Excerpts from an interview of Yves Guillemot, UbiSoft CEO:

"We are moving towards launching books, games and movies at the same time," he said. "The movie industry creates more ideas than us at the moment, but the more they work, the more they are coming up with the same ideas. We are working more and more on re-using the same graphics [to reduce costs], and we are going in that direction, especially for AAA products."

"We will have to start making movies," he continued, "because if we don't do it, we won't be able to take advantage of the power of the next generation. In creating movies and games at the same time, we see what we have to improve to make better games as well.

Guillemot admitted that "you have different experiences in different mediums." (...) "We try to make the products complementary in different media," he said. "The goal is not to do the book of the game, but a quality product in itself, that will help you feel more immersed in the game because you know more. It's the same in the movie.""

Why do I blog this? focusing lately on reports about the future do digital entertainment, these quotes are quite interesting to see to what extent it lies in "complementary" experiences.

Beyond the situations that are expected (release of AAA-game+movie+book+merchandising simultaneously), it would be good to think about complementary aspects in the game design. For example, how to include cues and elements helpful for the game in books or in movies, etc.