Pottermore: Will It Be a Game?

The news has been trickling through the internet today about a new project from J.K. Rowling dubbed "Pottermore." All that exists thus far is the web site teaser and some wild rumors. We know what it's not, however, and that's an announcement of a new book. Rowling has made that clear.

Since everyone else is speculating, I might as well join the club and ask, "Could it be a massively multiplayer Harry Potter game?" I'm thinking the answer to that is a very firm no. Electronic Arts owns the interactive rights, and they don't appear to be involved in any of the filings for the domains or trademarking of Pottermore.

I'll just take a wild shot in the dark and guess we're looking at a broad-based online Harry Potter experience which may include light gaming, but also fan content, forums, news, and retail. More to the point, Rowling has already stated that she wrote a lot extra material while building the world and writing the books, and she'd like to make that available to fans. This may well be a conduit for that kind of content. I'm guessing it's a Disney.go kinda thing, with a more fan-friendly approach. We'll know for sure next week.

The site was teased with a viral game. Ten map coordinates were sent out to fan sites. These coordinates could be entered at secretstreetview.com. If you zoomed in on the location, you got a letter. If you found all ten, it spelled out "Pottermore". Here's an example:

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