343 Industries and the legacy of the Halo brand – Licensing.biz

So often is the word ‘franchise’ thrown about in the games industry that it almost seems ubiquitous. If you go through this years E3 conferences, you’ll probably hear a lot of games referred to in this way. Becoming a franchise and the merchandising, expanded universe products and spin offs that come from it is of course big money. One of the biggest gaming franchises to capitalise on this is Halo.

After sixteen years, the Halo franchise is at cross roads in gaming. It is about to straddle the end of one generation and the beginning of the 4K era. It’s also looking at the ending of its second trilogy entitled the ‘Reclaimer’ trilogy. But that isn’t stopping its drive for identifying consumer product possibilities.

"This year marked the introduction of Halo branded Boys’ Apparel in the US, Mexico, and the UK," said 343 Industries John Friend to our sister site, Licensing.biz. "The boy’s space remains a strong place of growth for the Halo brand as we continue to expand into new categories through 2018. This fall we will be releasing the follow up to the very popular Halo: Mythos book with Halo: Warfleet – an illustrated guide to the spacecraft of Halo. In addition, we are happy to be working with Funko again on a new line of collectable POP Figures due to release in early 2018."

You can read the full interview with John Friend over at our sister site, Licensing.biz, where the future of the franchise and the place of the games in esports is also discussed.