Have you ever wanted to learn more about the gaming industry and the people who help it run? Then you are in luck, as PlayStation LifeStyle is starting up a brand new feature called Industry Spotlight, where we hand pick an elite member of the gaming industry and force them into answering some extremely tough questions. To be honest the questions aren’t that tough.

Our first victim, I mean guest speaker, is Ryan Phillips of NIS America fame. We recently sat down with this Prinny lover to see just what he does for NIS America and what it is like working in the gaming industry.

PSLS: What is your title and job description at NIS America?

Ryan: My current title here at NISA is PR/Marketing coordinator. For the PR side, a great deal of it entails maintaining contact with all our current media/press to make sure they all get review copies, press releases, new game shots/videos, etc. for the US & Europe. Another part of the position is to attend conventions ie. TGS, E3, GDC, Anime Expo, so traveling is part of my job too. The social element of the position is pretty fun, as you get to interact with a lot of people in the gaming/anime industry. Marketing-wise, we work to help expand our fan-base by designing magazine/online ads, publishing our company newsletter, and making promotional bonus items for our online store. Other things that I handle are the logistics of setting up Anime Expo in Los Angeles each year (including driving a gigantor 24’ truck), footage for our games, working with vendors for our online store bonus items, and anime convention contact.

How long have you been working in the game inudstry?

Next month will be 2 years in the industry. I started at NISA as a game tester mid-2010 and then moved on up into my current position in our marketing team soon afterwards. I previously worked in the finance world, but this industry is incredibly more interesting and happy on the whole. I’m here to stay!

What is an everyday shift as a PR Coordinator like?

To be honest, every day is a new adventure at NIS America. We publish a lot of titles and anime, so we constantly have a lot of projects going on at the same time – which means that the things I work on change constantly from day to day. However, each day I usually spend a small portion of the morning responding to press emails for both games and anime. Outside of that, I publish the company newsletter multiple times weekly, so usually I will work on the graphic text/coding and prepare it for publishing. On top of that, if we are announcing or having a title launch, I will work with Nao to make a press release to include in the newsletter and to send to press. Lately it’s been approaching Anime Expo, so I’ve been working with contractors to help build our booth. Next month is also E3, so we’ve been slowly making plans to meet up with various media on the floor to showcase our titles once the event begins. Lastly, one of the things I really like to do is to work with the marketing team to think of cool new bonus items for our online store – some of the funniest and most random ideas get thrown out there in the meetings!

What is the coolest event you have ever helped set up?

Last year we rented out a large movie theater in downtown San Francisco to announce a bunch of new titles (Bleach: Soul Resurrección, Atelier Totori, Disgaea 4) and we had Bleach playable on the bigscreen! It was really cool to rent out a whole theater, but being able to play games on the bigscreen was a pretty awesome experience. I’d have to say that event, or last year’s Anime Expo were definitely awesome events. It is a lot of planning and work, but once it happens, it’s amazing!

What is the best game you have ever helped promote?

I was pretty green to the Disgaea universe when I joined NIS America, however, after a few years I really do have a deep appreciation for not only the games, but for the fans that support the series. Disgaea has a huge following worldwide, so being able to help promote Disgaea 4’s release was a pretty intense/awesome experience.

I am sure you give out a lot of swag.  What is the coolest piece of it you have ever handed out?

Bar-none it’d have to be the Prinny panties for our PSP release of Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, dood. We had a fan-submitted contest where they submitted designs of what the panties should look like, and the winning design was printed onto a thong. The winning entries received it, along with some of our media. It’s definitely my favorite so far!

The Disgaea series has been a huge cult classic for NIS America, what character from the serious is your favorite?

Hmm, this is a tough one. If I had to go with just one, I’m going to have to the Prinnies. They really provide a lot of the punchlines for a lot of humor in the series, and I find myself rooting for them all the time. Working with the newsletter a lot, I’ve used Prinnies to really help add just the right touch or angle to complete the comic and or graphic. Plus, exploding penguins are just about the best things ever.

What games are you currently playing?

Lately I’ve been checking out early builds of our upcoming title Legasista (PS3) and also Mugen Souls (PS3). One of the perks of the job is to play the games way ahead of time ^^. Both will be out later this year so I’m definitely excited to begin promoting them in the upcoming months!

Who is the coolest person you have met so far working in the industry?

Everyone I’ve met so far in the gaming & anime industry have been absolutely awesome. One person that I did get a chance to meet through work and hang out with for a bit was Daisuke Amaya (Pixel) who created Doukutsu Monogatari (Cave Story). We published Cave Story 3D, so when we were in San Francisco for GDC in 2011 with Nicalis, we got to have lunch with him and had some time to chat. He’s an incredibly interesting and approachable person!

What advice would you give to someone looking to get their foot in the door?

I entered the industry via QA with game testing, so I’d have to say this is a definite way to get your foot in the door. It allowed me to get to know the people in the office/company, and gave me a lot of insight as to what happens behind the scenes with video games. I definitely encourage anyone who is interested in joining the industry to give testing a go, as for me it was a rewarding experience and gave me a deeper appreciation towards video games.

© Cameron Teague for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Escape Hatch Entertainment President and Chief Creative Officer Garry Gaber realized his goal for the funding of an original space combat game, after having a Kickstarter come down to the wire. Garry previously wrote a guest post about Starlight Inception (PC & PS Vita) on PSLS readers and gave us an interview about his plans for the game. In this new interview, Garry talks about the Kickstarter experience, when fans might be able to expect to see the game, what Escape Hatch has planned for the future, and more.

How does it feel to have reached your Kickstarter goal? What was the Kickstarter experience like for Escape Hatch?

It feels great. At last count, only one in four Kickstarter games were making it to completion, and we feel honored and humbled to amongst those projects. Our backers and fans are the greatest – they really stuck by us when we were on the bubble, and have been wonderful since the Kickstarter ended – they are making it possible to move forward so solidly on this game.

The Kickstarter experience was at times exciting, at other times nerve-wracking. We had a great first push, then a large drop off in the middle, punctuated with a light at the end of the tunnel built around events (i.e coverage from TotalBiscuit on YouTube). But nothing on Earth (or space) could prepare us for the rollercoaster ride that was the last day…

Now that the goal has been reached, has development on the game itself begun yet?

Yes. We are in the process of shoring up our preproduction – designing the art of the game, working out details of the logo, coming up with cool features on the programming side, setting up voice talent, etc.

How has supporter input affected plans for the game? Will gamers continually be able to offer feedback on the game? Will progress on the game be transparent to the gaming community?

The backers will have access to art and announcements before others – they are free to witness what happens in the development of the game, and we will be establishing a backer-only forum for just that purpose. They will also have a voice in the making of the game, but only as far as a focus group – Escape Hatch will still have final say and make the tough decisions as we move through the process – it is virtually impossible for 3700+ backers to come to consensus on every decision, and it would paralyze the process if we tried to do so. But, we stand by our ‘break down the ivory tower’ rule – we want backers to feel like they are heard, and we will make every effort to explain decisions, and to listen to what they suggest, especially if those suggestions work within our design and development framework.

If the development process is going to be more transparent, will that mean more demos, betas, etc. than usually released for retail games?

Absolutely – we promised players gritty realism, and they will definitely see the making of the game as it occurs, including more demos, alphas and betas, if they so chose.

Is Escape Hatch going to work on the PC and Vita versions of Starlight Inception simultaneously or one at a time?

Simultaneously. The same engine will be used for both, the same assets, and the same coding. We will tweak the control scheme for both platforms, but the core assets and code will be shared from beginning to end.

Will Escape Hatch be using any middleware or middleware engines (Unity, PhyreEngine, etc.) to develop the game on PC or Vita?

Yes, we are using a proprietary middleware solution.

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© nickmichetti for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Along with a guest post about his studio’s Kickstarter campaign for a PS Vita and PC space combat title, Starlight Inception, Escape Hatch Entertainment President and Chief Creative Officer Garry Gaber has also given us an exclusive look at the game in the first interview for the project. In the interview, he discusses features that would be included in the game, the studio’s choice of PlayStation Vita as a platform, and more.

The Kickstarter page for Starlight Inception seems to indicate that the game would have players balancing asset usage, etc. — something that casual fans of the genre may not be into or find intimidating. Is Starlight Inception more for hardcore fans of space combat? If not, what’s being done to make sure that anyone can pick up and play the game?

This is a great question. There will be two primary modes in the game –- one which is geared toward casual users who just want to get into the game and fly a fighter right away, but not delve into some of the deeper aspects of the game; and one for the more hardcore players that allows for configuration of fighters, loading out weapons, more game modes. A user basically can choose when they begin the game which door they will enter and tailor their experience accordingly.

How would you classify the style of action in Starlight Inception? Is it more arcade- type with some management elements or is this a more serious space combat game?

The casual experience will be much more arcade like, while the hardcore version will add more serious elements.

How exactly does story factor into the game? How is the story being told (in-game, via cutscenes, etc.)? Also, the Kickstarter page says that Starlight Inception will have players “making decisions that affect your life and the life of your wingmen, whether human or autonomous drones” — are these focal story points or are they just in- game combat scenarios?

There are several game modes in Starlight Inception as you travel from planet to planet. There is the non-linear sort of tower defense mode where you can launch and defend your capital ship from incoming attackers via deployed turrets and ship to ship combat.

Then there is the linear story based missions that move you from planet to planet as you advance. The story will be told through a series of cinematics and in-game action. We’re trying to keep the progression of the story as tied into gameplay action as possible, while still weaving the tale in a definable direction.

Drones are robotic wingmen and rather expendable (but also invaluable when you’re in a combat situation), whereas there are also humans in the equation. And yes, if certain wingmen are killed, that will affect the story.

What is the scale of the “galaxy” (for lack of a better term) in Starlight Inception? What percentage of planets in the game will players be able to fly over atmospheres of? Will these be regular experiences in the game or are these more set piece-type moments in the game?

