Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters may have evaded the Activision Blizzard chopping block, but amnesiac secret agent Jason Bourne hasn’t been as lucky.
Only two days after AB declared their intentions to “realign staffing” at Bourne Conspiracy developer High Moon Studios, intellectual property originator Ludlum Entertainment announced today that it has reacquired the exclusive rights to create games based on all of author Robert Ludlum’s work.
Vivendi Universal Games had originally acquired the Ludlum rights back in 2005, as part of a ten-year deal to establish a spy-action franchise competitive with rival publisher Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy series, but after three years in development the only Vivendi-published, Ludlum-inspired title — The Bourne Conspiracy, released early last month — didn’t seem to turn many heads. Critics called it the “perfect rental,” and Amazon.com sales charts show it lagged behind titles like GRID and Assassin’s Creed even during its week of release, before falling off the charts entirely.
In the press release below, Ludlum Entertainment clearly indicates that there will be more games based on the author’s work, but for now it’s uncertain who might be next in line to develop those titles.
NEW YORK, July 30 /PRNewswire/ — Ludlum Entertainment today announced that it has reacquired exclusive rights to develop, publish and distribute multi-platform games based on the literary works of late-author Robert Ludlum, the world-renown novelist whose works including the Bourne and Covert One series have sold more than 290 million copies worldwide and spawned the theatrical box office hits The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy.
The rights to develop, publish and distribute games based on Ludlum’s works were previously held by Vivendi Games, now Activision Blizzard following the December 2007 combination of Vivendi Games, Vivendi’s Blizzard Entertainment and Activision. In June 2008, Sierra Entertainment, a division of Vivendi Games, launched the critically-acclaimed Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy for the Playstation 3 computer entertainment system and Microsoft’s Xbox360 videogame and entertainment system.
Ludlum Entertainment’s reacquisition of the rights to develop games based on Ludlum’s literary works comes at an ideal time for the company — the international success of Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy coupled with continued, dramatic changes in the gaming industry enable Ludlum Entertainment to develop new partnerships capable of fully exploiting the multi-platform potential of the Ludlum content and storylines.
“Robert Ludlum’s thrilling stories hold vast international appeal and with their successful translation to both the big screen and the game console, they represent the backbone of one of the leading multi-media entertainment franchises in existence today,” said Jeffrey Weiner, Chairman & CEO of Ludlum Entertainment and Executor of the late-author’s estate. “Our colleagues at Vivendi Games did a tremendous job of capturing the spirit and allure of Robert Ludlum’s writing with The Bourne Conspiracy and the gaming community’s strong response is clear indication that future Ludlum games will deliver both popularity and profitability for years to come.
“Robert Ludlum’s works are an ideal vehicle for realizing the promise of multi-platform gaming and capitalizing on the accelerated migration from personal computers and game consoles to a wide variety of mobile devices, online multiplayer games and social media applications,” continued Weiner. “We look forward to working with innovative partners in the gaming community and new investors to further extend the reach and appeal of Robert Ludlum’s stories and to help write the next chapter for this powerful and timeless entertainment franchise.”
0 Comments For This Post
1 Trackbacks For This Post
August 1st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
[...] Given that Activision announced that both Crash and Prototype would survive the merger, Radical’s future still looked rather bright, but we had feared the worst for High Moon following Acti-Blizz’s loss of the Bourne license. [...]
Leave a Reply