After stating intent on going with original IP, EA decided to partner up with Steven Spielberg, hoping to get something big out of him for some upcoming games.  My opinion is that going to movie-makers to help create games is shooting yourself in the foot.  Not only have games based on movies been notoriously money-wasting opportunities to bilk unsuspecting gamers, but scripts tailored for the movies don’t necessarily translate well to gaming methodologies.

Gamasutra talks with EA L.A.’s Neil Young about issues such as emotions from games, intellectual properties, and overtime in the industry, as well as the partnership with Spielberg.

With specific regards to new franchise IP, aside from the things that we’ve acquired, there are other things like the partnership with Steven Spielberg, and that’s focused exclusively on producing original, new intellectual property. And I was looking at the list of everything we’re working on across all studios last night, and there’s a lot of stuff there. There’s like 15 or 20 new, original concepts [in any stage of development] right now. So maybe two of them will work.