You will have the entire solar system available to play in, focused mostly on the planets of the solar system. We’re still working out things like transitions between space and planetary environments, and the different ways that ships behave in both environments, because we want the experience to feel different. The idea is to include this possibility in the story based missions as set pieces, but we would also like to expand this to multiplayer where appropriate.

Roughly how long is Starlight Inception planned to be? How many hours of gameplay will the title offer?

The linear story based missions should be between 4–6 hours, depending. The non-linear single player TD mode is essentially endless, as is the multiplayer experience.

The page mentions there being a beta for the game — is that an online multiplayer beta? If so, will that online multiplayer experience carry over to the Vita version as well?

We know that we can support a Steam beta with multiplayer. As long as the Vita and PlayStation Network support this functionality, we would love to have a beta up there as well.

If there’s going to be online multiplayer, how is Escape Hatch Entertainment going to be able to sustain an online multiplayer component for the game? Is the funding for that built into the $150,000 budget?

We’re hoping that the built in connectivity on Steam and Vita do most of the work for us.

To learn more details about Starlight Inception continue reading on page two.

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© nickmichetti for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by ex-LucasArts game veteran and President and Chief Creative Officer of Escape Hatch Entertainment, Garry Gaber. Escape Hatch hope to bring space combat game Starlight Inception to the PC and PlayStation Vita via Kickstarter. We asked him to tell us about himself, the game, and why you should think about helping to fund the game in an exclusive article.

I remember playing games like Wing Commander and Star Wars: X-Wing for hours, days, sometimes so much that I would barely be able to keep my eyes open during my day job, anticipating the next time when I might be able to get behind the joystick again and kick some enemy ass.

That, along with a love of storytelling and science fiction was what prompted me to apply for a job in the entertainment industry. I would work 10 hour days as a Computer Aided Designer and then come home and work another shift creating 3D art and studying (or was it playing) the beautiful gameplay and graphics of those games and others of the same era. Eventually, I landed a job at LucasArts Entertainment Company as a 3D artist, and my wife, cat and I climbed into a Mitsubishi Eclipse and started driving west…

I wound up working at LucasArts for ten awesome years, being a part of games like Star Wars: Jedi Knight, Star Wars: Rebel Assault II, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi, and others. When the company had enough confidence in my design and production skills, they promoted me to Project Leader and I designed, wrote, built (with an amazing team of creative and talented individuals) Star Wars: Force Commander, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, and the expansion pack Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Clone Campaigns.

After I left LucasArts in 2004, I got in the car again, driving southwest to Austin to start Escape Hatch Entertainment. Except this time, my wife and I had a newborn son along for the ride. At Escape Hatch Entertainment, we took on a new challenge: trying to devise a game that could teach. And do it on a budget that was a fraction of what I was used to at LucasArts. We found wild success with this endeavor, not monetarily, but in the numbers of students that we helped discover history through Discover Babylon, immunology through Immuneattack, and building science through a large project for the Department of Energy meant to retrain unemployed workers by giving them new skills. And while all this was going on, I found time to give back to the community by teaching at our local community college, and to have another son.

But I still remembered those days playing space combat simulations, and burned to make one of my own, something that wasn’t quite Wing Commander and not quite X-Wing, but something new and fresh and unique.

Which brings me to why I’m here, to introduce our new game project, Starlight Inception, for Sony PlayStation Vita and PC.

To find out more about the game, and see a PSLS exclusive image of the game, turn to page two.

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© StarlightInception for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Joe Madureira has done a lot of things. He’s worked as a comic book artist for Marvel Comics, and even created his own comic series under the Wildstorm label called Battle Chasers. However, his experience with video games goes back to his time with Realm Interactive, which was later acquired by NCSoft, when he worked on the game that would later become known as Dungeon Runners. Madureira (Joe Mad to his friends) and David Adams eventually left NCSoft and founded Vigil Games in 2005. Since then, Vigil Games has been acquired by THQ, and is currently shepherding the post-apocalyptic franchise Darksiders. At a recent preview event for Darksiders 2 I sat down with Joe Mad, Creative Director on Darksiders 2, to talk about his transition from comics to video games, the core tenets of the Darksiders franchise and even secret Nintendo assassins.

So you started out as a comic book artist. As a comic book artist did you find the switch to games a jarring experience, or did you feel right at home with how to handle the creative development of a video game?

It was pretty gradual actually. It can be pretty jarring because its a very, very, very different job, but early on I was just doing a lot of concept art. Then I was working remotely for a studio in Arizona called Realm Interactive. They actually got bought out by NCSoft which is the reason I ended up moving to Texas and meeting a lot of these guys in Austin where we started Vigil together. As the games got bigger and our team got bigger it got more and more complex, and that’s where the jarring nature of it comes in. But it was pretty gradual for me. I had already been working in games for like six or seven years before we founded Vigil. So it was a little more gradual.

What would you say has been the biggest challenge with the entirety of the Darksiders franchise up to this point as far as a creative standpoint is concerned ?

I think for us we’re always super ambitious as a developer. We bite off more than we can chew constantly and it’s too fun not too. So it’s just managing our crazy ambition.

Can you give me a specific example?

We got a lot better at it, because in the second game about 80% of the game got in that we wanted to, but with the first game we only did about 10% of what we thought we were going to do. The scope of the first game was so insane. Including, at one point, four player co-op for all the Four Horsemen. We actually thought we were going to do that. So we were just nuts, and we had no rules, no limits, we’re just like ‘let’s do it’.

Are these things that are still on the table?

Everything’s always on the table, we just move it. But I will say the more experience we get, and the more seasoned the team gets, the more that can become a reality. That’s why the new traversal, the loot system, a lot of the new realms that we’re showing now,  because the first game took place just on Earth, all of this stuff was actually meant to be in the first game. We’re just getting better about planning a little better and more realistic about how long stuff takes us to get done.

Was the development time on Darksiders 2 the same as Darksiders 1, or did you begin ‘concepting’ Darksiders 1 long before the game began to take shape?

Darksiders 2 was a lot quicker to get done because we already had an established team, they were experienced and we had already made one game. When we first did the first Darksiders we had four people at the beginning. We didn’t even have a decent sized team for over a year. We didn’t have an engine. We were still building the technology and the tools. We didn’t have designers…we didn’t have anything. So it’s hard to count the first year and a half, or so, of the first game. But we did get Darksiders 2 done in half the time, because we already had a team ready. Building a good team, literally, takes years.

So as far as the story in Darksiders 2, will players had to have played Darksiders 1 in order to be able to play this, or can they just pick up this and run straight in?

No, not at all. If you have played the first one its kinda cool, because we reference some of the moments in the first game, and there are some cameo appearances from some old favorites that you see again. It’s definitely cool if you’ve played the first one before, but its not necessary.

I’ve been told four characters, exactly four, from the first game will be in this game.

Just four, huh?

Yes, of the apparent seven.

That sounds fairly accurate.

For those players that played the first game, is there any kind of save import for this since that seems to be all the rage these days?

That does sound really cool! As of right this minute there isn’t, but that’s not to say that that wouldn’t happen.

There are games like Dark Souls and Demon Souls that have a very specific design aesthetic, and the developers say this is our art, this is how we’re going to craft the game, and the player will just have to adapt to those constraints. Do you feel that there’s anything between Darksiders 1 and Darksiders 2 that you, as a developer, have tried to preserve in the interest of that same sort of mentality?

I think for us it was always about having combat that felt tight enough to stand alone with the best hack ‘n’ slash, straight up combat games, but with the depth, cool story, and NPCs of an adventure-RPG game. We tried to preserve that balance. It’s not all combat, it’s not all puzzle solving, but its a nice balance of both. And I think, that we hit that balance a lot better on the sequel. In the first one, it was maybe more of a straight action game than we had intended it to be, but in the sequel we got a lot more of the adventure. Which is what we set out to make was an adventure game. But we do want it to be accessible. We want people to pick it up and have a good time with it without it getting to Dark Souls level of insane difficulty.

You don’t want people leaving notes behind tricking people?

That is really cool, but accessibility is pretty important for us.

The first game was critically acclaimed for its whole-cloth way in which it took the Zelda puzzle solving and combat mechanics, and applied them in a more mature themed game. I’m assuming that we can expect more Zelda homages in this game, and do you think that that has become one of your core tenets and influences as far as this series is concerned?

You know its funny, because I can definitely see the comparisons to Zelda, but I think its mainly because its one of the most well known adventure games. But that structure, that your talking about, is really common in adventure games as a genre and as a whole. There are other games like Metroid or Castlevania that have a very similar structure. And I think, now that we’ve gone down that path and established ourselves in the adventure genre, we get more comparisons now to just the first game. It’s nice because people are asking us about how we’re building onto our existing game and not comparing us to other stuff. But obviously, because of the loot drops and the new traversal the game just feels bigger in every way and more blown out in every department. I think it feels less like Zelda, and you’ll get less comparisons now.

What would you say has been the biggest reason for the success of this franchise?

That’s a good question. You never know what’s going to resonate with people. Probably the biggest secret to success is to be super, super picky. We’re just really hard on ourselves. It seems like common sense, but I think that a lot of people fall in love with what they make, and just aren’t critical enough. We tear each other a new one constantly! Even before any reviewer can say anything bad about it, we’re already aware of it. We will redo something over and over again until its cool.

It’s nice to see that you have that kind of passion to be very self-critical. But does that become a burden at times?

Probably.

I mean during like major pushes…

Yeah, or, like, 18 people just spent 2 months on this level and we’re going to cut it, because its horrible or we don’t have the time. It’s better to cut it now than to spend another 2 months fixing it. Stuff like that is heart-breaking, but its part of game development, and if you’re really striving for quality you just have to do stuff like that.

There’s been a lot of hullabaloo surrounding endings to games, and I wanted to get your take on this. So about the whole Mass Effect controversy…

I’ll be honest, I haven’t started playing it yet. So I’m trying not to hear anything about it.

But you are aware that there is a controversy?

Yes, I am aware that there is a controversy.

So has that caused your team to go back and reexamine the plot of Darksiders in any way?

