UK development: Where next?

I think what would be even worse is if they decide to leave the industry altogether. To say, I'm going to go and make banking software because the working conditions are better. That's the other thing that the games industry is competing against: everybody else. There's a lot of passion, and I think that's the edge that the games industry has, but when we talk about brain drain the thing I worry about more is people just quitting.

If they say, I'm done, I don't want to work in that industry any more. That's something I think we lose a lot more people to than anything else.

One thing about flexibility and short contracts is, we've got quite a few people who do that, is that you're clamouring for the good ones to sign up for the next game. You're worried about them going somewhere else. They're actually very much in demand and they've got that ability to move around. As a studio you really want to keep hold of the good people.

One of the disadvantages, if you have a large development team and any significant downtime between projects that can be extremely costly and painful for everybody. Having that flexibility, and not getting rid of all of your permanent staff - being able to expand when you need it, that can really help everyone.

I think as long as the market remains a bit volatile and no-one really knows what to expect then it will continue like that. If you look at the more traditional media where you have the big conglomerates who've been in power for fifty or more years, it's because they're dealing with a more predictable market place.

While there are new platforms and models springing up, I think that's where the opportunities are for new boys to come along and shake things up, and the big boys find that their power is being fragmented.

I think what will happen, as Thomas has said, is that an interrupted market is a perfect time to say, I know how I can do this, and lead the way. I think in two years we'll see a big conglomerate EA looking at a company like PopCap again and saying 'that's how you do it' and you'll end up talking to EA again but you'll have experts in the form of the people who created the PopCap equivalent.

I'm sure it'll combine again, and as you say, there'll be some kind of cycle. But there's a good opportunity right now in this disrupted market.

A quick question about PopCap then. How do you feel they're going to get along as part of EA?

Well, EA has, as everybody knows, had a bit of a patchy history of how it has handled the developers which it has pulled in. If they're smart, then they're buying PopCap for the brains that worked out what games to make and how to sell those games. So it remains to be seen if they'll make the best of that.

Do I think it's a bad acquisition? No, provided they do the right things with it.

Don't forget that PopCap and EA know each other extremely well. They've been working together for a long time. All of the PopCap boxes have been distributed by EA, I think. They've known each other a long, long time.

Giving developers more power over the pricing of their product is a very good thing

Paul Mottram, Zoe Mode

So when the rumours started about someone trying to buy PopCap, people where pointing to the fact that EA had tried to buy them already two years ago. So they've probably been talking for a long time. That's good, because they know what they're getting on both sides of the table.

Steam has been brilliant for us - in terms of us letting us change our prices whenever we want. We've seen the advantages of that with Chime, seeing the hourly figures and being able to put stuff in sales and things like that. I think it's the same thing with developers self-publishing. Giving developers more power over the pricing of their product is a very good thing, I think.

I think the thing we've learned most on the publishing side of things by putting games out on PSN is exactly that. We can play around with prices, change the marketing strategies, do this promotion. All of a sudden, by rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself, you learn a lot about publishing.

It's great to have platforms like Steam that empower the developer to do what they want to do with their games.

I think you learn more in that position than a publisher would by publishing a game through those platforms because you care more. Working at a publisher inside a team that was doing it online, it was so hard to get out of the mindset that it was the boxes that mattered. When it's your own game, you look at the numbers.

You can say, if I change this, what is the effect? I can tell you, some of the publishers don't care at all about that. They push the games and then go to the next one. That's the difference I see between publishers and developers - how much they care about the long term results of their product.

You do get obsessed with looking at Steam, just pressing F5. It takes over your life!

As a developer and a consumer, I absolutely love Steam. But I think it still serves a relatively narrow market of gamers still. The majority of people who play games don't get them through Steam.

I imagine someone like EA is saying, well, before Steam becomes the de facto platform for everyone to get their games from, why don't we take a run at it?