Feature
We take an in-depth look at what happened with EA’s ambitious canceled collaboration with Steven Spielberg.
By Matt Leone
At the 2004 Game Developers Conference, Electronic Arts’ Neil Young (pictured, below) predicted that within five years, a video game would make players cry.
“I think we’ll crack that problem in the next five years and it’ll be a watershed event for our business,” he said in a quote archived by website Idle Thumbs.
Puns aside, at the time, officially, he was speaking in general terms rather than about any specific game. But in 2005, when EA announced a deal with Steven Spielberg, Young found his poster child: a relationship-focused action title codenamed “LMNO.” The idea was ballsy and complicated — a mix of first-person parkour movement with adventure/RPG objectives and escape-focused gameplay, all based around the player’s relationship with an alien-looking character named Eve.