No. We always take risks. We ended the first game on a cliffhanger which is kinda ballsy, because who knows if were going to make another one or not. And then in the sequel, we changed the character without resolving the story of the first character. If it excites us we do it whether its going to piss people off or not. I think that people will understand why we did it once they play the game, and they’ll enjoy Death and his journey just as much. You still end up learning way, way, way more about the Darksiders universe whether it progresses the story in a linear way or not. It doesn’t really matter as much…I hope.

Was the loot drop system something that you had planned for Darksiders 1?

Yeah we always wanted to have loot, but that was one of the things that we had to cut early on when we were doing the first game. Not only creating all the assets but the way they affect the character just visually, stats and everything. There weren’t game systems in place to support it the first time around, but in the sequel we knew from the beginning that Death is going to be able to equip tons of weapons and armor. We have stats now and that pushes customization to a new level. There’s skill trees and with the mix-and-match of all the items you can really customize your experience way, way more than the first one.

So you mentioned that if something excites you and the team that you’ll put a lot of time and passion into it. Are there any core tenets to Darksiders that you focus on a lot in terms of the design of game and this franchise?

We try to not have anything be mundane. Even the opening a chest or door needs to have some flair to it. Rip it off its hinges or use ghostly arms to smash it open. Even War used to ram the chest. We always laughed that War punched the chest in the face, because there was a little skull in the front he would just pound his fist into.

Along those lines, I am a bit upset that the Beholder keys from Darksiders 1 have been replaced with Skeleton keys this time around.

Oh the ones where you would stab them in the eye?

Yeah, I am a little upset about that. I guess it fits War’s aesthetic more than Death’s…

Yeah, but we always try to make everything cooler than it really probably needs to be.

Does that embellishment come from your comic book background like having to exaggerate the movements of characters on a page?

Not necessarily. It’s just that we’re gamers too and get tired of conventions, and try to either change them or try to make them different than what you’ve seen before. We’re always just trying to push stuff a little.

What were the biggest pieces of feedback that you got from the first game that you tried to implement here?

People really enjoyed some of the characters in the first game, and really wanted more interaction. Usually when you ran into an NPC it was before it triggered a cutscene, and that was about it. People have thought man it would have been so cool to learn more about Samael or interact with these characters a little bit more. So in the sequel, because the world is so much bigger it supports entire towns of NPCs. You learn a lot more about the story through interacting with characters versus just watching cutscenes.  Many were bugged by the amount of cutscenes in the first game. Also War didn’t really have a lot of personality. He’s just like a justice and honor guy which is maybe the least interesting character. Death is more of a dick. He’s way more cynical and sarcastic, and disrespectful of laws. So its a lot more fun to watch him and play as him.

We will get to see Fury and Strife in this game?

You do learn more about the Horsemen in general, and their race the Nephilim which is what the Horsemen are. I can’t really say if they’re in it or not. But I can say that they aren’t playable. So you’ll just have to wait and see!

So I was talking to the community manager, and he said that there was a 50/50 split between the community regarding the Apocalyptic difficulty with half saying it was way too easy and the other half saying it was way too hard. How do you deal with moments like that, where your community is split right down the middle?

Well I think that we haven’t ever really let the community or feedback influence us beyond what we believed was the right course of action. It’s always good to hear everyone’s take on any given thing, but then at the end of the day we have to decide what we think is right. I think when we’ve got the difficulty to where we feel it’s right, that’s what were going to roll with. Regardless of what current debate is going on or whatever. Difficulty it’s just a hard one. I mean, what are you supposed to do with it? Everyone has different gameplay abilities, there’s good gamers and terrible gamers. We want even a terrible gamer to eventually be able to make their way through the whole game, and there’s stuff in there to support that. You can go and level up. You can run around in the same area and collect tons of loot, sell it, upgrade your items, and upgrade your skills. Eventually you’ll beat the boss or whatever your stuck on…unless you really are terrible.

Do the enemies scale with Death’s character level?

They don’t. You’ll encounter tougher versions of enemies, but in general you’re locked out of areas until you are powerful enough to be there anyway.

When Darksiders 1 was finished and had shipped what was going through your mind as it was the first game out of the gate for Vigil Games? What was the general atmosphere at the office and how were the reviews perceived?

We were just really excited to be done. Everyone had a month off. We were emailing each other all the reviews and links. It’s an exciting time and I’m really excited for that to happen again in a few months. Because when you work on something for years of your life you’re anxious to hear what people thought of it. It’s a fun, exciting time. I personally have trouble reading reviews. Even good ones. I feel weird and don’t like to read reviews. I’ll skim a little and look at the Metacritic and be like ‘Damn we went down a whole point!’ I just get really stressed reading reviews. I don’t know what it is. It’s always been that way with me. I’ll  talk to other people at the studio and get the general vibe.

Was Darksiders 2 greenlit immediately after the first one had wrapped?

We had already submitted Darksiders 2 for the gate process, where we get stuff greenlit, and we had already been cleared to start on the second game before we even shipped the first one.

Was the budget for Darksiders 2 larger, smaller, or the same?

I believe it was larger. Quite a bit larger. The thing is time is money and even though we had a larger team and more money we spent so much less time making the game. I think the first game was more expensive because of how much longer we spent on it. That’s actually a good question. I kinda stay out of the money stuff. I don’t even want to know! We had to make it bigger and better, and in half the time. So that was our thing.

When the original game was released it was a new IP. Could you give us a bit more backstory as to how it fomented into the idea that was Darksiders 1?

We set out to make a console adventure game. That’s all we knew, and we felt like ‘Why aren’t there adventure games anymore?’ The only games coming out now in the adventure genre are the eighth or tenth installment of an old ass, game series. No one was really making adventures anymore. So we knew that we wanted to do that and then it became a matter of picking a theme and setting that we got excited about. We had this kid with a bionic arm. We had this dude with animal powers. We had all kinds of stupid ideas that went nowhere, and we’d have these meetings about what the game was going to be. Meanwhile, Dave was working on the engine and we had all these bad ass graphics capabilities. So then one day I was driving home and I just thought ‘Hey, what about this?’ So I gave them the pitch about the Four Horsemen. It was a little different at that time. These college kids on Earth develop these powers and they find out that they’re the Horsemen, and that they’re going to eventually destroy the Earth. So they choose not to do it and it causes this cosmic conflict to rain down on the Earth and hunt them. We felt like that sounds like a WB series and that can’t be a game. So we just streamlined it and said fuck all that. What if it’s just the Four Horsemen fighting angels and demons on earth, there’s demons throwing buses off of buildings on Earth and there’s people screaming. Once we went down that path we were all super excited about it and the publishers we were talking to got excited by that pitch, and we were just like ‘Alright Four Horsemen..that’s it!’ I feel like when it clicked we all knew it.

Well I guess that’s it for me, so can you give the folks at home the general info? Date and systems?

Darksiders 2 will be out June 26th for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and then the Wii U.

Do you have a window for the Wii U yet?

There’s a team of assassins hidden right here. See this red dot on the back of my neck?

Alright, well thank you very much!

Thank you!

© Vivas Kaul for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Be sure to first read part one of our in-depth interview here.

We talk to director Stephanie Beth about Us and the Game Industry, a film following indie developers like Jason Rohrer and thatgamecomany, about what motivates developers, the importance of a studio label and sexism in games, in part two of an exclusive interview.

We’re obviously in quite a rapidly evolving part of history in the games industry, do you think that will change continue to get faster, and do you think that the ratio of indie to mainstream will stay the same?

I think the ratio of mainstream to indie is going to stay the same, and yet, the overall productivity will keep increasing so that, as things become more common – and I think it’s the dream of the smaller games developer – we will simply have more maturity of variety so that there is choice for types of games. That’s not the revolution, simply a better consumer supply.

With the developers you followed, did you find that thoughts of success and profitability affected game design, or it was just about the art?

It was always about the art, which satisfied me as well, it made me feel fine. I would say it was always about the art specifically to the one-off game developers, and that was not always the case if a business was involved in, say, microfinance transactions. I think every developer had to rationalize to themselves “this is the market I’d like to best behave in”. So you get a Jason Rohrer in this world and you know that he’s living off the grid in terms of consumption and wasteful consumption, and you know how much he needs to live on, and you know that he will make a game in 3 or 6 months, and that could be his living for the next two years. I remember having an early conversation with Kyle Gabler from World of Goo, and we all know some of the early games made instant turnover. And of course I spent a lot of time with Edmund and Tommy and they made a great turnover. But on the whole, no one has a clue, so they don’t even think about it, they push it out of their mind, and that’s what’s lovely, it is like hanging around with artists of that type – that’s if they see themselves as doing one-offs. But definitely, if you’ve had fifteen years in the corporate world, if you’ve come out as a graduate from a business management course with a double degree in mathematics from MIT and you’ve migrated West to even live, cause you want to be on the West coast of America, you don’t think like that, you think based on new business principles.

Well, the end of all that phrasing leads to the observation that concept and design is about concept and design, art is art, programming is for execution. These are serious steps – making execution. Contemporary marketing nous has led to the new styles of business transactions we know of today. Game marketing styles can be lightweight and  profitable.  But dreaming and vision must come first. The mavericks of the latter have never cared what level of education they had. Those who have more education toy in different strata as their interests  have tended to widen. Tastes and style get marketed differently. You know, it’s a big interesting topic, especially in a present day economy and since the literacy  for game worlds differ from analogue experiences.

So did you follow any developers who didn’t make it then, or did you focus on the winners?

I put myself in the middle of complete success stories.

Obviously Jason [Rohrer] is one of those, do we get so see anything about his next game?

Yeah we do, that’s the great thing. Jason has reserved his next game for the film. I’ve been talking to him since 2009 and the internet has served him fairly well and various events he has been to, and his public, his own personal public you might say, his eclectic critics, they’ve served him well. So he’s told me he’s working on something new and he’s really happy to give me all the data because the edit will give him enough time to get it finished [laughs]. So that’s good.

Can you give us any hints about it?

No, no, he won’t tell me a thing. I’m actually talking to him in about eight days [laughs]. Oh actually, my only hint will be that I went to visit him in New Mexico, so I know that an incident there has triggered the game. I saw the streets where he lives, where that occurred.

