Will We See More Franchise MMOs?

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It seems that every action, adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, and animated movie that comes out these days is preceded, accompanied, or followed by a video game release. Most of these games pass under the radar, even after making decent bank on sales: their purpose, it appears, is more to cash on the success of the movie release than to provide quality gaming based on a movie. There are a few exceptions of course, but most of these games pass on with below average ratings, and wait to be mocked in later years. Indeed, it's usually the video game to movie transition that succeeds better – as evidenced by Resident Evil or Tomb Raider.

But with MMOs becoming increasing popular games with smaller player bases, catering more to niches and less to the masses, could we see more media franchises releasing MMOs in the future with their movies, books, and quicky console games?

The simple answer is no. Despite their growing popularity, MMOs are still more complicated than most generic video games on the shelf. Since MMOs rely on some sort of staying power to keep players going from month to month, the likelihood of a movie franchise investing in a staff to not only create the game, but to balance and continuously staff it for an extended period of time, is pretty low. Likewise, most movies themselves don't have enough staying power to keep public interest longer than a few months. Most of those that do are based on media franchises older than their movies, and are already developing in that direction.

Movies to MMOs is not a foreign concept, either. There's the familiar Lord of the Rings Online, a successful MMORPG based off the Lord of the Rings franchise. There was also Star Wars Galaxies (a less successful game, due to design), Disney's Pirates of the Carribbean Online (a free to play game that is easily forgotten, especially in the face of two other larger, non-franchise pirate MMOs), and the now dead Matrix Online.

There's also several games in the works based on popular franchises: DC Online Universe, which plans on featuring all major DC comic characters; Star Wars: The Old Republic, a highly anticipated game after E3 2009 and that many expect to replace Star Wars Galaxies; Star Trek Online, a behemoth of its own under development from Cryptic; and Stargate Worlds, which was pitched for Summer 2009, and supposedly will still see release this year.

The big franchises, for the most part, have already staked their claim in the MMO world. Nonetheless, there are a few more movie and media franchises I think could survive in the MMO world. Some examples:

Harry Potter. Every time a new Harry Potter book came out – and every time a new movie releases – there's suddenly an eager rush of games to appeal to wizardry, a lot of independent games focused around learning magic, and even some MMOs joining the fray. In fact, at the time of the writing of this article, The World of Kung Fu is planning to offer a wizard class in the next patch, with a front page ad that looks suspiciously like a young Harry Potter. There are millions of people who love Harry Potter – either via the books, the movies, or both – and there's great structure presented within the book to provide a persistent world with houses, powers, enemies, and challenges. With a whole generation growing up "Potter," it's easy to see why Potter mania could be the next generation of gaming after Star Wars.

 

Highlander. This is an older franchise, one that's died off, but it still holds potential if it can hold itself above the B-movie status most of its movies enjoyed. Base it around the TV series, and I guarantee you there will be plenty of fans rushing to be the "only one." Modern day PvP with swords. Maybe even a hardcore mode, where if you do lose your head, you really do lose your character.

Indiana Jones. The movie franchise may have withered with the last Indian Jones movie, but there's still enough charm and spunk in the original tomb raider that an Indiana Jones inspired, archeology-adventure MMO could thrive with the right player base.

Transformers. The love for mecha has been deep for decades now, and the Transformers franchise isn't looking to die even after three decades. With two factions built in (Autobots and Decepticons), a long and varied storyline, and the ability to introduce mech play to MMOs, Transformers could make an arguable success.

ot every franchise has the ability to provide a persistent world that makes sense, and of those that do, fewer yet have the ability to provide a quality multi-player experience. It's telling that the only MMOs we've seen along this line so far have been, with the exception of few, entertainment powerhouses that have lasted well over a decade. For the time being, we're safe from the cheap franchise games that exist only to milk our predilection to the popular. But then, isn't that what some MMOs already do?

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