Phil Harrison's influence on LittleBigPlanet was "pivotal"

Former Sony Worldwide Studios exec Phil Harrison's influence at the early stages of LittleBigPlanet was "completely key and pivotal" says Alex Evans.

"Obviously that then transitioned into Sony, and especially the team at Liverpool, and Michael Denny - I don't want to downplay their roles as well. But certainly with Phil, at the very beginning, the amazing thing was that he got it," the Media Molecule co-founder told GamesIndustry.biz.

Evans said the team struggled to describe the game in words before they had anything to show, and didn't expect a publisher to really get it - let alone champion it.

"But the interesting thing with Phil was that when we pitched to him, we actually played down what became the Game 3.0 things that he talked about.

"We pitched much more of a platform game, the physics and so on, and he was very instrumental in telling us to think about what it would mean to have user-generated content - to think about what that means for the community."

Evans said Harrison pushed them - correctly - towards what they most wanted to do, with great clarity and perspective.

"I think that was his influence on the game early on, and I think it was hugely useful to have that degree of focus in the right place, and the right time."

Although Harrison has since departed for Infogrames, Evans notes that Sony as a whole is behind the game and thinks that there will be a continuation of the "good patterns" that were set up during the development process.

Part two of our interview with Alex Evans is now available online.