Potentially disastrous news this week for anyone looking forward to the upcoming Ghostbusters video game. It looks like the game’s publisher, Blizzard/Vivendi, has officially dropped the project as a result of their recent merger with Activision. The game industry is starting to look a lot like the movie industry nowadays, with fewer and fewer major companies holding the purse strings. In this case, Ghostbusters seems like it may be a casualty, along with some other games that are currently in limbo such as the upcoming Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena.

Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith had this to say: “We have conducted a thorough review of Vivendi Games’ brand portfolio and are retaining those franchises and titles that are a strong fit with our long-term product strategy. We are reviewing our options regarding those titles that we will not be publishing.”

A San Diego Comic Con panel on the Ghostbusters game was reportedly canceled at the last minute, which gives an indication of the project’s current crisis. Essentially what this means is that developer Terminal Reality must now find a new publisher to fund the game. I do think that someone else will likely pick it up, as it would be a shame to waste the buzz that has been building and the involvement of all the original cast members (minus Rick Moranis, that is). The problem is, while movie fans have been showing enthusiasm for it, I don’t know that gamers in general have been all that impressed with the footage shown thus far. We’ll have more on this as it develops.

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