STEVEN SPIELBERG, the film director and producer, has been commissioned to develop three new computer games by the world’s leading developer, Electronic Arts (EA).

The tie-up reflects the increasing power of the games industry — whose size rivals Hollywood — and the desire of publishers to enhance the quality of a business better known for its violent first-person shoot-’em-ups.

Spielberg will be given an office at EA, the developer of games such as The Sims and Medal of Honour, and it is intended that he will work with technical staff to create original games.

EA will own the intellectual property behind the games.

Neil Young, the head of EA’s Los Angeles development studio, said: “It’s really the first time a film-maker, and a filmmaker of Steven Spielberg’s calibre, will collaborate at this level on an original game.

“He understands how our medium works and wants to push it in different directions, putting innovations in a game that no one has ever seen before.”

Spielberg, a co-founder of the DreamWorks film studio, has not been given a set deadline to produce his first game, which is not expected to appear soon. That means that he is likely to be working to produce for one of the next generation of games consoles — Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which launches later this year, or Sony’s PlayStation 3, due in 2006.

Dan Stevenson, a games analyst at the research firm Screen Digest, said: “With the next generation of games consoles, you will get to the point where the special effects used in movies and the effects used in a game are of a similar quality. Games publishers have also come under fire for launching too many sequels, so hopefully the presence of a creative talent like Mr Spielberg will help change that.”

The film director behind E.T. and Schindler’s List was not available for comment yesterday — saying, in a statement, that he “was working closely with the team in Los Angeles” — but he is known to be a keen gamer. In a speech last year, he told film students that they could alter the future of film-making if they played more computer games.

In recent years Hollywood has sought to launch computer games based on films as a way of generating more merchandising revenue for the movie. However, many of the games have been disappointing and often it has proved difficult to relate them directly to the film in question.

However, as the power of the games industry has grown, that trend has also reversed, first with the emergence of Lara Croft, the cyber-babe, as a film heroine. Halo, a sci-fi shoot-’em-up and the most talked-about game on the original Microsoft Xbox, is to be turned into a film directed by Peter Jackson, the Lord of the Rings director, with a script by Alex Garland, author of The Beach.

Screen Digest estimates that global computer game sales will amount to $19.1 billion (£10.8 billion) in 2005. DVD sales are forecast to total £37.4 billion.

“EA says that it sees itself as an entertainment business, not a games publisher, and the recruitment of Spielberg backs up its comments,” Mr Stevenson said.