New Frontiers

Earlier this week, David Braben - co-creator of 80s classic Elite and the founder of Frontier Developments - gave a speech at the Science Museum as part of the Game On lecture series.

Titled 'Gaming: Now and Then', the speech focused on the parallels between the development of the games and film industries. Braben discussed the history of gaming with reference to his own experiences, from the development of Elite to more recent projects such as forthcoming PS3 and Xbox 360 title The Outsider.

Afterwards, GamesIndustry.biz sat down with Braben to learn more about what he believes the future holds for games and the games industry. Read on to find out what he thinks about the next-gen consoles, the need for the industry to mature and why the Government could be doing more to help.

David Braben: There are a lot of different types of games; certainly they're very short-focussed, in-the-zone games that you're talking about. That's something we've had the chance to do with Thrillville recently, and it's been great fun.

I think the thing that's interesting in Wii is that they've been brave with the user interface changes. What worries me a little is that there's not a lot to stop them appearing on the other consoles - or at least things in that direction.

Are you interested in working with the Wii and seeing what you can do with that new controller?

Oh yes, I think it's fantastic - and we are doing that. I think it's a lovely machine. Similarly Sony with the SIXAXIS controller - which apart from the name, I think is nice.

It seems people are prepared to pay a lot of money for a PS3, if you look at eBay...

I sold one for $7100 [laughs].

Do you think it's worth the money?

What, $7100? Obviously not [laughs].

Do you think it's worth $500?

It's an interesting question, because if you asked people if the graphics card they just bought for their PC worth $500, they'd probably say, 'Yes, because I can play Half-Life 2 this much faster.'

There are so many games that need these high-end graphics cards; you're paying for a lot of hardware, that's the point. The way people actually compare things can be very damaging. If you have in your mind the price you expect for something, that immediately covers your perception. For a full-on gaming PC you typically pay $1000 now to play the sort of games you can play on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

We had this last time around when PlayStation 2 came out. There was a lot of criticism of the delays, and it was a rip-roaring success - eventually. In my opinion, the first games that were on PlayStation 2 were not very good at all.

Such as...

There were a few that were utterly unmemorable [laughs]. The point with PS3 though, is the fact that it isn't such a narrow system, which makes it hugely more useful to people. You can web browse, upload photographs, and use other applications that I'm sure will come if there's demand for it, because the system's fairly open, and still quite a capable machine.

It has the potential to be, for a lot of people, an element of a PC replacement. Whether you describe it as a cheap PC or not - I mean it probably isn't a cheap PC necessarily, but it is cheap for a PC that can play the sort of games that it can play, at least at the moment.

I think that's an aspect that we shouldn't forget. The Xbox 360 hasn't yet run out of core gamers. Look at titles like Gears of War - which looks beautiful, but it's absolutely clear who it's aiming at, and it's not aiming at the Viva Piñata set. Games like Lego Star Wars are still appealing to core gamers primarily, although that has a kiddy aspect to it.

When you look at this generation - the Wii, the PS3, the Xbox 360 - do you think we're really looking at a great leap for gaming? Or is it just another shift?

Oh, I think it is a great leap. The problem with the generations is that there was quite a big leap with PS1 to PS2. It gets smoothed out, because we've got to re-engineer technology to try and take advantage of it, and it's getting ever harder; in a sense we're lagging a bit at the moment. There's still quite a lot of headroom left in the PS2; with PS3 and Xbox 360, we've got a long way to go.

A lot of the tool chains that are in use at the moment are based on tool chains from the previous generation. Unfortunately that means it's very hard to take anything like the full advantage of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Particularly PS3 - it has to be re-engineered from the ground up.

What we've been doing for the last few years is carrying on with our current generation tool chain in parallel with engineering, from scratch - tool chains completely designed for the fifth generation machines. It's a luxury to be able to do that, but once that comes to fruition there will be no comparision, that's when the generational change will happen.

I'm sure other people are working on ground up designs like that, but I think most of the ones in use now and for games next year are based on current technology - so you can't really take full advantage of these machines... But it'll be exciting when you can.

Your speech also touched on the fact that the games industry is quite a young industry...

I'm saying it's not a mature industry. We're right at the beginning and we're not yet taken seriously. We're still the jokey bit at the end of the news. We're still perceived on a par with the jumpers with the name of the film on, we're just part of the merchandising.

Do you think that's the fault of the media, or the industry itself, or is it just about natural evolution?

To an extent it's the games industry's fault. We've got a very, very difficult task. Making something that's interactive and yet compelling to everybody is a real Holy Grail.

Film didn't really take advantage of what it had for a very long time, that's what I was really trying to say. Just because the change is possible doesn't mean it will happen tomorrow; it takes a big change of mindset, and I think that's coming.

How much more do you think the British Goverment could be doing to support the games industry here?

There have been changes that have made being in Britain harder, in a sense. Of the people I knew back in the early 80s, how many of those are now in the States or Canada.

I think the problem is we're operating on a world stage. We've got the Canadian government making it very attractive for developers to relocate or open an office over there. It's not just Canada - Australia and the Far East as well.

Together with the rise of outsourcing, and some of the recent changes in tax laws where we're taxed a lot more unfavourably than we were before... We're not asking for special treatment like the film industry, but it almost feels like not only do not get special treatment, but actually it's getting worse for the ways our companies operate.

So it's not just a question of the Government taking more positive action, but of putting a stop to negative actions?

Yes. I didn't mean that quite as negatively as it sounds, but certain changes in tax law - they may not look at the ramifications it has on our kind of business. Things like having to forward-forecast profits for next year for tax - I'd love to be able to do that, but we're in a very unpredictable business, and therefore it's extra difficult in our sector.

It's a seesaw really, with the fact that our competitors are operating in a very, very favourable climate. The pound compared to the dollar, which most game development is priced in, is very unfavourable.

It looks like it's actually going to get worse, not better - which is as much due to the weak dollar as much as the strong pound. I don't mean to whinge about it, but these are things we've also got to try and operate with.