Blizzard Teams Up With Scholastic For Children's World of Warcraft Series

[Lizzy Finnegan]

Blizzard Teams Up With Scholastic For Children's World of Warcraft Series


Blizzard and Scholastic have teamed up to create a World of Warcraft book series for children.

Today, Blizzard announced a collaboration [http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/scholastic-and-blizzard-entertainment-announce-world-of-warcraft-traveler-a-new-book-series-for-children-based-on-the-global-bestselling-game-franchise-300242681.html#continue-jump] with Scholastic in order to create a new series, aimed at children aged 8-12, based on World of Warcraft. The first entry in the series, titled World of Warcraft: Traveler, follows 12-year-old Aramar Thorne as he embarks on a journey of adventures across Azeroth with naught but a sketch book, his father's compass, and some "unlikely friendships."

"World of Warcraft is a captivating fantasy universe that lends itself to many imaginative and innovative storytelling possibilities. When Blizzard initially approached us about creating an original series for kids, we were not only intrigued but immediately mesmerized," said Debra Dorfman, Vice President and Publisher, Global Licensing, and Media Consumer Products at Scholastic. "This has truly been a fantastic collaboration and we look forward to sharing this thrilling adventure with boys and girls everywhere."

"We're excited to be collaborating with Scholastic on a series that will bring Azeroth to life for a whole new audience," said Chris Metzen, Senior Vice President of Story and Franchise Development at Blizzard Entertainment. "And Greg Weisman is an accomplished writer who's really gotten to the heart and soul of Warcraft with the characters he's developed here-we're thrilled with the work he's done on World of Warcraft: Traveler."

The first book is slated to release this November, with the second expected in November 2017.

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[Pirate Of PC Master race]

You require additional pandas.

On the serious note, I am waiting for angry people to complain about this.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

This confuses me, I mean generally while the violence in Warcraft has been very PG-13, wasn't it always aimed at a teenager demographic and above? I mean I can't really see the 8-12 year old's enjoying monsters like C'Thun or hearing about the plague that killed off most of the northern half of the eastern kingdoms.

 

[Hawki]

Eh...this doesn't bother me too much.

As someone who works in a library, I encounter a lot of children's books, and by proxy, a lot of franchises with books for children that are obstensibly adult (Star Wars and Marvel are among the most popular of these kinds of books). I think Warcraft as a setting can fit the bill for these kinds of works - far more than StarCraft or Diablo for instance. And this isn't the first time EU Warcraft material has skewed for the young crowd (e.g. some of the short stories in the Legends manga series), or Pearl of Pandaria. I still thoroughly enjoyed the latter.

 

[Abomination]

This is awesome from a business perspective.

Like when they gave free cigarettes out at high school.

Gotta get them young for their monthly subs.

 

[StatusNil]

"We want to SHARE the experience of Azeroth with our kids!"

And there I was cynically thinking that this was just them wanting to to expand their market to the kiddie demographic. Boy, was my face red when I discovered the true reason was just the desire to share the magical experience and make the eyes of children everywhere shine with innocent delight!

You'd think even a sour old curmudgeon like me would have learned from my previous, similar mistake regarding the new Tween Line of exciting "Assassin's Creed" content that Ubisoft has promised to deliver. As a noted orator put it, "We can't build our dreams on suspicious minds".

 

[Synigma]

Gotta get them young for their monthly subs.

Gotta hook them before they fall into CoD or something worse!

Seriously though, I think it's a good use for an older IP. Plus it keeps the brand name alive in case they come out with something new (If the movie does well it might re-invigorate it). And hey, a couple kids might actually learn something along the way!

 

[Politrukk]

Vanilla WoW and Pandaria have sort of shown that Blizzard can write and develop a more nuanced fantasy world.
I think this might actually be a good thing and fill the gap that's currently in the market for kids.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

It should be interesting to see what they do with this.

A ballsy move would have the series never even deal with violence, its just a kid adventuring in Azeroth.

 

[EyeReaper]

Just make sure Sylvanis doesn't turn around in any of these books. These are the children we should be thinking of.

So, If it's about some human dude travelling the world, he must be playing on a PVE server then? Or is he just going to get ganked by a 50+ level rogue halfway through?

What is Aramar's Gearscore? There's just too many questions.