02 February 2010
Aliens vs Predator and The UK Games Biz
Rebellion’s main office in Oxford is a fairly unassuming building to look at from the outside. It’s long and flat, with mirrored windows and it’s surrounded by builder’s merchants and the colour beige. It’s also where some of the best games of last decade game come from, as well as being the residence of Judge Dredd.
Despite appearances it’s a full-on hive of activity. The same could be said for co-founder and CEO Jason Kingsley, who looks a rather calm and easy-going sort if judged by first impressions, but who is actually one of the most important men in the UK games industry. Not only does his studio work with some of the biggest and best licenses available, from Aliens to Star Wars, but he’s also a chairman and founder of TIGA, the UK’s games industry trade association.
On top of all that, Rebellion also owns 2000AD comics.
We got a chance to sit down with Jason at his Oxford office earlier this week, grilling him extensively on both the current Aliens versus Predator project and how he feels it is shaping up and what he thinks of the rating systems and company incentives that are currently such massive issues for developers across the world. Here’s what he had to say for himself…
Bit-tech: So, tell us about yourself and Rebellion?
Jason Kingsley: Well, this is the main HQ for Rebellion, in Oxford. We also have a studio in Runcorn and one in Derby. It was founded…god, 18 years ago. 1993? 1994? About that. I’m the owner and co-founder with my brother, so really all of this is my fault.
BT: Something for you clarify so we don’t get it wrong; this next game is Aliens versus Predator? With a plural? And the first one was singular Alien?
Jason: Plural now, correct.
BT: So, if you’re not going with a AVP 2 or anything does that mean that you’re rebooting the series?
Jason: Oof. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s not really a reboot, it’s just that…we know the type of game we did the first time around on the Jaguar and we know what we did with the PC version in 1999, which we just re-released on Steam. That last one especially was kind of a seminal game, really. It innovated in so many different ways, though it does look a bit old and creaky now because of today’s gee-whiz graphics. Obviously we were fans of all that – and a large number of the team were involved in the PC game, while many of those that didn’t wanted to work with us because of it. So, it was really that we didn’t want to throw away the good stuff. We wanted to build on it for a new game.
So, that’s what we did. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s not a reboot. It’s basically revisiting the franchise. I wouldn’t call it a reboot though because we haven’t really based anything on the older games. It’s an original storyline and everything.
BT: And it’s not based on any of the AVP films or…?
Jason: No, because the Aliens versus Predator films were—
BT: A big pile of crap?
Jason: Ha! Well, I’ll say that they were made in response to the game. Paul Anderson came to visit us just after we’d put the PC title and said ‘I’d like to make this into a film’. We said ‘Nothing to do with us, mate. We’re just the developers. You need to talk to Fox.’
Obviously, they did go an talk to Fox and eventually managed to get the money to come and play in our sandpit and make a film based on the game, but of a type that was quite different.
AVP Classic
BT: So, you have no stake in the AVP license – not the name or anything?
Jason: Nope. It’s not ours. It belongs to Fox. It will continue to belong to Fox. They’ve just allowed us to play with their franchise, luckily. They monitor what we do and they have an approvals process, but in terms of creativity it’s basically up to us. As long as we stick to canon and make the aliens look like aliens and do alien things, then they let us do what we want. They haven’t changed much, have they?
Andy Haith: No, not really. The odd bit here and there. Terminology mainly, like that the Predator’s spear can’t be called a spear and has to be called a Combi-stick. We still call it the spear internally, but…it’s the Combi-stick.
Jason: Yeah, little things like that really. Bits and bobs. Fox are pretty good to work with, I think. They approve very quickly and obviously the relationship goes back to the days of Fox Interactive and before, so they trust us. They recognise that the games we make help build up the franchise and you could argue that the games form the base of the franchise, not the movies. Well, except for the original Alien and Predator films, obviously.
BT: You mentioned the re-release of the original on Steam. Has that gone well for you?
