The Future of Journey devs 'thatgamecompany'

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Next game will be multi-platform...

 

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/02/11/jenova-chen-on-the-future-of-thatgamecompany

 

Jenova Chen on the Future of thatgamecompany

 

New games, new platforms and new opportunities.

 

It’s not easy to follow a game like Journey. After winning various Game of the Year awards (including IGN’s), thatgamecompany co-founder Jenova Chen is feeling the pressure of debuting a successful follow-up. In an interview with IGN from the DICE summit in Vegas last week, Chen discussed his next game, the decision to bring it to multiple platforms, and where he thinks the industry is headed.

 

“It has to be better. I can’t just let people down,” Chen told IGN about his next game. “Even just before coming to DICE, I was like ‘this is not going to top Journey.’ But I can’t see a game that’s more epic than the journey of a lifetime, right? From living to dying. How can you do something to top that? That’s tremendous pressure. I’m trying to stay away, trying not to directly compete with Journey in my next game. That’s what I’m working on right now.”

 

When that game does hit stores, it will be on multiple platforms for the first time. “The funny thing is, we started out trying to make games for humans, not for gamers with lots of experience in gaming,” Chen said. “Back then it was crazy to talk about this, to force everybody to make a game like that, when we were making games for PS3 players. If a game is meant to be played by everybody, it deserves to be on multiple platforms so everybody can play it. It’s very natural for me to do it this way. Also, it makes sense from a business perspective. The value of the company and the money the company makes are directly mirrored by how much service we can provide to society. If we can make great games for PS3 players…how many PS3 players are out there? If we can make great games for everybody, that’s a much bigger service. There’s no reason I shouldn’t do that.”

 

While Chen couldn’t disclose exactly which platforms he's developing for, he did confirm that he’s looking to let as many people play the game as possible. “Right now we’re definitely looking at a bunch of popular platforms – PC, browser, mobile, tablet. Everybody’s looking at those. We’re trying to figure out if there’s a console that we want to focus on more. It’s early to be talking about which ones are our next platform. But I definitely want to make sure that whatever platform it’s on, I don’t have people telling me ‘hey, can you port this game to this platform, because I don’t have this other platform?’”

 

In analyzing various platforms, Chen said input is the challenge. Chen believes that the input should be invisible so the player doesn’t have to think about it. “Right now I’m looking at the touch interface,” Chen said. “Pretty much all the new PCs, phones, tablets, and consoles have touch in some way. The Wii U, for example. Who knows what the PS4 might have? The PS Vita has touch. And what about the 360? I’ve been seeing all these new kids. They like playing with their tablets. I ask them ‘why don’t you play on consoles?’ ‘Well, it’s right here. I don’t want to go turn on the TV and go through all these things.’ So I can see the younger generation is more accustomed to touch. My mom came to my laptop and tried to touch my web page, because she’s been using an iPad. I think it’s more natural as an interface. It definitely doesn’t have the feel of a joystick. All this tactile feedback is gone. But since we’re considering multiplatform, touch seems to be the most universal method at this point.”

 

“I don’t have a problem with hardware,” he continued. “Everybody’s chips are getting more powerful. The biggest problem I have is the interface design. How many steps you need to go through to get to the PSN, to start an account, and to type in your name and e-mail through that terrible interface just to get everything set up. There are so many steps. You should just turn it on and you get the experience. You see the game, click on it, pay for it, it’s there. I wrote a long e-mail with like 20 points on how to improve the PSN store. I’m not able to change it. But now we can do that because we’re independent. I could control the entire experience, from how you learn about the game to how you get the game to how you play the game. I’m excited about that. I could make the whole experience streamlined.”

 

The idea of appealing to a bigger crowd is something that Chen continued to reiterate. He sees thatgamecompany’s games as a chance to connect with people on an emotional level, and he doesn’t want to limit the pool of those potential connections.

