Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 09 December 2008 10:52
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 5
“Right about 2002, 2003 I began to get the itch to move into something different. I joined a start-up for a very short period of time; it’s kind of fashionable in San Francisco to do that a couple of times in your career. But it did not get the funding to progress, so then I ended up at EA (Electronic Arts).”
iTWire: As a Slave or a Master?
M-BH: “[laughs] That’s horrible, EA was fantastic, I joined in the Maxis division, I worked mostly on The Sims products, The Sims base game from an artistic and technical art perspective, and then I went into Development Direction, that is more about team leadership, game leadership and business sense than it is about what sort of images that are part of the games. “
“So I really had a fantastic career at EA, and was there during the console transition, we were introduced to the complexities of the Xbox 360 and PS3 and the design challenges of the Wii.”
iTWire: Well EA were known to be a little slow to make the jump to the Wii, and are only now seeing the fruition of the shift in development.
M-BH: “Yeah, I was able to work on one Wii product while I was there, My Sims, which was a super cute game were you can build things using your Wii-mote, and I think the whole gestural side of the interface for the Wii has really challenged game designers to think ‘oh how am I going to think of a game where the user thinks in spatially, rather than through buttons?”
iTWire: Do you think they feel they ‘have’ to do that when dealing with the Wii? In some ways there has been a mini backlash, where game players long to sit in front of their Wii and not have to do the gestures – even though this is what the Wii is all about.”
M-BH: “I believe it is simply new ground for designers to play with, and play with their vision. I think there is definitely space for Wii games that don’t feel like exercise, but there is also space for Wii games where you are having a heck of a lot of fun in your living room, trying not to run into the person playing next to you, so it can go the spectrum.”
“And with PS3 and Xbox 360, I get really excited by things that are not only happening on disc, but also in Arcade and PSN with what independent developers are putting into those services.”
