According to an EA insider, as well as one of the movie’s actors, Gary Oldman, a Dark Knight game is indeed in development.
Pandemic, one of EA’s new studios, is said to be handling development duties, while Oldman claims he has seen bits of the game already, describing a ‘realistic’ rooftop-flying scene, as well as saying that the game is designed to feel like a continuous adventure, and not ‘stop and start.’ An open-world, free-roaming game?
Meanwhile, game analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan maintains that, had a Dark Knight game been released at the time of the movie, it had the potential to sell 4 million copies and generate $100 million. These numbers don’t come from nowhere, as the Transformers movie tie-in sold 2.6 million copies, while Spider-Man III’s game sold 2.1 million copies, both in the US alone.
Pachter tries to explain why EA and Warner missed the boat: “I think publishers have concluded the only games that work are the surefire $500 million box office kind of games like ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘Shrek’. The ‘Transformers’ game really surprised people how well it did, but the movie was big. I don’t think they expected ‘The Dark Knight’ movie to be this big.”
A Dark Knight game isn’t officially scheduled through EA’s March 2009 release slate, so we may still have to wait a while until it sees the light of day.
Source: Associated Press
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Comments:
I personally think that it is better this way. When game developers are pressured to finish a game along side the release of a film, the game never ever ends up that good because of the time constraints of having to release it at the same time as the movie. I am sure that the game will still sell just as well weather it was released along side the movie or weather it is released later next year.
For consumers, this is indeed a good thing. The game gets a longer development cycle and isn't beholden to some movie release date, resulting in a rushed, unfinished game.
There is no doubt, however, that a Dark Knight game would have sold much better alongside the movie than on its own, unless it's some kind of masterpiece. I don't see the Transformers game or the Spider-Man games selling as well as they did without the help of their respective movies, despite their fan-bases.
The hype-machine is too strong and cross-advertising is too vital to the success of a 'movie-game'. Again, unless they take what's good about Batman and make a good Batman game, then anything attached to a movie is better off sold 'with the movie'.
This can lead to some speculation about whether or not they're doing just that, maybe making a game that will be ready for the next Batman movie, and not calling it 'Dark Knight', instead making something of quality. EA's CEO has been very vocal about not doing quick 'splash and cash' games anymore, so this would fit in with their future strategy.
Mind you, I can probably count on a single finger the number of game/movie tie-ins that were brilliantly good. The link goes both ways—very few movies derived from games ranked much higher than "sucks". You're right...the hype and marketing machine is powerful, but movie development time != game development time. There's a difference there of anything from a year in most decent cases, to something like 12 years if you include the laughably late Duke Nukem Forever.
Personally, I'd love to see a decent movie/game cross over, in either direction, and each time I see a game from a movie, or movie from a game, I hope for the best, but frankly, I don't expect it. So expect to see the same level of suckage from the Max Payne and Prince of Persia movies. If the movies DON'T suck, you'll be pleasantly surprised. In the same vein, don't expect the new Harry Potter, Dark Knight, or City of Ember games to be of any good to anyone.
Too cynical?