Very cryptic, that is.

Yes [laughs], so I’ll see what I can do on my website about that.

But you obviously live in New Zealand, was that a problem, always having to fly over to the States?

I could Skype straightaway with them as soon as I decided I’d written an email and they said “yes alright you can talk to us”. And I could go to San Francisco where there was a convergence of people which was very economic. I actually married a Canadian so I could build in some personal trips on the return flight [laughs]. And, by the time we got hit by the earthquake – I live in Central City Christchurch, thank heavens – we were on fiber optic cables, so even though buildings were all down, I was on the internet and still went in April 2011 to Los Angeles to carry on with my shoot as normal. I’m in a broadband fiber optic safe world, no matter what happens, no matter what tempest hits. I think one of the early rebuild businesses that’s going into the CBD is a collaboration of about seven high tech businesses. It received a government business initiative grant of some kind, like a five year tax write off.

And that could be your next documentary.

Hah, who knows? There’s a lovely film actually, that’s been shown in London, called “When a City Falls” by Gerard Smyth. He lives on the edge of the CBD. He’s made a 107 minute documentary about experiencing the quake. The thing that’s of course reassuring among westerners – loss of life not withstanding – it’s fascinating to watch how people cope when they’re stripped of everything, when they don’t have insurance but they still have the wherewithal to have a will to cobble things together. It’s so wonderful to watch civic duty at work. So, concerning a future film, I have allowed the idea to flutter by me. I’ve probably got 10 years tomake a film about a city make-over if I choose.

So you have given thoughts to your next project then?

Well I have given thoughts to that, it’s not an understatement to say that living here is pretty intriguing. I love still doing this game development topic, and there’s of course every reason to think that there’s something to do in five years that compounds on shifts. Because there’s so much talent at every place you turn, even though, at the moment, we’re only really documenting the Western world really.

Yeah, there’s emerging games industries in India, China – everywhere really.

Exactly. And of course the thing that’s a curious question is: When do more crossovers begin and end? You know how you were asking me how did I get the growth curve? I kind of attempted in my production log entries to point out to myself why I felt confident that I had comprehended what was going on. I actually used skill with sport as my point of entry with doing the documentary. I used to think about how I didn’t sit around necessarily doing Scrabble or playing Chinese Checkers when everyone else was, I’d rather read a novel. And I used to think what I didn’t do. But this researcher that I keep mentioning, he’s my son so I could have complete tabs on seeing why he was dropping out of University and going into the industry [laughs].

So he’s going to be a game developer?

He’s become a concept artist for iPad games.

I’m jealous, I can’t draw.

Isn’t it funny? They’re rare, the people who do the concept art are rare. He works in a company where there’s three of them who draw, and the whole company has got a staff of seventy.

Yeah, that’s a pretty small percentage.

Yeah, it’s interesting isn’t it? But it’s the programmers on the whole in this documentary that I particularly wanted to try and become more acquainted to and get them to show what they’re doing.

Do you think that’s a problem? With big movies, people generally know the director or the screenwriter, but there’s still very few gaming celebrities, and even then, it’s such a collaborative process that it’s hard to credit one individual.

Oh absolutely, of course the perception of thatgamecompany – which is a marvelous perception to hold onto – is team work, you have to have a team and be perceived as a team and so the label of the team is embodied by them all. Who knows what my special features will be, there will be some of these more obscure debates I think, like at the dinner table, like ‘is it important to have a label or is it not?’ In the case of Jason Rohrer, he’s really highly principled about the early days of game development where the game developer was known by name, and he’s very dubious about the treadmill of corporatization where the label counts for everything. I think where I have very happily, but very carefully, stepped into corporate waters, you might say, is by going into thatgamecompany. It has been wonderful being fully aware that they’re a small body, but over in California, you probably can imagine that it has got a confident and a highly developed music industry, so there’s a lot of symbiotic behavior that happens over there that’s very progressive. Remember I mentioned Sony supporting thatgamecompany by extending their development cycle – that’s a salary for thirteen people for five months. Sony must have perceived this as an artistic risk well work the value for money. That is positive local corporate behavior.

Have you talked to thatgamecompany about how they no longer have a Sony contract and might go multiplatform?

A little. Nothing we can really take anywhere here.

Also, talking about titles, I was interested in the title for the film.

[Laughs] I know, the great grammatical error. It’s kind of semiotically playful, that’s the honest answer. There are two steps I took: When I went to San Francisco anf I said that when I do interviews I shall be expecting them to give open-ended answers for the filming, so I gave them a bullet-list of eleven words and asked them to highlight the words they liked. I listed words like ‘us’, meaning we, we small developers who are independent and wandering into IGF. Other words were ‘communications’ and ‘prototyping’. I bought the domain about two years ago. I had to be transparent and honest about how this is about a democratic movement of people and we work small because we have more power that way, we have more autonomy that way.

Robin Hunicke

You directed the feminist film I Want to be Joan, does it worry you that the games industry is often said to have gender inequality?

Well life’s too short to worry. From my personal point of view, the investment I made in some films I’ve made so far, it’s quite interesting to go single sex anyway, no matter what the so-called balancing act is in life. I believe that certain ways of thinking are better served by catering to subsets of people, you might say, and even that aside, what it means is that the frontier of people who were getting success with their publications are predominantly male. I look at Kickstarter, and 90% of the people who are pledging are male, so I’m simply in a demographic. My researcher was male, I’m simply reporting a demographic in an area where there’s a desire and a need. Now, sometimes, back in the 70s I’d write to a woman film camera operator or, in the case of 2008, I wrote to two women developers who did not reply. I think it’s just that those are the phases of imbalance that come on through the way that we behave with each other until it finds its own level over time.

Mainstream games also often over-sexualize female characters with big, busty characters with very little clothing. Do you think that’s a problem?

Oh I definitely do, Sebastian. When our task is to make a film about people who work at an excellent level, some of the political side of it all doesn’t come into the argument for the aesthetic. If you stay in the world where people have had more privilege and, in this case, the male with game development, it’s from time within research and development that strides of increased sensibility are made. That’s as powerful to show as people who sometimes are still only learning. Also, to target a minority group, it can be  hard on that person who becomes seen as a representative. In terms of making a representation shift it has been delightful to talk to the producer of Journey, Robin Hunicke, because her experiences over the fifteen years as a game professional are tremendous to hear spoken.

So that’s something we’ll see in the film?

Yeah, she’s got quite a lot to say about where games can be positioned, you probably got a little breath of that in the trailer.

Think this film sounds interesting? Be sure to help it become a reality by contributing to its Kickstarter fund.

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us

Set to release later this year, documentary film Us and the Game Industry follows the story of several top indie developers through various stages of development, including an in-depth look at Journey developer thatgamecompany. Currently fundraising on Kickstarter, we talked to the film’s director Stephanie Beth to learn about how the documentary came to be, what insights the documentary reveals about indie developers and what will happen if they don’t manage to get the Kickstarter funding in part one of an extensive interview.

It must feel worrying that it could end up not reaching its $20k goal – you could get $19,999 and then not get a cent.

I’m sure it is worrying, but I am, by all accounts doing all we can do, and it’s great what you and I can do in terms of disseminating. I’ve just put up a middling piece of a new backer reward which is a T-Shirt with the name of the film written on the back, but I mean it’s just something, y’know.

Yeah, a kind of “I was part of this” item.

Yes, yes. A limit of 100 shirts so we’ll see how that goes.

Do you have any plans of what to do if you don’t make the budget?

Well actually, because I put three weeks up, I thought I’ll keep it tight because I have to force the issue to trying keep on timeline for editing and I wanted to see truly how Kickstarter would work for a democratic film. Kickstarter does allow me to do the project again and I would do it again next week. I’ll lose everyone, but I’d keep trying, and then presumably any continued expansion of media could tap into another 400 people who are brand-new. It’s a big world out there, one young person from Kickstarter said “look, it can build really well at the last minute, just as people tweet each other” so that’s the attitude to take. Look at all the millions of people in the world and look how few people are making long view films on this subject so everything is on our side.

I was looking at Code Hero and I think they earned half the money in the last few hours, and that was over $100,000.

This is it Sebastian, think of the old days of marathons raising money for cancer etc, the 24-hour marathons, this kind of Kickstarter is a brilliant idea as it has kind of incentive to help meet a goal. So hopefully the tweeting will say “hey come on, there’s four hours left and blahdie blah”.

So how much have you spent to get this film where it is now?

Do we really share this? [Laughs] I’ve spend easily as half of the budget myself, but I think it’s a great risk on an interesting subject. My confidence was because it is such an interesting subject and yet, like all entrepreneurial work, like these games, they have long production cycles. They’re working from the seat of their pants, so why don’t I work the seat of my pants? We are all in this together, and it’s kind of celebrating a movement of activity that is dynamic. I basically shifted my schoolteacher’s salary into it keep it going.

And if you do get more money than the 20 grand what will you do that?

Well, I wouldn’t necessarily think of a different language. I would make sure I had brilliant special features first.

And you’re hoping to get it out later this year.

My attention, my main point of attention, as director and with editors, is to know that they can block out freelance time at a certain time, because we’ll have enough budget to take time off our principal jobs to force it through. I’ve got a colleague who has done some films a couple of times, who has experience with the market in Amsterdam and it seems like that’s a very good target for this November. So that’s my end goal, to get it into a market that will allow the film to reach dissemination on channels of television as well as anything else. The San Diego people are also very happy to support some prior screenings in America and I’ll say yes to all of those.

Because there’s so much Journey in it, have you thought about maybe trying to see if you can put it on the PlayStation Network?

Yeah I could definitely consider that, I properly just need more edification about that, what that all implies. I’ve had very good relations with Sony. Because I’m making a documentary, I have to be clear that I stand apart, but they’ve always been brilliantly supportive – this is the San Diego crowd. When it’s time to come out, we’ll think of all sorts of ways to support getting it distributed.

And obviously you’re giving DVDs and downloads to the people who invest.

