Before Dynamite had aired its first episode, AEW folks were talking video games. They had big plans, that they reportedly spent a ton of money making happen. A few mobile games came and went, and the ceiling on reviews for the Yukes-developed AEW: Fight Forever console game seemed to be “fun but not much replay value”.
Now they don’t talk video games nearly as much (at least not AEW-licensed ones). But president and head of creative Tony Khan did yesterday (Aug. 21) on his media call to promote Sunday’s
Forbidden Door PPV:
“I love pro wrestling, and I’ll be the first to say that I’m not the biggest expert in the world on video gaming. I like to play games, but I’m not the expert.
”There are great, great experts in the world about it and I tried to take insight and advice from people in AEW and people around the developers. And absolutely, we learned a lot in the making of the game and could take that in the future, I really believe to make the next game much, much better and learn from the experiences of doing that.
“But I also think that we’re having a great year with our wrestling and our TV, our pay-per-views, and doing all kinds of great things that are our core competencies…
”I’m not sure what the future would hold. I do think eventually there will be further AEW forays into gaming, different kinds of games, mobile games, different concepts, different platforms. I can’t say for sure what they’ll all be, because again, like I said, I’ll never claim to be the world’s biggest expert on video gaming. But I like it and I know it’s a huge part of a lot of our fans’ lives. It’s really important to a lot of our fans, and I’m trying to learn from that feedback.”
There’s been talk of AEW switching developing partners if they do take a second stab at Fight Forever, but the boss doesn’t sound like he’s in a big hurry to expend resources on the Games department right now — if ever.
But let us know what your read on that quote is, and the future of AEW video games, in the comments below.
