A voicemail provides the first clue: We will meet on Tuesday at 11 a.m. Then the second clue: An e-mail message says that a gentleman in a black silk shirt will be at the door. Soon, the fax machine spits out the rendezvous coordinates: the 33rd floor of the Rhiga Royal Hotel in Manhattan.
Once you play Majestic, it's hard to keep it separate from real life. That's because Electronic Arts' new online game, full of spies, death threats and international conspiracy, invades the real world by sending hints to players via phone, fax, e-mail and instant message.
The conceptual risk behind Majestic - will participants want their lives interrupted by a game they're playing? - is what makes it a business thriller. After all, EA is spending $10 million to launch a new Net-based game at a time when most big names in the $6 billion gaming industry have abandoned online gaming except for surefire moneymakers.
I arrive at the 33rd floor of the Rhiga, disoriented by the sprawling view of downtown New York. In black silk as promised, Neil Young appears and motions me through a door.
Young, the brains behind Majestic, was partly inspired by The Game, a 1997 film in which Michael Douglas is signed up for a spy-thriller game that bleeds into his life. Majestic starts on the Web, where players register and fill out personal information, but soon it crosses over into new territory. Players have 15 days to solve each mystery and move to the next level as they field clues from EA staff posing as game characters.
"There's no jumping, no flying, no swords," says Young, 30. In other words, Majestic is not fantasy you escape into; it's fantasy you have to escape from.
For Young, a senior executive producer at EA, fantasy has been rewarding. He and EA are still buoyed by the success of his previous invention, the immensely popular Ultima Online. Launched in 1997, Ultima was the first profitable online game, and has more than 200,000 subscribers to date. Young's goal for Majestic is even more, well, majestic: "We want to 10-X Ultima Online."
Majestic is certainly 10 times more inventive, but with $5 monthly subscriptions, EA will need 110,000 subscribers to break even. It's an ambitious goal. To reach it, Young and company are counting on the game sector to remain immune to the economy's woes.
Back in New York, more reality intrudes. Young checks his watch: He's due to deliver another demo. But first he picks up the phone and punches in numbers - to take control of a satellite, he says. If only it were that easy to dial up 100,000 subscribers.
