Next Gen Game

Publishing exec Danny Bilson talks cross-media efforts, teases original IP game and movie in conjunction with major filmmaker.

THQ has big gaming tie-in plans for the future, and appropriately enough, it is starting with the 22nd-century sci-fi shooter series Red Faction. The publisher has teamed with the NBC Universal-owned cable channel SyFy to produce a two-hour movie pilot called Red Faction: OriginsWho will get on the air around the time Red Faction: Armageddon starts March.

Red Faction Origins will debut as a two-hour TV movie next March but could become much more.

Danny Bilson, executive vice president of THQ 's core gaming business, showed the first publisher' s the last trans-media plans, investor 's conference at Electronic Entertainment Expo , but recently discussed them in greater detail with GameSpot.

Bilson outlined several key aspects of its various gaming tie-ins, including Red Faction Origins, the upcoming Saints Row movie, and a De Blob kids' project with SyFy. Both the De Blob and Red Faction efforts will debut in March, with the Saints Row film expected around the time of the next game in the series next year. That will be the publisher's biggest trans-media effort to date, Bilson said, with the movie and game accompanied by Xbox Live and PlayStation Network content, collectible card games with digital code unlocks for the game, novelizations, apparel, and other tie-in merchandise.

While Saints Row worked best as a film (it's a little too R-rated for most TV networks, Bilson said), Red Faction Origins made perfect sense as a TV movie for SyFy.

Depending on how Sources Red Faction It turns out and performs, it can be expanded to a full TV season episodes of a-la Battlestar Galactica. Bilson said the movie will tell a self-contained story, but one that is designed to push the fiction into a regular episodic format.

"All of these pieces are really to support the games," Bilson said. "They're not big revenue drivers or anything like that. It's really about how we can make the universe cool, give fans more access points to a game they enjoy, and how we can make a game more important when it comes out."

One thing that Bilson said separates THQ's efforts from those of its competitors is that announced projects will come to fruition much more consistently. Instead of licensing out its intellectual property or letting other people take it through the film development process, the publisher makes partnership deals with "guarantees to picture." As a result, THQ films should avoid the development purgatory that has claimed game-to-film adaptations like the Halo movie.

Despite that insist on the release of finished products, Billson said that the company is mindful of the damage from low-quality tie-ins.

"One thing about trans-media is you can't have a bad piece because it ruins the whole thing," Bilson said, adding, "With these partnerships, if it's not good, we can stop it."

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