EA hires Steven Spielberg

    Source: http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000517063307/

    Electronic Arts will be paying Steven Spielberg to “shape the concept, story and visual appearance” of three brand-spanking-new games, according to this morning’s Wall Street Journal. There’s no mention of what game ideas might already be twirling around in Spielberg’s noggin, but the games are probably still a couple years away at this point.

    We’re hopeful that this combination of the world’s biggest director and the world’s biggest game publisher will mean three amazing new titles with epic scope and the emotional appeal of some of Spielberg’s better efforts. Could this sort of relationship herald the beginnings of a new bifurcation in the games industry? Spielberg’s name on a game will help EA market the title and will perhaps decrease mainstream player appetites for titles without the name of a top-tier director on the box.

    To put it another way, are today’s top games designers about to be shoved to the bargain bin in favor of games designed by carpetbaggers from Hollywood?

    Yup, hopefully something good will come out of this overall instead of mediocre games with a cool story.

    But man its gotta be cool to get to work with Spielberg

    What does Spielberg know about videogames? I mean he´s 50-> or something... Tbh this sounds like one of EA´s ways of getting more attention to its games.

    Well, look at games like HL2. Story-driven and cinematic games are on the up, and the technology is rapidly developing. We're now at a stage where developers can employ real-time techniques that were only available to movie producers just a year or two back... so I guess part of the video games market colliding with the film market is inevitable. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

    Quote from JAL

    What does Spielberg know about videogames? I mean he´s 50-> or something... Tbh this sounds like one of EA´s ways of getting more attention to its games.

    Since when was EA about innovative gameplay? As far as I'm concerned, their games are sold by marketing.

    Quote from JAL

    What does Spielberg know about videogames? I mean he´s 50-> or something... Tbh this sounds like one of EA´s ways of getting more attention to its games.

    Speilberg is supposed to be quite the gamer. He's also been involved in some game projects in the past such as The Dig.

    So this isnt really like hes treading new ground, its just more involved afaik.

    Quote from JAL

    What does Spielberg know about videogames? I mean he´s 50-> or something... Tbh this sounds like one of EA´s ways of getting more attention to its games.

    Actually, a while ago he did some lectures about how games should be in the future (story and character wise). He said it himself that he's very interested in video games and their future.

    EDIT: mazzle beat me to it.

    Also remeber that The Dig was made by the lucasArts team that brought us these classic games: The Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max: Hit the Road.

    I'm sure Spielberg helped in the direction and development. Hopefully, the development team will follow his wisdom. hehe

    It's very easy for people to assume things like "Oh, he's a sixty year old film director, he clearly knows nothing about games and this is all part of Electronic Arts' master plan to destroy the gaming industry". Just do us all a favour and don't bother committing those assumptions to writing.

    Anyway, this could be a pretty good move. It's a bit ridiculous to paint every single developer involved with EA with the 'care about nothing but money' brush, and I'm growing increasingly tired of seeing it. Some fantastic games have come from the EA name, and them putting down the funds to give their developers a chance to have better storytelling (even if that doesn't turn out to be the case) can't be a bad thing.

    Hopefully we'll see some good stuff coming from this, although it's going to take some very intense collaboration between Spielberg and the game leads to ultimate in a truly inspiring experience. If either party try to take too much creative control then it's going to end up spiraling into a big mess. I'd like to be optimistic, though.

    Quote from JAL

    What does Spielberg know about videogames? I mean he´s 50-> or something... Tbh this sounds like one of EA´s ways of getting more attention to its games.

    Maybe too, but Steven Spielberg is hired to arrange the 'concept part': the theatre part, so to speak. Not the programming part. Thus I fail to see why age should be a problem.

    Quote from killertomato

    Maybe too, but Steven Spielberg is hired to arrange the 'concept part': the theatre part, so to speak. Not the programming part. Thus I fail to see why age should be a problem.

    No kidding. What does age have to do with anything? So what if he's 50. Does that make him any less a spectacular director?

    Quote from Belgarion

    Maybe too, but Steven Spielberg is hired to arrange the 'concept part': the theatre part, so to speak. Not the programming part. Thus I fail to see why age should be a problem.

    No kidding. What does age have to do with anything? So what if he's 50. Does that make him any less a spectacular director?

    First of all I have no grudge with EA. If it were some small company that hired Spielberg it wouldn´t change my attitude a bit.

    My point was not to insult old people for that I am sorry. I just think it´s rediculous that Hollywood in general has (suddenly) become really interested in the games industry cuz they can see the money that can be made. Games based on movies are rarely anything playable and movies based on videogames are... . However this is something new to hire a famous director to pimp your game. We´ll see how it works out...

    There's nothing sudden about it. One of the most influential studios of the early 90s (LucasArts) was derived from a film studio, and they produced some of the most realised games of all time. And as somebody mentioned in this thread earlier, Spielberg was involved with LucasArts' The Dig ten years ago.

    A lot of game/film transitions are utter crap, but that doesn't mean that a genuinely talented person such as Spielberg can't apply his experience and gift to the games industry and hopefully rub it off onto other developers. The crap film-titles are generally where a publisher is only producing it for the brief profit boom that can occur following a successful film, and don't really care about what the game's about at all -- it just has to exist.

    Things are progressing though, and Peter Jackson is one person who evidently has at least some respect for the games industry and gaming in general considering that he's got Michael Ancel working on the King Kong game. Things won't improve if everyone just assumes that a game with Hollywood influences will be shit, though. At the end of the day, Spielberg will probably make peanuts from this deal in comparison to the other earnings of his career. He obviously has some genuine interest.

    from what I remember, Spielberg contributed somewhat on Medal of Honor as it was supposed to be a Saving Private Ryan game. The man knows how to tell a good story (only problem is that he always has happy endings. Some a little too happy), but I have faith in this idea.

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