Tron Creator: Video Games Offer Test Bed For Hollywood's 'Far Out' Ideas

Steve Lisberger, creator of the original Tron and producer of Tron: Legacy -- the new fim earned around $44 million during its North American debut weekend -- has praised video games as a useful, lower-risk environment to experiment with some of Hollywood's more outlandish ideas. Speaking to Reuters, Lisberger said: "I like the fact that the games in some ways are a visual and a narrative test bed for Hollywood, where some of the more far-out ideas can be experimented with on a somewhat smaller scale than having to ratchet them all the way up to a film like Tron: Legacy." "I think that's a good relationship between games and films," he added. Bob Iger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company echoed Lisberger's description of a symbiotic relationship between game and film, something that has always been at the heart of the Tron franchise both in terms of narrative and marketing. "I think games like Tron: Legacy have a great opportunity to use 3D technology to create a much more immersive experience for the consumer," he said. "When you use new technology to make something that is more compelling for the consumer, then they want more of it. They want to watch it more, play it more, and buy it more." "You can already play Blu-ray 3D and 3D games on PlayStation 3, so games are a great way to get the technology into the home," said Kosinski. "Games and movies are very different experiences and it's great to have one leverage the other into the home theater environment. I think there's room for both and I can't wait to play the Tron game in 3D myself."