LucasArts to handle retail publishing?
If I'm not mistaken, Telltale has not given specific details in the retail editions of Tales of Monkey Island at this point, since they are entirely focused on the episodic schedule which has just started, and everything I have read in other topics is rather ambiguous in the matter.
Past games from Telltale, which have been mostly gaming adaptations of IPs originally belonging to other media (Bone, Sam & Max, Wallace & Grommit, etc), have required Telltale to license different and unrelated publishers (JoWood, Atari, etc) in order for these titles to reach the shelves. This time, however, they are producing a new installment of an established videogame series, which is also the property of a big corporation that actually has its own publishing structure and distribution deals.
That means that, unless LucasArts is not interested at all in handling Tales of Monkey Island (which is unlikely), looking for another publisher shouldn't be that necessary in this case. But aside from the more than likely statement that LucasArts will indeed take the publishing effort, what I would like to know is if they will eventually lead the important aspects like planning release dates and investing localisation process, in their own and aside from Telltale involvement.
I have the certainty that LucasArts would actually do a much better, accurate and complete job in these retail publishing tasks than Telltale could ever do itself, nor in association with any other publisher. Specially when covering the translation and dubbing to other languages (a hot topic here it seems), since most of their past efforts in the matter have been high-budget and top-notch enough to please everyone, probably because of their cinematic heritage. And a new Monkey Island game shouldn't be an exception for them.
Past games from Telltale, which have been mostly gaming adaptations of IPs originally belonging to other media (Bone, Sam & Max, Wallace & Grommit, etc), have required Telltale to license different and unrelated publishers (JoWood, Atari, etc) in order for these titles to reach the shelves. This time, however, they are producing a new installment of an established videogame series, which is also the property of a big corporation that actually has its own publishing structure and distribution deals.
That means that, unless LucasArts is not interested at all in handling Tales of Monkey Island (which is unlikely), looking for another publisher shouldn't be that necessary in this case. But aside from the more than likely statement that LucasArts will indeed take the publishing effort, what I would like to know is if they will eventually lead the important aspects like planning release dates and investing localisation process, in their own and aside from Telltale involvement.
I have the certainty that LucasArts would actually do a much better, accurate and complete job in these retail publishing tasks than Telltale could ever do itself, nor in association with any other publisher. Specially when covering the translation and dubbing to other languages (a hot topic here it seems), since most of their past efforts in the matter have been high-budget and top-notch enough to please everyone, probably because of their cinematic heritage. And a new Monkey Island game shouldn't be an exception for them.
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Comments
They seem to be taking a "wait and see" approach with regards to the idea of putting the MI SE out on retail shelves, but they have plenty of time to think about it before the Tales season is done
I thought Craig Derrick had stated that the The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will remain download-only? Not sure if they will reconsider the idea for this one at some point, despite having a mock-up cover art that could be used for retail (seems intended for the digital download services where it will be available).
It's a enhanced edition of an old game after all, something fitting the download exclusivity. This shouldn't be related to the case of a brand new game like Tales of Monkey Island.