 

“So many people wanted to play the game, but they couldn’t,” Chen explained. “For Sony, we can only port it to Vita, and that’s it. I feel like, after all, I’m a game developer. I provide entertainment through an interactive experience. I shouldn’t be bound by the platform. Some people were saying ‘why don’t you do a third-party publishing deal?’ We could. I definitely think we could consider it. Even right now, we’re still talking to Sony, because they’re curious about what’s next. But I’m also thinking about a lot of the new things happening right now. Most gaming is free-to-play now. Everybody I talk to is looking at free-to-play. Well, how do you design free-to-play? Most free-to-play feels like they’re trying to make you frustrated so you have to pay money. Let’s say I wanted to do a game that’s free-to-play. That’s not to say the next game is going to be free-to-play, because we don’t even know. But the publisher will have their opinions. ‘You have to use our login accounts and payment system, blah blah blah.’ EA has Origin, for example. Valve has Steam. They all have a different system. It would make sense if what we were trying to do aligned with the system they have. I want to make the game the priority, more than who we’re working with.”

 

As for Vita, Chen says he wouldn’t mind eventually seeing flOw, Flower or Journey make their way to the portable. “We made those games to make people enjoy something and hopefully change their life. I wish they could be played by as many people as possible. If that happens to be a Vita port, I’ll totally support it. Except if the port is not good. A lot of people who played flOw in China played the ported version of the game because the PSP is available, but not PS3. The graphics are way worse, you know? And the control doesn’t use the tilt. It’s a stick control. It’s not the experience we had on PS3, so it’s not really our game anymore. It’s some other game.”

 

Despite moving on from Sony, Chen still believes it’s a great place to start. He looks at the success of The Unfinished Swan developer Giant Sparrow -- who signed the same deal as thatgamecompany -- as an example of how Sony is still great for fostering innovation. “It’s a great model for creating artistic games,” he told us. “You don’t have to worry about the financial situation. Journey was an exception because we were finishing the deal, so we had to get another deal. I had to spend about a year and a half during Journey looking for that next deal. It was painful. I wanted to focus on the game. But I couldn’t. For Giant Sparrow, they could just focus on the game and make it really good. The difference between Giant Sparrow and us is that our first game was nine months. Their first game was three years. Their first game was way better than our first game. So we’ll see. I think it’s very unique. Ian [Dallas] is a very different game developer than I am. I look forward to seeing what he does next.”

 

“I have to give Sony props,” Chen said. “They’re still continuing to support that. Sound Shapes, which is Sony Santa Monica. Unfinished Swan. It’s all the smaller players who are pushing forward innovation. Sony is in a different place now. When we joined them, it was the PS2. Then the PS3 came out. I think they’ve always tried to differentiate themselves from the Xbox 360. They were doing what Xbox is not doing, basically. They were trying to stand out. What I like the most is that they wanted to make games with mature themes. They wanted to consider it as an art form. It certainly aligned with us, and aligns with all the small indies who are trying to make something artistic. I don’t get that vibe from Nintendo or Microsoft. I got myself in trouble the last time I said that. Someone misquoted me saying something like ‘gamers on Xbox 360 aren’t mature enough.’ That’s not what I said. But from the publishers’ relationships, I can feel that. I know these people. I worked for them for the past six years. They wanted to do something meaningful for society. But I’m not trying to do a promotion for Sony here. I’m sure the people at Microsoft also feel the same way. It’s just that I don’t know too much about them.”

 

Chen isn’t ready to show off thatgamecompany’s next project just yet, but he says he still expects the reveal to come in 2013. “I was entertaining the idea of doing some kind of big announcement this year, but based on the progress we’ve made and the fact that I still don’t know exactly what the core gameplay mechanics are, it might be slightly later. I was hoping to do it around GDC time, but maybe…I don’t know. When it’s ready. I think this year we can definitely announce something, but we're talking about it. Should we just say ‘alright, this is the kind of game we’re making’ without actually showing anything impressive? People want to see impressive things. The stuff we have right now is not impressive yet. This is the problem. You have so much expectation, and you’re like ‘yeah, that’s probably not good enough to release.’”