- Electronic Arts introduced its groundbreaking online
game Monday called Majestic that uses everyday gadgets to infiltrate your
life.
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- You pick up the phone and a male voice threatens to kill
you unless you stop asking questions. Mysterious e-mail sends you to the
Web to gather clues about a fire that has apparently crippled the game.
And purported ``allies'' shoot you instant messages hinting at a vast global
conspiracy involving government mind control.
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- ``I got a phone call on my way to work one morning,''
said John Little, a 32-year-old from Houston, one of the first people to
test the game. ``At 8 o'clock in the morning, a threatening phone call
does kind of catch you off guard. That's the best element of it -- every
time the phone rings, you wonder, what's on the other side?''
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- Unlike every other computer and video game, Majestic
escapes the bounds of the box. It's a new breed of interactive storytelling
that carries the plot from device to device and clamors unexpectedly for
your attention.
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- But will people want a game that can be as disruptive
as a telemarketer during dinner?
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- ``The first time Majestic interrupts you during a date
or during your family time or during a meeting when you really need to
concentrate, it's going to feel like spam,'' said J.C. Herz, a New York-based
game-industry consultant.
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- ``The suspension of disbelief will stop, and it will
just be this annoying thing. Once that happens, it's going to be hard to
reconstruct the enchantment.''
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- New target audience
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- For Electronic Arts, the world's leading independent
maker of video games, Majestic represents its boldest gambit yet to reach
beyond adolescent males to a broader adult audience.
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- Majestic (www.majesticthegame.com) targets an American
public steeped in conspiracy -- from fans of the ``The X-Files'' and Tom
Clancy novels to those who wonder whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone
or whether a UFO made an unscheduled pit stop in Roswell, N.M., in 1947.
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- Because many of these adults are juggling work, kids
and bills, Electronic Arts created an entertainment experience that can
be enjoyed in small chunks throughout the day.
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- ``Everyone who's making Majestic wants to play more games,
but they don't have six hours a day to hack and slash orcs,'' said Neil
Young, the game's co-creator. ``I love games, but they're not more important
to me than spending time with my daughter.''
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- The game allows you to limit how intrusive it gets. You
can tell it not to bug you at work or when the kids are asleep. And just
like a soap opera, the game evolves episodically, day by day.
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- Electronic Arts, based in Redwood City, has high hopes
for Majestic, which is the cornerstone of the company's three-year, $146
million online games initiative.
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- Different profit model
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- Unlike traditional console or PC games, which bring in
about $50 a player and cost millions of dollars to create, Web-based games
can generate ongoing revenue while spreading out development costs.
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- After a free pilot episode, Majestic charges players
$9.95 a month to keep going. Currently, the company plans eight monthly
episodes, but if the game is popular, it will add new ``seasons,'' just
like a television show.
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- Electronic Arts' president and chief operating officer,
John Riccitiello, told investors Thursday that 100,000 people had expressed
interest in playing the free Majestic pilot -- sight unseen.
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- ``The numbers we have at this point in time are hard
to interpret,'' said Riccitiello. ``It's unusual for people to register
before they have an opportunity to play something.''
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- Riccitiello said it would take two months to judge Majestic's
success. The rest of the game industry is watching. If Majestic fulfills
the pre-launch anticipation, it will be the most imitated form of entertainment
since ``Survivor,'' the popular reality-based TV show.
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- Electronic Arts isn't alone in experimenting with new
ideas to engage an audience that's as comfortable in front of a computer
monitor as a television screen.
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- For example, promoters of the current Steven Spielberg-Stanley
Kubrick film ``A.I.'' created an elaborate Web mystery that had gamers
scouring two dozen interrelated sites to unravel the murder of a fictional
character, scientist Evan Chan.
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- Television is also trying to straddle this new, converged
world. Popular shows such as ``Dawson's Creek'' on WB stoke interest through
supplemental Web-only content. Fans gain fresh insights into favorite characters
by reading their private journals, e-mail and chat messages online. Writers
update the content each week to remain consistent with the show's plot.
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- Limited realism
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- Despite its grand ambitions, it's unclear whether Majestic's
technology is sophisticated enough to keep up the illusion of reality once
the initial magic wears off. The game's artificial intelligence is limited.
When a character sends you an instant message, for example, you can't have
a truly interactive conversation because the ``chatbot'' only understands
certain words.
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- Such limitations ``help remind you that this experience
is a game, and a mediocre one at that,'' said Justin Scott, a sophomore
at Duke University in North Carolina who eagerly awaited the game's launch
and is now testing it.
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- A gamers' Holy Grail?
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- Even players who love Majestic, like L.E. McCutcheon
of Ventura, found that the game's long breaks between bursts of activity
diluted the drama.
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- ``I must admit, because of these forced lulls, and the
fact that the puzzles that drive the game play have been easy, I do not
find myself glued to the computer over weekends,'' said McCutcheon.
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- Still, for avid gamers like Van Burnham, author of a
forthcoming book, ``Supercade: A Visual History of the Video Game Age,
1971-1984,'' Majestic is the Holy Grail, an adventure like something from
the holodeck of a ``Star Trek'' episode.
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- ``You're not sitting in front of your computer screen,
thinking about the game. This is the game interacting with you, outside
of the traditional gaming experience. That is really revolutionary,'' said
Burnham.
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