Are licensed games getting out of hand?

 I can't be the only person in this hobby who struggles with licensed games, right?

Okay, let's back up a second. I'm not saying games that are using licensed IPs are bad, although some are. But it's not the fact they're licensed that makes them bad, is what I'm trying to get at here. I think there are several that are pretty solid, actually.

But holy shit are there just a ton of them, or am I imagining things?

Star Wars: X-Wing
Star Wars: Armada
Star Wars: Legion
Star Wars: Shatterpoint
Marvel Crisis Protocol
Judge Dredd
A Song of Ice and Fire
Star Trek Federation Commander
Doctor Who
The Walking Dead
Batman
Harry Potter
DC Universe
Heroclix
Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game

And those are just the ones I can come with off the top of my head that are still in production. That doesn't include shit like the Marvel Universe Miniatures Game, Star Trek Attack Wing (which I'm fairly certain is no longer being produced?), the Star Wars miniatures game from either the early 90's or the one produced by Wizards of the Coast in the early 2000's, Mars Attacks and so on. Nor does that list include upcoming stuff, like the new Star Trek: Into the Unknown. I also didn't include stuff I don't know the status of Like the various Alien miniatures properties because that's just a clusterfuck of absurd proportions.

So it's not just me, yeah? Also, those first five games I listed are all made by the same company. And this is just miniatures games! The list would go on almost until the end of time if I included card games and board games.

I've played my fair share of these: X-Wing, Batman, Crisis Protocol, Middle Earth, I've played Legion and gotten demos of Armada and I had a good collection of Heroclix stuff back in the day along with stuff for the WotC Star Wars game. I'm not intrinsically opposed to licensed games, but it is starting to feel like they're everywhere these days. Maybe it's just because Star Wars is basically a license to print money and Asmodee hopped on that shit real hard. 

And you'd think I'd be into this, right? I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman, Marvel and Middle Earth. And I love miniatures gaming. And I've had a good time playing most of these games. So why don't I love them?

The answer is simple: they don't excite me, and I feel too constrained. I feel like I'm being leashed, creatively, and that really sours the mood for me.

What do I mean by this? I mean that these things exist in the world with specific styles and looks, which means when it comes time to start painting models I feel like the decision has been made for me. I know, on a technical level, that I can paint my shit however I please and nobody can really stop me, and that should be enough to push me on in painting. But all it takes is that one dude, and we know the exact mouth-breathing neckbeard I mean, to give me a hard fucking time because I decided to have some fucking fun with my miniatures that I paid for to immediately put me off the whole damned thing. That may sound petty, and it probably is, but I don't want to have to deal with that. 

And often times I find myself just not liking the official colors, or wanting to deal with obnoxious colors. For example: Galactic Republic in Star Wars: Legion. Clones wear white armor. Why? Because George Lucas really wanted to hammer home the lazy ass imagery and make sure nobody missed his brilliant foreshadowing. But white is a massive pain in the ass to paint, even doing it the quick way of just using some white color primer it's still annoying to deal with if you have to touch stuff up.

Marvel Crisis Protocol is the same way. I feel caged. Iron Man is red and gold, no exceptions. And again, I could paint him green, but I don't want to get a lecture from some turbo-nerd about "not respecting the source material" or some nonsense.

Compare this to something like Battletech. That games gives you basically all the freedom you could ever want. I can paint my mercenaries any color I like, and nobody can say a damn thing about it not being "lore accurate." Hell, I can even paint canonical units in various color schemes and just say it's camo for a certain environment and people would go "yeah, that tracks." Even the biggest Battletech nerds won't bat an eye at my Free Worlds League (PURPA BIRB!) being painted in arctic camo while being part of the 3rd Free Worlds Guard. It just doesn't happen.

That's the crux of the problem for me: I like to think of myself as a creative person. I want to create my own stuff (within reason, obviously) and games like Battletech, Heavy Gear, Relic Blade, MERCS, Grimdark Future and so forth give me that freedom. Even heavily character centric games like Bushido don't really try and pen you in. There's the "official" studio paint schemes, but nobody in that community gives a shit if you want your Prefecture of Ryu guys to be wearing green because it's your favorite color.

I just don't feel like you get that in licensed games. At least not if you don't want to be accosted at some point. And while yes it is easy to tell said turbo-nerds to fuck right off, or say things like "if the company wants them to be a certain color they can sell them pre-painted" and go about your day, it just isn't worth the fight for me.

I also feel like the companies making the games are sort of locked into a corner. They can't just create new shit, generally speaking, because it sounds dope. I don't know if every unit in A Song of Ice and Fire appears in the books (I only read the first one, and hated it), but I do know that Disney has a pretty tight yoke on Star Wars and Marvel and thus the poor folks at Atomic Mass Games have to have everything they propose quintuple approval and verified by Disney because it can go into production. And sometimes, like with Middle Earth, they can bring in stuff that was in the books but not the films (hence why that game has so many characters that never appear in any of the movies). But overall, it ends up feeling like all creativity is being dictated somewhere else.

Maybe I'll get over it and just go wild. Legion is a solid game, I've found myself looking at A Song of Ice and Fire (based on books I hated and a 28mm mass battle rank n' flank game with model removal?!) and Middle Earth constantly calls to me because there is some freedom there with the lesser seen stuff like Harad, Far Harad, Corsairs and even something as major as the Dwarves of Khazad Dum since we never see any of them in the movies.

But for me, games that give me that freedom to create and sort of do my own thing will always win out. Letting me spread my wings just a little bit more will endear me to a game far more than name recognition ever well.