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Ward talks Indy, Movies 03 Jul, 2007 / Comments: 2

By jp-30


Jim Ward, with hey hey, my, my EA vice president Neil Young discuss movies and games in this gamasutra interview.
[Newsweek's N'Gai] Croal asked Ward if, because it's important for film games to hit the movie's day and date, if it doesn't make them a "second-class citizen to the movie", to which he disagreed.

"Our company looks at it from an integrated media perspective," he said, "We have revenue coming from the movie, from the game, from VFX, from sound ? so all of that matters to us, and all of it?s got to happen."

"What you?re suggesting is the wrong way to look at it, because that?s a very siloed approach. Going over budget and coming out later isn?t going to help me, it?ll diminish the return! We do shift games and push them back. But when you have a game tied to a media event across an entire company, that?s really important.
Read the rest at the link above.

Source: Gamasutra

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2 Comments

  • elTee on 03 Jul, 2007, 21:11…
    So... is he basically saying, "We're going to release the Indy game at the same time as the movie, end of story"? Even if this means abandoning an extra hundred thousand dollars and two months or so of improvements?

    That sounds like the LucasAttitude anyway. "It'll diminish the return!" Real Artists over there at LucasArts.
  • jp-30 on 03 Jul, 2007, 23:01…
    Well, the game's gone back at least 6 months anyway from a 2007 release to a movie tie-in release in May 2008.

    But yes, it's worth more to LucasArts to piggyback game launches on other marketing 'events' such as movie and DVD releases. Which makes perfect marketing sense.

    Even if potentially it means sections of the game(s) are not fully complete, buggy, or must have elements / sections dropped to meet the deadline.