Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Westwood Studios Displays 'Earth and Beyond' at Vegas Computer Games Show

Aired May 23, 2002 - 10:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Here is yet another reason to stay glued to your computer screen. There's no end in sight to the intergalactic conflict, at least the way they're played out in cyberspace.

CNN's James Hattori is at the computer games show in Los Vegas to give us a look behind the video screen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You could call "Earth and Beyond" an ambitious online space opera. When it debuts in August, players will pay a monthly fee to navigate galaxies over the Internet, battling enemies, aliens and other players live over the Web.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Earth and Beyond" is a massive, multiplayer game, which means, tons of people play at once. You can play 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You hop online and you play with some of your other friends.

HATTORI: Attracting tens of thousand of subscribing gamer with compelling content is the challenge facing Westwood Studios cofounder and general manager Louis Castle.

LOUIS CASTLE, FOUNDER, GM WESTWOOD STUDIOS: We have a real passion for strongly character-based story games, and those are more challenging to do nowadays than they were in the past.

OK, this is our studio.

HATTORI: At age 37, Castle is a pioneer in the online entertainment industry. Starting 17 years ago in garage of his parents' home in Las Vegas, he and cofounder Bret Sperry (ph) went on to create some of the industry's most successful entertainment software. Their titles, including "Doom II," "Blade Runner," "Monopoly," and the blockbuster strategy series "Command and Conquer" have sold millions of copies.

MICHAEL LEGG, PROGRAMMER, WESTWOOD STUDIOS: Most of us here are just diehard video game fans.

HATTORI: Programmer Michael Legg used to work at a computer store with Castle years ago. He was one of the first of now 140 employees at Westwood who often worked long hours, and share Castle's enthusiasm and creativity, even during their off hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're just hanging out, sitting in a jacuzzi, drinking some beers when we were working on "Bladerunner," and we just said, hey, we ought to do a pirate game someday, and sure enough, it got done.

HATTORI: Castle gets it done in a contrasting style. He's a fast talker and motivator, always on the move. But also a family man, who does yoga, and has masters in fine art.

CASTLE: Personally I find balance in extremes. I always have something that I'm passionately driving at, or maybe logically passionately driving at, or emotionally driving at it, but I'm always driving at something passionately.

HATTORI: And after more than 20 years, he still believes that if you're not having fun in the entertainment business, something is wrong.

James Hattori, CNN, Las Vegas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com