Game of Thrones is the incredibly popular TV series (and book series) which has been a total hit for HBO. In June, the franchise expanded by releasing it’s own RPG, and now Artplant is developing a new MMO, entitled Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms. The franchise is expanding its way into the gaming universe, with new games being announced for every platform imaginable (even tabletop and board games).

The original RPG was pretty poorly taken, but might make significantly more sense than the MMO. It begins at the start of the series, when Jon Arryn, the hand of king Baratheon, is found dead. The game follows completely original stories, but is in perfect canon with the series. While the RPG is rather innovative in its narrative, the combat is widely said to be easily exploited, the dialogue is a little off; the game pulls in a metacritic score of around a mere 50 out of 100.

The MMO, announced earlier this week, focuses on the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and is set after the deaths of two pretty important characters in the first season (trying to avoid spoilers, here, just watch it!). The game is being developed by a Norwegian studio known as Artplant, and will be funded by Bigpoint. Players are challenged to create alliances through PvP and attempt to control Westeros for themselves. Needless to say, it’ll be quite political and some pretty appealing screenshots have already been released. A trailer will be released on July 12^th at the San Diego Comic-Con.

A sequel to the original RPG has also been announced as a considerably more humorous 8-bit re-enactment, entitled Game of Thrones: A Clash of Kings Expansion. This new RPG follows the story of the sophomore season, but adds some exciting content that might actually make this game more worthwhile than the aforementioned failures (which is probable, in the MMOs case). There’s even a mini-game that will allow you to slap the well-hated Joffrey in a “King-Slap Bonus Round.” Anyone who is a fan of the show, or the books, is probably pretty ecstatic to hear that they can give that mini-monarch the harsh slaps he deserves.

It seems pretty common, lately, that popular film and TV franchises are expanding in to games. Hell, there’s even a Twilight game and literally hundreds of websites dedicated to their own rip-offs of that saga alone. Creating MMO’s definitely isn’t the wisest move, because every developer is convinced they can easily be as popular as World of Warcraft – which is rarely (if ever) the case. If the Star Wars MMO failed in the end, it’s hard to imagine Game of Thrones taking the cake!

What do you guys think about TV shows turned into games? Is it worthwhile or not?