Indeed, it’s just a matter of staggering all that. I want it in theaters, that’s always the dream of a longer film, a film that’s shot on such high-quality cameras, such rich color and everything in detail, across different countries. And it will be such a surprise to film festival audiences, there’s never any shame in aiming to that. You can get into Barcelona or very more specifically targeted area like in Britain, I think Lincolnshire has quite a big gaming crowd for example.

So are you trying to appeal to the gaming crowd, people who like in indie movies but don’t know much about games, or everyone?

I always think that a film will only become cult later on, and because it’s a documentary, I think that there’s gamers and there’s people who are the parents of gamers. There’s a much wider audience too.

Do you think that it will help change the perception of games? A lot of people see games as, well, ‘games’.

That’s right Sebastian, isn’t it interesting? It’s not like we’re doing the semantics of the pros and cons of games any more, but I think my perception is that the definition of games is too narrow and it could be true to say that a lot of people who like games are not the people who like some other pastimes, so of course the film going to be for a part of the population who is involved in games. This documentary is about people who make games entertainment, whether it is for discovery or curiosity or contemplation.The film is very small, in itself, but it’s  about the beginnings of something, diversification perhaps.

So how exactly did you choose the developers? Did you look about games and think “these really push boundaries”?

That would be a general answer for sure, but it wasn’t me who did the research. I was kind of blessed with the opportunity of having a young researcher who was just living and breathing games like eight years before it would have even entered my mind. I actually had great faith in watching a young person when I clearly wanted to get involved in a new project but hadn’t for quite some time – I’d been working prior to this on a film about a T’ai Chi master and ship captain (HULOO, 2007) and I’ve been teaching. So I’ve been in and out, I’m peripatetic about when I make documentaries. However, when I saw someone, who is a researcher, just become smitten, but also become discerning, I said “what’s exciting you?” As simple as that. The researcher was 18 years old in 2007. I was going to start with what he saw as some turning points that were occurring in games that were available in a smaller section of the development. It was a point of entry for them to make smaller games, it was a point of entry for me to get some documentation started.

Were there any developers that you really wanted to get?

Oh indeed. Certainly as soon as I saw the early work of Jason Rohrer, the early work of Jenova Chen, the early work of Edmund Mcmillen, the early work of Petri Purho, I wrote to all of them in 2008 and said “Hey, have just been shown your games and I can see that there’s a story to tell about the new timbre of game that’s coming out, more variety, can I talk to you?” And they said “Err, Ok”. So I started talking to them, Skyped them and said “I’m going to come over to San Francisco are you going?” and they said “yeah”. So I made a schedule and met with them, I sort of skirted around GDC in March 2009 and booked an apartment and had them all around huge yarn for about six hours.

The first meeting of developers

So that’s been filmed?

Yeah I filmed all that, of course a huge yarn with men in their late 20s who are still a little self-conscious at the cameras pointing at them… The first 20 mins was “how much Coca-Cola can you drink?” and “how much coffee can you drink?”. It wasn’t until the last hour that it was ”so what’s your game about?”, “and what about this, and what about that?”Someone had  to go off to a meeting. The conversation is a darling little gem of when the film started that then led to my subediting, by this time a year later, and continuing with Chen and Rohrer as kind of the backbone of how I could take the film forward. By the time I had done that, I found out how long Jenova was going to take with Journey – like I’d go over there every 5 months and just say hi and film stages of development. I concentrated on Journey as a pictorial study of a game and it was great because I had to fit in the day job around this too, and they were happy because it didn’t get in their way. They then built up the courage to extend their production schedule – you can imagine that everyone who makes a short game, especially when they’re funded and it’s your ‘uber boss’ who funded them, they had to build up the confidence to point out and say that “this is more ethereal in a sense, it’s more of an abstract, we can’t meet a deadline until we’re entirely confident that we’re getting the mood that we believe will best help the game, will best serve the game.” I loved hearing them build up that courage to take that step and get another five months development space.

Did you see a difference between developers with backing and those without?

Yes I did. It’s not as much as one would imagine, I think that more than anything, I have observed, thata developer-type of person, is a wonderfully focused and tenacious individual, maybe even an introverted individual – I’m talking about a character type – so, by definition, these people are very used to working alone and therefore it’s not at all surprising to me that some of them are single in their work approach. I was lucky, actually that, just in 2011, I came across another single worker – as we all know, Jason Rohrer works singly, and I’ve got some lovely footage of him talking with Richard Lemarchand, who of course has been used to publicly speaking and being part of moving a big big project forward over three years, and Jason more or less describes it as “oh I’ve always known that I know how to finish”, there’s this whole thing of being able to finish, to stick with something. So Jason is a great living example of that, that’s why he can live in small towns across America and be almost off the economic grid, he’s so efficient with his use of time and space. But there’s a young developer, Alexander Bruce, who also works alone, so I just talked to him in Austin, Texas yesterday actually, and I really asked him to give a little cameo of what he was like as a little kid, and what it was like in University, and what it was like working in his own bedroom, and all that stuff. So there’s some quite nice descriptors coming from him about “look, I just know I have to do it and I like doing it, this is what I do, so I just do it till it’s good enough to publish, and that’s what’s going to happen, and that’s all there is to it”.

But the problem with these smaller one man teams is that often they invest everything into a title, and it doesn’t do well.

Yeah, that’s right, and they will or will not fall apart. I mean, there can be mental health issues, you can almost say.  I don’t know whether you or that many people have yet seen Indie Game: The Movie, and I haven’t, but I was in San Francisco the same time that got started, I think, and I had a conversation with Phil Fish and several with Edmund Mcmillen and Tommy Refenes, and I could hear from them what it meant to get trapped and exhausted and depressed about the cycle and how long it extends. So, that being said, there are only some people who are prepared to take that risk by being so focused and driven to go to an end in some way or another. And obviously, all of us in life can’t have that as our status quo forever, and they’re no different. Sometimes they’ll partner up and go into partnerships. I mean you have someone such as Jenova Chen, he so loves making games, he wants them to amplify themselves around the world. He has more of an aptitude to expect to be in a team, but they all know that a team changes its dynamic from a size of six to say a size of eleven and then… well the researcher that I know, even working in another city out here… a team of seven is all you need. Prior to that, it went into the tens and hundreds, it’s almost past history to have gone into that.

But like you said that they often team up, sometimes indie developers end up joining bigger, mainstream studios.

Yeah, I agree, but in my view, when I hear them talk about the romance and the tragedy of game development and try to find some realistic middle ground, in my knowledge of hearing them talk, there are probably two strong scenarios. The first may be on what their baseline of education had been. First is commonly a master’s degree in computer engineering or higher. If they’re lower or higher they’re the ones more likely to drop away and do their own thing.It seems the people who had the first wave of opportunity, you might say, in the fifteen-twenty year period prior to this, they were much more likely to be in corporate jobs, because that’s all that was available. So now, really, the luxury of choice with Steam etc, Steam is pivotal, with the ability to publish and distribute being made more fluid, more people can have a go. It’s a huge risk, a huge gamble, I remember in 2010 watching Andy Schatz for Monaco, he got the prize for Monaco, and it was still in an alpha state, and I talked to him three weeks ago, and he’s still working on it. I remember his speech of thanks for the prize which was $25,000 and he was saying “y’know I dropped out five years ago and I’ve spent all my savings and I just about thought I wouldn’t make it.” Well, he’s still working on his game. This is not an easy world to work in.

It can’t be an easy world to document either, was there a steep learning curve to understand the intricacies of game design?

I don’t know about learning curve, it is true that I have no nerves about playing to fool and teasing them with “what’s that? Do that, show that” and they sort of titter away that “oh no, it’s not that mechanic, it’s this mechanic”. I teach Media Study and Film. I spent six years working alongside a game and animation teacher, so I do understand about worlds and the geometry and the use of Maya, especially at the art level. It’s the computer science level where I had to take the big learning curve, and put faith, of course, in people that their word was the explanation, and funnily enough about games, the excitement was to see this sort of marriage between the developers and the designers, per se, coming from different walks of life. And, funnily enough, the programmer, per se, is not as disclosing a person as you would imagine, so they’re quite happy to almost keep it a secret or maybe give a conference talk, or maybe put their material out on shareware, so I think what happened, rather than have my own development curve into insights, was to make sure that I prompted the people who were best at what they did to express what they were doing. So, in a sense, the whole film is my objective editing of their subjective presentations of their intellectual approach to what they do [laughs].

Did you learn things that you didn’t expect to find out about the people and their lives?

I think where I took my leap of faith was – as this researcher, who was a platform gamer essentially, showed me how some platform games were slowing down, I mean everyone uses Braid as an example, but it is a turning point game, he said “look, look, this is what’s happening, there’s actually a philosophical change going on, you can reroot yourself or remind yourself of a path and try again”. So I realized that there was this new philosophical approach, where it was up to you to learn from the experience of the game, not have to be strategic. So, to that degree, everything was slowing down enough for me to be able to transliterate ways I would have thought about some different mediums.

I see that this doesn’t really answer your question. No, I didn’t learn things I didn’t expect. I imagined that game developers were high calibre productive people, especially the ones I targeted.

Stay tuned to PlayStation LifeStyle for part two of the interview tomorrow, and contribute to the Kickstarter fund here.

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | No comments | Add to del.icio.us

Last week, Thai developer Studio HIVE and film studio Sahamongkol Film International announced that the popular muay Thai martial arts movie series Ong-Bak would be adapted into a game. To find out more about the title, we held an exclusive first interview with Kan Supabanpot, General Manager at Studio HIVE, about Tony Jaa’s involvement, the game’s background and which type of genre it will be.

When did development on the game begin?

Initial discussion about this project started in 2010 but actual game development began around 6 months ago.

Is the game based on the first Ong-Bak, which was based in the contemporary world, or will it be based on the sequels, which were set in the 15th Century? Or is it something else entirely?

It is based on the project that has yet to be announced so that’s why it’s still a bit of a secret and no screenshots to go along with our initial announcement.

What type of genre will the game actually be? A fighting game, a third person action game?

