Jim Lee shapes DC's online role-playing game

While Marvel is working with Microsoft on a massive role-playing game for the X-Box 360, DC has teamed up with Sony to release a multiplayer online game for the Playstation 3, the PSP and the PC -- with a little bit of help from Jim Lee:

Sony Online Entertainment and Jim Lee officially revealed today that the popular comic book collaborator has taken an important development role in the upcoming "DC Comics Online Project." Scheduled for release on the PC, PS3, and PSP at an undisclosed date, the comic-based MMO will benefit from Lee's role as Executive Creative Director and the creator's dual-experience as a comic book legend and frequent MMO player.

"This is something I'm intimately involved in and will be for the next several years," said Lee in a conference call held yesterday afternoon. "Comics and games were a big part of my childhood and this really is a realization of my dreams."

Newsarama has a Q&A with Jim Lee on the game and gaming in general:

Games in general are a passion of mine--not just to play but also from gameplay issues. I remember the first Pong game which my dad brought home! It entranced us for days [laughter]. As a kid, I used to go a lot to the library and check out books on games from around the world and actually creating boards and pieces to play games which were not available in the US. I even went ahead and created my own board games with my own set of rules and game pieces out of balsa wood and clay. I was into Dungeons and Dragons and desktop miniatures. I also played a lot of SSI and Avalon Hill games which had very detailed, voluminous sets of rules but you really got to see how rulesets were used to define and replicate real life movements, actions and combat. Later in college, as a psychology major, I remember reading studies on zero sum strategies and gaming.