If the Defenders of High Culture didn’t have enough to worry about with the Harry Potter conference, there now comes an announcement that a new Harry Potter game will be coming out this fall. Perhaps the 2013 conference will feature an in-depth examination of Harry Potter for Kinect and what it means to our society.

If it’s anything like Star Wars Kinect, it might not be such a great thing, although I think Potter fans might be more receptive to that sort of thing than Star Wars fans. As long-time readers probably know, I think that J.K. Rowling’s series is fun, but deeply flawed. (Someday maybe I’ll write about that at length.) I’ve never played any of the games based on it, as they all seem to have about them the feel of something done just to cash in on the popularity of the name.

As far as I can tell, all Potter games have been based to a large degree on the books and movies. As a Star Wars fan, I know from experience that this usually means trouble. Star Wars games are either excellent or really bad. And the bad ones are often the ones that try to follow the movies, and have you playing as Luke or Anakin or someone. (The LEGO ones don’t count; they follow the movies, but with an original twist.)

The great Star Wars game series everyone thinks of are original stories like Rogue Squadron, Jedi Knight and Knights of the Old Republic. These take place in the Star Wars universe, and though in some cases they overlap with events or characters from the movies, for the most part they are their own stories. They don’t let the established stories dictate their course too much.

Are there any Harry Potter games that take place in the Potter universe, but don’t more or less follow the established story and timeframe? That would have the potential to be good, and to keep the franchise going. Now, for all I know, Rowling has forbidden this. Which she, as the creator of the series, is totally within her rights to do. But it would be the best thing for it as a franchise.