joss-whedon posts

Earlier this week we reported that the MMO company Multiverse had announced plans to develop a game based on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series. They also revealed that a previously announced MMO based on another Joss Whedon created TV series, Firefly, has been put on the back burner. We wondered at the time about Multiverse's motives since they announced the Firefly MMO nearly two years ago and had revealed nothing since.

Well our sister site Massively managed to chat with Multiverse's marketing director Corey Bridges and while he dodged a lot of their questions he did say that development of the Buffy MMO was indeed underway with a 2D Flash client planned for release around the end of the year (he declined to give any gameplay details). He also said that there had been some actual development work done on the Firefly MMO but declined to say what happened with that game, saying only, "There are just some issues that need to be worked through. Hopefully things will get back on track before too long." We still will believe it when we see it.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer is easily one of the best TV shows ever created but let's face it; the two console games based on the show were no great shakes. Now comes word that the MMO technology company Multiverse is aiming to make a Buffy-based MMO. The announcement came this week during the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo being held in Los Angeles.

Game Daily News reports that the Buffy game will enter beta testing later this year and can be played as either a 3D virtual world or a 2D Flash style game. Quite frankly, the Multiverse Network has yet to prove it can fullfill these kinds of promises. Nearly two years ago they announced plans to make an MMO out of another Joss Whedon created TV series Firefly. Game Daily News reports that project is now on the back burner to focus on the Buffy project. We will see how that goes . . . .

[Via Blue's News]

As we mentioned earlier, Universal Studios has directly commissioned a game based on their recent hit action movie Wanted. It's the first time that the movie studio has made such a movie rather than work with a third party publisher who licensed the rights. Certainly Universal has a ton of properties (both in movies and on TV) that could also get the same treatment.

One such property that immediately pops to mind is Serenity, the movie version of the cult hit sci-fi TV series Firefly. We talked with a Universal Pictures Digital Platform Group rep who attended the Wanted demo and asked if that was a possibility. "It's something we have talked about," he admitted. He said the main thing was to get the involvement of Serenity and Firefly's creator Joss Whedon before proceeding with any plans. However, the fact that the studio has indeed talked about such a project certainly puts a Serenity game in the firm "maybe" column. Some of you may remember that in late 2006 the MMO game development engine studio Multiverse announced they had gotten the MMO rights to the Firefly TV series but since then no news of that game has been revealed.