Movie Tie-Ins Rule in Gaming

Matthew Yi, reporting on the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in today's San Francisco Chronicle, describes the same phenomenon that Greg Costikyan observed at the Game Developers Conference in March:

Electronic Arts, the biggest video game publisher, will tout its Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup as well as its revamped sports lineup, which includes Madden football, basketball and baseball games.

The industry's No. 2 player, Activision, will preview its Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 2 games.

Even smaller publishers like Eidos Interactive, based in London, are getting some action with Hollywood. The firm will unveil Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness this week.

Atari, formerly known as Infogrames, will start selling its new game Enter the Matrix on Thursday, the same day Warner Bros. releases its new movie "The Matrix: Reloaded."

Yi explains that the emphasis on movie tie-ins is because the console game industry is in the middle of its five-year development cycle. We are between generations of new consoles, and so the industry emphasis is on software. "Content, content, content," said Andrew House, senior vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment America. "This is the time of the life cycle where game developers kick it into high gear."

Yeah, right, game developers have kicked it into high gear — which explains the level of confidence and optimism at this year's GDC, not to mention how voracious is the game publishers' appetite for new titles from independent developers.