Steven Spielberg and EA to join forces

Today, the most commercially successful games company announced its plans to work with the most commercially successful film director. It’s true – Steven Spielberg is getting into bed with Electronic Arts. The director has signed a three game deal, which will see him move into an office in EA’s LA Studios, where he will take on what is described as an Executive Producer role.

The Jaws director, who describes himself as a videogames fan, says of EA,



Neil Young, head of the LA Studio and a different Neil Young to the softly spoken Canadian who used to hang around with Crosby, Stills and Nash, was quick to return the flattery, saying that



The studio head went on to say that the next generation games would not be based on Spielberg’s film back catalogue, but would be all-new and ‘appeal to a broad audience’. He also said that the game would spend the next two years in development – an amazing departure for the industry megalith, who are well known throughout the videogames world for chasing ever shrinking development cycles. Their appalling Catwoman game, for example, was nine months in development from start to finish (and boy, did it show).

Hopefully working with a cheese as big as Spielberg will see EA cutting fewer corners on its collaborations, which could mean that the games are quite good. And it’s certain to be good news for the development staff working on the projects, above whose heads the whip is said rarely to stop cracking. We'd also like to get in first here and say we'll bet good money that at least one of the games, if not all of them, will feature aliens. Excited or nonplussed? Let us know your innermost thoughts in the forum!