items tagged with LA Tech Week

We took some timeout with Amir Rahimi Senior Producer of Electronic Arts Casual Studios to talk about the video game industry and the collaboration with Hollywood.  In 2005 Electronic Arts and Steven Spielberg signed a deal in which he collaborates on 3 intellectual property video game ideas and works with Amir's teams.  One of the first games Spielberg and Rahimi worked on was Boom Blox.

A long-time gamer himself, Spielberg was the one to originally conceive the idea behind the Lucas Art's PC/Mac title The Dig.  Boom Blox an exclusive Wii title is a Puzzle/Action game inspired by Spielberg's search for a game that he could enjoy playing with his own children.  Featuring over 300+ levels and a game editor which allows players to build their own levels.  Also, the game has won a few awards, Spike TV's 2008 best Wii game of the year and a BAFTA award for best casual game.

Checkout our interview with Amir Rahimi and listen to what the future of the video game industry is shaping up to be.

About thatgamecompany:

thatgamecompany was founded in the Spring of 2006 by Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago, two graduates of the University Southern California Interactive Media MFA program. They had worked on several projects together, including the multi-award winning student game, “Cloud,” and decided to continue working together on small, experimental games by forming a game studio that would focus on these projects.

At TGC (thatgamecompany) our goal is to make video games that communicate different emotional experiences the current video game market is not offering. We encourage innovation and experimentation and believe that our creative games will appeal to new, yet untapped, audiences.

We call our games “core games.” Core games appeal not only to existing hardcore and casual gaming markets, but also to dormant gamers and even non-gamers. Core games reach these new markets because they are easier and less time consuming, yet possess emotionally rich and powerful interactive experiences.

The video game industry and the film industry have always had some sort of relationship with each other.  Big blockbuster films ended up becoming video games but it did not usually become big blockbuster games.  What is beginning to happen is studios are hiring people like Chris Hewish, Head of Global Interactive for DreamsWorks Animation, to be the go between for the studio and the gaming companies.  Helping directors understand what it takes to build a game and not have them coming in and 6 months out want an amazing game built.  Having someone who understands video games and talk to the game developers but also could turn around and talk to the studio and help them understand how games are made.  Also, letting the studios know that a film story not always can make the best game.

We interviewed Chris Hewish during L.A. Tech Week who gave us some great insight on both ends of the film and video games industry stick.  Checkout the video below to learn how, a film studio decides on what could be the best genre of video game for their film, how they are approaching the game developers, and what DreamWorks has coming up for 2010.