We've had our problems with a few of the decisions made by the development team for the forthcoming Ghostbusters video game — like their galling one to forge ahead without the participation of Rick Moranis (!), for example — but we certainly hope we never gave the impression that we didn't intend to buy the damn thing and neglect our job, health, and loved ones while we played through it. Variety reports today that, following a merger between video-game companies Activision with Vivendi, Ghostbusters: The Video Game has been left (temporarily, we hope!) without a publisher. The new merged company, Activision Blizzard, announced that it would be releasing only a small handful of games by Sierra (the label that worked on Ghostbusters) and Ghostbusters isn't one of them.

The game had been tentatively scheduled for an October release, but Sierra is now hoping to find a new publisher to get the game out sometime in 2009, probably to coincide with some sort of celebration for the 25th anniversary of the release of the original Ghostbusters movie. That's fine, we guess, but video games, like most entertainment products, don't usually benefit from being shelved for a year, especially given the constant evolution of video-game technology; now that we've seen Grand Theft Auto IV, Halo 3 — which came out just last September — is already looking a little long in the tooth. By the time Ghostbusters finally comes out, though we're sure it'll be fun, we're worried it'll look like a Civil War relic compared to other, newer games. As far as we're concerned, a delay would be inexcusable — unless Rick Moranis has finally relented and they're secretly recording his dialogue and having him motion-captured, because that would be awesome.

Videogame giants without a home [Variety]
Earlier: Lame: Ghostbusters Video Game to Be Moranis-Less