Jason: It’s gone incredibly well! We’ve actually already done a couple of patches for it and we’re kind of fixing it up as we go along because it’s very old code. We’ve enabled widescreen support on it, which has pleased a lot of the fans. We’ve put in unlimited saves too. The ‘How many saves should you allow in a game?’ argument has risen its head again a decade later.
BT: Yeah, I was discussing that with Andy earlier.
Jason: It’s funny all the ‘only wimps want to be able to save anywhere’ stuff. It’s weird how the world is just a circle and how the same arguments just keep coming back again.
We’re very pleased with the re-release. We’ve wanted to do it before, but we haven’t had time until lately and it’s great because there are people here like Kevin, who was a programmer on the original and is now the head of programming for the company. He’s actually done a lot of the work on the re-release, so it was really exciting. It’s just a nice gesture for the fans too; to say that AVP 3 is coming and here’s something as preparation; a little blast from the past and it’s dirt cheap too. Costs less than a decent pint of beer and is a damn sight more scary.
BT: Do you see the new game as being as scary as the old one? The 1999 game was a very scary game, but this AVP feels like a bit more of an action game.
Jason: We’ve tried to scare people in this one, very much so, but I think scary is different from surprise. Scary is knowing something bad will happen, but not when. So, we tried to do that but obviously the gameplay has had to become a bit more sophisticated and we have to try to cater to a wider audience because the original game was ferociously difficult to play. A lot of people just couldn’t play it.
BT: Yes. I was one of them.
Jason: Right, so those people weren’t getting the most they could out of the game. So, what we’ve tried to do is manage that. We really want to entertain people that are not particularly good players and make sure the game is accessible for them but still exciting and frightening. We don’t want people to feel like they are just being killed in the first ten seconds all the time, because they’ll just throw the game away or take it back to the shops. We want players to be scared, but also we want them to get into it.
We’re more scientific and professional in how we’ve approached it, I suppose. We’ve tried to look at it in terms of not just what the hardcore gamers want, but also the average users and newcomers who’ve heard about the series and just want to give it a go. We’ve had to modify the game for that.
Aliens versus Predator on Consoles
BT: Are there any specific lessons that you learned from the older games that you’ve applied to the new AVP?
Jason: I think the new game is less lethal – less instantly lethal, anyway. If an alien got through in the original then it hit you twice and that’s it.
I guess, you could kind of describe things as dangerous balloons. The players were dangerous balloons in that, if the aliens got close then they’d hit you twice and you’d be dead. Likewise, you didn’t need to hit them that much. We’ve tried to soften that approach a little bit and make it slower.
BT: Like dangerous cushions?
Jason: Yeah, dangerous furniture. Really, I suppose we’ve de-spiked it. There were some really strong parts in the original, but there were also some weak areas and a lot of people just couldn’t play it. We needed to make it accessible, but we’ve not softened it to the point where it won’t be a challenge to a hardcore player – the difficulty levels are proper difficulty levels. Easy is exactly that, essentially a story mode where you’ll be scared, die once or
twice, but pretty much anyone can get through it. Go up the scale though and…well, Hard Mode is bloody hard. It’s a challenge.
Those things have been part of our internal discussions for a long time. We’ve got to be as accessible as possible because that’s better for business and also, I think, a lot more fair. But, if you want to play it on Director’s Cut then have a go. If you can. That’ll be a challenge.
BT: This is the first time that a proper AVP game has been on consoles. Did you find you had to make specific concessions for that in terms of level design and so on?
Jason: Level design, yeah, a bit. There’s a big market on consoles and everyone talks about that, but to me it’s more to do with the controller than the console itself. I play a lot of my games on keyboard and mouse and I’m really good with that, like most everyone who works here. On console though you can’t get the same experience, so you’ve got to make a sort of stickiness for the aiming and so on because there’s nothing more irritating that continually missing a target because the reticule is zig-zagging over the target. That’s just frustrating and it isn’t gameplay.
So, we’ve had to compromise on the console versions a bit, just to help players with aiming, as every game does. Hopefully it’s seamless for the player though and they’ll just feel rewarded and not cheated.
