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Revolution's Charles Cecil

The Broken Sword creator muses on the digital games industry and how quickly it's changing

GamesIndustry.biz There seemed to be quite a buzz around GDC this year, particularly with respect to the independent and smaller developers?
Charles Cecil

To an extent, but they have been a bit disappointed by self-publishing - because there's so much there, you really have to make a noise, you have to make an event. We're blessed by the fact that we have a brand that's well-respected, which means we can then leverage that to make a noise.

If you're starting from scratch - particularly if you're producing another game which has got three jewels, which - when you line them up - make a nice sound and disappear... I mean, that is so difficult.

I went around Game Connection when I was there, and saw some games - their original games - and it was actually quite depressing, because you can see why so many games are rejected. If you're not dealing directly which all of this, you miss the 95 per cent that never do anything, and it's so obvious why that many won't do anything. They're just not up to the quality.

GamesIndustry.biz There's always a bit of a gold rush when a new platform proves to be viable, and then there's a lot of me-too stuff put out there...
Charles Cecil

There is a gold rush, but what's happening... historically the publishers have capitalised and made the cost of entry very high. For the reasons we've just talked about, that hasn't happened on the iPhone, because Apple have an allegiance to their customers, not the publishers or anybody else.

I'm sure it will only be short term, but it is opening up an opportunity for a year or two, maybe three - and then for whatever reason the market will change, as it always has and always will, and the cost of entry will become high again.

So people like Martyn Brown and myself have worked really, really hard, because we've realised there's this opportunity and we know it's only a window - it will go away, and we need to build ourselves into a position where we can actually exploit it.

My sense from Game Connection and GDC is that the people who this is working for, it's working really well. But there are a lot of people who went in expecting something, but they didn't have a story - an event - and they were disappointed by the sales.

I think back in June last year there was a general euphoria - but I'd say that's now been tempered.

GamesIndustry.biz You can see some of that. Go search for a farm game on Facebook. Has it already happened?
Charles Cecil

Well, there's always room for real innovation - there always is. You look at Doodlejump - that could have been written by one or two people in their bedrooms, and it just caught the imagination, and it's done really well. There's no doubt that if you do come up with something that's new, innovative and quirky - it's all about telling a story, and the problem with writing gems in a row is that there is no story to tell.

Charles Cecil is MD of Revolution. Interview by Phil Elliott.

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