American Idol online… (King.com + FremantleMedia [RTL Group/Bertelsmann])

After “Deal or No Deal,” “1 vs 100,” “Who Wants to be A Millionaire,” and “Big Brother” a company called King.com now also has the license for “American Idol.” Extending the existing brand into online game space, King.com is really just giving you a more-or-less interactive (someone say iTV?) version.

“The idea behind the game is to really re-create the experience of going before the ‘American Idol’ jury,” said Robert Norton, vp business development in the U.S. at King.com. “Players will create a personal avatar and dress them in costumes and then use the cursors on the keyboard to sing and dance to the music.” (source)

Quoting a whopping $250,000 to develop the game, it is apparently the most expensive “casual Web game ever made.” Sigh. You mean, the most desperate attempt to squeeze ad-revenue out of a played out property. FremantleMedia (wholly owned by the RTL Group, which is 90% owned by Bertelsmann) seems excited. I’d be too if someone’d shelled out a quarter mill to make a game that already exists. Let’s pray that some of FremantleMedia’s other licenses, like “The Farmer Wants a Wife” and “How Clean is Your House,” never breach game space. Brrrr.