Is Xbox Live LinkedIn for Young Hollywood?

Authored by Jay Baage on May 13, 2007 - 12:49pm.

The young Hollywood media elite are networking by playing videogames online, via Xbox Live. At least according to a testimony in Friday's edition of Variety, written by Ben Fritz.
"I can be at home at 2 in the morning with writers and directors and producers and executives who all vaguely know each other in the business," notes producer-manager Aaron Kaplan in the piece. "All of a sudden, I get to know people the way they really are."

The article notes that nobody is yet selling a script or getting cast in a movie on Xbox Live, but the bonds formed in a game of "Gears of War" -- currently the most popular game on XBL -- carry over into other areas:
"Is it really socially acceptable to talk business at 2 a.m. on the phone? Of course not," observes Zach Shiff-Abrams, an exec at Michael De Luca Prods. "But it's completely acceptable on Xbox Live."

The article ends with the following observation:

"Excursions into the sometimes scary open world of Xbox Live are rare, though. Most of the time, young industryites are playing with each other, confident not only that they'll compete with somebody at about the same skill level, but that the relationship they're building with the guy who they just blew up with an explosive crossbow could prove quite valuable."

Joakim Baage

Picture from Gamerscore