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CNN Live Today
E3 Expo Under Way in L.A.
Aired May 23, 2002 - 13:28 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3, right now underway in L.A. To the cool crowd it's called E3 for short. All about Game Cubes and Xboxes and PS2s and all that is a $9 billion a year industry.
James Hattori sampling the fun, again, live in L.A. at the Convention Center.
Hey, James.
JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi again, Bill.
You know most of the attention here is focused on the consoles you mentioned from PlayStation 2, Xbox and Game Cube. But games have been around a long time on the personal computer, and a growing number of them are going online letting players play each other in virtual communities, assuming characters and in some cases, they go on for hours and hours, 20 hours a week in some cases. Sony's "EverQuest" online game is one example.
But a new game coming out this summer is "Earth and Beyond" from Westwood Studios. And recently, we went and visited them for a behind the scenes look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI (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, multi-player 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 co-founder 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 co-founder Brett Sperry 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.
LEGG: We're just hanging out, sitting in a Jacuzzi, drinking some beers when we were working on "Blade Runner," 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.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: You know, we talked about the gaming industry being a $9 billion, $10 billion a year industry. The appeal of online games is that in this case they'll be a subscription. For example, Sony's "EverQuest" is $14 a month after paying an initial $50 for the -- for the game itself. And that appeals to game makers. That's why they're going after it. It's all about fun, Bill, but it's also all about money.
HEMMER: That is so true. So much money, too. And as you point out, James, if you're not having fun you're doing something wrong. Thank you, James.
HATTORI: Yes.
HEMMER: James Hattori in...
HATTORI: Kind of like our biz, thanks.
HEMMER: That's very true, you got it. Thank you, James.
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