It has a whole different set of probabilities and entirely different terms. Whereas you’re trying to say, “Hey game industry: Why don’t you try to sell this new idea?” What the game industry is really saying is, “You know, the world doesn’t really want new ideas. It just wants the other idea. It feels safe with that idea, and we’d like to just see that with a 5 percent improvement.” Well, creatively speaking, that’s not the holy grail of creative opportunities. But the motion picture industry assumes that people want to see different things. Now, they have their own sets of problems, but you couldn’t launch Finding Nemo as a game (first) and have anywhere near the success if you tried to turn it into a movie later, because the game industry wouldn’t acclimate to it the way it would once it sees it on the big screen. Let’s look at what the game industry is doing: The game industry is headed towards human characters that look more realistic, wielding weapons—aside from sports and stuff like that. That’s not a criticism, that’s just looking at the shelf, the lineup of stuff being sold and financed.

The game industry has a very hard time selling new, creative IPs (intellectual properties), especially if they’re quirky. So Shrek, Monsters, Inc., Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars—these would not have birthed with success as games first. But because they birthed as movies first, and it was about the stories and the characters and the entertainment value, they’ll sell well as games as long as an adequate game representing that brand hits the shelf at the right time to ride off of all that marketing.

So as we move forward, we’re designing is what I call “MMMP:” massively multi-media properties. An example of that is how we set out with Oddworld from the beginning, with a Star Wars-like flavor: ideas that can make great movies, great games, and great television. Great multimedia. And if you can do that, and get the bigger-picture ones green-lit first, then the rest of media formats fall into place more easily. So when Sherry and I show big Hollywood directors the new IP stuff, they want to direct it as live-action motion pictures. They get really excited. The game industry will look at that exact same idea and say, “I’m not sure why it’s relevant.”

So you think you’ll have a warmer reception in the film industry to your ideas?

Track records are everything in the entertainment business. But it’s not going to be easy for you. I was having a talk with one of the most successful producers in Hollywood the other day, and I said, “You’re on the top of your game.” And he said, “Yeah, but it’s still not easy to sell a new idea.” So we have no illusions that TV is easy, or the film industry is easy. We come from these places; we get it. But those markets are more open to the type of content that’s coming out of CG movies, and enabling them to have life. The game industry is not as open to that type of content today.

How are you going to take something like Oddworld and make it suitable for all of these different types of media?

The interesting thing about Oddworld is that we designed these as linear entertainment first. I didn’t sit down with a game idea and go, “Oh, I know—we’re gonna have these guys talk to each other and one’ll fart.” It was about, “Here’s a story that I think would make a really great movie, and I think it’s really relevant to our times in a modern mythological sort of way. And I believe this whole universe can be exploited on the theme of the dark side of globalization, saturated with satire.” And that’s really what Oddworld is: the dark side of globalization as seen from the little schmuck’s point of view. I conceived and wrote these concepts in three-act structures that fit the film format, and then when we came out with Abe’s Odyssey, some people saw it as a fusion of filmmaking tightly integrated to interactive, and that was our goal. So for us, it’s easier because we think of the character development, the heart and soul and what their journey is, first—and then we’ve been applying that to gameplay. So when you look properties like Mario as an example, it doesn’t translate into a motion picture well because what you’re trying to do is take a round peg and fit in a square hole. It wasn’t conceived as a character on a journey with a mission and an arc, who was going to tug at your heartstrings because of what he was dealing with. And even if you hire Bob Hoskins, it doesn’t work as a movie.

But if you know how to build games, and if you know how to tell stories and understand linear production as well, you may be able to do something that people haven’t done yet. And that’s the territory we’re excited about.