It will be a 3D side-scrolling action game.

Will you be playing as Ting, Tien or someone else?

We can’t say specific details but you will be playing as a character portrayed by Tony Jaa.

Approximately how many fighting moves will your character have?

We have around 20-30 moves though we’re not finished with the combat system. We are trying our best to include all fan favorite moves in here.

Will you be able to use the environment as a weapon?

No. It does not really fit in our gameplay design we have.

Is Tony Jaa [star of Ong-Bak], or any other muay Thai expert, involved in the game?

Yes. Tony Jaa himself is involved in this game and it is equally important to tell you that master Panna Rittikrai [Ed: Thai martial arts action choreographer, Tony Jaa's mentor, Ong-Bak director and screenwriter] and his stunt team are heavily involved as he is designing action sequences and fighting moves for this game.

How much creative control was Studio HIVE given over what is an existing IP?

The team at Sahamongkol Film International is very supportive and they allow us to pitch ideas not only concerning gameplay but also visual and story elements as well.

Ong-Bak has several very dark themes – drug abuse, overdoses and murder. Is this something we should expect to see in the game?

There will be a lot of brutal violence, but not with a dark theme like drugs or murder.

There’s also a focus on Buddhist philosophy in the films – especially in Ong-Bak 3 – will that influence the game?

We want to make sure that the purpose of this game is to make sure it is enjoyable for players and additionally giving fans of the series more in-depth experience. There will be some elements of Buddhism, but it will not be our primary focus.

The PS Vita already has a slew of fighting games, and portables are historically very popular in Asian territories. Will you be developing for the Vita?

We cannot give comments regarding release platforms right now as it will be officially announced at a later stage.

In 2008, Thailand banned several violent video games like Hitman and Killer Seven – do concerns about being banned affect the content of the Ong-Bak game?

We are developing this game with our target audience being overseas fans so the violent video game ban in Thailand does not affect us.

When are you planning to release the game?

We are targeting late 2012 for our release.

Stay tuned to PlayStation LifeStyle for more exclusive interviews soon.

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us

Early last year, internet ‘hacktivists’ Anonymous attacked Sony for pursuing legal action against PS3 hackers, ultimately bringing down the PSN and several Sony sites. But just when you thought the phrase “Anonymous vs Sony” would be relegated to 2011 recap posts, the group once again declared war on the Japanese corporation. This time, the group was protesting Sony’s support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), something that could potentially limit free speech and lead to mass internet censorship. Will Anonymous’ actions actually help stop the act being passed, should they protest the ‘unconstitutional’ bill, or are they simply acting rashly and making things worse – all while attacking innocent Sony employees and unrelated individuals? To find out, we spoke to a member of Anonymous in an extensive interview.

Full disclosure: In the interest of impartiality, it’s only fair to point out that I don’t personally support SOPA, and believe it will harm free speech, as well as human rights. However, I do worry about whether Anonymous’ actions could actually help the anti-SOPA cause by showing the dangers of the web to its supporters. It’s also important to point out that the viewpoints expressed above and below do not necessarily reflect those of PSLS or its staff, for, as a free speech publication, we do not censor the viewpoint of individual writers.

As Anonymous have no central leadership, we could only interview a member of the group who is involved in planning the attack on Sony. As he (gender assumed) discusses the attack, he requested to be anonymous from Anonymous and has asked to use the pseudonym Zerit instead of his online pseudonym. Several times I reference a “plan”, this is a web-based document written by OpSony detailing how they’re going to attack Sony, and something that was remarkably easy for me to obtain. I also reference other IRC chats with other members that were off the record.

PSLS: To start: Can you describe your position at Anon? (obviously without incriminating yourself)

Zerit: I generally lurk the IRC’s, and help with anything that needs doing. No one assigns positions, in fact there really are none in anon. You’re just helping, or not.

Were you involved in last year’s OpSony?

I was not involved in the hacking part no, I did offer suggestions during planning and helped smooth things over with different people.

There’s over a hundred pro-SOPA companies. Why is Sony such a focus?

Because Sony is a large electronics/gaming company/music company. A lot of the stuff on YouTube could get taken down if they chose to support it and it passed.

How many people would you say are actively involved in the Op?

Well as you can see there are 92 in the IRC, and countless more doing other things… Honestly I don’t know but I would estimate anywhere from 150-2,000. Anonymous is much bigger than most people realize. I promise you that there over 3 million Anonymi.

From OpSony’s plan:

On Sony.com we will have our fun. We will post a press release and enable the download of the complete discography of every Sony Music artist.

Why should music artists who signed contracts with Sony years before SOPA existed suffer?

Our goal is not to make the artists suffer, or anyone but the stingy 1%… Also, last time I checked they have concerts, tours, and generally people don’t go to Sony to buy music anyways, they go to iTunes or use Mp3rocket.

Yeah, but they’ll go there if they hear the site is giving away music for free…

They can already get music for free easy enough. Plus it’s mostly in torrent form, and a lot of people don’t know how to use that.

What about the Sony executives who aren’t actually involved in SOPA? I saw the CC details on a PlayStation employee being passed around.

The executives are the ones that make these decisions, they shouldn’t have supported SOPA in the first place. Also we don’t randomly use that info, we plan on using it to ship the soon to be free goods to wherever needed. I.E. ship them to the occupy movements.

“No meme-usage except for in The Preplan. We need to be intimidating and we need to appear like some elite hacker force to the news channels and to the nation’s technically illiterate grandmothers. We need to strike fear into them.” – So you want to cause fear among normal citizens?

No.

But that’s from the OpSony plan.

We want to appear more professional, we want to scare the corporations, and let them know we are a force to be reckoned with.

Recently Anonymous has been getting more organized and mature, we are evolving, having more fun, and being more effective.

This is arguably the most organized Operation so far.

The use of intimidation in the pursuit of political aims, then?

No the use of looking professional so as not to be treated like a bunch of little kids.

I saw one IRC member on OpSony, who had openly done a lot of dox work, mention that they were born in 1996, when discussing Sony musicians.

Point?

It might be fair to say that you could end up being treated like a bunch of little kids if a bunch of little kids are part of the group.

Not everyone is that young, most people are 18 or older actually. Plus we have proved again and again that we can do things, adults cannot.

Now this Op is rather different to last year’s in that Sony is the target, consumers aren’t. Do you think the original Op was handled incorrectly?

I think so, I think that we hurt the common people and we learned from that and the BART protests… as I said, Anonymous is evolving, more efficient, and more dangerous to those who dare do wrong.

Anonymous don’t forgive or forget – what’s the point of companies/individuals who have been targeted changing their ways, from their perspective?

We don’t forgive your mistakes, nor do we forget them. We keep tabs on our targets, almost without even meaning to. If you’re a “Repeat Offender” shall we say? You shall be punished more harshly than before. We do not forgive or forget is very flexible and can mean many things, that is just one of them.

Ah, I see

Again, nothing in Anonymous is “official” for Anonymous is not “official,” some things are just more commonly agreed upon then others.

SOPA could lead to internet censorship, including the alteration and taking down of sites. To protest, Anon is planning on altering and taking down Sony’s sites. Couldn’t that be seen as hypocritical?

It could, but we are not trying to limit their free speech, we are trying to make their profit margin go down. If we wanted to limit their free speech we would take their Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else they use.

Well you are still trying to limit their free speech right to support SOPA.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Evelyn Beatrice Hall

That is not the point to this operation, our main objective is to make Sony lose enough money where they not only withdraw support to SOPA but actively oppose it. Everyone should have free speech, however there is a fine line. If what a few say hurts the rights of millions of users, then a few hours or days of silence is a small price to pay. But again, we are not intending to take away their communication.

But like you said before, most customers don’t use Sony.com. People don’t go to Sony sites to buy Sony stuff. Do you think that it’ll really hurt their revenue that much?

Yes considering we plan on making all the stuff free, then for the shipping we will use the CEO’s CC info, not to mention we are out in the real world, and it only takes one whisper for it to go viral that now you can get a TV for only the price of shipping.

But it’s not as if Sony are actually going to ship the TVs.

Except it is mostly automated and we are in the process of making sure Sony is locked out.

You can’t stop them calling their distribution centers though.

True, but how long until they notice, not to mention, then they won’t be able to ship any out and they will lose money.

Would you like Sony to go bankrupt?

No.

Why do you think we’re not targeting PSN? If we bankrupt them it will hurt consumers a lot. Sony is used by a lot of people, and overall a good company, they just have some bad policies at the moment.

But consumers will lose out from a poorer Sony. It slightly damages the economy, it means they have to lower their R&D spending, it means less products.

Sony is not the economy, it is a part, yes, but not a huge part. And if they decrease quality, naturally consumers will leave for alternatives meaning even less money for Sony.

OK, moving back to broader questions. Many of the proponents of SOPA say that the internet is a lawless, uncivilized place, and that piracy is an example of the rampant crime on the web. Surely hacking and doxing simply re-enforces those claims? Is Anoymous really making things better?

Saying the internet is lawless and uncivilized is BS. On every site but the deepest pits of the web, there are rules and mods. Even on 4chan!

As to the other question… I promise that there is more crime in real then on the internet. Crime is just more obvious on the internet. And yes we are.

Of course, and murder is far worse than hacking. But by emphasizing the crime on the internet, you’re helping fuel public opinion that the web is a dangerous place.

Anonymous is not going away, and we will continue to develop faster than any computer security can, and we will stand up to injustice. Last time I checked, the constitution is above every law congress makes.

I don’t think that’s public opinion at all. It all depends upon where you’re going. Like in real life, there are bad neighborhoods.

But in real life, whenever there is a terrorist attack, politicians are able to quickly pass laws and legislation that limit free speech, riding a wave of public fear. This time, people are trying to pass laws and legislation that limits internet free speech. As a response, you are doing something that could loosely be described as terrorism.

Last time I checked the purpose of #OpSony isn’t to make them do what we want with fear, it’s with quarterly reports. So it’s more of a protest.

