Working with Someone Else's IP Using the Example of Dune: Awakening — in the New Episode of "What's Up with the Game?"
On July 16, the WN Academy platform hosted the monthly deconstruction show "What's Up with the Game?" focused on the main survival hit of the season, Dune: Awakening. Experts analyzed the core mechanics and peculiarities of working with franchises, as well as provided an evaluation of the project's budget.
The hosts, Alexander Semenov, head of the media division at WN Media Group, and Maxim Fomichev, an independent expert and former producer of the upcoming RPG The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, shared their impressions of Dune: Awakening.
Since Fomichev has experience working with other people's intellectual property at Owlcat Games, we focus on this aspect of Funcom's new project, specifically the nuances of this format.
"Any work with IP is always a very delicate balance between adhering to the spirit of the canon and giving players agency," notes Fomichev.
Therefore, Funcom consciously avoided creating a game adaptation of the original books or recent movies, from which it only borrows the visual language and general aesthetics. Instead, the studio delivered a variation on the "What if?" theme and presented an alternative version of the universe.
Licensing another's IP comes with many pitfalls, aside from directly using the rights. In the case of Dune: Awakening, the following nuances can be highlighted:
- avoiding the likeness of actors — film rights don't grant likeness rights, and Hollywood stars may demand not just a fee, but sometimes a percentage of the revenue;
- Universal likely partially funded the project — the terms of such cooperation are always individual, but usually, they involve sales royalties.
As for the gameplay of Dune: Awakening, the game successfully combines the mechanics of survival games and MMORPGs. This creates multiple entry points for players, allowing them to retain different groups of users based on their preferences.
The drawbacks of Dune: Awakening include:
- an opaque overheating system;
- problematic melee combat mechanics;
- a lack of challenge in building a base and motivation for its fortification/development at early stages — there's no necessity to defend one's dwelling.
At the end of the show, Fomichev provided a rough estimate of Dune: Awakening's budget. Considering the specificity of the project, the game's development cost was likely in the range of 50–70 million dollars.
From a commercial standpoint, Dune: Awakening has already become extremely successful. Official sales exceeded a million copies in less than two weeks. As we noted in a separate article about the major games of the first half of 2025, by the end of June, Funcom's new release had earned over 50 million dollars on Steam, with its DAU in the first week estimated at 300,000 users.
"What's Up with the Game?" is a monthly show that airs on the WN Academy educational platform. The recording of the latest broadcast is already available on the platform. After registering and attending at least one broadcast, access to the archive of all previous episodes is unlocked.
The next "What's Up with the Game?" broadcast will take place in August. You can register via this link.