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Sensible Soccer creator - game industry is weaker now, has gone backwards, 3DS might be a gimmick

by rawmeatcowboy
10 January 2011
GN Version 3.1

A portion of a BeefJack interview with Jon Hare…

BeefJack: The industry has changed a lot over your time in it. At what point do you feel it went from a fledgling, back-office-based start-up into a more mature industry? Or, indeed, do you think we’ve reached that point yet?

Jon Hare: Well, that is an interesting question. I believe that as a commercial industry it became more ‘mature’ – i.e. bloated with far too much middle management all wanting their own slice of the pie and shareholders demanding never-ending short-term success – around 1995. However, I feel that creatively, from a software design point of view, it went from being a very powerful, innovative industry to a creatively weaker, me-too industry at about the same time. Put is this way: I was earning more money in 1994 and having more fun than I am now.

So from my point of view, commercially, it has gone backwards because I am making less money, because the middle managers and their bean-counting overlords have largely disempowered the creative intellectual property generators from having sufficient influence and power within the industry.

BeefJack: What are your thoughts on the move towards ‘true 3D’ gaming? Is this a flash in the pan gimmick or will this stick around this time? Nintendo seem to be leading the charge with the 3DS.

Jon Hare: Unfortunately I have personally never made a great 3D game – I have never been given the budget or time to compete, and never had a strong enough team to deliver even A quality, and have always had to work around licenses – and I am including Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder as licenses here. The Nintendo 3DS take is interesting, but in my eyes it is just a hardware gimmick which might do well. I am a game designer. I am not interested in the limitations and demands of graphical engines. I want 75 per cent of the focus of making a game to be on the gameplay and to keep on making it better and better and better until it is ready to be published. This is almost impossible to achieve with 3D without a massive budget and a lot of time.

Full interview here