Sega to produce His Dark Materials videogame
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New Line has signed a video game licensing deal with Sega for His Dark Materials, reports Variety. The agreement gives Sega interactive rights to all three books in the trilogy; the company is already at work on The Golden Compass game and plans to release it on multiple consoles next November, to tie in with the film's release. New Line are expected to unveil several other major licensing deals for HDM in the next few weeks, including a master toy license and numerous promotional partners. Read more.

“We are excited to be partnering with New Line and Scholastic to bring the dark and fantastic story of the His Dark Materials trilogy to the video game audience,” said Simon Jeffery, President and COO, SEGA of America, Inc. “The Golden Compass is a perfect match for the video game medium with compelling characters engaged in a heroic conflict between good and evil in an incredible and rich fantasy world.”

“For New Line's biggest film since The Lord of the Rings, we knew we wanted an interactive partner that had the talent, the scope and the reach to deliver AAA video games to the four corners of the globe,” said David Imhoff, Senior Executive Vice President, Worldwide Licensing and Merchandising for New Line Cinema. “For The Golden Compass, that company is SEGA.”

“We are confident that SEGA will create a compelling interactive experience that fully realises the power and magic of The Golden Compass,” said movie Producer Deborah Forte. “We’re thrilled to be working with SEGA.”

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42 Responses to Sega to produce His Dark Materials videogame

  1. R4 says:

    Well I trust sega far more than I do EA…

  2. Skye says:

    Well, this is very interesting… I think I'll have to get it. (If it comes out on the DS, that is.)

  3. Skye says:

    By the way, the article says "along with the pic" (meaning the movie), not "along with the PC."

  4. Entilzha says:

    We really want the action figure duets of person & daemon, and stuffed daemon dolls. No, really.

  5. KittyKat: says:

    Sey-gar! Dundiddydodoodoodoo…I love Sonic on the original Sega console…doodoodoodoodoodoodoo, doodoodoodoo….diddydiddydiddiddiddydurrr..
    ..Anyway, it should be good. 🙂 YEY! 4000th COMMENT POSTED!

  6. KittyKat: says:

    …*$%@, somebody got in like ten seconds before me! :angry: :crying:
    I might have waited 7 months for that, person who got there first! Muh… 🙁

  7. Mockingbird says:

    See? I don't know what Sraffies were worried about, New Line isn't out to commercially exploit HDM at all :wassat: The movie hasn't even come out yet and they already have a video game deal? How will it be played? 'First one to stab 'God' with a subtle knife wins!!'

    Well, the one positive thing is that this shows New Line has a lot of confidence in the adaptations. Its a very savvy company, they wouldn't invest so much in a movie that they think will be bad. Hopefully.

  8. Willl says:

    Oh I see; ta Skye. Assumed it was a bad typo on their part; fixed now.

    This seems rather a bizarre choice to my mind. Sega are a Japanese publisher and tend not to have much truck with film licenses. They have, however, post-Dreamcast, been branching out to try and capture more of the world market and have been acquiring western developers fairly often. I'm guessing one of those will take charge of development of the HDM game; with which studio it is we'll have a better judge on the quality of any game they're producing. Any game pushed out in time for a movie release will most likely be garbage of course.

  9. Arriving Somewhere (but not here) says:

    Hmmm… A HDM game??? I hope it's good, but movie games have never been and I don't think they'll start w/ HDM. What a nice surprise it turned ot all right thought.

    A major toy license, you say?? I hope it's Mcfarlane. They have done some nice work in the past.

  10. trilogyfreak9 says:

    Wow!!!!
    I can't wait for the Subtle Knife!
    I wanna play Will!!!!!!
    But LEGO HDM would be freaking awesome!
    Then you would have the game to tack on to that too!

  11. arcadia says:

    I am very disapointed with the world. :wassat:

  12. mysterygal says:

    i would LOVE to buy it! but my family is more of a nintendo fan.we own 2 gameboy colours, 2 ds lite's,a nintendo 64 and a gamecube. im also saving up for a wii.so i hope nintendo does it or im gonna cry!!!! :crying:

  13. Greg Duncan says:

    I hope that toy license is Lego. it really is the greatest toy company on the planet, and would do the book justice. The video game sounds good. I just hope it comes out for xbox.

  14. hoobits says:

    Cool news. New Line is starting to bring out the big guns.

    I HOPE TO THE LEGO GOD THAT THERE ARE HDM LEGO SETS!

    Lego- if they were to get a toy liscense for sets… !!! it would be dream come true.

    Sega is a good company and one you can trust.
    mysterygal- Sega now only makes software not hardware, there are no more Sega systems. Just think once a Subtle Knife game comes out, it has to be for the Wii with it's new control system.

  15. Micaela says:

    okay, this comes from a true tcg nerd, but i hope they make a tcg or good board game out of it…that would rock.

  16. Skye says:

    Micaela- Do you mean that you want a replica alethiometer? Because, if so…

    I DEFINITELY agree with you! I would so buy one.

  17. Mayur says:

    My expectations are pretty low for the game (and I work in game industry!) but I'm really keen on seeing the action figures! LOTR has handled extremely well with a dine attention to detail, hopefully New Line will follow the trend… anyone ever see the Narnia figures? My word, they were truly awful.

    Hopefully we'll get some Sideshow Collectibles happening too (like they did with LOTR and Narnia, I mean come on! How cool would a statuete of Lyra riding Iorek be :laughing: ?).

