Denis Dyack Part Two

The interesting thing about OnLive that a lot of people are discounting it so quickly. People always find reason why something can't happen. Cloud computing could be like the Berlin wall. No one could ever imagine it falling, but once it fell no one could imagine it being up any more. With cloud computing people think it's going to be really hard and ineffective, but I'll tell you right now that we're ready to socially accept cloud computing.

The way it works is that there's not going to necessarily be a single cloud, so the monopoly goes away, you will subscribe to channels where you don't even pay for specific games, you just pay $50 and just like you subscribe to a movie channel you might get the Activision channel. But you might not want to do that. You might want to just pay for Call of Duty separately and it would be there for you forever. And there would be no need to patch it or worry about compatibility because that's taken care of too. The biggest argument against cloud computing that's held the most water is the speed of light issue and latency. I'm really surprised at how people are sticking by that still. Everyone's assuming that OnLive is going to have central servers, but what if OnLive did something like contacted all the local cable providers and set up a cloud in every city? Then the latency issue becomes a non-issue. That seems pretty easy to me. I can play videogames with people in Russia now, we're already doing that.

I don't have any inside information here, but if you were Microsoft why would you want to sell Microsoft Office? Wouldn't you want users to just subscribe to a cloud and get the latest updates all the time? I think it's the future no matter what. Piracy is the big issue. Look at countries like China, where there's a social issue. There aren't strong copyright laws in China. Look at record stores in North America and you won't see anyone in there under 30 because people under 30 don't think they have to buy a CD any more, they can just download an album. In China there's no social drive for people to pay for software, they feel that they don't need to pay for it. When you buy a computer it's filled with software, it's a big issue and the governments are trying to fix it but it's never going to get fixed. There are billions of people there that don't care. If you look at the best selling games there – World of Warcraft is up there. It's not quite a cloud model, but you have to subscribe to the servers and it's protected that way.

There's issues with used games right now. There's so many issues that cloud computing will fix and it doesn't have to be a MMO, it can be a single player game. The great thing about cloud computing and non-linear media is you can protect them on the cloud because it requires two-way input. You can't pirate something you don't have and I think it's the future of our industry. It's really difficult to tell how much money is being lost but most companies would agree it's a hell of a lot.

I do this for the creative part but I've got to put food on the table, we all have to make a living. It's a real challenge but that more than anything – economics – is going to define that success. I just don't see any other option, I see dire consequences if we don't adopt it.

How do I talk about it without talking about stuff that I can't talk about? I really don't want to talk about it right now, but we're certainly happy with the end result, the game that was Too Human. There's obviously a lot of problems associated around the litigation that I can't comment on – that's still being resolved – which is one of the reasons I can't talk about it. But that will come to light in the future.

I'm always interested to see how new technologies turn out. I'm a big believer in software over hardware. Silicon Knights has always pretty much focused on what can we do as entertainers? I'm sure it's very possible to have success in those areas, but it's not something that I really look at and go "yes, we'll definitely do something on that." I know a lot of people have expressed excitement and that's great to see. We want to create games that are very content driven and tell great stories and I don't see how Natal is going to help me tell a better story or create better content.

We have marketing plans and if we talk about the games too early it can be a real problem. Marketing is extremely important, more important than anything else and we have obligations to our partners to make sure everything is all in line. Especially now when there are fewer, more important games – they don't want to get anything messed up. Right now we want to keep absolutely everything quiet, and it's for the best.

Absolutely, I'm a proponent of it. You'll never see a movie before it's done. Our industry sometimes shows games that are more than a year out. That's insane. If a critic is going to overlook some huge problems then the developer shouldn't show it to the press until it's done, because that just creates animosity between the two. Our industry is still a bit young, but it's a financial issue with cash flows. I would love to have a game finished and in the can before starting the marketing campaign. We'd preview finished footage. If you start defending a game that isn't finished you look like you're making excuses but they're legitimate, because it's not done. In the infantile nature of our industry it's a big growing pain. We're starting to see shorter marketing cycles. Once we get enough money in the industry where companies can sit on a game during it's entire marketing campaign then we'll see more accurate reviews.

It's safe to say Call of Duty created an event horizon that you just didn't want to be near. There would have been no escape. Everyone at Silicon Knights is playing and they're very critical here. If it sucked they would say, but they're saying it's awesome. I'm happy for Activision, I think that's going to be good for the industry. We need things like that, because despite the horrendous economic conditions that are going on worldwide right now, it really points out that games is a real industry and is going to continue to be successful despite the hard economic times. And when things do get better this is going to be one of the leaders of the new economy.