Farscape MMO Confirmed And Then Destroyed
You may have heard the rumors that began circulating last year about a possible Farscape MMORPG game that was in development, fans have been screaming for information but until now, it has fallen on deaf ears. Lee Hammock, previously the lead designer for the MMO game Fallen Earth, posted on his blog regarding the current state of development and what they’ve been doing the past several months, sadly it’s not good news.
On the one hand, the project has finally been confirmed and according to sources, over $150 million was raised for funding, so far so good. But don’t get too excited because that’s about it for the good news. In the blog post Lee described the design process they were using to transform the highly popular Farscape IP into a MMORPG title. The pre-production process consisted of over 200 pages of unique content, such as story and character biographies, and a large amount of time in meetings with the creator of Farscape, Rockne O’Bannon, all of which has now amassed to nothing.
Now it’s not uncommon for these kinds of projects to generate interest from other avenues and there’s plenty of MMO companies willing to pay the big bucks for the top IPs, such as Bigpoints Battlestar Galactica Online and the upcoming Game of Thrones, but is the Farscape IP really worth all that much?
The original TV series of Farscape included 4 seasons, cut short from the five that were originally planned, and ran from March 19, 1999 – March 21, 2003. Four years isn’t really that impressive when you consider that other famous IPs that have made it to the MMO world have been running for over a decade. Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars was the curtain call for the Farscape TV series, an attempt to appease fans that were flooding websites with complaints over the cliff-hanger in the fourth season.
So what are your thoughts? Does the IP have the potential to make it worthwhile to release a Farscape MMO?
Considering Farscape fans like myself are both dedicated and employed professionals who would not hesitate to put down a monthly sub fee for this game then even with 50 to 200k subs its still profitable as long as the production cost is not over the top. Most of us would consider it money well spent. It would attract a sci fi sandbox loner type of player who wants to be on a crew or work in cells on a Peacekeeper/Scarran ship etc. the more races the original writers can add in would be an added bonus. I have no idea why Brian Henson doesn’t pick this back up, Farscape was one of and could still be one of their best cash cows and fan draws.