There has been quite a bit of press about the Activision / Blizzard merger, and the resulting limbo of various major titles, including two that really do deserve to be saved: Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters.

If you’ve managed to dodge the media on these titles so far, Brutal Legend features various legends of rock (Jack Black, Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, Ronnie James Dio) in a heavy-metal-inspired action-adventure… Ghostbusters doesn’t really need introduction, and brings back the quartet from the films (plus you, the gamer), is written by the same comedic team and features the same great smack-talking, ghost-busting, witty backtalk as the films.

By all accounts, both games are almost complete (Ghostbusters was on for a Holiday ‘08 release, Brutal Legend for Q4/08, Q1/09.

So - why should Activision / Blizzard have kept hold of Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters? Let’s look a the first one, and at the talent behind it, Tim Schafer.

There are very few in the gaming industry who can be said to be names on their own right. Will Wright, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux to name a few. Add to that list, Tim Schafer. The list of games he has produced is proof enough of this, from the Monkey Island series, to the genius of Day of the Tentacle and his previous rock-based game, Full Throttle. Psychonauts, Double Fine’s previous outing, was intelligent, cleverly designed and featured the quirky, quick-witted humour that Schafer almost has trademarked.

Let’s couple this with the lead actor, Jack Black. Musically talented, extremely funny and quite capable of rocking out without any trouble he brings to the game something pure - you only have to watch School of Rock to realise that Rock’n'Roll is something he really likes.

Toss in the other voice and music actors, the exclusively produced music sound-track (Most of which, by all reports, has already been written, and even recorded), and it almost becomes inconceivable that a company would throw all this away. Rock’n'Roll is a genre that almost everyone likes, it’s being produced by a guy who, so far, has had zero dud games to his name, headed by a voice actor who almost bleeds rock’n'roll…

So there is no reason for Brutal Legend to be anything less than a pure hit. What about Ghostbusters? Well, Activision themselves announced that the logo was the 2nd most recognised emblem in the world, behind the Coca-Cola symbol. Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis were back doing the script and work on it, the team of four (Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson) were back playing their old parts, the gamer got to play the fifth Ghostbuster… How could something like that go wrong?

At the end of the day, it comes down to two companies that has just merged looking at options - financial, return-on-investment style options - and deciding what they are willing to take a risk on. They have a limited budget, and with the development costs involved in modern gaming development, there is no doubt that making any game, even with a super-star team, is a financial risk. They look at the games in production, and a group of suits attempts to pigeon-hole them into nice little boxes. Brutal Legend and Ghostbusters don’t pigeon-hole nicely. They aren’t like current games - they’re different, edgy (Brutal Legend) or nostalgic (Ghostbusters). So, they don’t get picked to get their share of those limited funds.

The good news is that both games appear to have had some form of lifeline available, both development teams have said that they are fine (though no official announcement has yet been made in either case). Still, this is yet another sad instance of promising games being denied a chance thanks to a lack of understanding of the real gaming world by some suits in a boardroom somewhere…

Filed under: B, G, Game Previews, Games, Playstation Network, Playstation Store