Corporate communications expert with backgrounds in AI/ML, journalism, academia, and media analysis
Warren Spector's thoughts on Disney and videogames --------- In 2019 I was able to interview Spector about his career for a website that is now defunct. Given that there is a renewed push for The Walt Disney Company to purchase a video game studio, I am re-publishing this interview because Spector's views on Disney's relationship to the video game industry remains relevant. The full interview is in the link but here are some snippets I find deeply relevant: "I read Bob Iger’s comments where he said Disney wasn’t good at making games, but someone pointed out to me that he specifically said “publishing games.” So, you could make the argument that a lot of people – including me – misread his statement. However, the fact that Disney shut down all of its internal development and went back to being strictly a licensing organization still shows a lack of commitment to the game space that’s not uncommon among traditional media companies." "I’d say the lack of success among traditional media companies probably has to do with the fact that they just have other priorities. They have only so much money to spend. Where are they going to spend it? On their core businesses or in some crazy new field that is, formally, only tangentially related to those business even if the content often seems similar?" "Then there’s the appearance that media companies overvalue their content. That leads to thinking along the lines of “Well, if we just move this superhero over to this new medium it’ll work because they’re so popular everywhere else.” That clearly doesn’t work. Gameplay has to come first. Layering in content over mediocre gameplay is a recipe for failure." "Oh, and let’s not talk about budgets. To compete in the triple-A space, as all of these media companies seem to want to do, you need a lot of money. I’m just guessing, based on my experience, that the budgets just aren’t competitive…" https://lnkd.in/e4DFu5e7 #Disney #EA #videgames #gamingindustry
L. Anthony Gaud
10mo
I very much enjoyed my time with Warren (and his wife). Good people.
Corporate communications expert with backgrounds in AI/ML, journalism, academia, and media analysis
10moJeremiah McMillan, Simon Pulman, Rafael Brown, 🎮 Jay Powell, you all might be interested in this