Armageddon,
Pearl Harbour and, of course,
Transformers director Michael Bay's company, Digital Domain, is working on a first-person shooter with a budget of $25-million (£12.5m). According to the
LA Times, this is part of a $100-million (£50m) investment by Bay's backers into the company.
"I make world-class images," Bay said. "Why not put those images into a game?"
According to the newspapers' profile of the company:
"Bay's first-person shooter game is part of a larger strategy to transform Digital Domain Inc., where he is now co-chairman, from one of Hollywood's elite special-effects houses into a full-blown production studio, capitalizing on the convergence between games and feature films."
The fact that the expertise within Digital Domain - which has a long history in producing special effects for Hollywood - could be used in the world of video games, was apparently a key inducement to Bay who was part of a $35-million (£17m) acquisition of the company last year.
It appears that the mooted FPS isn't simply a one-off vanity project, with plans for four or five more games over the next two years.
Ed Ulbrich, president of Digital Domain's commercial division, "We're not just talking about the convergence of film and video games. It's no longer a theory."
So, a new player on the scene. Although whether Digital Domain sees itself as a development house only - or it plans to publish games, and on which platform or platforms the games will emerge is yet to be seen.
Full article
here.