Over at Massive Online Gamer, the good folk at the magazine have put together a list of the top ten licensed properties they’d like to see given the MMO treatment. Among them? HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series. An interesting idea, though we’re not sure how they could really capture the qualities that make the series so special—family dynamics, dynastic politics, and the brutality of war—within the typical MMO dungeon-crawl model. That said, they make the mistake of claiming the show will air in 2010. We now know that March-April 2011 is the likeliest date.
Over at remarks at the TCA press tour concerning the series. Specifically: “The fantasy is so incidental, it has a very adult tone… You forget it’s fantasy while you’re watching it, and that’s what I love about it.” The writer fears this is a sign of genre self-hatred which could mean bad things about the adaption, but a lively conversation is sparked in the comments pointing out that Game of Thrones in particular, and the series in general, is markedly low in the fantasy quotient to start with, with only a gradual increase.
Also, they point out one of the very next paragraph: “The pilot will employ some CGI, for backgrounds, the story’s ‘direwolves’(a mixture of real animals and CGI) and dragon eggs.’ Emphasis ours. ;) Although, actually, it’s rather curious why the dragon eggs would need CGI rather than using practical effects props…
As we like to point out here, we’ve seen many, many people start their praise for the series with, “I don’t usually like fantasy…” It’s that quality that could make Game of Thrones a hit on HBO, because it’s a series that appeals to a broader audience than just hard-core fantasy readers.