From books to video games: publishers getting the most out of fiction

By Sandra TraunerThese days books aren’t just made into films — they can be made into animated e-books, card games, even video games.In the expanding agents centre at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the heart of the annual event, it’s no longer a case of negotiating the rights to the paperback edition, or the translation of a book into foreign languages.Film producers, games publishers and video games developers are also on the prowl for what they call “content.” In fact the book fair isn’t really about books now, says the fair’s director, Juergen Boos, “it’s about intellectual property.”The spectrum of products you can make from what initially just happened to be a book is growing ever broader.British author Ken Follett was at the fair to present a video game based on his 1989 bestseller The Pillars of the Earth. The game is due to hit shelves in 2017.Follett, 66, says he was at first rather sceptical about the idea of a video game based on his book.“My initial reaction was ‘how would that work’?” But then he discovered that the writing of a book and the development of a video game have two important elements in common: “First I create an imaginary world and then I try to pull the reader in. That’s what they do too.”Is that art or is it entertainment, someone asks. To which Follett responds, “How do you define art?”For him, art is about bringing a story to life — and in that respect video games can certainly be their own art form.To see a book as art and everything else as entertainment is “snobby,” he says.Video game developers Daedelic Entertainment have been working on the game version of the historical novel for a year and a half.Only 15 per cent of the text will be found in the game, says chief executive Carsten Fichtelmann, who sees it as “interactive literature.”He has around 25 people working on the game and another 100 providing components such as music or voices for the characters — a lot more effort than writing, some might think. Consumers have the choice: read 1,300 pages or play out the story for 25 hours.Marco Schneider, content director at Bastei Luebbe, which publishes The Pillars of the Earth in Germany, thinks publishers will make more and more money in the future from spin-offs like the games.“It’ll certainly increase in the future,” he says.An e-book with interactive elements has been made out of the book and from there, it’s a small step to a video game.But it’s certainly not suitable for all books: “It has to be great stuff,” he says.“New technologies offer the possibility of expanding the book and bringing content to life again,” says Johannes Hauenstein, director of the publishers Ravensburger Buchverlag.Ravensburger makes books and games and has invented the bestselling tiptoi pen, which combines the two.The publisher calls its product range an “audio-digital learning system” and according to Hauenstein it’s already responsible for 20 per cent of the company’s sales. —DPA