Despite the box office success of Avatar the sales of Avatar: The Game weren’t that impressive. It wasn’t a flop, selling over 2.7 million copies, but it didn’t meet expectations, which some blame on Ubisoft’s decision to release it 2 weeks ahead of the movie (before the hype).
With Avatar 2 and 3 set for 2014 and 2015 Ubisoft will have another chance to make an Avatar game, and director James Cameron thinks the universe is “perfect” for an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game).
From IGN:
I think Avatar is a perfect IP for an MMO. It’s a very, very big world and based on the first film, you might not sense that, but we’re talking about an entire planet, an entire alter world, and in fact a universe that has other planetary bodies, as well, and other cultures, other life forms. Eventually people will see enough scope to be able to see how the MMO will work, but that’s going to have to be launched…the timing of that is going to have to be carefully orchestrated with the release of the second and third film because we don’t want to be giving away elements before the fact. And also I think one of the cool things about an MMORPG is that you have to have a lot more possibilities for characters than what you see in the film. The film is really just a leaping off point, so we’ve got to create a rich and diverse world that lives well beyond the films.
While no plans are currently in place to develop an Avatar MMO, it’s an interesting prospect. If it does happen we probably won’t be seeing it for another 3-4 years so, like the movies, we’ll just have to wait patiently.
