The Discovery Channel has teamed with video-game maker Activision to start making animal-themed games based on its many cable properties. This is all a plan by Discovery to break away from the label of lowly "cable channel" and become a multimedia content provider. In the immortal words of Kent Brockman, "This, I don't need."
Possible titles include video-game adaptations of popular shows like "Meerkat Manor" and "Orangutan Island," and could bow as early as late 2008. Activision has had recent success with "Guitar Hero," but they also turn out tons of dreck based on Hollywood properties like SPider-Man and Transformers. I'm praying to the video game gods in hopes that they flop, because if we have to endure "American Chopper: The Show: The Game," I think it might be the surest sign of an impending apocalypse.
But it also seems like Discovery might be missing out on the chance to make some games that deal with actual science. There's plenty of opportunity for engaging space/astronomy games, medical games or games where the objective is to haul as much Alaskan king crab aboard your trawler without losing your crew to the icy maw of the Bering Sea.
Of course, I think I speak for most people when I say the game I'm most looking forward to is "Crocodile Hunter: Steve Irwin's Stingray Stab!" What, too soon?
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