  18. Raine says:

    I've been making games for seven years, and I think I can safely say that it's going to be very difficult for Sega to make a good game out of HDM. Perhaps motion-controlling the Knife would work on Wii, but the rest of the story changes in setting and tempo so often, it would likely feel jumbled and random if translated into an interactive format. The only way I could think to do it would be to cut out the entire first book and reveal that part of Lyra's story through flashbacks, then rely heavily on cutscenes and passive-gameplay progression to keep things going at a pace that keeps the player's attention. The finished product might feel something like a numeral-barren Final Fantasy clone.

    Personally, I'll only play the game if it's released on Wii. Without the new controls, it's most likely going to fall into the "garbage license" genre of budget-, uniqueness-, and fun-deficient games. Sad, but true.

  19. Pantalaimon says:

    It's gonna come out on wii how else do you think we will use the knife in the game. By the way wii will be released on dec 7th in australia for $400

  20. Raine says:

    Does that mean that no other game has ever allowed the player to use a knife?

    I understand that you're trying to be optimistic, but don't get your hopes too high. Although I hate saying it, this game will very likely suck, and I don't want to be disappointed by it. :crying:

  21. Witch-girl says:

    Quite honestly, I don't give a damn if they're going to make a video game out of HDM, unless it's going to have some super-good graphics. I've never actually really ever played anything on Sega, however. :wassat: Do their games usually have good pictures and the like in them?

  22. tiz says:

    :crying: A week ago phillip pullman said junk culture was "poisoning our children" and now we will have a HDM video game
    How sad is this?!

  23. pat says:

    A HDM video game?!
    This is so sad!!!

  24. barry says:

    well, if this is SO SAD
    you guys don´t have to buy it 🙂

  25. Raine says:

    Hey, now, let's not go generalizing video games like that. A game can be good or bad, just like a movie, a book, or anything else. Junk culture refers to the material, not the medium.

  26. HDM Head 24-7 says:

    legos are a must and maybe a lego vg like the star wars one lol. I dont think i vg is that easy. Its not like lotr were they all have weapons and powers. What would Lyra do? I know they have daemons but… I think it will be a hit cause we will all go out and buy 5 copies each lol. i hope its good. Look how the muffed the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe game…it sucked!

  27. Entilzha says:

    Well, I think you could have some action what with running from Gobblers, flying with witches, battling spy-flies, and I mean, there are armored polar bears for crying out loud!! You could have a total bear battle which would be pretty groovy.

  28. Witch-girl says:

    Barry, do you think that you'll want to buy this rather hellish upcoming game? 🙂

  29. The Bard says:

    Oh thank…um whatever…I really thought EA were gonna grab this, the money mongers. Sega are a brilliant software company, and I think I'm definately gonna have to get the games now. *Asks for Chrono Trigger/ Skies of Arcadia esque RPG*

  30. The Bard says:

    And Videogames are anything but \”Junk Culture\” they\’re a hell of a lot stimulating than watching tv or a film. Do you know, that your brainwave patterns when you\’re watching TV are the same as when you\’re asleep? Don\’t give me this garbage about videogames being being a bad influence, they\’re a hell of a better medium than movies for something like HDM. For all you stupid sceptics;

    ~*kapow no roms pls*~

  31. tari says:

    i think the game could do the books good, many people who have never heard of HDM might buy the game and then watch the film…and from there read the book, and become a massive fan.

  32. MCH says:

    Can everyone just calm down please? I, personally, won't buy the game, but I don't see any problem with it existing, providing they don't destroy the feel of the books with it, like they did with the Harry Potter game. 🙂

  33. Raver says:

    The game will be great, who didn´t wanted to get into the world in a way you even´t dare to dream???? reading and the imagination are much better, but playing with lyra?? thats something I have to do (sorry, i´m from spain, so don´t kill me because of the gramatic 🙁 )

  34. Mandy1214 says:

    A video game would be cool, but action wise, there isnt that much in the book that could compinsate for a video game. So many things would have to be changed. I guess it worked for Harry Potter, but those books were much more popular. Maybe this trilogy will become more popular after the movie comes out.

  35. MCH says:

    Mandy1214: Are you kidding? These books are HUGE!!!

  36. Nalanna says:

    🙂 I reckon it'll be good, and the HP games weren't too bad…

    I'm no video game expert, and to be honest i don't play them that much but this could be great publicity for the book (because without the book there would be no film, no game… *shudders*)

    There's no need to worry anyway. If people like the book then they'll watch the film (Out of cuiosity at least) and if they like the film they may just buy the video game.

    I'm rambling…. sorry.
    :tongue: :tongue:

  37. Ceph Cepheus says:

    Titanic didn't require such daft tying in to be successful. I feel violated.

  38. AirRaven says:

    I'm in two minds about this, to be honest. Sega aren't going to make this into an RPG, like it deserves. It's going to be yet another in a line of pointless, tedious *ACTION* games- which I can see destroying everything which makes the story great.

    Video games have a fantastic effect when they're done correctly- I'd put the better examples of RPGs on a par with the classics of literature.

    Of course, we're talking literally one in a million here. The majority of the videogame market is saturated with dross.

  39. Frjava says:

    Yeh, how is Pullman spporting this idea? i mean he was saying how he didn't want it to become like this?! :wassat: Anyway, yeh i'll probabvly get it, so it's deffinatly coming out on the wii, right?

  40. Frjava says:

    Yeh, how is Pullman spporting this idea? i mean he was saying how he didn't want it to become like this?! :wassat: Anyway, yeh i'll probabvly get it, so it's deffinatly coming out on the wii, right?