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With one of the summer's most anticipated blockbusters — the return of Indiana Jones— due in theaters in less than three weeks, you'd expect producer Steven Spielberg to be all about movies right now.
But here he is, enthusiastically chatting up another subject dear to his heart: video games, in particular a cute puzzler called Boom Blox. It's Spielberg's first creation in a collaboration with Electronic Arts, and it's in stores today for Nintendo's Wii. Spielberg, a self-professed gamer, says the groundbreaking Wii inspired him from the moment he tried his hand at tennis at 2006's E3 video game convention. "I suddenly realized there were all sorts of applications for this tactile technology."
MORE: 'Boom Blox' entertains and educates
Boom Blox, which blends block-building and block-busting with memorable characters, was "the first idea that jumped into my head." He drew inspiration from his family — he has seven children, the youngest 11 — and observes, "There is a continental divide in my own house between what I play and the kind of games my kids play." That's a gap he aims to bridge. "I wanted something that would bring the family together in the same room, standing shoulder to shoulder with four different controllers." As a parent, he strictly monitors the games in his home. "There are games that are taboo. And I won't have them on the premises. I don't want my kids saying, 'How come Dad is playing that and we can't?' " Though as a filmmaker he has created some of the screen's most intense experiences, he says, "some games are so over-the-top violent and so extraordinarily interactive that I am even afraid of them. I am not going to name names." He believes that M-rated (mature) games are a stronger lure for children than R-rated movies. "My kids will never go in and take an R-rated DVD and play it. But there is something very compelling and different about the artwork on the box of what might be an M game that could tempt my kids." Boom Blox isn't his first foray into game development. As owner of DreamWorks Interactive, which EA eventually bought, Spielberg developed several titles, including WWII combat game Medal of Honor, which became a franchise. His ultimate goal: to create "games that tell you stories and involve you emotionally in the characters." He wants games, like movies, to "move people to laughter and to tears and to all sorts of colorful emotions."
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