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Video Game Adaptation In the Works For A Song of Fire and Ice

Posted by Soulskill on from the goons-everywhere-rejoice dept.

On Wednesday, French game development studio Cyanide announced that they will be working with George R. R. Martin to bring his popular fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice, to the realm of video games. The press release implies that there will be more than one game, and the games will come out for PCs and "next-gen consoles." Apparently an HBO television series is in the works as well, in addition to board and card games related to the books.

7 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. I would prefer... by Choozy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... if George R.R. Martin would just finish writing the damn series!!!

    1. Re:I would prefer... by Swizec · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ... if George R.R. Martin would just finish writing the damn series!!!

      and artists would prefer if fans stopped thinking of them as their bitches.

      But that's not very likely is it?

    2. Re:I would prefer... by jurgenaut · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would prefer it if he decided to start the main story.
      So far, all the books written have served only to introduce us to the setting, with a vague hint of "winter is coming". We cannot actually say whether the winter is the main plot line or not.
      It's like a soap opera. There's nothing happening, except characters acting and reacting. No one is accelerating the main plot (because we dont know which plot that is).
      Tolkien said very early on, "here's a ring, the story will concern its destruction". David Eddings - evil god does bad things, here's a story about his demise.
      And when we read those books, we form expectations about what is going to happen, and we start to trust the author when that happens. That's an important connection between author and reader.
      Song of ice and fire, well, anything can happen. Hell, the bad guy in book X is the good guy in book X+2. I respect Martin because he can pull it off.
      I do, however, not trust him to take sufficient care of the characters I enjoy the most - he's proven he has no qualms about killing them off (or leaving them out entirely from a book), then resurrecting them and making them evil. And then the 3 year cliffhangers...

    3. Re:I would prefer... by jefu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think Martin's fans (and I'm one) have been fairly patient overall. It is a huge (and wonderful) work and certainly requires a lot of time to make it as good as it is. It's not like he came to my house and signed a contract with me to finish at any particular time. On the other hand, starting a series like this does seem to make a kind of promise to the readers that it will (at least eventually) be finished.

      Where people lose patience is when it seems that lots of other things (calendars, figurines, tv series, games....) are taking up more of Martin's time than the books, and when those fans care about the books and not about the tchotchkes they (the fans, not the tchotchkes) - however selfishly and unrealistically - feel slighted and cranky.

  2. *sigh* by Sibko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I sure don't have high hopes for this one. At least the tv-series has a small chance of getting the characters and drama right. [Assuming the networks don't decide to remove the incest and childkilling, and so on.] But I highly doubt videogame developers are going to focus on anything but violence, violence, violence with this. Doing anything else is going to require some thought, effort, and risk-taking as the primary draw of ASOIAF has much more to do with character interactions and political intrigue than straight up and up killing things.

    It'll probably end up similar to the three hack n' slash Lord of the Rings games on the Xbox - Gameplay might be fun, but you could remove the setting entirely and not make a difference. Personally, I think the best style for this game would be something more akin to King of Dragon Pass.

  3. The books suck by halivar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The story is so formulaic. Here's the formula:

    1) Create a likable character.
    2) Create a hideous character.
    3) Have Character #2 rape Character #1.
    4) Have multiple other people rape Character #1.
    5) Kill Character #1 in an ignoble fashion.
    6) Choose a new Character #1. Repeat steps 3-5.

    "Murphy's Law of George R.R. Martin":
    If you like a character, that character will be maimed, raped, and/or killed in the next book. There are no exceptions.

  4. Nobody's Bitch. by SoupIsGood+Food · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would like it if writers stopped thinking of their customers as their bitch. If he does not understand the impatience and irritation of his paying customers in not delivering product according to a promised schedule, he's not going to have the franchise grow very much farther than it already has. A professional writer is an artist, true... but more importantly, a professional writer is a paid professional. It's a major disservice to the craft of writing to string your readers along the way he has.

    It's one thing to say, "Hey, guys... I lost my mojo on this. I may come back to it in a few years or I may not." Hey, whatever, crap like that happens. Stick to single-volume novels, and your readers will give you another chance.

    It's another thing to sneer at your readers and insult them for questioning your grandiose "art." That's not only rude, it's dishonest.

    It's not the reader's fault you managed to paint yourself into a corner with your sub-plots. It's not the reader's fault you can't break the story down into novel-length chapters... it's your failing as an =artist=.

    Entitlement? Demanding your readers adore you and your works uncritically after having failed them so spectacularly is probably one of the grossest examples of "sense of entitlement" I've come across.