Philip Oliver, CEO & Co-founder of Blitz Games - Long, long ago, well about 1980, Andrew and I were school kids when Space Invaders appeared in arcades. A friend let us play on his dad’s Apple IIe, games like Zork, TaxMan and Night Mission and our parents bought us a Binatone PONG console for Christmas. Within a year our older brother bought a ZX81 and Andrew and I started playing with it and learning how to program very basic games. We got the bug and in ‘82 we were first in line for a Dragon 32. This had colour graphics and 32k of memory - although you could only use half of it because half was reserved for screen memory, but that was still a LOT! Remember we were coming from a ZX81 with 1k memory! We then moved onto a BBC Micro and then Amstrad CPC128 which is where we started to make our very successful games. Once our games took off we started to convert them to the leading games platform at the time - the ZX Spectrum. (1k = 1024 Bytes - a Byte is a single number between 0-256 - so that’s not much!!!)

Games we’ve worked on - well that’s now a very long list. But we remember and are very proud of the games we created for Codemasters in the mid-eighties - particularly the Dizzy series and most of the Codemasters ‘Simulator’ games. The full list is at: www.OliverTwins.com & www.Blitz-Games.com - (by all means print a list! )

C3: Do you find that working on an established franchise as opposed to working on a brand new production is quite restrictive? And if so, in what way?

PO: They are different but both are fun and creatively challenging. When you are given no starting point it’s hard to come up with something compelling and keep the enthusiasm focused through the whole development cycle. Whereas when we have a license we know the game will sell and we start with a lots of creative ideas, characters and scenarios, within that world we have to be creative to pull out the best elements and create a fantastic game which is guaranteed to sell and already has a keen audience waiting for it.

C3: What is currently on the cards for Blitz Games? Will you be working on Wii again in the near future or perhaps even something for the Nintendo DS?

PO: The Blitz reputation for quality games is growing fast and the company is growing fast – we’re now around 200 people with many subcontractors too! We are working on most platforms, but the Wii has a very special place in the market and is perfect for the kind of games that Blitz is known for. We have 4 more Wii games in production currently and are in discussions for others.

We have decided not to pursue handheld formats, that includes DS, simply because there aren’t enough good people to cover the console work we have, so we don’t want to spread ourselves too thin supporting all the different technologies.

C3: In your experience, how does developing for the Wii differ from the other next-generation formats?

PO: Nintendo has played a very clever game. The console is much cheaper at retail and therefore selling very well. The trade off was to not cater for the higher resolutions of HD TVs. The controller is unique and gives a new fun experience that has more appeal to the mass market. Nintendo focused on fun and price point rather than resolution and that’s served them very well. This approach works very well given the economics of the games industry. Higher graphic resolutions make game production more expensive whereas different control interfaces have less impact. Because the console is selling so well it will have a large user base making it more viable for impressive games to be written as they are more likely to sell in large volumes and therefore make profits.

C3: Possession was once rumoured for an appearance on Wii (back when it was still known as Revolution), but there has been no word on it for a while. What is the status of the game as far as coming to Wii is concerned? Was there any truth to the hearsay?

PO: I’d rather not comment on that right now.

C3: Could you possibly give us any hints as to what Volatile Games’ ‘Secret Project’ is? Considering Nintendo already has more mature games coming to the Wii (for example Resident Evil and Manhunt 2), is there a chance the mature side of the company will support the system?

PO: I expect Volatile will produce games for the Wii in time. The console is becoming very popular and we are becoming experts on it.

C3: With the Wii already flying ahead of the PS3 in terms of sales in the US and Japan and quickly catching the Xbox 360 on a worldwide basis, do you think it can keep up its momentum like the DS has?

PO: Yes, I believe it will continue well for 2 to 3 years, after which Nintendo will be ready to launch it’s successor. As HD TVs become more popular they will need to address this next time, but they are clever people and I trust they know what they are doing.

C3: It has been reported that by 1986 7% of all games sold in the UK could be linked with you and your brother. That really is a massive achievement! Do you ever see the UK market becoming as strong as that again? And what are your thoughts on the state of the Industry at the moment?

PO: That statistic is true, but in VERY different times. The market was much smaller and much less global. Most games being sold in the UK were produced in the UK. But our games were not being sold abroad much. Now the industry is global we have much more competition and must maintain our quality, but it’s commercially viable to do as we are now selling to a much bigger market. Our games now sell much higher volumes and at higher prices than the games we wrote back when we had 7% of the UK games market.

C3: What do you think about the demise of E3? Can it be replaced by any other shows, such as TGS?

