2010: Interviews of the Year Part 2

David DeMartini, EA Partners

It's been another busy year for EA, and for David DeMartini, who we've interviewed three times in 2010. While the mega-budget console business has changed, with less successes pulling in more money, it's still very much on EA's agenda as an area for growth. This year the publisher struck two very significant deals.

The first was with sacked Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella, and while all three were as tight-lipped as you would expect on their new development venture, Respawn Entertainment, they did let on that EA was helping to bank-roll the new team.

"It's part of the EA Partners deal, they've provided us with capital and a publishing deal and money to start hiring and get our team together," revealed West.

Then DeMartini cropped up a month later in the year when he signed a deal with Insomniac for what will be the company's first multiformat title in its 15 year history.

Again, it was another carefully managed round of press interviews, but not an opportunity we would pass on, and it gave us at least a chance to ask about the importance of independent studios retaining intellectual property.

"It's critically important for an independent developer to own their own intellectual property and to be able to chart their own course," offered DeMartin. "IP ownership and delivery on multiple platforms are two of the largest value drivers for any business enterprise. The EA Partners programme completely facilitates both of those goals and that would be my advice and is my advice to every independent developer in the business."

But it was our final interview with DeMartini at GamesCom in Germany where we got a more relaxed and frank interview, with the EAP boss discussing the collapse of Realtime Worlds, spiralling budgets and interest in smaller projects.

"I'll never tell a developer how much their game will cost," he said. "They'll bring it to me and then I'll evaluate whether or not it makes sense from a business standpoint with regards to the potential of the idea. If they happen to make a lot of money based on that budget, great for them. If they come up short and have to cover some of it – y'know, they'll be smarter the next time they do it. That's kind of the approach that we take to it.

"But I think budgets for games have actually peaked and are starting to move in the reverse direction again. I don't think there's any one right budget for any game. It kind of depends on how big the idea is and what the team needs to be able to make a 90%-rated game with the idea that they're working on."

Tim Willets, id Software

Since being acquired by Zenimax and Bethesda, id has been working hard on Rage, and this year has seen the developer go into overdrive promoting the first new IP from the studio since Quake. We got an opportunity to sit down with co-owner Tim Willets and came away with a detailed overview of the studio in 2010.

Now the company no longer licenses out its own id Tech 5 engine, Willets said development has become much easier for the team, allowing them to get on with the creative business.

"It's cool that some of our technology is in some of the biggest games – like Call of Duty still uses id Tech, y'know. They added a lot onto it, they called it something different, but at the core... Like in Modern Warfare 2, when you turn on the splash screen at the bottom and it says 'id technology'... [Beams]. So our technology has been great, but it makes life way easier just to focus on games, make our own games."

And with a past where public figures have perhaps overshadowed the work of the studio, Willet said the team have been conscious not to push forward one person as the figurehead for the business.

"Heck, we don't need another Romero," he said. "In general, myself and John Carmack, we get way more credit than we deserve. That is true. Because we have some of the best guys, super-talented, and I would love to bring everyone here so you could talk to everybody.

"It's a bit unfair for the guys who sit back at work and think "oh, Tim's in Germany, Tim's in France, and this article's got a picture of Tim on it... What does Tim do? I'm the one here making particles, I'm the one here making this model and stuff, and everyone talks about the big giant mutant at the end of demo, but I'm the one who made that big giant mutant." For me, and I know John feels this way, it's got to be 'id', because we don't need any egomania."