Comic-con 2008 and the quest for new IP

Think the intellectual property (IP) you choose doesn’t have a big impact on how your game does?  According to a recent Gamasutra article, lack of first-party IPs explains slow sales of the PS3.  Namco is ramping up its development of original IP.  So which IPs are the one to go for?  Well, you’re in luck.  At comic-con last week, I joined a feature creative exec in search of new intellectual property. 

I spent most of Thursday going from booth to booth, checking out the trends in comics.  The exec’s mandate was simple: no aliens, superheroes, or supernatural.  Not surprisingly, that was just about everything out there.  The descriptions all started out the same: “Joe is a mild-mannered X,” then the second sentence would be something about aliens.  If you’re developing original IP, you’ll be up against a heap of competition if you play in these types of worlds. 

No matter what IP you buy or develop, make sure to get out of the way of your fans.  As Will Wright said at comic-con, eventually your players are going to entertain you more than you entertain them.  You want to give them the tools to do so, then get out of their way. 

With the alien/sci fi, supernatural, and superhero genres covered in comics and games and the war genre pretty much covered in games, what storytelling genres do you think are underserved in games?

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