Human Nature

In the first part of our interview with Silicon Knights' boss Denis Dyack, he touched on the fundamental problems with marketing games and the need for better criticism by journalists.

In this second part of our exclusive interview, GamesIndustry.biz talks to Dyack about the evolution of his development studio, how working with Miyamoto and Kojima has influenced the company, the key areas of focus for upcoming Xbox 360 title Too Human, and why there's a real need for only one home console format.

Denis Dyack: Silicon Knights has evolved with all its different partners. When we first started creating console games with Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, we learned how to tell stories. When we worked with Nintendo on Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, we really focused on gameplay, with the help of Shigeru Miyamoto. For Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes with Hideo Kojima we really started to get into production values.

We talked together about Eternal Darkness versus Metal Gear Solid with Kojima-san. With Eternal Darkness the idea was to get to the third of fourth chapter before the player really started to appreciate what was happening. Kojima-san thought that was crazy and that you've got to get to the action straight away. We learned from that a lot. Look at the Metal Gear as a series, it throws action at the player straight away. Too Human is going to to show that we've learnt from that.

With Microsoft the multiplayer and Live components are key, which Microsoft are big proponents of, and it's something we agree with. Having multiplayer co-op in Too Human is not only good for the game but a good evolution for the company and for out future games. Also, in many ways, Microsoft is the opposite of Nintendo. Where Nintendo had very few people on hand, Microsoft has an army of people that we're working with - specialists in every category.

It's unique in that regard. Microsoft's approach to game development is definitely hands-on. Nintendo was hands-on but there were very few people to help. I can think of twenty people that I directly interact with at Microsoft and that would never have been the case with previous publishers.

I don't really see it as bold. I see that as a promise to the consumer that there's more here than just one game. Legacy of Kain had about sixty hours of play, but games have changed. People don't want that any more. I don't care how good the game is I don't want to play something that's one hundred hours long. As much as I love World of Warcraft I pulled myself out of it.

If we're going to craft an epic story we decided we had to divide it into manageable chunks for the consumer. At the same time we wanted to do a game that it has a chance to evolve and take advantage of development changes. We think the future is all about content. By getting our flow of process together for the first game we can then look at it and evolve the way we work for the next games in the series. We didn't want to have to start from scratch again after the first Too Human. Is it gutsy to promise so much? Yes, but making games is hard.

Agreed. We don't see it as a bold statement of intent because that's what we think is the best thing to do. Once consumers see the first game and realise what's happening they'll want a massive game like this. The script is three times bigger than anything we've done before - it's the biggest creation of content that we've ever done.

Each game needs to be self contained. That was flaw in the The Lord of the Rings movies. Too Human will be self-contained across each game of the trilogy. There'll be more background for those that play all three. It's not a hook, it's a promise that if players want something epic, this is where to come. What we're trying to do is create something that moves the industry towards a very content-rich environment. I love trilogy books and series. We've got a lot of things to say in Too Human and we couldn't do it in anything shorter than three games.

I think there are too many games. The market is over-saturated and there's too many consoles. I think we'll eventually migrate to just one console. It's inevitable. I love all three home consoles, but as a person who creates games I wish there there was just one console.

From a content creation perspective, when a developer makes a game he wants everyone to play it. Why make something that's format-specific? With the consoles out on the market now, it's going to be really unpredictable as to who is going to do well. Nintendo has come out of nowhere, Microsoft has gotten off to a really strong start and great things are expected of Sony. But if the market gets evenly divided into thirds, who is that good for? Why force the consumer to buy three consoles?

To be mass-market there needs to be one console under the TV. There's one DVD standard even though there's different manufacturers. When you buy a DVD you know it's going to work. When consumers want to buy a videogame they shouldn't be held back because of the format.

It's inevitable. When mobile phones first came out they were very expensive. Now you can get them for free. As more and more people play games the value of the console diminishes. The only value in the console is in the game. If you assume the console business is a three-way war, and the console manufacturers are spending massive amounts of money to create a unique system, if no one wins this war, can all those that have spent so much money make it back? Is this worthwhile?

Consumers are just going to get to the point where they only want to buy one. Look at Nintendo, it makes all of its money from games not hardware. It could get to the point where everyone just agrees on a unified console and everyone concentrates on making games for it. Would the average consumer be able to tell the difference between the 360 and the PS3?

As technology gets better the perceptual threshold of each console gets smaller and smaller. So the value of the consoles becomes less and less. When the value becomes close to zero, with all these costs into research and development into the hardware, why make it any more? Why not concentrate where the revenue is - on making games and content. Maybe this won't be the last generation of consoles, maybe there will be another generation after this. But there will be just one place to play games. Maybe it's the internet and everything becomes so vast that we're playing across a distributed network and a unified service.

Denis Dyack is president of Silicon Knights. Interview by Matt Martin.