Lionsgate Makes a ‘Significant Investment’ in Telltale Games
The entertainment company known for the likes of Mad Men, Orange is the New Black and The Hunger Games is teaming up with one of the best adventure game studios in the business.
Lionsgate has announced that it is partnering up with Telltale Games in order to bring its brands of television and Hollywood movies over to the video game format. Primarily known for the Expendables, Saw, Hunger Games and Twilight Saga movie franchises, Lionsgate has a catalog of movies and TV shows in its libraries that would make excellent transitions to the video game medium. Movie-based games have been on the decline as of late, as most developers and publishers have realized gamers lost faith in franchise titles.
A majority of movie-based games released over the past 30 years were poorly designed, cheap cash grabs that were rushed for the sake of debuting around a theatrical release date in hopes that people would blindly buy the game because they liked the source material. Here's to hoping all of that changes with this partnership. Of course, Telltale Games' recent success with The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones (and its lesser known Back to the Future and Jurassic Park games) proves there is much life left in franchise games. Lionsgate's Chief Executive Officer, Jon Feltheimer, will be joining Telltale Games' Board of Directors.
"Lionsgate has a great track record in developing and marketing feature films as well as platform-defining premium scripted television. This partnership will accelerate Telltale's ability to create not only original games, but episodic television series based on our game properties – an area at the cutting edge of industry growth." said Telltale CEO Kevin Bruner.
You read that right: "episodic television series based on our game properties." Could The Wolf Among Us or Telltale's upcoming original IP be coming to television screens? We've got our fingers crossed.