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Random House Unit Developing Videogame Stories, Characters

Hungry for new ways to generate sales, Random House is peddling two stories -- a fantasy adventure and a horror thriller -- to videogame marketers that a new in-house team has developed. The publisher suggests characters and a storyline and provides an analysis of the kind of gamer that would be attracted to each project, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg reports.

"There is increasing emphasis on storytelling in the videogame business, on building new worlds from the ground up," says Keith Clayton, Random House's director of creative development. He and Mikita Labanok, director of business development, head the team of 15 employees. Random House authors will help write storylines for the games, as well as write novels based on them.

Random House also has struck a deal with software developer Stardock to work on the coming launch of its strategy game "Elemental: War of Magic." It will publish a novel based on the game and its writers are helping to create and polish a script and dialogue for the game itself. "Poor dialogue ruins the experience," says Stardock CEO Brad Wardell.

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