement park, and a new animated series coming soon. "He adds that to convince the rights holders, Microids can come with a dozen concepts under the arm, but that everything is above all a question of trust and time:" Moulinsard, it took ten years, but once signed with them , the game is rather easy to produce ”. It was the same with the Japanese for the future game

, announced for 2023.

The last

plays both on the field of comic book adaptation and retro revival, since it revisits the cult game

by Konami from 1992, again a bias assumed by Stéphane Longeard who quotes Dotemu's work with

and the upcoming 

.

"It's about finding the alchemy between licenses and gameplays," he concludes, recalling the upcoming returns to Microids from

,

or

.

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