Month: April 2007

 

 

EA AND ENDEMOL ANNOUNCE CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP FOR VIRTUAL ME
CANNES, FRANCE, – April 16, 2007 – Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS), the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company, and the Endemol group, a global leader in television and other audiovisual entertainment, today announced a creative partnership for the development of Virtual Me, a new digital entertainment concept that bridges the divide between traditional TV and videogames. The all-new online offering is being prepared to debut in Endemol’s top-rated Big Brother.

Virtual Me combines cutting edge avatar creation technology from EA with popular TV formats from Endemol to give consumers a breakthrough way to meet, compete and socialize in online digital worlds. Avatar creation takes a leap forward with a high performing, easy-to-use tool that creates astonishingly life-like cyber-clones, with uniquely customized appearances and identities.

Want to be a pop star? A movie star? An action star? Virtual Me offers players the chance to participate in virtual versions of TV talent shows like Fame Academy and Operacion Triunfo, game shows like Deal Or No Deal and 1 vs 100 and to form real relationships with other virtual avatars on the web. VirtualMe.com, the home of the Virtual Me avatar creation system, will launch in the coming months.

Peter Bazalgette, Chief Creative Officer, Endemol comments: “We’re told that people are starting to spend more time online than they are watching TV. Both markets are now important and this has huge implications for content creators. Our opportunity with Electronic Arts is to develop ideas that fully embrace the way people are consuming entertainment today.”

Gerhard Florin, Executive Vice President and General Manager, EA International said, “With Virtual Me we are at the forefront of a new, hybrid form of entertainment that takes gaming beyond the console. Endemol is a great partner to help us bring together the best of TV and video games for an offering that can appeal to mass market audiences and change the face of entertainment.”

The two companies will create an integrated team to share expertise in their respective fields and develop entertainment formats and experiences for a wide range of platforms, including TV and online.
Electronic Arts is the creator of some of the world’s most successful video game franchises including FIFA Football, Need for Speed™, Harry Potter™ and The Sims™. Endemol’s catalogue of TV formats includes international blockbusters such as Big Brother, Fear Factor and Deal or No Deal.

Press release and Virtual Me illustrations can be found at http://info.ea.com.

What looks interesting to me, based on what I can make of the images released, is that it looks like you will be able to create an avatar and hop into any of a selection of worlds (Endemol’s TV shows). This will actually be a big step towards a kind of multi-world model. Although technically it is the same technology, it multiple worlds, multi-verse. It is because of this I think this approach is one the ball.

 

In the first of my posts about my recent 5 country cross-media tour, I’ll cover my quick visit to Finland. As I’ve mentioned before, I was asked to give a talk at the Nokia headquarters in Finland on ‘Alternate Reality Games’. It was an overview presentation pitched for designers and business managers (as that was the audience). It was great to meet some of the researchers from the Game Research Lab at the University of Tampere: Frans Mayra, Markus Montol and Jaako Stenros among them and also Hannu Korhonen and Ville Nenonen of the Nokia Research Center. I’ve read alot of material from iPerg and will be chasing up some great papers the Game Research Lab team passed onto me. It was interesting hearing the design issues of the sort of pervasive gaming projects they do. Keeping an ‘alternate reality aesthetic’ or just doing game activities in the real world is a big problem for them because of the issues of game boundaries (in terms of respecting property etc). I recall in the ARGs that were created by students in art design department in Melbourne that they recruited players via the street. This caused problems. It is pretty clear therefore, that it is not a good idea to recruit players using an alternate reality aesthetic (pretending it is real) on the street. When you do it on the street, in person, it becomes a hoax. People treat faux websites differently than people acting…because the cues to fictionality are removed, it becomes a lie. But on the web, it is OK, and, a site can always be checked. It is the conversation AROUND an ARG that provides the fictional cues. A person can go through this fiction-checking process on the web…but not on the street. That is why it is not a good idea to recruit players through the real world. Recruit online and then get them to meet for events.

I also got to meet up with another cyberspace colleague Sonja Kangas at a social for the local chapter of the IGDA. I also met Staffan Jonsson of the Interactive Institute and Annika Waern. I also met a guy who said he worked on the first ARG in Mexico — gotta chase that up.

I found out about an interesting approach to a retail fashion label in the area too, Ivana Helsinki. The store is designed like a house, with ironing boards etc. But what they also offer interested customers is the keys to the store. For two weeks you have the keys to the store and can turn up anytime of day, or night. You take what you want and pay later. I like the idea.

I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Mark Ollilia and Elina Kostivisto again too. I should be back in Finland soon…

Photo of the Nokia foyer with the Game Research Lab folk.

The next part of my cross-country tour was the First International Conference on Crossmedia Interaction Design in Sweden. Check out Day 1.

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