Re: Easy money for Shrapnel and Malfador.
A TV series/movie based on a video game, huh? Um. Oh dear. As a science fiction writer, I dare say it won't work to good effect. Video game plots are pretty thin to begin with, but SE4 doesn't even have a plot to start from. What are you going to base the series/movie on? A series of space battles? That'd be worse than Star Trek. Political intrigue? And you'd relate that to the game how?
As a rule, the initial medium in which entertainment appears is the best medium, and rarely does anything else do justice. Hitchhiker's Guide is one of two exception I can think of, in which the books were as good as and later extended the plot of the radio series. (The second exception is the movie "Contact". In both cases production of the latter form was done by the same person as the original form.) But:
Star Trek books, as a rule, suck. Star Wars books, too. Don't get me started on bad science fiction "written" by Star Trek actors who believe that because Shatner can have books ghost-written for him by hacks, they can as well;
How many video game movies have actually done well? (Pokemon doesn't count; it was, I suspect, a two-hour long FMV sequence).
Have you ever read a novelization of a movie? (Or, worse, take Great Expectations. The movie was a bad enough adaptation of the original book; then they novelized the movie. You read that right. They didn't republish Dickens's book. Someone wrote a new book based on the movie. Ugh.)
OK, sorry... enough venting. Nothing against Malfador, but I would really suggest it's not the way to go.
LL
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