Something tells me there’s going to be a lot more follow-ups to the video game ARKHAM ASYLUM beyond the already-announced and trailer-promoted sequel.
What’s that something that’s telling me so? It’s the announcement that Warner Brothers’ Home Entertainment group has bought a majority share in Rocksteady Games, the developer that produced last year’s 3-million-selling smash hit.
Here’s how the president of the WB’s said division, Kevin Tsujihara described the deal to the Financial Times…
“The biggest gap this fills is that it locks in development talent on one of our most valuable pieces of intellectual property for games: Batman… “Even in a declining market, great developers are a scarce resource and incredibly valuable, and these guys proved with Arkham Asylum that they understood our characters… They’re comic book guys. They love working with comic book characters.”
And Rocksteady’s games director, Sefton Hill, spelled it out even further to Joystiq…
"The Rocksteady team is very much looking forward to creating more great games based on widely recognized Warner Bros. brands like Batman."
If you like comics as well as video games - - and there’s a very, very good chance of that - - you might have noticed that the WB’s purchased TT and Midway over the past couple years. Those games company were behind LEGO BATMAN and DC Vs. MORTAL KOMBAT, respectively.
I can’t help seeing this as another sign of the DC Entertainment consolidation, of which we saw the announcement of a new corporate team last week. If I recall correctly, the character designs in ARKHAM ASYLUM were done by artists from Wildstorm - - a fact that stuck out to me as signifying this kind of consolidation. You know, why separate the offices when you can easily coordinate the different talents? Why develop a GREEN LANTERN movie in a totally separate department when you can bring Geoff Johns in to consult on it? And so on...
Now the tracks have been laid down, where do you want to see this DC video game bullet train go? What games would you like to see, oh quick-reflex Comic Vine community?
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia Comics. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this March - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.