Film and television producers Lionsgate announced today that the company has made "a significant investment" in Telltale Games, video game developer and publisher best known for video game adaptations of hit series like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us (based off of Fables), and, most recently, Game of Thrones. As part of its investment, Lionsgate Chief Executive Officer Jon Feltheimer will join the Telltale Board of Directors.
The unexpected move is something Lionsgate says is "part of the continued diversification of its content business and recent entry into the game space."
Lionsgate has quite an extensive history of film and television brands, but is probably best known for recent movie adaptations for The Hunger Games and Divergent series. On the television side of things, current productions include Mad Men, Orange Is The New Black, and Nashville.
"The investment will continue the extension of Lionsgate's film and television brands into the game space and will bring Lionsgate's expertise in creating and marketing premium content to Telltale's unique narrative-driven, storytelling approach to gaming," the company said in a press release.
"Telltale is one of the premier storytellers in the gaming world today," added Lionsgate Chief Executive Officer Jon Feltheimer. "Their leadership in narrative-driven episodic games, together with our investment and the potential opportunities created by our premium content expertise, will continue to strengthen their ability to offer exciting new avenues of storytelling to their next generation audiences across a broad range of platforms."
I can think of a number of Lionsgate-produced series that would excel as episodic adventure games — The Hunger Games being the most obvious. As a fan of Mad Men, though, I would absolutely love to see something created around that franchise. The show, which is entering its final season this year, may not have the action, but perhaps we've seen Telltale break the mold in the past. Imagine a game in which your decisions don't result in life or death, but the success or failure of an advertising company. Plus, Don f**king Draper.
What Lionsgate/Telltale game collaboration would you like to see first?
