Nerfbat posted a thought on branching a game brand out to other medium (i.e. movies, books, TV, etc).
I could have sworn I’ve written something about that on here, but I usually have about 50 million thoughts in my head at one time and I can never remember which ones I’ve written down, which ones I said aloud, and which ones starved out.
Anyway, I’m all for this idea. Take Stargate, for example. The movie was great. The TV show (SG1) was great. They even had a few books written. The one thing that didn’t materialize was the game. The single player game (Stargate SG1: The Alliance) died. As much as I’d like for them to succeed, the MMORPG (Stargate Worlds) might not live much longer. If they were all planned and implemented together from the very beginning, it might have been a great money-maker.
That’s the key, though. The movie, TV show, books, and game need to be implemented together. Making a TV show from a movie is often viewed as just another way to make more money. Making a game from a movie is often just as successful as making a movie from a game. Look at Doom. Look at the countless console games that let you, basically, play though the movie. Sure, there are exceptions. The Tomb Raider movies weren’t horrible. Enter The Matrix was a good movie tie-in. The Chronicles of Riddick – Escape From Butcher Bay was one of the best games I’ve played in a very long time. It was more like a prequel to Pitch Black than it was a game-based-on-a-movie.
So, if executed right, spanning a brand across different medium could work very well. An MMO would fit perfectly in such a configuration. The TV show could be written around events that happen in-game. The movie(s) could start the ball rolling or coincide with expansion packs. Comics could tell short stories or maybe even serve as backstory to the whole setting.
The problem is money. It would cost alot of money to start such a franchise. Game development costs, actors fees, director fees, sets, props, etc. However, what happens to all of the assets of a movie, TV show, or game once they’re done? If you sink alot of money into props and sets for a movie, why not use them for the TV show? If you’ve already got the 3D models for the movie effects, why not use them for the game? So would it really be that expensive? Go into the project with recycling in mind and budget around that.
