INTERVIEW // EUGENE EVANS| ALPHA
that are totally bootstrapping it. Those guys with an idea that are really living it today; they have what we did at Imagine.
So you have faith in today’s new wave of games developers? Absolutely, because something like Facebook or the openness of developing on iOS means a small company can start and produce a game. For a while there that did go away, because the of the sheer scope and scale of making a game in the nineties, and because games platforms became closed platforms. But now we’ve got this proliferation of
platforms which are open. I’m a big supporter of – and will always plug – the Raspberry Pi Foundation whenever I can. If anything, my worry about today’s
development industry is not that there aren’t some great, bold start-ups today. It’s that there isn’t necessarily that next generation.
So what makes you enthusiastic about Raspberry Pi? Is it the spreading of computer science? Yes, and I’ve seen a similar problem in the US, where computer science has become IT. They’ll teach you how to use Microsoft Office, but that’s about the extent of it. At least in the US equivalent of schooling up to 16 years old, it’s a similar issue. David Braben told me he recently saw a class of kids aged from seven-to-nine being taught programming. Imagine what they’re going to be like; precocious little terrors, but they’re going to be that next generation that are going to be starting up those bold new start-ups. That’s what gives me hope for the future. The challenge with this was that there was a period where kids were into gaming and buying consoles more than ever before, but they were just playing. Even though there was this emerging college market for education in gaming, it still wasn’t the same as getting in really early and teaching computer programming, or the drawing of game art or the making of music for games. Today I’m more hopeful than ever in that
regards, that kids will have an opportunity with computer science, meaning we’ll see more bold start-ups doing interesting things. It’s not just with the start-ups either. The good thing is within companies like EA – and this is one of the things I like about EA – there’s a lot of support for that idea. With the diversity within the games sector of markets and types of games, there’s a recognition that we need those bold efforts to do new and often experimental things within the company. You might not see it from the outside necessarily until it emerges, but it certainly exists at EA, and I think and hope it exists at other big games companies.
On the matter of these bold start-ups, outside of the US you often hear it said games development entrepreneurs are too afraid to fail. Do you feel there should be more open-mindedness to failure as part of the course to success? I don’t think that’s truly the case. I think there are people willing to take chances, and I come across them all the time; these interesting start-ups. Because of the size of
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this business there are now more start-ups than ever, so there’s plenty we don’t hear about that do fail. What’s great about it is that those people, especially if they go through it early enough, go on to do interesting things.
The impressive start-ups today are
the ones that are totally bootstrapping it. Those guys that are really
living it. Eugene Evans, BioWare Mythic And you have to face it, that possibility of
failure, but you have to stick with it. Often people, and especially students and so on, ask me how you keep up in a business that is changing so fast. The answer is something I use an analogy for. When you’re at the station, when the train goes by it seems to move incredibly fast. But when you’re on the train the countryside rolls past very slowly. So it’s simple; stay on the train. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Speaking at the Develop Conference, you suggested that free-to-play means games have to be better quality. Could you elaborate on that? It’s very simple. With the arrival of download and Facebook and so on, you can try a game before you pay and find out if it is for you or not. There’s no need to be financially invested
in a game at the start. You invest your time, and perhaps that’s more precious to people today than almost anything. People are committing their time to play a
game, and they only have so much disposable income and time. If one of these games isn’t good, and doesn’t draw somebody in quickly, the players are just going to move on to the next one. I’m a big believer in free. For me that really
started when I saw the retailer Blockbuster begin renting out games. I’m convinced that probably put some studios out of business. There was a lot of people that complained about game rentals at the time, but they were often the people who’s product was just bad. There was this new era where people could
play before they paid. Even though I was in the business I thought it was great; I would go and rent ten games in a night and give them all a try, to separate the junk from the good titles. Think about what that did for the quality of the games.
So you’re a firm believer that free-to-play is good for the industry? Oh yes. It’s incredibly good for the games business. The other thing about free-to-play is the global aspect. There’s a lot of challenges for retail, in pricing your product around the world in some markets. The GDP in the West, and the fact that there’s a certain income level has meant products are priced to match a certain income level and European and US lifestyles. That doesn’t work everywhere. When you hear about – for example – how much it costs to import games in Brazil, no
AUGUST 2012 | 09
Free-to-play, as seen in games like BioWare Mythic’s Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes, encourages quality of games design, says Evans
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