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In brief: Plenty of celebrities call themselves gamers, but Steven Spielberg is the real deal. Not only does he have a long history in the industry, but his son Max has also revealed that his dad is a true PC gamer who says, "I can't do controllers; I only do keyboard and mouse."
The director of Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Jurassic Park, and many more classics has long spoken about his love of video games, stretching back to 1982 when he revealed the instant thrill and ego "massage" that playing games like Donkey Kong and Tempest provided.
Spielberg's son, Max, is involved in both the movie and game worlds: he's the co-founder and creative director of developer Fuzzybot and worked on Assassin's Creed: Unity.
In a recent interview with MinnMax, Max talked about FuzzyBot's new game, Lynked: Banner of the Spark. He also revealed more about his dad's pastime.
"He loves gaming, he's the one that got me into it," Max said. "He plays games, he's a big PC gamer and so that's kind of our bonding point as well. He's like 'Hey what's good, what new Call of Duty should I be playing, send me a list of the top five shooters, I'll get 'em downloaded and we can play 'em together when you come over to the house.'"
Steven Spielberg's love of military shooters stretches back a long way. The original 1999 Medal of Honor's concept, production, and story were created by the director, who was inspired to write it after filming Saving Private Ryan.
"It's always a Call of Duty," laughs Max Spielberg, "he loves Call of Duty, he enjoys the campaign."
One might imagine that Spielberg would appreciate games inspired by his own movies, but there's a small issue. "He's big into story games and I'm always trying to get him to play Uncharted," Max added. "Y'know 'it's Indiana Jones, you'd appreciate this', and he's always 'I can't do controllers; I only do keyboard and mouse.'"
At 77 years old, it's good to know that Spielberg still finds time to play and enjoy games. Fellow septuagenarian director John Carpenter is also a big fan of gaming. The creator of the Halloween franchise said in an interview last year that "I just want to play video games and watch basketball. That's all I care about doing."
Steven Spielberg's other past video game projects include LMNO, a title developed by Electronic Arts in 2005 that was described as a mix of first-person parkour movement with adventure and role-playing elements. Players would have been tasked with escorting an alien woman on a road trip across the US, but the game was canceled in 2010.
A more successful project for Spielberg was 2008's Bloom Blox, a physics-based party game for the Wii that he directed. This writer also recalls playing The Dig in the 1990s (it's still available on Steam). The idea behind the point-and-click adventure was originally conceived by Spielberg as an episode of Amazing Stories, and later as a movie, but was later decided that the concept would be too expensive to film.