This is for real. An actual Deadline Hollywood game will debut on Facebook this summer. Does this mean that the game (which I presume will have an app for smart phones) will somehow insert the Tyrannosaur-ish personality of Nikki Finke into the software, in the same way that the seething machismo in Sylvester Stallone‘s John Rambo is woven into the various Rambo games?

The Hollywood Elsewhere game would be some kind of travel-and-adventure-and-political-peril thing. The player would go from film festival to film festival (Sundance, Cannes, Toronto), wearing different color shoes, using little cowboy hats as currency, guestimating the value of films, encountering bad wifi, etc. Actually, I take that back — that’s a fairly shitty idea.

What about the David Poland/Movie City News game? What would that be about? How about the Sasha Stone/Awards Daily game? Or the Scott Feinberg game? Or the Glenn Kenny/Some Came Running game?

Maybe the best thing is to think beyond software and going back to the concept of a simple Monopoly-style board game with dice and little plastic men and “get out of jail” cards and all that. I don’t know. Give me time to figure it out. So far I’m not enthused.