EA Discusses Spielberg Game Collaboration 23
simoniker writes "As part of a wide-ranging interview with EA Los Angeles' Neil Young, the exec has been talking about how EA's collaboration with Steven Spielberg is working, commenting: 'Well, he doesn't like come into work, grab his lunch and set down for the day. Basically, it's probably best described as a writers' table on a TV show... it's Stephen, [Looking Glass veteran] Doug Church, who's producing his first game, me, a couple of the designers, Ryan Church [no relation to Doug], who did the walkers for War of the Worlds...' Young also commented of Spielberg: '...he's pretty conversant in the medium. He plays a lot of games.'"
Re:Not All It's Cracked up To Be... (Score:4, Interesting)
He also designs them. The Dig [wikipedia.org], anyone?
And let's not forget that the company that published The Dig (LucasArts) was formed because George Lucas wanted to design Atari games. (BallBlazer, Rescue on Fractalus, etc.)
Re:Not All It's Cracked up To Be... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, Spielberg was a (if not "the") creative force behind Medal of Honor when it was first released on the Playstation. To be fair, I can't say with certainty his involvement wasn't much more than saying "Dreamworks should do a WW2 first person shooter" while filming Saving Private Ryan. Still, he's hardly a 'newbie.'
Re:Not All It's Cracked up To Be... (Score:2, Interesting)
For evidence of this you only need to look at Chris Roberts and his Wing Commander movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131646/ [imdb.com]
The games became more and more film like (although the game play didn't really improve that much). The film was really a major disappointment while th
Re:Not All It's Cracked up To Be... (Score:4, Interesting)
He may be the headliner at ID, but he is the technical lead, not art/design.
Carmack would certainly not have any difficulty in working on movie CG technology, and would probably be a considerably better camera man than the average Jo.
Similarly the is no reason that a good director should not be able to handle the art direction on a game as easily as a film.
On the other hand the writing of a film is in no way comparable to the design of a game. However Spielberg doesn't write his film's and the is no reason to suppose he will try and design a game without expert help.
Re:Not All It's Cracked up To Be... (Score:2)
Maybe a better analog would be:
Carmack is to video games as James Cameron is to cinema.
Not necessarily known for his directing efforts (such as they are) but definitely highly regarded for pioneering technical innovation.
(P.S. Hi John! How pleased are you that Google returns this picture [wired.com] for a search on your name?)
May well be (Score:4, Interesting)
"Consider the reverse: John Carmack is a good game developer. Imagine him trying to make a movie."
Yet you'd cheerfully let a game programmer like Carmack write the story for a game, eh? Because that happens every day. Some guy who's been a talented programmer, or maybe an artist, gets promoted to "game designer" instead of to management, as would happen in the enterprise world. He's now a "veteran of the industry", has worked X thousands of hours on implementing other people's ideas in Y games, so he just _has_ to be just about ready to design one, right?
Actually, "Peter's Principle" says he probably isn't. Scripting other people's scenario doesn't make one good at writing an original story, any more than hauling bricks for a cathedral makes one an architect. He can maybe even know how to design a good monster or an encounter that can be scripted well, but telling a story is just not his forte. (Though translating one into C++ or Python might be.)
I remember reading a Clive Barker interview after Undying got released, and basically he mentions some of the uninspired stuff the original game design had. Like the coaxing he had to do to get the devs out of the idea that, basically, "scary horror game == a bigger end-level boss with predictable attacks." As Clive Barker said, that's actually the _least_ scary thing you can possibly put into a game.
And having played enough games to have enough info for an opinion there, I'll 100% side with Clive Barker on that one: there's no freaking way a giant boss battle can possibly invoke horror. It can cause an adrenaline rush, it can cause frustration, it can do lots of things, but fear is one thing it _won't_ invoke, no matter what you texture that boss like.
That's just the thing: they just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and don't even realize when it doesn't fit the story or theme at all. People who worked on coding or painting a giant boss for the end-level since the Atari 2600 or NES, assume that telling a story is all about having a giant boss with predictable attacks at the end of the level. That's what they've learned, that's what they've played, that's what they've been asked to code over and over again. At some point it gets mistaken for the _only_ way (or at least the _right_ way) to tell a story in video game format.
So basically, you know, I'm not that scared of seeing someone from the movie business have another try, for a change. In fact, I'm really looking forward to it. At least some of those guys _do_ know how to tell a story. Not all, but enough do. Sure, they've done it in another medium before, but it still beats seeing someone stuck in a Super Mario Bros mentality trying to write a story.
Not the first time (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not the first time (Score:2)
Re:Not the first time (Score:2)
I know it was made by Natsume... (Score:2)
Convergence.. (Score:1)
Re:Convergence.. (Score:2)
I kid, I kid..
Stop dabbling, start designing. (Score:2)
There are so many variables at work in a well-executed game that I would love to see an old-school film master like Spielberg really take a