EA + Endemol: Virtual Me

As gaming and game play becomes increasingly less important to game companies, the real money this year seems to be coming from collaborations with media companies. Already knee-deep in IP territory, EA announced that it is going to provide “cutting edge avatar creation technology” to basically make a dimmed down version of whatever it is that people think SL and WoW must be like.Enticing us with “Want to be a pop star? A movie star? An action star?,” this virtual venture will no doubt soon be irresistible, just like the avatar-based online worlds they seek to mimic. Ugh. After everyone and his mom has created a virtual persona and set up shop, my guess is that the next big, short-lived thing will be entire mini-universes based on some played out television show. Already MTV penetrated There.com to extend the shelf-life of its programming and soon entire server farms will be dedicated to users playing in the context of what they watched on TV last night.

Says (pdf) the Chief Creative Officer, “We


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