Phil Elliott 08:00 (BST)
28/04/2008

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Q: Going back to the release of Crackdown, there was a big fuss about the Halo 3 beta keys, and it's fair to say that your game was a bit misunderstood. So it must be quite satisfying to see the game win critical acclaim, win at the BAFTAs, and be proved right in the end?

David Jones: It's always tough because it's one of those games that was very tough to explain what it's about. You always struggle to market those kinds of games.

Secondly, in some respects – like the original Grand Theft Auto as well, when people just said it was a top-down 2D driving game, everything else is 3D these days, it's going to be rubbish…

And it didn't look great in screenshots, because in this generation…you had Gears of War where you had four characters, making them look absolutely stunning, but we're all about huge vistas, and thousands of characters and vehicles and dynamic environments…but when you compare that in screenshots to Gears, you obviously pale into insignificance.

Q: And the screenshot can never convey how much fun a game is to play.

David Jones: And that's why we had to do the demo – it's a game you had to try, and that's why when we showed people, when they looked at the screenshots, they just couldn't get the game from that.

That's one of the reasons – the whole Halo 3 thing – it was a marketing attempt to try and get people playing it. There's no other way for people to understand this game unless they play it.

So for that reason, when they proposed it, I sat on the fence. On the one hand I could see the down side of it, people saying we must be desperate to sell it – but I knew that when people played it, the same as us internally, they'd see it was really good fun.

Q: On balance are you pretty pleased with the way the Halo 3 beta key method worked out then?

David Jones: Oh yes, absolutely. Between that and the demo on Xbox Live, I think it got into people's hands, and they made buying decisions based on what they played, which is great.

Q: Other companies must have watched the effect the demo had, and saw that it was good, because a lot of games now have demos, but not so many then?

David Jones: Yes – and you still see a lot of developers say that they can't do a demo until the game is finished, and it comes out after release – and I can understand the reasoning behind that, and some of them even worry, because if the game's not that great the demo will show that as well.

So in some respects you have to have confidence in your product in order to do a demo prior to launch.

Q: Grand Theft Auto IV is one game that's pretty hard to demo, because it's an open world, and it's hard to work out how much to give people.

David Jones: Yes, and we spent weeks deliberating over that with Crackdown, and we gave them a lot – we said we had to give them a lot – it was all about things like having a timer built-in…do you stop them playing after a certain amount of time? Because we wanted them to experience the full thing.

We actually didn't demo the accelerated skill levelling, because we wanted people to feel what it was like to be a top level agent. There was a lot of thought that led to the crafting of the demo as well, so that people understood it, but it took a lot of time and development effort, and I can understand why with GTA IV…and even now they've not released a single video of gameplay – and I think I know why…again, it's something you have to play.

Q: In the end, critical acclaim is one thing, but units sold is what really counts – moving on to APB, what were the learning experiences from Crackdown that you took to the new project?

David Jones: Not a tremendous amount, purely the fact that we knew that we'd come up with the core, core fun mechanic, and you can build a tremendous experience around that. And we wanted to build around that a tremendous online experience – it's something we wanted to do with Crackdown, but there was no way, with boxed product, that it was a game we could do.

So it comes back to design principles, making sure that the game was more about the player's experiences, rather than the traditional heavy story-telling, and using the online focus to build upon that a great deal.

Q: Is it nice to be talking about APB at last?

David Jones: Yes – GDC was the first time we showed anything, and that was after about three years of development, so we kept it very quiet. But we're now at the stage where we're very happy with the assets and where the game's at – there's a lot of exciting stuff in that game, and we are proud of it, and it's exciting to show people.

But there's a lot to take in with that game, I think we're just going to take people through it bit by bit, what APB is, what it's all about.

Q: Was it nerve-wracking?

David Jones: Yes, because you're so close to it, you have no idea if people will get it - but the response has been tremendous, even though we didn't show much at GDC.

What I think is really exciting is that there are a lot of people out there that haven't really experienced an online game, the majority have just been in purely matchmaking stuff…World of Warcraft may have 10 million players, but there are still many millions more who haven't found anything, in terms of a dedicated persistent world, that is appealing.

Many people have said this is the kind of game they've been waiting for as their first online persistent world game, so that was really good feedback.

Q: Obviously a lot of people picked up on the detailed character customisation - in terms of doing something new, and innovating, that's what people will respond to first?

David Jones: Yes, and we wanted to make that [innovation] in every part of the game, starting with that as the first thing you do - so people have seen character customisation before, but not crafted to that level.

We treat that like any other part of the game - a fun, easy-to-use, crafted experience.

Q: Something like The Sims shows how popular something like that really is.

