MMO Coming to a Theater Near You?

If you’ve been awake for the last 50 years of the movie industry, you are intimately familiar with movie tie-in merchandise It goes from action figures all the way to food items. It’s a time honored tradition that has produced some of the most notorious games in the short history of video gaming.

Like, ET, for example.

Actually, ET has been voted as the worst game ever several times over. The game is so notorious that there is even a urban near-legend that it drove Atari into bankruptcy as they dumped entire truck loads of the unsold game out in the desert. My dad bought this when I was a wee lad, and I still remember how frustrating the game-play was for this game. It was as bad as they say it is.

So, to get back to my point, there’s been a long tradition of generating more money for a movie using different media streams such as the game platforms.

But what about a movie that’s really a tie-in to an existing game? We’ve seen movies that were made from existing games, such as the Mortal Kombat franchise and the Streetfighter series, but what about a persistent game world such as an MMO?

Recently, Funcom, the publisher of Age of Conan, announced it will be creating in-game events that directly lead up to and correspond with an upcoming unannounced Conan movie. Which is fancy speak for, 'if anyone ever makes a Conan movie, we'll make it a part of our game.' And, given that Age of Conan has 400,000+ subscribers, that isn't small screen release.

But let's take this up a notch- imagine a movie based on an MMO but not as a marketing ploy for the movie but to drive up more business for the game. Imagine the ad campaign for a World of Warcraft movie- liked the movie? Do you want to live the adventure again and again? Why, for a mere $15 a month you too can be a Night Elf Shaman or Blood Elf Paladin.

Don't think it will happen? Consider these three things- first, movies are about shared experiences. Until recently, those shared experiences have been novels and short stories. We gather to watch our favorite novels turned into film with others whom love the story like we do. Now, more and more movies are made based off of video games. Instead of Gone with the Wind, we are Alone in the Dark.

Second, World of Warcraft has 10 million subscriber's. That's right 10,000,000 accounts. All of them paying $15 a month. Every month. You do the math. Blizzard can write its own check to make its own movie.

And, lastly this sort of thing happened once before- remember the good old days of cartoon's in the 80's? GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony? When everything seemed to have its own toy line? Well, it was actually the other way around. They developed the cartoons to sell the toys.

We are coming close to the day when a video game won't be a tie-in to a movie, but the movie will be used to generate buzz for a new video game.

And, bonus Cool Points if you know the first video game based on a movie.