BT: How important do you think the console market is compared to PC? Is there a specific reason this is the first that’s been done on consoles?
Jason: No, just opportunity. We’ve not had the chance before and we’ve now got an engine that works across all formats. For the original it was…it was just that we were only asked to do it for PC. Again, I don’t remember why. Maybe there was a console change going on at the time? It was a long time ago. Now though we’ve got to maximise the number of people who can get access to the game, so we put it on consoles.
Importantly, the consoles can actually do these games now. There was a time where they just really couldn’t cope. It was hard work getting the Atari Jaguar version of AVP going and that was absolutely cutting edge technology. You look at it now and it’s clunky, but at the time it was unsurpassed in terms of the resolution and the real-time graphics and all that. Now though, you can see what we can do with a home console. Quite frankly the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are bloody nice bits of kit. It’d be a shame not to do a good game on them.
BT: How did you approach creating the look of the game then? Did you just rely on the films or did you want to bring something a bit more unique to the series?
Jason: Well, we have to go back to the films because those were the original, real-world reference points. I keep driving the team back to the first films as much as possible and we try to avoid using the secondary or tertiary references. We look at Alien and Aliens, not other people’s interpretations of what those things are.
As I see it though, the look of the universe is very much science fiction but it’s a dirty, sweaty, oily science fiction as opposed to Star Wars. We’ve worked on Star Wars games and the look there is a lot cleaner and while you do see grubby stormtroopers everything is a bit nicer on the whole. The Alien and Predator worlds aren’t like that – they are dirt and blood and snot. Tears too. We try to incorporate that into the game and be the first game with snot.
Digital Gore and Ratings
BT: Do you think you might have sabotaged your attempt at reaching a wider market with the amount of blood and snot and gore though?
Jason: Ah, the gore issue. Ok. Here’s what I think; we have always been aiming this game at grown-ups. As long as we stay within the law then I think that, from a creative perspective, we should be allowed to do whatever the bloody hell we like. Especially with violent, gory base IPs like Alien.
Aliens are not nice things, they are exo-parasites. They eat you. They are supposed to be horrible and there’s all sorts of symbolism in the Alien world – and the Predator world too, quite frankly – whether it’s intended or has evolved over time. They aren’t nice. The Predator hunts for trophies and skins people and displays their bodies. It wouldn’t be right creatively to dumb that down.
That’s why I’ve reacted quite strong to the whole Australian thing. I had to stay quiet afterwards too because we’ve always pitched this game at adults and it’s actually really hard to make a game based on these licenses without exploring the horror. That’s what it’s all about.
There’s no point in defanging it. It’s intrinsic to the license and while people will have their own opinions on whether or not we’ve gone too far with it I personally don’t think we have. I think we’re about right and I defend it for that, though I do say to people; don’t play it if you’re squeamish. If you can’t cope with 18 cert material then avoid it. It’s certainly not suitable for children in my opinion.
At the end of the day those people don’t have to buy it. They can buy The Sims instead – I’m fine with that. Different games for different people, but it’s our right as a creative studio to do the game in the way the franchise deserves.
BT: Did Fox share that opinion?
Jason: Yes, they were right behind us and so were Sega. We had discussions about whether or not we could do sanitised versions and, again, everyone decided no. The conversation came up and everybody said that it was silly and that it wouldn’t work.
The German market responded and said they weren’t going to sell it in Germany, or not officially anyway. I’m sure that European laws allow grey importing, but we won’t get a USK rating and we’ll just live with that. I applaud Fox and Sega for supporting us though, especially when we’ve stuck to our guns so much and told people that it’s not suitable for kids, because we don’t want people turning around and saying that ‘my 12 year old found it scary’. Yeah, course they would. Your 12 year old shouldn’t be playing the game.
BT: Do you think there should be changes to how the rating systems work in the UK?
