TVG.SPEAKS... Paul Howarth Feature
Derek dela Fuente
08/11/2005
TVG's veteran gamer rekindles his youth along with the former founder of Reflections...
There is a certain collection of industry people who over the few years have kept a low profile but have continued to make an impact to the gaming scene. Paul Howarth is one such person, coming to prominence in the late 80s but still very much playing with videogames in the present day.
Our very own veteran Derek dela Fuente recently had the chance to speak with Paul Howarth about his past, present and futureā¦
Reflections, the team behind Shadow of the Beast, Destruction Derby and Driver amongst several others began in the late 80ās; could you firstly tell us a little about the team back then, how many made up the Reflections team and what position did you hold? Were they happy days looking back?
Reflections was initially just Martin and myself. After a while we became three with Cormac Batstone joining us to initially develop Awesome for Psygnosis. As a small team I was an equal partner in the business and worked as a programmer. Looking back, yes, they were happy days ā“ no politics, no budgets ā“ no worries, just a few guys working hard and making good games. Donāt get me wrong, these modern times arenāt bad, the only difference is that youāre part of a larger effort and have to rely on the rest of your team as well as yourself.
Reflections along with DMA Design were one of the early flagship teams for Psygnosis. Do you feel that the model that Psygnosis created in presenting the latest talent and games, which at the time was ground breaking, could ever be recreated and how did Psygnosis manage to pool so many teams and industry people who are still around today?
Psygnosis was the first and only company we approached for our Amiga games. We looked on the shelves and through the games magazines and they stood out as being THE company to work with. Their image was fantastic; they stood for quality games and this attracted developers. I remember thinking we were lucky to get an appointment with them but felt that they wouldnāt want our game and weād have to try elsewhere. How wrong I was. They were a great company to work for; the two owners, Ian and Jonathan were excellent to work with and I have the greatest of respect for them. Could this be repeated? Iām not sure. I hope so. So many publishers these days seem to be box shifters and not primarily interested in quality.
Psygnosis offered development teamsā advice, expertise and technologies; do you feel this is lacking today?
Yes, Psygnosis worked in partnership with us. They really wanted us to succeed. I remember them pushing new development kits on to us ā“ I wasnāt so sure to start with, but they were right. Their dev kits enabled us to produce better games and that was really cool. Itās rare to find a good partnership these days, but good people do still exist in this industry, theyāre just hard to find.
"I think thereās more excitement now than ever before! "
Were you a part of Reflections when they were designing Driver and was the split with Martin an amicable one?
Driver was after my time and the split as far as I was concerned was two or three people going they own ways to do their own things.
In terms of sales do you have any figures on how many copies of Shadow of the Beast 1, 2 and 3 sold? (It would be nice to compare with todayās sales)
Not many by modern standards. No more than 50,000 on the Amiga. Although Beast 2 did several hundred thousand as part of Commodoreās bundling of D Paint and various games along with their machine.
Does the passage of time and nostalgia dull the senses or was there more excitement on release of games way back in the 80s and early 90s? (Itās definitely the age ā“ Ed) Games tended to be more creative, programmers and artists seemed to understand the capabilities of the machines in comparison to today. Do you feel that development teams have grown with the rate of the technology over the last 15 years?
I remember eagerly awaiting releases of titles such as Elite and Starglider and from a different perspective, games that Iād developed. Was it all more exciting back then? Well for me yes, but thatās age I fear. Look at some of the phenomenon seen today ā“ stores opening all night for new console releases and people queuing outside stores for big releases. I think thereās more excitement now than ever before!
I think that draining every last drop of power from todayās machines is simply too expensive and not commercially viable. Teams no longer concentrate all of their energy on this because machines are so powerful that itās not really that important any more. If you safely use 85% of a machines power then youāll get some pretty impressive results. More important today is the stability and robustness of software; crashes and lock-ups are simply not acceptable anymore.
"ā¦and then a publisher doing little more than packaging it and putting it on the shelf."
Back in the 90ās lack of hardware memory for consoles was a prime factor and it still seems to be the bane of many development teams nowadays. Do you feel this issue will ever go away?
Hmmm, a good question. I think for the foreseeable future (until we invent organic memory or some other non conventional form of storage) this problem isnāt going to go away. Console and even PC costs need to be kept down otherwise youāll continually be faced with what we have today in that no-one is going to put in more memory than what they can get away with. Back in the Amiga days I had 1/2MB (512K) to play with. On modern PC games weāre using around 512MB ā“ over 1000 time more! Is it enough for us? No! Itās like having a big desk ā“ you just fill up the space and want more.
What would you say is the biggest change over the last 15 years in terms of game creation, apart from more money and bigger teams involved?
The whole approach to writing a game is now different ā“ much more grown up. What Iāve seen in recent years is that just writing a great game doesnāt cut it any more. Unless youāve got a marketing team on your side that want to see the project do well then youāre really going to struggle. In the past development was a few artists, a few coders writing a game and then a publisher doing little more than packaging it and putting it on the shelf. These days there is huge competition for shelf space. The whole marketing campaign for a game can start a whole year before a game launches. It really is a joint effort these days
You have moved from part of a team to Development Director. What does your current position entail at Deep Red and can you fill the readers in on what you have done over the last 10 years?
After the Amiga days I dabbled on the consoles ā“ SNES, Mega Drive, Jaguar, Saturn and PlayStation, releasing a few relatively low key titles. For the last 7 years Iāve been a part of Deep Red Games. As Development Director I oversee all of our games in production ā“ usually three games at any one time. My goal is to help the teams to produce good, fun games on time and within budget.
Are you in contact with many of the personnel who worked at Psygnosis?
To be honest, Iām pretty poor at keeping in touch; I seem to spend all of my time working! Iām good friends with Cormac still who is no longer in the industry, but most of the others are people that I bump into from time to time ā“ the industry is still a small place.
Are you excited about the future of gaming even though the present climate of the rapidly declining Britsoft scene does not bode well!?
Definitely. There is so much I still want to do in this industry. In particular the type of world building, social simulation games that Deep Red makes have only just scratched the surface of the potential that is there, although Tycoon City: New York is a game that we feel is the first one we have made that is beginning to tap that potential. There is loads to do on this front and other fronts we as a creative industry havenāt started on yet, and I see no reason for this work not to be lead by British developers.
Thanks to Paul Howarth for sharing his thoughts on the differences between four generations and enduring Derekās whim for nostalgia. Look out for closer looks at the videogames industry from TVG.SPEAKSā¦ soon.
