Spielberg in Games: A Bold New Step?

By Tristan Clark

With Spielberg's Boom Blox out, we wonder what it could mean for the industry.

In 2005, Electronic Arts announced it had entered into a deal to develop three original games in conjunction with Steven Spielberg, a man who surely needs no introduction.

Naturally, the reaction on the internet was pretty typical, covering all of the extremes and even – occasionally – some thoughtful responses. Generally though, a lot of people were (justifiably) skeptical, whether wondering about the quality of the games or the level of ‘real’ involvement of the famous director.

Skip forward to the present, where the first of the three titles – Boom Blox for the Wii – has just been released. And perhaps surprisingly, it doesn’t suck. In fact, according to us and many other major gaming journalist outfits, it’s actually pretty darn fun.

So how did this come to be? How much did Spielberg’s involvement in the title influence its outcome? What can we expect from the other two titles? And what – importantly – does this mean for the industry in general?

It’s easy to assume that EA simply slapped Spielberg’s name on the front of the box to help with sales, and that the director himself barely had anything to do with the game. But that’s not the case at all, according to people such as Amir Rahimi, Boom Blox’s senior producer. Spielberg reportedly came up with the original concept, and also came into the developer’s office once a week to oversee how things were going. He’s also genuinely interested in gaming, says Rahimi, and displayed a surprising knowledge of both old and new titles.

This is obviously a step away from directors who have no hand in the usual licensed rubbish that accompanies any major movie release. Actually, it’s just refreshing to have movie people involved in a game that doesn’t turn out to be utter garbage. Spielberg’s involvement reportedly came about after trying out the Wii with Nintendo legend Miyamoto, and through Spielberg’s own desire to be able to play a game with his kids.

So with Boom Blox out of the gate and garnering good reviews, it’ll be very interesting to see what the other two Spielberg-EA games are going to be like. One of them at least is aiming to be far less casual, and hopes to ‘make gamers feel emotions’ – something that most games completely fail to do. We’ll no doubt find out about these games soon enough, but for now it’s just nice to see something taken in a completely new direction. Of course, hardcore gamers have good reason to remain wary – who knows whether EA and Spielberg’s success with Boom Blox can be replicated in other, more traditional titles.

The general convergence and interconnectedness of the video game and film industries seems to be picking up steam with this announcement, but who knows whether we’ll see other directors or producers have a (meaningful) stab at games creation. Ideally, it’d breathe fresh new ideas into our clone-friendly staple of genres. Combined with rising costs inhibiting originality, it’s all too easy for game developers to continue making the games they’ve been trained to like, creating a perpetual cycle of – among other things – WWII shooters and match three clones. I always applaud someone with a fresh take on things trying their hand at game ideas, and when they have the clout of someone like Spielberg, exciting things can happen.

So: the first Spielberg experiment didn’t go too badly. Now we’ll have to wait and see whether it was a one-off fluke or the start of a continuing trend. And we can also only wonder whether this kind of thing can be replicated with the titans of other industries.

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