PO: I was shocked when I heard what had happened, as I took it for granted there would always be an E3. For me it was a great opportunity to see many different games very quickly, but it was becoming harder to do real business. The problem is the deals are getting bigger and the environment was getting more hectic. Many described it as ‘trying to do deals in a circus’. As a result of its demise, I’m sure other shows will grow although never back to the size of E3. A shame really as E3 was a high point for the industry and a real showcase of just how far games have come and how big an industry it now is. Sadly it was a showcase rather than an efficient place to do business.

C3: With Nintendo announcing that it will encourage new releases from smaller development teams, do you feel that the company could re-ignite the old style of bedroom development once more?

PO: When Nintendo says smaller that’s all relative! It means smaller than the likes of Epic!! Certainly all boxed games will be sizeable productions. It is cheaper to produce games for the Wii than the Xbox360 or PS3. That combined with the unique controller does mean we are likely to see more innovative games, which could be smaller than most boxed games if they are fresh, different and fun.

C3: One of your biggest hits from the past was Dizzy. Do you still hold the rights to this, or is it still a Codemasters property? And, if you do, have you got any plans to either revamp Dizzy for systems such as the DS and/or Wii, or maybe get older Dizzy games distributed via the Wii’s Virtual Console?

PO: We’re obviously very proud of Dizzy, but in many ways Dizzy was more than a name and an egg shaped character - it was a game making philosophy that lives on in Blitz today. In those games we focused on immersing the players in interesting new worlds of challenges and adventure populated with imaginative characters - some friendly and some not so. We targeted the mass market, not hardcore gamers. We didn’t show off with technology, we focused on fun gameplay and accessibility. If you look at our ‘Blitz’ games you will see the evidence. It’s been commented many times that our PacMan World 3 game last year was in so many ways what Dizzy would be if it were to come back (well not so yellow obviously!).

Will Dizzy ever return? Codemasters own half the IP in the name and character so it’s not just down to us but ultimately we’d like to see Dizzy return.

C3: Considering the newly formed Blitz Arcade team is to create new games for digital download, does this mean you are interested in Nintendo’s idea of creating new content on the Virtual Console?

PO: Of course! We are really excited by digital downloads hence our new division. We fully expect to be on the Wii’s Virtual Console as soon as possible and have several very interesting projects in the works.

C3: Philip, you recently spoke with GamesIndustry.biz about the British development community and the lack of support given for those moving from university education into the world of development. Do you think the situation will change in the future, or are other sectors of the world inevitably going to take control in the development world?

PO: A very serious issue and I’m pleased you’ve thought to bring this subject up again. Games are exciting and big business. It’s a dream job for so many people but it’s surrounded by problems. Game development budgets are soaring faster than the growth in people’s spending on games. The quality is rising fast and competition is global - with improved communication people know which are the good games and who are the good developers and this causes a focusing effect meaning mediocre skills won’t cut it any longer. So anyone wanting to enter needs to improve their skills and quickly. Every other country in the world knows there’s a good industry and economy to have through developing games and therefore it’s become highly competitive. Other governments are actively encouraging game developers and education within their countries which, left unchallenged will mean we will lose all game development companies from this country, just as we’ve lost many other industries in the past.

I’m passionate this doesn’t happen - the UK is our home and I have many people I’m responsible for that are passionate about living here and making great games! So we are doing what we can to fight this. For any students reading this wanting to get into the games industry please keep checking GameON on the Blitz website, more info will be coming soon.

C3: Is this problem a primary reason for your involvement with Tiga? Could you please briefly tell our readers a little about Tiga and its aims?

PO: It’s one of many reasons. TIGA’s goal is to look after the mutual interests of all game development companies in the UK & now Europe, regardless of ownership; so publisher-owned development teams are now represented too. There are many challenges but certainly skills and training is one key factor. Many of the areas TIGA tackles are for medium to long-term gains and I firmly believe it’s performed well and will continue to do so. For those reading this that are in the industry and whose companies are not part of TIGA you have to ask yourself - are your management thinking about the long term future of the UK games industry or just themselves?

C3: Finally, what games have you been playing recently in your spare time?

PO: Spare time! That’s a laugh! With my family, a wife and three daughters, and a company of almost 200 people spare time is non-existent!

My girls like there DS’s and PSP so I do get to ‘help’ on games like New Super Mario Bros, nintendogs, Bratz Forever Diamondz, LocoRoco & Mercury. At work I get to review and play all our games in production which I love doing although our Project Managers always cringe when I do as I’m able to write hundreds of suggestions within a very short space of time - often after seeing only a few minutes of the game!

I wish there was more time to play, but in many ways I see the challenge of running a company as similar to a very complex game where doing well results in more than just a good score - it has major positive effects on a lot of people.

Thanks very much,
Philip Oliver
CEO & Co-founder of Blitz Games.

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