China’s most popular TV serial of all time, the iconic historical costume drama Princess Pearl, will soon get a postmodern twist as it’s reinvented as a computer game.
Now at the stage of being drawn and mapped (pictured below), the game will be an online multiplayer title developed by a small studio called Beijing WuShen Century Network, and will be distributed on 17173.com, the huge gaming portal that was recently acquired by Changyou (NASDAQ:CYOU).
Princess Pearl, when it was first screened, enjoyed the highest viewership in Chinese television history. Seasons one and two received up to 54 percent and 65 percent of audience share respectively during its broadcast. It has become the television series with the most reruns in China from the 1990s to today. It went on to similarly phenomenal popularity in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand. The classic TV series was known as My Fair Princess in some nations.
This image, and the three others below, are initial sketches of the game characters from 17173.com.
The drama was actually based on a book by the contemporary author Chuing Yao, who has licensed the rights to the game developer. We are expecting to see the online game go live within this year, launching simultaneously in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
A report from Sina Games says that the online game version will feature some plot elaborations that were not covered directly in the novel or TV series, such as the reason why the Empress and the elderly battleaxe Rong Mo Mo (pictured below) were always displeased with Xiao Yanzi.
The report also states that the licensing fee paid by the game studio to the author, Chuing Yao, is at least one million RMB (US$159,000), though no precise figure was given. Apparently, it took two months to negotiate that. Ms Yao will supervise the game development and can interject at any time for the sake of the quality of the adaptation. Both the developers and Changyou must be hoping for some kind of repeat of the success of the classic TV series once the game goes online.
[Source of news and images: 17173 News [1] and [2], and Sina Games – articles in Chinese]
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