Previous parts: The Playstation and Me: Evan Wells, Part 1, The Playstation and Me: Evan Wells, Part 2
Evan Wells from Naughty Dog talks about where he thinks Sony went wrong with the Playstation 2 and Playstation 3-as well as his own initial skepticism to 3D game development–in the last part of my interview with him.
Are there specific parts of the gamemaking process with Sony that you appreciated a lot? Like, situations where they gave you more time when you needed it? Or the development resources? Can you talk a little bit about how your partnership with Sony has made making games easier?
On one big important way is that they’ve just got such a great stable of developers. I mean in between Guerilla and Media Molecule and Sony Santa Monica. Although they’re not first party, Insomniac’s in there, too. These are some of the best developers out there. And to have them just a phone call away. If you need something from Sony Santa Monica, literally they’re just right across the street from us.
We do a lot of collaboration in terms of sharing ideas, and philosophies, and production techniques. It’s just really unbelievably valuable to a game developer, just to see how somebody else does it, because there isn’t just one right way to do it. And our industry is so young and we are moving so fast, things just change so rapidly, it’s great to be able to bounce ideas off of somebody else and see how they do it. And just to be able to have access and close relationships with these other top developers in the world, has really, really helped our development.
Aside from the guys you just mentioned who are all kind of the top shelf of Playstation developers, what are the other games that have stood out for you throughout the life cycle of the whole brand. Going back to PS1 to PS2 into the present day?
OK. PS1 and 2. Obviously Team Ico is amazing. Love those guys. Love those games. Super inspiring. Very similar to the storytelling genre that we find ourselves in. Obviously, Grand Theft Auto changed the industry. Sort of pointed out in a really loud way that games aren’t just for kids and that there’s a huge market for adults playing games that want content that speaks to them. So that really shook things up.
Coming much closer to modern day, Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare series is amazing. And just the way they tackled the scripted experience and the way they had nailed the spectacle to a degree that no other game had, that has been really inspiring to us. And then of course what they’ve done with it online, it’s just crazy.
Yeah. It’s pretty amazing. I’m not a Call of Duty guy, but I went out to LA for the multiplayer Black Ops event. It’s not Infinity Ward, obviously, but Treyarch is bringing some really strong ideas to the fore. They’re building off of what I think Infinity Ward did in terms of like this kind of open, almost MMO-style progression system that kind of makes its own gravy. The online thing reminds me of another question: What have you felt were missteps with the Playstation that Sony could have avoided? I mean, hindsight is 20/20, but, to me, the big standout is taking so long to get the PS2 online.
Oh yeah! Just as you were asking the question, that was the very first thing that pops in my mind. Yeah, having that be an accessory that not everybody ends up buying into I think definitely put Sony behind on getting games online and building the Playstation Network platform. Xbox Live definitely had a couple of years’ headstart on Sony. Time has shown that it’s only continuing to become a more and more important aspect of the way gamers experience their games. So yes, I would absolutely concur that was an issue.
I’d also add the slow start that the Playstation 3 got with the initial price tag was a misstep. I think they sort of done a really good job of turning around with the Kevin Butler ad campaign, but the impression was that the console was for the high-end tech enthusiast and not for the mainstream. Now, the momentum that Playstation 3 has got is amazing, the worldwide install base gap has closed some, and it’s got to be close to insignificant at this point.
You look at the hardware itself, and it’s got amazing legs. The games that are continuing to come out are just pushing the hardware further. As a developer, it’s a luxury to be able to work with such a high-tech gadget. The Cell processor just seems like this bottomless pit of processing power. I am finding more, and more things we can do with it.
So, on that note: What is Naughty Dog as an organization thinking about 3D? How are you approaching it? It seems like you’re going to have to contend with it one way or the other. And people maybe expecting Uncharted 3D to be the next title in the franchise. But how are you coming to grips with how to implement it?
Sony is really good about not twisting our arms and forcing us to adopt to a technology that isn’t right for our game. But they also do give us early access to all of these new ventures. We had an early prototype of a 3DTV that we got to play with. At first, we just sort of experimented with it. We kind of got a prototype up and working. And we’re like, “OK, that’s cool, but it’s going to require a lot of effort to do well.”
Then we started seeing demos that other developers had been working with it longer, had put out. The MotorStorm Apocalypse team, the Evolution guys, they have really, really done amazing things with it. As soon as we saw that, we realized that if we put more effort than just sort of flipping the switch, 3D could be a really, really experience-changing technology. We can’t commit to supporting it in our next game. Not yet, anyway, but I sure want to. It’s really, really cool.
Do you feel like video games maybe better suited to deliver an immersive 3D experience than movies, just because operationally it’s different. You create the content differently. You don’t need a stereoscopic camera to shoot anything, it’s just a matter coding it differently.
Sure. There’s pros and cons I think that both mediums have. In games, yeah, we can put in our virtual cameras and implement it in various stages of production, but there are real-time performance costs that we’ve got to contend with. Like you said, movies have to sort of really build a 3D architecture from a flim’s initial stages, because it has to be shot with the right cameras. But, once it’s shot, it’s shot. And it’s in 3D permanently, and there aren’t too many continuing performance concerns. In a game, the processing required by 3D can make a game chug or it may not render well. Game developers may not have to buy new cameras, but each medium has its pros and cons, as far as creating 3D content. Video games are an interactive experience that can draw you into the experience and 3D could be the next big jump as far as immersing you further. Because you’re actually interacting with it, as opposed to watching it passively like a movie.
OK so, I guess the last thing I wanted to follow up on: what is the team working on that you can talk about?
Yeah, nothing specifically other than to tell you that we are very, very hard at work and have been for quite some time.
We are our own toughest critics, and looking back on what we’ve done on our past games, just sort of really analyzing on how we can improve the experience some and in the two major areas that we find inspiration that’s pushing the story-based, the narrative-based gaming forward and then really starting to embrace online play in a bigger and better way and see how that can engage our community of fans even more.