I was interested to hear that part of Electronic Arts’ strategy to boost sales for its upcoming game, Spore, is to license rights to a TV show and movie.
According to a recent article, Will Wright, Creator of Spore said the following:
“With Spore, we’re looking way outside the game space, such as TV, movies, etc. We’re basically planting the seeds to spread Spore out to a much wider group of people than would ever play a computer game,” Wright told Reuters in an interview in Singapore during his Asian tour leading up to the game’s launch.
It certainly would not be the first time that boundaries between TV, electronic gaming and movies have been blurred. What I find most interesting is that their objective is to acquire new (non-game playing) consumers into the Spore fan base. Instead, I would imagine that any TV show or movie would keep the existing community more engaged. Either way, if done properly and if the community is large enough, this could definitely be a profitable move.
It would be interesting to observe how this will play out and if it indeed increases the size of the fan base.
