In the Name of the King

[trancejeremy]

I thought MS actually bought Lionhead? (Who were apparently in financial straits after their game The Movies flopped spectacularly)

Yeah, here's a PR

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/apr06/04-06LionheadPR.mspx

So at least I'm not hallucinating it. Maybe they let them go or something, too.

But you're right, MS, as well as Sony and Nintendo often will publish games for companies, sometimes funding development as well, but not taking the IP rights. For instance, Gripshift, for the PSP, was originally published on it by Sony, but the developer kept the IP and now the game has been ported to other platforms, including XBLA.

Another examples from MS are Mass Effect and Gears of War, both published by Microsoft, but developed and owned by Bioware and Epic respectively.

 

[Ebonyr]

My wife and I saw this film yesterday. We left after 1 hour and 26 minutes. The cinematography was great, the actors ok, the story line terrible. Each scene was about 30 to 60 seconds long and jumped around a bit. I have never played the Dungeon siege game, so I needed some background, ala Starwars beginning crawler, to get me up to speed. That never happened. 1 our 4 stars from me and that is a stretch.

 

[jester47]

I thought MS actually bought Lionhead? (Who were apparently in financial straits after their game The Movies flopped spectacularly)

Yeah, here's a PR

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/apr06/04-06LionheadPR.mspx

So at least I'm not hallucinating it. Maybe they let them go or something, too.

But you're right, MS, as well as Sony and Nintendo often will publish games for companies, sometimes funding development as well, but not taking the IP rights. For instance, Gripshift, for the PSP, was originally published on it by Sony, but the developer kept the IP and now the game has been ported to other platforms, including XBLA.

Another examples from MS are Mass Effect and Gears of War, both published by Microsoft, but developed and owned by Bioware and Epic respectively.

Yeah, I forgot to include the "Studios" these are parts of microsoft that operate like little companies. Like FASA interactive. They got bought by MS and now operate as a studio, unless the new Shadowrun game bombed, then they just don't operate...

 

[jester47]

Yeah, just checked, looks like FASA Studios got shut down in Sept. I remember the interview I had with them. Looks like everything was riding on Shadowrun.

 

[Thanee]

Yep FASA Studios is no more (and the rights to produce computer games with the old FASA Interactive licenses went back to Mr Weisman, so hopefully there will be some decent games coming up in the future, from people who care at least some).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Morrus]

Memo to Sony and Blizzard: DO NOT let Uwe Boll make films based on your popular games (i.e., respectively EverQuest and World of WarCraft).

I have a better idea - DO NOT make movies of video games! Has there ever been a good one?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I have a better idea - DO NOT make movies of video games! Has there ever been a good one?

Resident Evil has not been horrible.

 

[Thanee]

Has there ever been a good one?

Mortal Kombat!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I have a better idea - DO NOT make movies of video games! Has there ever been a good one?

I think the best idea is to remember to judge a movie (or rather the script) on its own merit and not just consider "based on a video game" as enough reason to make a movie. After that, you should still ensure that some competend guys make the movie.

But maybe that's not the business descision behind it - good scripts work without ties to video games. But bad scripts/actors/ can at least be used by abusing a video game license.

Yep FASA Studios is no more (and the rights to produce computer games with the old FASA Interactive licenses went back to Mr Weisman, so hopefully there will be some decent games coming up in the future, from people who care at least some).

I never bothered to try out the Shadowrun Game (it was console only anyway, IIRC), but from what I gathered, it had really little to do with Shadowrun, and I couldn't understand why they even got the license in the first place! The idea might have been good idea on its own (or not, I don't know), but combined with Shadowrun it looked horrible...

 

[Thanee]

I never bothered to try out the Shadowrun Game (it was console only anyway, IIRC), but from what I gathered, it had really little to do with Shadowrun, and I couldn't understand why they even got the license in the first place!

It's a multiplayer FPS with magic, elves, dwarves, orcs and trolls. That's about what it has in common with Shadowrun apparantly.

It's also available for PC (Vista only).

MS didn't get the license for it... they just had it, because they bought the whole exclusive rights for FASA games with FASA Interactive (later FASA Studios) mostly because of Battletech, I suppose (the rest just happened to be part of the deal).

Bye
Thanee