Most videogame executives at studios are well aware of the deservedly bad reputation that movie-based videogames have. The smart ones (and many of them are smart) are trying to find ways to improve the quality of the genre, as recent news from Marvel, Universal and Paramount all demonstrate (click through for details). Today brings the news that Warner Bros. is taking an innovative, and I think quite promising, new approach with "Watchmen." Turning this fan favorite comic turned movie into a videogame is, of course, a no brainer. But making a AAA console title in time for the film's release this March would, as is always the case with the tight schedule of theatrical releases, be difficult. Warner's solution is to turn "Watchmen" into a series of downloadable episodic videogames. Two are already in the works from Danish developer Deadline Games, and if they're successful there could be more. Warner Bros. Interactive's senior VP of production and development Samantha Ryan says this model lets the studio make a game that's just as high quality as a AAA disc-based game ("complete with shaders and physics"), but have it done in time for the theatrical release by simply making it shorter (the second installment should come out with the DVD). If "Watchmen" goes well, I think we can expect Warner and other studios to follow this example, since it's a good way to put out a game that takes advantage of the huge studio marketing spend on a ...
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