David Jones: Yes, and we also looked at other platforms, with over-the-top customisations - things like Second Life - where you had so much control…too much control, and things looked awful.

It's like you want to let people make whatever they want, but no matter how bad an artist they are, you want it to look good, so it was a whole project in itself.

Q: SCE's Ron Festejo and John Venables talked to GamesIndustry.biz previously about the problems with user-generated content with regards to Home, and how much freedom you can afford to give people. So where have you drawn the line with that, where does the age rating boundary come into it?

David Jones: Well, we're quite lucky in that APB will be a 15- or 18-rated game anyway, so we won't have the same issues as Sony in that respect. But at the same time, as with any other online game, we'll have moderators, we'll have QA people we can bring in to deal with that kind of thing.

Luckily that's been through the mill a few times with games already out there, you just have to have the people who can respond to that kind of thing.

I think it's harder if you're non-commercial because it can get quite expensive, so I think we're lucky because games are a good commercial model and you can employ people to deal with it.

Q: You're a big fan of emergent gameplay - it's something that's cropped up in your previous games, and it looks like it will be a big feature of APB?

David Jones: Yes, absolutely, it'll be a big part of it. Part of the fun is not knowing how it will manifest itself, but it's watching what people do, the things they act out, the fun they're having, so it's just building upon that.

For example, they want to make videos of it, so they can show their friends and we'll add the tools to let them do that. It's giving them the basic building blocks - in APB, it does have missions, but it's playing against the players on the other side of the mission. Just that one thing - because actually it's very unique, and very new, and you have no idea who you're going to come up against, or how they're going to react.

So every time you have a typical mission, it's actually completely different. Pushing the boundaries like that makes the game, so that every time people play it, it's a whole different experience - so they have no idea who they're going to see, what music they're going to hear…it's kind of dangerous, but we've actually found it to work extremely well.

Q: The whole concept of gameplay has completely changed over the years, from being told a story to being encouraged to write you own - how significant is that trend towards more interactivity and user control?

David Jones: I think it's very significant, I think it's where games really find their own unique place in the entertainment spectrum. You can look at movies, which are great if you just want passive entertainment - and there are games like that, storytelling games like Half-Life 2, and I still enjoy those kinds of games.

But I don't want to discuss that with my friends, because we both had the same experience, it's not like we can tell different stories. To me it's when people have completely their own experience in the same game - that's what makes games shine as their own entertainment medium, and I'm very keen to just keep pushing that angle, and I think that's what makes people excited.

And I think that's why they want to make videos…you don't really want to make a video of Half-Life 2, because it's going to look exactly the same as your friend's. But in APB…it'll be like in Crackdown, people made loads of videos, they were doing stuff we had no idea they could do, and I love it - and I think the players love it too.

Q: Looking at MMOs, some are theme parks, others are more of a sandbox - it's the latter where you're trying to be?

David Jones: Yes it is - it's making the game itself sandbox, but then making the players themselves bring unique characters and audio, and as much as possible to the game as well. So it's even a sandbox in terms of design of characters.

Q: Does that kind of thing give you a more dedicated player base?

David Jones: I think so, yes. I think it's a great long-term driver that stops people from getting bored - we're trying to break down these barriers, so it's not so much the game designer's game you're playing…it's your own game.

Q: With your history, knowing the guys at Rockstar, what are your thoughts on EA's attempt to acquire Take-Two?

David Jones: I've been watching it, and I have no idea how it's going to end up. It's an interesting one, and I think that's what the industry loves. So I'm just as interested as anybody else.

I think there seems to be a bit of a cultural difference between the two companies, but I can see it working. Obviously GTA is so established now, nobody's going to want to mess with that formula, so if it goes through EA would obviously give it its own fiefdom and let it be.

So in that respect I see it working - but then again you have to say it would never have happened in EA as it was, initially. So will Rockstar still keep innovating and bringing out new projects? Because every project has to get the green light, and that's where the questions are - will EA really be that hands-off, if Rockstar want to do another IP, another USD 50 million, and it might be a bit controversial, would it ever get signed off in the future?

I don't know, obviously there's been a lot of change at EA recently, there have been a lot of changes at Take-Two as well, but the whole thing for me is a bit of a soap opera.

Q: It's almost as if the whole label-changing experience that's gone on at EA was with half an eye on Rockstar in the first place…?

David Jones: Yes, possibly, and you can kind of read between the lines, it's about getting people comfortable - but if they wanted to they could probably make it happen anyway, just buy up all the shares that are out there, and then sort out the problems later.

Q: Have you seen much of GTA IV?

David Jones: No, only what's been in the press, but I'm really looking forward to it.