But fear will be a side effect. Your own plan, and numerous IRC chats that I’ve had publicly and privately, show that Anonymous aims to get a lot of publicity from the protests/hacks. To use the quote again

“We need to appear like some elite hacker force to the news channels and to the nation’s technically illiterate grandmothers”

It’s fair to say that if you do achieve this, people who are technically illiterate, who don’t know entirely what SOPA is, or who Anonymous are, will simply think “an ungoverned group of people with tremendous power to cause mayhem on the web,” thus breeding fear, and helping fuel the pro-SOPA, pro-controlled internet agenda, no matter how flawed it is.

Fear is a side effect yes, but terrorism is using force to hurt innocents on purpose to get what you want. We never want to hurt innocents.

The official definition of terrorism is using terror to push a political or moral agenda. Bombs, killing etc, doesn’t have to be a part of it.

Those who are technically illiterate won’t be able to register to vote or send letters to their representatives. Plus the Reps don’t represent us anyways, except on election day.

But Reps do stuff to gain favor of the public, even when it’s not near the election. If the news starts reporting on Anonymous attacks, public opinion could sway towards stopping those attacks, making the internet a “safer place.” The largest internet stories of 2011 were probably Anonymous attacks.

Anonymous has been called an “internet hate machine,” and the sheep can believe that if they want but no matter what, Anonymous still delivers. We would like for the public to side with us, and they will, as long as we keep fighting the fight for their internet and rights.

Also, people are naturally curious, they will look up stuff about Anonymous and see the truth, and then most likely, they will join us. Those who outright lie too often shall be taken care of.

But the mass media will present you as terrorists, SOPA supporters will be able to say “we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” and gain support for what is otherwise a flawed and unpopular bill. We’re still seeing laws passed that limit human rights due to post-9/11 fear.

Yes we know this, and we have already been presented by certain mass media sources… *cough* Fox News *cough* as terrorists. And we laugh at this wild accusation. Plus you forget that we are giving the people free movies and music, they will more likely see us as robin hoods.

But you already said that movies and music are easy to get anyway.

True, but not movies out in the movie theaters… Or new movies like that.

So innocent directors and screenwriters will be hurt? They’re not part of the 1%

Again, that’s not the point here. We don’t want to hurt anyone but the Sony executives, and Sony’s bank accounts. Unfortunately this plan is not perfect, and I don’t claim it is, I admit there will be unfortunate losses by some who were not intended targets. And we shall apologize for this.

Well you could still be effective without releasing new movies…

Too late, already underway. Besides they won’t lose much.

Can you give an example of some of those movies?

Jack and Jill [removed torrent link], Arthur Christmas [removed torrent link], The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009 Swedish version) [removed torrent link] The Adventures of Tintin [removed torrent link]

Taking the largest movie there, Tintin - that was only co-financed by Sony.

They will still lose money.

So will Paramount, so will the actors, the screenwriters, the extras.

Not as much.

Paramount had a bigger investment in the film, they both co-produced, but Paramount spent $30 million on pre-production.

Will you look at that… they support it too… that’s convenient. Not meant, but convenient.

“Not meant” – that’s the point, this research wasn’t done before. And I’m only using Paramount as an example. Films have hundreds of smaller investors, and smaller cogs that will all suffer. Couldn’t it be said that you are acting recklessly just to be seen as the next Robin Hood?

Again, plans not perfect, no choice of action is, but it hurts a lot less then shutting down PSN again. Plus I promise the damage won’t be very much to these smaller companies. What’s really gonna hurt Sony is that their products either can’t be shipped or they’re free.

Next Page >>

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2012. | Permalink | 29 comments | Add to del.icio.us

We caught up with Eric Folliot, Senior Brand Manager at Activision, at the Golden Joystick Awards to talk about all things Call of Duty in a PSLS-exclusive mini-interview. How does the MW3 marketing juggernaut react to Battlefield 3‘s taunts, and is Black Ops still relevant? Find out below.

How do you ensure that Black Ops remains competitive when Modern Warfare 3 comes out?

That’s a tricky question, unexpected. I think the answer I would give is that they are slightly different multiplayers, and I think people will play zombies on Call of Duty and will still play multiplayer on Black Ops because they’ve got their prestige levels and their score. I think Elite will help do that do that as well, Elite will mean that you maintain a profile for both Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3.

What do you think of Battlefield 3’s tagline: ‘Above and Beyond the Call’?

I’ve not seen that actually, I’ve seen ‘Field of Battle’.

But now what do you think?

Now I think that’s… nice. [Laughs], actually it’s on the back of the Medal of Honor in the US army, that’s what’s engraved on the back of the medal. So that’s probably where they took it from – I can’t imagine why else they would use it [grins].

The Battlefield 3 and MW3 campaign is heating up a lot, what do you think of some of the things the CEOs are saying?

That’s for them to comment on, I’m looking forward to playing Battlefield 3, but I’m looking forward to playing Modern Warfare 3.

Which one more?

Modern Warfare 3 [laughs], I’m run and gun – this is a personal view, I’m not into the big maps and running around for miles. For me, it’s Modern Warfare 3 all the way.

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us

To discuss DrinkBox Studios’ latest game, Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, we chatted to Chris McQuinn about the upcoming PlayStation Vita downloadable title. Check out the full interview below to learn all there is to know about being a blob.

Did you ever expect Tales from Space: About a Blob to be such a hit?

Well, I think you’re being a bit generous there, but generally we were pretty happy with the reviews for the game, especially given that it’s the first title released by the studio. There was a ton we learned from AAB that we’re already applying to Mutant Blobs Attacks with respect to getting the word out that we have this awesome game.

What did you learn from About a Blob that you are incorporating in Mutant Blobs Attack?

Tons. The funny thing about releasing a game is that you undergo this huge QA process where the general public is now providing feedback as to what is awesome and what sucks (we love feedback, so always feel free to let us know). The controller scheme in the original AAB definitely had a pretty high learning curve so we’ve decided to simplify that experience by reducing the number of buttons required (don’t worry, overall gameplay is harder). We also learned that people really do love to grow, and love to eat people, and love to destroy the world. Therefore, the emphasis on eating and growing is a major focus in Mutant Blobs Attack.

What are the biggest differences between the two?

Well, the biggest difference in my mind is that the game will be on the VITA, meaning we have all these fun new input devices available for the Blob. The touch screen on the Vita really allows us to immerse the player into the Blob’s world by allowing them to directly interact with platforms, objects, etc. Combining this with classic controls of a platformer results in a unique experience that gamers really haven’t been exposed to. Another big difference is the Blob. The Blob in MBA has been mutated, so has a chip on the shoulder, one might even say he’s a bit of an a-hole.

How has development been on the Vita? Would you say it is harder than developing on the PSN?

Developing for the Vita has been easier than expected, in fact I might even say a pleasure. The pre-release hardware has worked quite well and that the development environment has been pretty solid.

What are your thoughts on the Vita and how it stacks up compared to smartphones and the 3DS?

I think it stacks up pretty well on a few aspects of comparison. The price point of the initial Vita launch is pretty enticing, lower than I think a bunch of us expected. With that said, the device certainly packs a lot of power under the hood. The screen looks amazing – this was the first aspect of the device I noticed when we got Mutant Blobs Attack up and running on it. Colors really pop out. As a customer I think I’d also be pretty happy seeing the strong effort Sony is making to ensure there are a sufficient number of good titles at launch. Just don’t try making a phone call on the Vita.

What is your favorite thing about being a blob?

Eating people. For sure. Oh, and eating cows. Wait, no, that’s blowing up cows.

What is the hardest part about getting your blob to feel and move like a blob?

Well you see, the Blob is a tricky little beast. The challenge is to figure out how to ensure the Blob moves in a manner that is enjoyable from a gameplay experience, while still letting players have the feeling that they’re a Blob. This means a lot of tuning with speed, acceleration, and especially the “goop” factor.

About a Blob was released early for PS Plus subscribers. Will you be implementing any perks for subscribers on Mutant Blobs Attack?

That’s a great question. Unfortunately, we’re still figuring out the specifics of release. With that said, we’re suckers for package deals and perks, so that is a definite possibility.

Will Mutant Blobs Attack feature any multiplayer options?

Sadly there won’t be any multiplayer on Mutant Blobs Attack but happily we will have online leaderboards, so you WILL be able to let your friends know you’re better than them.

Will players be able to take their saved data from the Vita to the PS3?

The initial release of the game will be Vita only, that’s where 100% of our focus currently is. We hope to eventually put out a PS3 version, and if/when we do we will be looking at the cloud save system – we’d like to support it. How’s that for a non-committal answer?

Is Mutant Blobs Attack pub-funded just like About a Blob?

Mutant Blobs Attack is funded completely by the studio itself, and by our moms. They each pitched in 5 bucks.

You have 5 words, describe Mutant Blobs Attack!

Nom, Nom, Nom, Grow, Destroy.

For more on DrinkBox, be sure to check out our in-depth interview with the developer about all there is to know about indie development.

#OnlyOnPSLS

© Cameron Teague for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us

At this year’s Golden Joystick Awards, we caught up with Justin Towell as he attempted to set a new world record for the fastest time on the new India circuit on Codemasters’ F1 2011. With only three attempts allowed, and the entire control system breaking, he managed to beat the 1:21 minute limit set by Guinness World Record by one second.

Hi Justin, can you start by telling us about your previous records?

I have the Guinness World Record for the 360 version on Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Emerald Hill Zone, Act 1, which I did in 21 seconds, beating the previous record by one second – which was set on the same day.

Aww, poor guy.

Yeah [laughs], he’s a nice guy though, James Richards, really nice chap.

And my first world record was on Sega Rally Championship on the Sega Saturn, which I set in, I think, 2008. My boss came in with the Guinness World Record book and said: “Is there anything in here anyone thinks they can beat?” So I had a look, and had a look at Sega Rally and thought: “Yeah, I reckon I could beat that.” It was a really hot time, really hot, but when I started training, I was 5 seconds off the pace, then 4, 3 etc. I got closer, and I thought “I can do this”, so we ended up sending that through video to Guinness World Records, rather than doing it in front of them. So, it was adjudicated by them externally. But it still stands.

