Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series will be returning to the realm of videogames soon along with a new series of movies planned by Red Eagle Entertainment.
Rick Selvage, a former IBM executive who along with fellow ex-IBMer Larry Mondragon formed Red Eagle Entertainment in 2003, said Red Eagle Games – a new division created specifically to take advantage of the Wheel of Time videogame license – will create a series of games that will launch in conjunction with the Wheel of Time movies being developed at Universal Pictures, as well as a new MMOG based on Jordan’s fantasy universe. “We’ve got a huge running start with this property,” Selvage said. “We expect to have a game based on every movie, and we expect no less than three movies, though that depends on how well each does.”
Selvage said that financing for the movie is in place, but that he is just beginning to raise money for the game studio. Despite the obvious risks of sinking big bucks into the development of movie-based videogames, particularly when it’s the only trick in the bag, he claimed the response thus far has been enthusiastic because of the perceived value of the franchise rights: The Wheel of Time books have sold more than 44 million copies in 24 languages worldwide, and have inspired a D20-based RPG, a collectible card game, graphic novels and more. Red Eagle Games plans to start hiring staff in the coming months, Selvage said, adding that he wants to hire “rock star” developers to create the game.
This won’t be the first time Jordan’s epic series has received the videogame treatment: The Wheel of Time MUD was launched in 1993 and received official sanction from the author in 2002, and in 1999 Legend Entertainment and GT Interactive released a Wheel of Time FPS that was actually quite good but sold poorly and quickly faded into obscurity.
Source: VentureBeat
