Do the Video Game BAFTAs matter?

Fresh from winning a Video Game BAFTA for best Online Browser Game, we speak to Bossa head Henrique Olifiers about the effect of the awards on the industry, winning casual game Monstermind, and the state of the browser-game industry.

Q: Congratulations on the BAFTA award, can you take us through what you were thinking when you found out you had won?

Henrique Olifiers: Being nominated in two categories and running up against studios like EA, Disney and Sony was already huge for us. We never thought we’d achieve this with the first Bossa title. At the ceremony, while the online browser nominees list was playing I started thinking to myself ‘Come on, we can win this, come on, we can do it!’.

When the Pickford Brothers announced ‘And the winner is… Monstermind!’, not only me, but the whole team switched to ‘OMG! OMG! OMG!’ followed by the realisation that I would have to make a speech for the entire audience that would now primarily consist of childhood idols. All I had were a few seconds to compile a speech during the walk up the stairs!

An incredible experience, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I kid you not, every time a team member watches it again (which is happening on every post someone finds on the web these last days), a big smile of pride appears on my face!

Q: What effect do you think the Video Game BAFTAs have on the industry, if any?

HO: It certainly makes a huge difference on our daily work. When we got nominated, you could tell how energetic the team got, directly affecting our work for the better. Now that we’ve won, the studio seems quite different, we look at bigger challenges and dare to do more – we want to be there again next year and are working harder than ever to achieve it.

If it affects other studios in a similar way (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), then I think the impact on the industry is obvious; it makes us all strive to create better games.

Q: Last year Ste Pickford stated a radical re-think of the game BAFTAs was needed, arguing that smaller independent titles are often overlooked in turn for AAA titles, and that the registration fees that are required before submitting a game to be judged provides a barrier-to-entry for smaller companies. What are your thoughts on this having experienced them from the inside?

HO: Ste might have a point but, to counter that, the small studios and indies’ representation at this BAFTA was rather strong this year. The Pickford Bros themselves were there with Magnetic Billiards. I think the entry fee is reasonable to make developers think about what they’re submitting rather than submit anything and everything.

If you believe you got a shot at it, if you have faith in your game, the entry fee is negligible compared to what you can achieve. As long as it remains a symbolic fee (as it currently is) I’m all for it. But I see Ste’s point, maybe some indies might struggle… Then again, I’m pretty sure their fans would help if they asked for a few contributions!

Q: Do you feel the major difficulties GAME have been having will inevitably aid the growth of online and browser-based games?

HO: No, not at all, it’s the other way around: retailers are going through difficulties because of the unstoppable growth of online distribution and browser-based games. It’s game over, why would anyone walk to a store when they can buy and download it from say; Steam, or play straight from the browser? Not to mention that most of the time the player gets a much better deal online too.

The only way retailers could survive is to specialise on top service, to shift from stock and deliver goods with personal touch and advice. As a consumer, my experience with retailers is nothing short of appalling, staff would usually be miss-informed or ignorant of what I’m looking for, and some times downright offensive. For instance, I’ve seen first hand clerks treating female customers as non-gamers just because they were women, trying to push them kids’ titles just because it featured pink characters on the cover. And no, that didn’t go down well with the woman in question…

What’s left for them is to leverage on personal service, similar to the way GameStop seems to grasp so well over in the US. The question is, can they do it?

Q: Where do you see the future of browser-based titles in the next two years?

HO: Closing the quality and gameplay gap with their console counterparts. This for me is the big dog in town on the development side, with the likes of Epic, Turbulenz, Adobe, Unity and more all fighting for a slice of the action with very good tech to boot. Now it’s up to us game designers to put these tools to good use and create awesome games running on browsers so anyone can enjoy them.

No more walled gardens, everyone can play together online whenever they feel like it. How cool is that? Now, instead of convincing someone they have to buy a console and a game I like playing with them, I can just send them a web address and off we go.

This is the future.

Q: Do you think the success of casual online titles will ever hit a ceiling?

HO: No, never. There will always be people looking forward to light entertainment, either because they feel like taking a break from hardcore stuff for a bit or because that’s what they primarily like playing for a number of reasons.

I own every console under the sun, play anything from Dark Souls to Battlefield 3. And I also have a huge blast out of Monstermind, Plants vs Zombies or Sword & Sworcery. There’s nothing wrong with that!

As time goes by, casual games will evolve like everything else. Lines will be blurred and that’s good: labels suck. Tell me… Sword & Sworcery on the iOS, is it a casual or a hardcore game? I find it difficult to tell, seems like hardcore to me. But is it? Actually, does it matter at all?

Q: Can you talk about how Monstermind has grown since launch. Has it grown and what has the process been like developing it?

HO: Developing Monstermind was a huge challenge. We had to build a studio from scratch, develop all the tech involved and some of it is HUGE like the real-time multiplayer engine we use, which is essentially like an MMO at its core. Recruit talent, get investment, create and launch the game – all in the space of one year.

Fortunately we had a clear vision of the game we wanted to create, and it happened. It has been growing since launch, but not as fast as we would like it to, as we had to divert a lot of effort to bugfixing and platform improvements. Only recently we managed to iron out all the pesky bugs and focus on content production, the culmination of which is the update we’re about to make to the game this week, a massive Campaign Mode.

While hardcore players get the PvP aspect of the game, novice gamers struggle when left to their own devices in an open-ended world where you make your own fun by attacking your friends and defending your city against giant monsters. With the Campaign we’ll ease new players into the whole combat mechanic with a bit of hand holding, while hardcore players should love the higher-end NPC cities and revamped AI we’re throwing in the mix.

And that’s just the beginning. By listening to player feedback on every update we make to the game, we steer the development into different directions, effectively co-creating it with our players. This is what gives us an edge that traditional boxed products don’t have right now. And it’s awesome to work this way!

Q: Are you hoping to release more titles soon?

HO: Oh yes! Our next game (looking very good!) should be in close beta by July, watch out for this one. By end-2013, if all goes well, we should have half a dozen new titles out, every single one bringing something new to the table like Monstermind did.

We’ll do our best to stay on top of our game simply because that’s what we’re about: creating cool titles where gameplay is king. At least the BAFTA and our players seem to agree with us so far!