The Hunger Games-Coming to a gaming console near you ...

While the Hunger Games continues to dominate everything, talk of it being made into the kind of game you could play on your Xbox is gaining momentum. ?If Lionsgate were to green light something like this would you play? ?The Hunger Games Adventures on Facebook seems to be doing pretty well after all. ?Check out the story from Forbes below:

When a movie catapults to a record box office opening of $152.5 million and shows no signs of slow-down with $61.1 mMillion in its second week, it establishes a franchise. The Hunger?Games?has already earned over $364.9 million globally. Lionsgate is turning the Suzanne Collins? book trilogy, which has sold over 23.5 million copies and counting, into four movies. And with a free-to-play Facebook game, The Hunger Games Adventures, and a free mobile game, The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire, more games are expected to appear.

?Games have always been in the back of everyone?s mind since we picked up the rights to the books,? said David Hayes, vice president of digital marketing at Lionsgate. ?Outside of the name that has ?games? in the title, it?s no-brainer that you?d make a game based on the book or movie. But we?ve been careful and cautious that when we do embark on a new project, we?re doing it the right way and delivering an experience that fans will enjoy. We?ve had many discussions about all the types of games, including console games. The two we released at launch are the best representation of what we?re setting out to do with these games.?

With the next movie due in 2013 and another two locked in after that, Lionsgate has plenty of time to partner with a game publisher and release at least a console game. Electronic Arts showed that games based on movies based on books can be successful with its Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises, as an example. And a game publisher can avoid the controversial aspect of The Hunger Games arena battles altogether.

?I don?t think having kids battle to the death in the Hunger Games is a hindrance to a potential console game,? said Hayes. ?If you look at the narrative arc across the trilogy of books, there?s an Old Testament-style story of Katniss versus the Capitol. It?s that grander story of having an enslaved people forced to compete in the games that?s very attractive to fans and marketers and anyone participating in the franchise. It gets people excited. The focus would be less on the kids killing kids aspect and more about the more powerful story of good versus evil.?

With Catching Fire, the second movie in the franchise, slated for a November 22, 2013 release, there?s plenty of time to develop a console game. There?s also time, with two additional movies slated to hit theaters after that, to develop a full-on MMO game like The Lord of the Rings Online or The Matrix Online.

For now, gamers have a pair of free games to play. There?s the mobile game, The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire, and the Funtactix Facebook game,?The Hunger Games Adventures. The Facebook game is receiving regular updates with new game content as well as tie-ins to the movie like music and clips.

?The thing I?m excited about with The Hunger Game Adventures is that its iterative,? said Hayes. ?Fans know that we?ll be making weekly updates with new items and environments and levels infinitely. The value proposition is tremendously different than buying a PS3 or Xbox game and playing through it. You could get updates through DLC, but Facebook lets us take things way beyond anything we could do on a console.?

But consoles should be the next step for The Hunger Games exploration. The Facebook game allowed Lionsgate to have something available in tandem with the first film. And with record box office expected for the rest of the franchise and the demographics of this franchise appealing to both males and females (something that kept the female-centric Twilight movies from getting games), the groundwork has been laid for a publisher to step in and create a videogame franchise tied into this mythology.

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