EA Discovers Hollywood Life Ain't Easy

from the takes-a-bit-of-work dept

It seems, like some new wannabe actress, Electronic Arts showed up in Hollywood, expecting to step off the bus and suddenly become a star. However, like so many others before it, EA is discovering life in Hollywood isn't quite that easy. Back in 2002 there were all these stories about how EA was going to be the next Disney and how they were moving to Hollywood and setting up their business just like a movie studio. Hollywood, apparently, wasn't waiting with open arms. A year ago, we noted that the relationship between Hollywood and the video game community "on the rocks" followed earlier this year by more of a trial separation. See, it turns out that the whole marriage of movies and video games is a bit more complicated than people think. Creating the games often takes longer than creating the movies, which means the games can't come out at the same time as the movie (though, they're getting better about this). At the same time, dealing with Hollywood style deals (and egos) has proven to be much more difficult than expected. Wired Magazine has an in-depth look at what's gone wrong with EA's attempt to take on Hollywood where they note why the odds of successfully mating video games and movies is so difficult. You have to have the perfect combination of a good movie and a good video game for it to work. The only way it's successful is if both the movie and the game are good -- and that's luck of the draw, as only one-third of both games and movies are considered to be any good. So, hitting the right combination of both a good movie and a good game are difficult. Another issue, not mentioned in the article, is that EA's traditional successful franchises, sports, are more timeless. Everyone knows the sports and how to play them. With movie-related games, the window of interest is tiny. It has to happen sometime around when the movie is out -- and most movies aren't out very long. Still, for the time being, it doesn't look like EA's time in the movie business isn't going to have much of a... er... Hollywood ending.