Driven By Love

Image by Love Us Not Eat Us

Kieron Gillen interviews Pete Hines for Eurogamer:

Eurogamer: What I’ve never quite understood about Fallout 3 is why would Bethesda buy the licence? Arguably “Bethesda does post-apocalyptic game” is a bigger story than “Bethesda makes Fallout 3″. Fallout is a relic to modern gamers. If you’d made your own world, you’d have sidestepped all the stress of dealing with over-protective fans.

Pete Hines: It’s like, if George Lucas died tomorrow – God willing, he doesn’t – and you’re a film director. And you’ve grown up making big epic films – maybe you’re Peter Jackson. And he finishes whatever his big next film is. And someone asks him, “what do you want to do next?” And he says, “I always wanted to make a big space movie. A big epic movie full of action.” And they ask, “do you want to do generic space movie that you make up yourself, or do you want to do Star Wars.” And he says, “I could do whatever, but I grew up as a kid and Star Wars made me want to get into making movies. It had such a profound impact on me, I would love to pick up this thing I loved and cared so much about and make the next one. And I’m not the guy who did the originals, but it means so much to me, and would mean much more to me to work in this world. It would be easier, perhaps less controversial and less pressure to do my own, but I’d rather do this thing that someone else did so much more.”

That’s the best analogy I can use. We could have made anything and people would have been interested in it, probably, but Fallout meant a ton to us, and we love the tone and flavour of that world, and how meaningful it was for its time, how different it was from other stuff that was out there. We said, “we could do anything, but what we’d really love to do is Fallout”. Use that character system and that world that’s so unique from anything else that we might come up with. We’d rather do that than come up with our own thing. Bring that to life – and bring it not to just people who played the it before, but people who’ve never got to play or experience it. There’s this great game and world which somebody came up that we really think you’ll want to play.

Eurogamer: You’re driven by love. Do you think that’s something the very hardcore Fallout fans miss?

Pete Hines: I don’t know whether they miss it or not – it may be that they don’t care and think, “that’s all well and good, but you’re not the ones we wanted to make this”. I don’t pretend to know exactly what their motivations and thought processes are. Those guys are very enthusiastic – we’re talking about the very hardest of the hardcore Fallout fan. They’re very passionate about this thing and protective about it. And that’s okay. It’s something they’ve clearly got a lot of attachment too. At the same time, we are making the very best game that we can. It’s not for any one group of folk – we’re making the best game we know how for a lot of people who’ll come to play and enjoy it.

Before I slap Kieron with a large trout, because of this last question, let me advise you guys and girls to read this interview, there’s a lot more to be read there. Even the mandatory (for Gillen) Ken Levine reference is interesting. Nothing new about the game itself though.

Update: this interview sparkled a great discussion on Rock,Paper,Shotgun, also worth a read.

Bethesda Expands to Asia

With a new office in Tokyo, from the Bethblog:

Thought I’d mention that we put out a release today announcing the formation of an office in Tokyo that will oversee our publishing/distribution in Japan and throughout Asia. It’s being headed up by Tetsu Takahashi (on the left in the photo above, along with Kei Iwamoto, one of our producers), who handed all the heavy lifting in publishing Oblivion PS3 and 360 in Japan last year. Really smart guy with a good team around him.

In addition to publishing Bethesda titles in Japan like Star: Trek Conquest (PS2), Star Trek: Legacy (Xbox 360), and Fallout 3 , they’re also handling games for other publishers like Bully (PS2), Bully SE (Xbox 360), and Major League Baseball 2K8 (PS3/PS2/PSP/X360).

Speaking to Next Gen Pete Hines talks a bit about this move:

Despite the Xbox 360′s poor presence in Japan, Oblivion debuted at number seven on Japanese software sales charts on Microsoft’s console.
The game was also voted as best game of the year by editorial staff at Japanese Famitsu publisher Enterbrain in 2007, beating out titles including God of War 2, Super Mario Galaxy and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass.
“…The fact that [Oblivion] was well received critically, and had the sales numbers to back it up, is a very positive sign for us as we look to expand our presence there,” Hines added.

He didn’t disclose exactly how much business ZeniMax expects to generate from its new Asian arm, as the firm is privately held.
Bethesda’s next high-profile title is Fallout 3, slated to arrive later this year in the US. ZeniMax Asia will be bringing the title to Asian territories.

Regarding the rampant piracy in Asia, Hines said it’s an issue in every region of the world, not just in the East.