Multiple Medias Never Hurt; How Hawken Utilizes Graphic Novels to Push their Game Further

Video games are becoming a more apparent part of our culture every day; it used to be that society viewed gamers as overweight guys who still lived in their parents’ basements. Now, we know that gamers come in all shapes, sizes, genders, and ethnicities, but there is still a large part of society that doesn’t claim “gamer” status. Video game studios have to come up with creative ways to try and engage this demographic of people; they’re stuck in the television age and refuse to move out of that comfort zone.

Enter the game Defiance. I’m sure you’ve heard of it by now, it’s a massively multiplayer shooter made for console that ties in with a TV series of the same name on the SYFY network. So far it has received mixed reviews, but mostly because of the number of bugs that the game has been plagued with thus far. Despite the bugs, most people seem to enjoy the gameplay quite a bit; Kevin VanOrd from Gamespot reviewed the game and said: “Defiance is a difficult game to wrap your head around. That’s not because it’s all that complicated, but rather because it’s just so much fun, even though none of the elements are done particularly well.” The TV series seems to be a hit among sci-fi fans, giving the game an even higher presence in the world of “non-gamers.”

Recently I attended the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) and had the opportunity to speak to Mark Tanjutco, Marketing Manager for Meteor Entertainment who is publishing Hawken, a free-to-play first person mech shooter that is currently in open beta and will have a full release this year. The multiplayer element of the open beta is a lot of fun, some of the controls are clunky but the purpose of open beta is to find the bugs and correct before full launch. While discussing some of the pros and cons I had found while playing the open beta I learned that the makers of Hawken had joined forces with Archaia Entertainment to produce a series of graphic novels that tell more in-depth story elements of the world in which Hawken is set. I was given a copy of the first novel in the series, Hawken: Genesis and so far I am totally pulled in to the story and the history that the series has set up, plus it has given a new meaning to the gameplay available in the open beta. Like Defiance, the makers of Hawken have decided to introduce a second media element to their game to not only pull more readers/gamers into the series but to offer up an experience not found in many multiplayer games.

While speaking Mark Tanjutco, I was also introduced to Meteor Entertainment’s CEO Mark Long and was able to pick his brain about their choice to do a graphic novel series alongside the game. He expressed their interest in wanting to engage players on a deeper level and that they believed the graphic novel series was the way to go. Which sparked my thinking, is this the future of video games? Engaging a variety of players is important to keeping a series going, but taking this extra step to include multiple media to engage players allows them to invest time in more than just the game. At some point video games will have to change their strategies in order to convince players that they’re more than just the same MMO or FPS that they’ve seen before.

Aside from the engagement level that having a graphic novel series brings to Hawken, it also brings in a separate level of appreciation from people who enjoy graphic novels. The first graphic novel in the series is extremely well done, the story is engaging, the art is phenomenal, and it has a lot to offer people who enjoy science fiction novels. I think that the creators have definitely found the sweet spot from which they can offer something great to people who enjoy video games as well as people who enjoy comics and graphic novels while also enticing those people to try the counterpart they are not usually associated with.

I would definitely recommend checking out not only the open beta for Hawken but the next time you’re at your local comic book store ask if they have Hawken: Genesis so that you can immerse yourself in a great series before the full launch of the game this year!

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