Before you were able to set this record, there were some technical problems with the game set-up, did it make you nervous that you had to spend half the day fixing that, rather than training?

Yeah, this morning, I came in and managed to have a good 2 hours playing on the set-up. It was working well, and the pedals were a bit too close and the seat couldn’t be adjusted – but that was ok. 10 minutes before we were meant to be doing it, it all stopped working, the accelerator was jammed on, and I went onto the different machine and that was completely alien. I didn’t know what was going to happen. My nerves were absolutely shot.

Did that make it harder for you, when you actually came to race?

I think it might have helped actually, because my adrenaline was so high, my reactions must have been like a fighter pilot or something [laughs].

In the two hour session before, you actually got a better score.

Yeah, I did, I got into the 1:19’s, which is great. But it doesn’t count, because it has to be done in front of the adjudicator, you have to say “I’m going to break the record”.

How long have you spent training for this?

About a week.

That’s all?

Yeah, well I’ve been playing the game since it came out, I give it 9/10, absolutely love it, Codemasters have done a fantastic job. I think it’s easily better than Gran Turismo 5, easily better than Forza – I haven’t played the new Forza, but it’s better than Forza 3.

So yeah, they said, seeing as the Indian Grand Prix is the next one on the real calendar, and no one’s ever set a lap on it, because it’s brand new, that we should set a record. And the adjudicators deemed that 1:21 is what I needed to beat, which is a harsh time. People on the internet have gone faster, but it has to be adjudicated.

If someone beats it, will you be back?

Yes, absolutely. I encourage it, that’s the whole point of Guinness World Records – it’s for people to challenge, and beat, and then for people to come back and have another go.

What’s next for you?

Probably Sonic Generations, I’ve been perfecting a speed-run. People have managed to get a copy of a sort of hacked modern Green Zone, from the old demo, and there’s some pretty fast speed runs online. But my time is actually faster than those, so that might be next.

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us

It’s been over five years since Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion first released, and the role-playing game genre has evolved and changed over the course of the half-decade drastically. As a result, Bethesda’s Todd Howard has revealed that Skyrim will take more inspiration from their other RPG powerhouse, the more contemporary Fallout 3, rather than from the aging Oblivion.

Talking to PC Gamer, Howard said:

[Skyrim]’s a lot more like Fallout 3, where as you level up you are going to see harder things, but the easier things stay around as well. You’ll still run into the weaker stuff and you’ll just decimate it.

Oblivion‘s conversation system has also been overhauled to be more like the one in Fallout 3:

There’s very few completely random conversations. We’ve gone more towards a system, like we did in Fallout 3, where they have a specific conversation with a specific person about various topics.

Finally, he also talked about how Skyrim will also have a lot more environmental storytelling, something that was a success in Fallout:

We realized in Fallout 3 that that kind of environmental storytelling, where you come upon a little scene, is really good. And so we’ve tried to do it a lot more.

With Skyrim out on November 11th, Bethesda’s marketing campaign has kicked into full gear with a fantastic live action trailer.

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us

It’s day two of our five day exclusive run of Sideway: New York developer diaries, and this time we’re going to take a look at the concept behind the game, and how Playbrains and Fuel Entertainment came up with the idea. Plus, take part in another chance to win a copy of the game!

To see the first PSLS-only vid, go here and find out about the game’s story. Today, Phil Glofcheskie, Game Designer, Fuel Entertainment talks about how Sideway: New York took inspiration from Edwin A. Abbot’s 19th Century dimensional work of satire, Flatland, among other things:

Yesterday’s randomly selected winners of Sideway are Loi and Daryl – check your PM’s!

To have another chance to win a US code, simply comment on the video below, and come back the rest of the week to enter every day.

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us

With digital distribution becoming an increasingly viable platform, independent developers have more and more potential markets where they can sell their wares. But as the industry evolves, developers must move with it, predicting which platforms will be a success, and which will fall by the wayside. To talk about the threat of smartphones on dedicated handhelds, the changing price expectations of gamers as well as the risk of owning your own IP, we chatted to Graham Smith, Co-Founder and COO of DrinkBox Studios, in a wide ranging interview.

Developers of the highly enjoyable PSN exclusive Tales from Space: About a Blob, DrinkBox are hard at work on the downloadable Vita title Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, as well as the recently announced Guacamelee for an unknown platform. For more on DrinkBox, stay tuned for an About a Blob giveaway later today here, and a Mutant Blobs Attack interview later this week.

With the iPhone 4S selling 4 million in 2 days, and the 3DS selling 0.7 million in Nintendo’s first quarter, is there a worry that the dedicated handheld faces extinction?

I’ve been watching these numbers as well, and I think the iPhone is being purchased primarily as a smartphone, not as a gaming device. I’m still continuing to hope that a device made exclusively for playing games will be superior and appeal more to gamers than an all-in-one device. People still buy steak knives even though the Swiss army knife exists.

My personal feeling is that the 3DS just does not have the games it needs on the market yet. I had one in my hands in the store on launch day, and put it back down when I saw that there were no games I really wanted to play on it. It will be interesting to see how it does over the holiday season when more games are available.

Due to the widespread use of mobiles, many gamers are also becoming used to cheaper games that cost $0.99/59p, do you think it’ll be hard to convince consumers to pay $5.99 or $9.99 for a downloadable handheld title?

This is an unfortunate trend. I know people who will only download free games because they don’t even want to pay the 0.99.

The games on iOS are usually much smaller in scope and production value than games you can find on consoles. I find most of the $0.99 games that I have purchased are more “time wasters” than anything else. In my opinion, these types of games are simply not worth $9.99. Not to say that there are no good games on the platform. I loved playing Trainyard and Swords & Sworcery.

I think that gamers will continue to realize that you get more with handheld console games, and that it’s worth paying more for that. I hope that gamers are too smart to choose 10 bad games over 1 good one.

Free-to-play is becoming an increasingly popular, and increasingly lucrative, business decision for iOS developers. Would you ever consider the F2P model for a PSN or Vita title?

There are some ethical considerations that I would want to think hard on before ever making a free-to-play game. Ryan Creighton, another Toronto based indie developers and creator of Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure, wrote a good blog post about the types of people that spend money on these games, postulating that these people were not of sound mind, and that the industry may be taking advantage of them. I would definitely want to do some more research into this before making a game with a free-to-play business model.

Additionally, outside of ad-sponsored games, I think free-to-play games need to be designed that way from the ground up (if you want your game to make good money). This would probably limit your game design significantly. I feel like many companies making freemium games are probably putting money/profits as the priority for the company, and the games are just an avenue for that. I want my company to be primarily focused on making good games, and (hopefully) money will come as a result.

Some developers have praised Sony for their openness with the PS3 and PSN, with the platform holder allowing different business models like F2P, and allowing other services like Steam access. Do you think this openness should mean more developers should consider the PSN as a development platform?

I definitely feel that more developers should consider PSN, and I think that this is indeed happening. In our experiences Sony has been very helpful and great to work with.

Being based in Canada, you’re lucky enough to receive some tax breaks and Guacamelee has financial participation from the Canada Media Fund – do you think you’d still be able to create the same games, with the same scale, if you were based in another country?

Living in Canada, and especially Ontario, has been great for DrinkBox Studios. In addition to Tax Credits and the Canada Media Fund, we have also received grants from the Ontario Media Development Corporation that helped us bring our first game Tales from Space: About a Blob to the PS3 (on PSN), and our currently in-progress game Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack to the Vita.

If we were based in another country, we would either need to make larger personal sacrifices (invest in the project with our own money), be more focused on doing external contracting work (slowing down the development of our own games), or work harder to secure a publisher (likely giving up IP and some creative control). None of these options is great, and so we do consider ourselves very lucky to be living where we are.

Even in Canada, the games industry is going through a tumultuous time right now, new markets are emerging, but at the same time, a lot of developers are closing. Would you still recommend that developers start their own independent studios, or should they wait until the industry has settled?

I think that if you have talent and good ideas, you will succeed despite the current economy. When we first started DrinkBox 3.5 years ago, it seemed like another studio was closing its doors almost every week. In fact the founders of DrinkBox came from just such a studio, Pseudo Interactive, which closed down in early 2008.

There is no telling if or when the industry will settle. Assuming they can find a way to make it work financially, I would encourage people not to wait.

About a Blob was a Sony Pub funded game – looking back on the business decision now, are you happy that you traded exclusivity for more support and financial help?

We invested a lot of our own money into About a Blob and having a guaranteed royalty from Sony when the game released helped up to offset the risk of making the game. It was definitely the best decision at the time, and I would not change it.

How important do you think it is for smaller developers to own their own IP? Is the risk worth it?

I heard Chris Charla from Microsoft talking at GDC about how developers should not be afraid to give up their IP. His argument was that small indies don’t know how to exploit the IP anyway, so why would they want to keep it? I think that this is somewhat true (that Microsoft is in a much better position to exploit the IP than an indie developer is), but I don’t think that this is a good reason to give it up.

I think that IP is definitely valuable. If it wasn’t, publishers would not want it! However, I don’t think that it is so valuable that an indie developer should hang on to it at all costs. If you have to choose between keeping your IP and getting the game made at all, you should probably give up your IP. Once this game is finished and you have some more money in your pockets, you might be in a better position to keep the IP of your next title. Also, you can push to have things written into the contract that will have the IP revert back to you if the publisher does not use it, or that you have right of first refusal to projects based on that IP.

And finally, with rumors of a PS4 starting to circulate, what would be your dream console?

If we were living in a fantasy land, I think I’d want a single console to rule them all. From a gamers perspective, I would not need to have 3 different boxes with all their associated cords and controllers sitting in my living room, and from a developers perspective I would not have to pass multiple different certifications or worry about the current fragmentation of the market. And of course this amazing new console would be backwards compatible with all of my old games and have digital distribution for all new titles so I don’t have to ever hear the words “did you pre-order?” again.

© Sebastian Moss for PlayStation LifeStyle, 2011. | Permalink | No comments | Add to del.icio.us