Jason: No, I think it’s fine. The law is perfectly clear and straightforward and it’s always clear on the outside of the box what the game entails. It’s an interesting issue and it will continue to be an issue as long as people think that games are only for kids. The reality is that games aren’t only for kids, like books. Nobody ever says ‘you shouldn’t write this book because it has sex and violence in it and kids might read it’. Nobody questions that because it’s a book and everyone knows that some books are suitable for pre-schoolers and some aren’t.
And books don’t even have ratings on them, so how do you know not to buy the Marquis de Sade for your kid? Presumably you’d know they wouldn’t be interested in it, but nonetheless it’s there and available for anyone to buy. You could argue that books should have to be rated. They aren’t because we’ve grown up in a society that accepts that. We do have them for games though and, to be honest, I think the government does a pretty good job of balancing creative freedom with protection of the audience.
The UK Games Industry and The Future
BT: Do you think these problems arise from the immaturity of the medium compared to, say, books?
Jason: I think there’s a part of that. Games grew up in a younger environment, but we all still play games and we’re grown ups. There’s a legacy of that.
Also though, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen footage of Elvis doing his pelvic wobble? It outraged America and yet we look at it now and can’t even see why it might be controversial, but it was properly shocking at the time and Elvis got death threats about it. It’s the way these things go.
Then there’s the politicians and the way they use tabloid headlines to get re-elected too, which is especially relevant with a general election coming up. All the politicians in the UK are positioning themselves to get the most votes and make us forget about the expenses claims. Then there’s lazy journalism too. You’ve probably seen it, where journalists use stupid titles like ‘PlayStation 3 killed my dog’.
BT: Gaming causes rickets?
Jason: Exactly. Yet, we know that there’s vitamin D impregnated in the plastic so you can’t get rickets from gaming! Ha. That was all so silly, the gaming causes rickets stuff. It’s vitamin D deficiency that cause rickets.
Gaming is an easy target, that’s what it comes down to really. They don’t do it with rock and roll music anymore, if you notice. Because everyone listens to it and nobody gets corrupted.
BT: Or comics.
Jason: Yeah, which created the comics code of America. It was the same with movies once and we had all these weird rules about actors having to keep one foot on the ground during sex scenes and so on. That led for some ridiculous rumpy-pumpy.
It’s just a phase we’re going through as a society and, because games are getting better, these things are popping up. We should be celebrating it in the UK though, because we’re really bloody good at making games. We really, really are. We punch way above our weight on the world circuit in terms of quality titles and it’s long overdue that we celebrate the creative forces behind them. We’ve made some of the best games in the world and hopefully AVP can be a number one hit too. Imagine if Avatar was a film made in the UK and how fabulous everyone would say that was for the nation.
BT: Do you have an opinion on TIGA’s recent push for a tax break for UK developers then?
Jason: Well, I should do since I’m the chairman and founder of TIGA, shouldn’t I? Ha!
Basically, what we’ve got at the moment is a very uneven playing field. I personally suggested that we should make it so that no industry got tax breaks anywhere, because I prefer that kind of less-interventionist government. At the same time though, when you’ve got Canada offering 40 per cent tax breaks and places in North America offering more than that to try and get part of this knowledge-based industry which is incredibly valuable to the economy, then the issue is whether that’s going to cause a brain drain?
It could be a problem for the UK, especially since we don’t have any substantial publishers. I can’t knock on the door of three big UK publishers and say ‘Hi! Do you want to work with your local developers?’ because we’ve only got Codemasters left and they aren’t in a strong position, apparently.
So, we go to America, Japan, China, France for publishers because we haven’t got anywhere else to go. We’ve got some great developers and just here we have some fabulously talented members of staff. Skills; well, there’s a bit of an issue regarding skills and training for people coming through the graduate programs, but we’ve got a real competitive environment now… Well, the government is looking at it anyway. They seem to be taking us seriously as an industry.
BT: Do you ever see Rebellion moving overseas?
Jason: Currently? No. I wouldn’t rule it out though. It would depend entirely on what opportunities were there.
And that’s a wrap! Rebellion’s Aliens versus Predator will be out on February 19th in the UK for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.