OSCAR-WINNING FILM director Steven Spielberg was so frustrated that no videogames catered for all of his seven children that he did what an entertainment maestro might do – made his own game.
Boom Bloxwas the first in a multi-franchise deal between Spielberg and videogame publisher Electronic Arts and has sold close to one million copies globally since it was released for Nintendo's Wii last May.
Next week EA releases Spielberg's second game, Boom Blox Bash Party.
Spielberg, who said he plays just about every game that comes out, is a big fan of Nintendo’s Wii console and its motion-sensor controls that involved physical interaction.
“It’s been very, very good for a parent like me who wants our kids not to be couch potatoes, but to get up and move their bodies around more,” said Spielberg, who worked closely with the team at EA’s Los Angeles studio on both the games.
Spielberg said Boom Bloxoriginated from the idea of using the Wii controller to knock something down, like the traditional toy of building blocks.
In the newest game up to four players face a range of challenges of up to 400 levels in locations as diverse as outer space and deep under the sea where they can create their own content and share this with others online.
"You can become a creator at home," said Spielberg. "You can become a participant and you can become an activist. It's a really wonderful way to empower players to share their ideas with the world and give us better ideas for . . . the next iteration beyond Bash Party."
With Spielberg’s creative support EA is set to continue with this family-friendly game franchise even though the original Boom Blox received some backlash from the gaming press when it launched, especially when initial sales for the title were slow.
Spielberg says he’s learning more with every new game. The filmmaker actually once owned his own game studio.
"The smartest and dumbest thing I ever did was to sell my company to EA," said Spielberg. " Medal of Honorwas almost done and we made the decision to sell Dreamworks Interactive to Electronic Arts and had we not sold, we would have been able to stay in business just based on the success of Medal of Honor. But it was very smart also for us to sell to a company that was better equipped and better managed to be able to take Medal of Honorinto the international market and really make a commercial success out of it."
Spielberg said there aren’t many similarities between creating in Hollywood and in the games space.
"The technology involved at every level to create a videogame is only similar to the technology involved that created the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park," he said.
“There is no production, like I’m very accustomed to. There’s no hiring of actors or building sets . . . the minutiae of technology takes over.” – (Reuters)
