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MCV 15/10/10 27 MCV INTERVIEW JAMIE KING, PRESIDENT, 4MM GAMES
mortar companies to suddenly allow digital to take over. For all the excitement and the idea that ‘It’s all about digital distribution,’ there’s a lot to be said about going into the store where you know where the store is, and you know the guys behind the counter, and you trust their advice, and you get something in a box, and you get to go home with it and unwrap it. “Oh, I got my present, I got my treat.” There’s something so impersonal with a little download.
You think retail and digital can happily co-exist? Absolutely. It’s not going anywhere right now. Consoles are still there, disks are still there, and all of the infrastructure is still needed, but we are under attack and under threat. I feel like a dinosaur, really.
You’ve been widely quoted as saying that games like Get On Da Mic and Beat Boy were examples of how not to do a rap game. Where
did they go wrong?
I feel bad, I’ve tried not to give that quote, and it has come out from others too. I don’t want to be rude about Eidos and that game. They tried. They were kind of avant garde and ahead of their time, but [in those games] you were copying an avatar copying Snoop. And you started in this shitty bathroom with not very good camera angles, and you couldn’t necessarily relate to this avatar they’d given you.
Hip-hop culture is one of those areas that you really can’t fake. How does Rapstar appeal to the real hardcore hip-hop fans, while also being accessible to the more casual audience? With great difficulty. I think the hardcore will always give us a really hard time, just for the mere fact that we’re trying to appeal to the
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hop’s enormous fanbase, I think it’s important to allow both to flourish. I think the hardcore always keep us very aware of being true, and what their standards are, and hopefully the whole aesthetic, and the way that we’ve put this together and the attempts that we’ve made to give a true offering. For all the derision about ‘oh you should
We are very focused, long- term, on digital distribution and the move away from the ‘ship and forget’ model.
Jamie King, 4mm mainstream. But I think to be fair to hip-
have had this song over this song’… I’d like to see them in a room and not have fun with this, and then compare it to what else is out there. It’s important that we cater to the hardcore, but that we don’t let them stop us from giving something to the casual.
How did Def Jam take to having their game being made by an English guy?
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I had to stand in a room with [Def Jam co-founder] Russ Simmons and he said: “So you’re the guy that made this game for us, right?” and I was like “Yeah.” He replied: “I don’t know about that.” Def Jam has built up a brand over 30 years, and they are hip-hop. They know hip- hop, right? And so, on the face of it, I come from England, what the fuck do I know? I’m never going to be hip-hop, but as Kevin [Liles, ex-Def
Jam president and 4mm partner] said, I like hip-hop, right? “You get it. You’re never going to be it, but you get it.” And he’s right. I do.
So all we can do at 4mm as fans of hip-hop is apply our gaming experience to just try and make sure that there’s a really authentic, proper game that we’ve made.
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