Colin Campbell of Business Week wrote:I ask Nancy MacIntyre, VP of global sales and marketing, about the future of the franchise, I’m not expecting her to say, “Colin, we want to share some really amazing secrets with you.” And it turns out I’m right. But she does talk about how the company is approaching this IP for the future.

“We feel like it’s really important to make each Star Wars game an event, she explains. “Our fans want a logical progression of the Star Wars story line, so we are committed to only two Star Wars experiences a year.”

She adds, “There will be one mega one like Star Wars ’07 and another that might be somewhat more specific, for more of a specific Star Wars audience. So in 2007 our primary goal will be Star Wars ’07 and you will see us do add-ons to our Star Wars Galaxies (MMO) and you will likely see us do some sort of Star Wars handheld game.”

Star Wars ’07 is the game that has been shown in tech demo form at a few conferences and via online clips. It looks great, as one would expect. Star Wars games, nowadays, are almost always good games.

But what of the future, beyond next year? “In 2008 and 2009 we start to run into the Star Wars animated series and potentially the Star Wars live action TV series,” she says. “There’s been a lot of speculation about what we actually have in development and that’s very closely guarded. I would say that if there’s Star Wars television programming out there that we’ll have games.”

KOTOR and Battle Front

MacIntyre continues, “We’ve also got Star Wars franchises like Knights of the Old Republic and Battle Front that we will not leave behind. It’s very important to us that we grow those franchises.” So the future of Star Wars includes new and old game-based IP as well as IP based on other spin-offs.

Star Wars 07 will be a new brand, but MacIntyre says there will be no ‘core’ Star Wars branded games. This game will sit alongside KOTOR and Battle Front.

What is interesting is how this massive, huge game will be handled from a marketing perspective over the next year. Lucas is wisely using the public’s interest as an asset to be leveraged, rather than as an inconvenience to be avoided, until the time is ripe. What this means is a steady flow of information; just the sort of thing journalists enjoy as much as fan-boys.

“We typically work on these games about eighteen months out. We really treat these games like they are a theatrical release from the perspective of mapping everything out. We know that we need to be out there talking early and often and so you will see us handling the basic things like websites, but we’ll also do web-docs and developer diaries and behind the scenes and all the kinds of information that these core fans really want to know.”

Of course, given the appetite of this audience, resources must be put in place. She explains, “It takes a ton of work. We have the benefit of StarWars.com here which is basically a daily magazine with a tremendous amount of content. We are used to developing content and releasing it on a regular basis.”

But not everyone is a Star Wars nut. She adds, “Then there’s everybody else out there who may need to be sold on why the Star Wars game is phenomenal. We need to be more judicious about how we talk to them and where we reach them. So there will be a very big consumer push leading all the way up to the crescendo of the launch. Very soon we’ll do a big announcement on the game and go from there.”

Teancum wrote:Well, the project is called Force Unleashed. I haven't seen anything giving the actual title of the game yet.

The_Emperor wrote:Yeah but I think it's a working title After all, we were all convinced the Wii'd be named the Revolution too

Kyross wrote:I have heard they are definitely working on a Battlefront 3.

Force unleashed is a working title.

Anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

Now grovel at my feet.