The coupling of Hollywood and Silicon Valley–Siliwood for short–has come along quickly. When Hollywood first descended on the high-tech scene, critics took cynical swipes at the obvious culture clash: the Testarossas meet the Jettas, the Ferragamos meet the Teva sandals, the dream makers meet the digitheads. Now these unions are bearing fruit, and the results–mostly repackaged goods-aren’t very. encouraging.
The motivation behind Hollywood’s move isn’t hard to figure out. “Profit,” proclaims Ted Hoff, senior vice president and general manager of Fox Interactive. The videogame business currently generates $5 billion a year and is expected to at least double by the end of the decade. Compare that with the $5 billion box-office portion of the film industry. And the investments are equally impressive. “Everybody’s spendingat these enormous rates just to be a player in multimedia,” says Hoff. “It’s like joining a country club where the golf course isn’t built yet but you’ve gotta pay $100,000 just to join.”
For the most part, the studios are doing the obvious–tapping experienced programmers to help them retread their assets. Next April, Fox Interactive plans to release a CD-ROM trilogy based on the “Die Hard” films. In another example of what the industry calls “repurposing,” MGM’s new interactive division has produced the CD-ROM title “Blown Away,” derived from last summer’s Tommy Lee Jones-as-mad-bomber flop, and is shipping a CD-ROM based on “Rob Roy,” the romantic epic starring Jessica Lange and Liam Neeson. Disney Interactive’s “Lion King” CD-ROM is currently a top-selling title for kids, and Disney executives are hoping for a similar windfall from a repackaged “Pocahontas.” In other words, the studios aren’t treating videogames much differently from, say, “Jurassic Park” lunch boxes.
An exception to the “shovelware” trend is Viacom New Media. Viacom has done its share of knockoffs, but Michele DiLorenzo, the unit’s president, says she tries to infuse products with innovation. A product called Nickelodeon “Director’s Lab” lets kids create their own videos from film and sound clips.
Still, Hollywood has yet to come up with the proverbial “killer app” for CD-ROM entertainment. “So far you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of hit games based on movie franchises,” says Strauss Zelnick, president and chief executive of Bertelsmann’s BMG Entertainment North America. “Myst,” the best-selling title that’s driving so much of the excitement in this new industry, was produced by a relatively small company, Broderbund.
The reason Hollywood is missing the mark, say Zelnick and others, is that a good computer game has little in common with a good movie. The most important part of watching a film is what’s happening up on the screen." In the interactive industry, the important part of what’s happening is going on inside the user’s head," says Harry Gottlieb, president of Learn Television, a CD-ROM company in Chicago. “If you make a product where the star is someone other than the user, you’re not going to be making a great interactive product.”
Repurposed or not, the market is glutted with games, and the Holly-ROMs are crowding the shelves. According to Lee Isgur, an analyst with Jefferies & Co., Inc., more than 2,000 new CD-ROM titles are expected to be on the market by the end of the year. About 60 will succeed. For that reason, few software developers are likely to spurn advances from a studio. First, there’s production cost. On average, producing a CD-ROM costs about $500,000, pocket change by Hollywood standards. Then there’s distribution. “The studios have the ability to understand how a packaged good is sold and distributed,” says Zelnick. “It’s a short leap from there to selling to the appropriate channels.”
Smaller companies need deep pockets, but they still want their creative independence. Inscape, a multimedia firm in Los Angeles, recently joined up with HBO and Warner Music Group in a partnership that shows what’s possible. So far, at least, it’s been a happy union.
An amalgam of film, music and software expertise, Inscape is a model coupling of entertainment moguls and engineers. Warner and HBO indulge Inscape’s desire to steer clear of twitch-based action-game titles in favor of arty, experimental stories. In return, the arrangement gives Warner the chance to set up a new distribution channel, and HBO gets a foot in the door of the interactive business.
Inscape has three titles planned for release in the fall. The rock group Devo provides the name recognition for “Adventures of the Smart Patrol,” an interactive sci-fi story in which players battle a troop of sinister forces. “Multimedia takes a high level of collaboration with extremely differentiated skill sets,” says Michael Nash, Inscape’s president. “You need a brilliant engineer and you need incredible graphics animators and you need people who really understand how to write for the medium.” All of which runs counter to what Nash calls “the notion of a genius guy with a bullhorn.”
Inscape is also planning to release “The Residents’ Bad Day on the Midway,” the sequel to a 1994 title from CD-ROM producer Voyager called “The Residents’ Freak Show,” “Bad Day” is a whodunit set in an eerie, meticulously rendered carnival mid-way. The program is unique in its use of a technical twist: a probability software engine that introduces randomness into a character’s behavior.“YOU really have the feeling that this world is alive,” says the 38-year-old Nash. “It’s not just waiting for the next click.”
Whether or not the Inscape game succeeds, the venture offers some sage advice to the makers of Holly-ROMs. They should look beyond their much-vaunted content and allow a new art form to evolve. Ron Gilbert, a cofounder of Humongous Entertainment, which has won acclaim for its innovative children’s software, takes a Zen-like approach, “Now is not the time to make money,” Gilbert says. “Now is the time for creative exploration.” An admirable stance, to be sure. But will it play in Tinseltown?
