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Bethesda was offered ASOIAF license, but they rejected it.


Andhaira

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Taken from the RPGCodex gaming rag.

Unfortunately Bethesda had to turn down the offer to make a "A Song of Ice and Fire" cRPG,

"http://www.egmnow.co...and-ice-titles/" Todd Howard explains

With A Song of Ice and Fire, we went ‘We want to do that!’ People in our studio liked it, and it seeped in a bit to what we were doing,” Howard explained. “We were actually asked a while ago to turn those books into games.”

So why didn’t they take the leap? According to Howard, the idea of a partnership was very tempting, but the team was just too invested in their own IP.

“We wanted to do our own world. That’s where we wanted to put out time into. Before we were even making Skyrim, there was a conversation with George R.R. Martin’s people. They thought it would be a good match—and so did we, actually—but then we thought about if that was where we wanted to spend our time. It was tempting, though.”

We can only imagine how awesome that would have been.

Hum. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Bethesda raped the Elder Scrolls series when they produced Oblivion. I can only imagine what a ASOIAF game with level scaling would have been like (Plate Mail wearing bandits anyone)

OTOH Bethesda seem to have learned their lesson. There was much less level scaling in Fallout 3. So who knows, maybe they would have produced a great ASOIAF game. If nothing else, the game would have been beautiful to look at. Heck, I personally would not have minded a hiking simulator set in Westeros. I would have played a wandering mercenary in the vein of Bronn, travelling from the Wall to Kings Landing, in search of a worthy cause to lend my sword arm to.

Anyhow, since it appears Beth and ASOIAF is never going to happen, at least not this decade or the next, what about Bioware? It makes sense that GRRM's people would have approaced them after being rejected by Bethesda. Did they get rejected there too? Could be, I can imagine coming to a mutually agreeable financial agreement would have been extremely difficult, especially when you have a major gaming company on one side and a popular author on the other. Both probably wanted a big chunk of cash.

At least, that's what I assume. A pity. I would have loved for Bioware to get the license. If not them, then Obsidian. However, Obsidian is busy making the Wheel of Time rpg and the ASOIAF gaming rights have gone to unproven Cyanide. While I am willing to give Cyanide the benefit of the doubt, it's looking extremely doubtful they are up to snuff.

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BioWare said a long time ago (at least six years) that they were going to concentrate on their own IP to maximise creativity (and presumably profit). I also gather that, whilst they ended up making a great game, they had some clashes with LucasArts over Knights of the Old Republic and wanted a title they had full control over. Hence Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Apparently they went back to do The Old Republic only after LucasArts offered them so much money that it would have been insane not to do it.

Hence, BioWare used ASoIaF as tonal 'inspiration' for Dragon Age, but nothing beyond that. It's also worth noting that some of the guys at Relic, arguably the top RTS developer in the world, said they'd have enjoyed the challenge of turning ASoIaF into an RTS, but ultimately they didn't want to pursue the expense of getting the rights when they could work on their own IP (Company of Heroes) and continue their highly profitable collaboration with Games Workshop on various Warhammer 40,000 titles.

Ultimately, if companies aren't interested and aren't pursuing the rights, then there are limitations on what can be done with the rights. Cyanide were interested for a long time and eventually persuaded GRRM to agree to the deal. Whilst I think it may have proven better in the long run to have held off on selling the game rights until the TV series was out (when interest from other, more proven, companies would be far higher), I don't think you can blame GRRM too much for going with the only game in town.

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I was hoping that CD Projekt (developers of The Witcher series of games) would be offered the chance to make an ASOIAF RPG. BioWare and Bethesda would have been the best choices, but CD Projekt wouldn't have done a bad job (take a look at their latest game, The Witcher 2). I guess one can still keep their hopes up for the future.

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CDProjekt would have been an excellent fit, although it's questionable if they want to get a reputation as the 'turning epic fantasy books into RPG' guys, since they're already doing that with the Witcher novels and short stories.

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