NY Times: Media Companies Eyeing Game, Movie, TV Partnerships

The New York Times has a story today about media conglomerates renewed efforts to bring the movie, television, and video game businesses under on umbrella, ostensibly making it much easier to create cross-platform licenses.

The main business thinking -- and it's one that makes sense on the surface -- is that overall prices would be driven down for creating a single property is actors could be locked down, productions could be coordinated, and marketing efforts could be combined.

Of course, this throws aside the massive problems Time Warner and America Online have had integrating their two disparate business units (old media and new media, for lack of better terms).

To completely pull this off, there would almost need to be a re-envisioning of how media properties were put together -- and it would require each group to not be constrained by the limitations of the other media.

For instance, time lines in story telling would need to be flexible enough to allow each narrative to unfold -- but they would have to be cohesive enough so as not to drive hard core fans away. And while linear story telling works well in television and film, the games would need to be open-ended in terms of use (and likely far more limited in scope).

Most importantly, though, the production cycles for each medium are very different. While television schedules are weekly, games are generally finished "when they are finished" -- a mantra that would likely have Hollywood marketers jumping out of windows.