The UK computer games industry is worth £1.72 billion and employs over 7,000 people – and not many people know that its heartland is in Guildford. Charles Dean speaks to the entrepreneur who made that possible
Between massive releases like Grand Theft Auto and browser games like Farmville, around 70% of the population plays video games – and despite stereotypes, more than half of those are women. So why is it that video games seem so opaque to most of us?
Even if you haven’t been to the cinema in a while, you probably know what blockbusters are up for release. You’re familiar with the superstar actors, the big name directors, the classic films everyone pretends they’ve watched. The video games industry, however, remains a riddle to most.
Well, the Hollywood of the UK games industry can be found in Guildford. It might seem an unlikely headquarters, but just off the A3 you’ll find small start-up teams working on games for your phone next door to huge companies developing titles expected to sell millions of copies. The man responsible? Peter Molyneux whose first computing venture was financial software.
“We came to be based here through circumstance,” he says, referring to his first video game company, Bullfrog Productions. “We were accidently sent three Commodore Amiga computers and decided to write a game.”
It sounds almost accidental, but that game was Populous, the first of the so-called ‘god games’ where the player controls every aspect of their digital subjects’ lives. It put Molyneux on the map, and would influence the creation of such famous titles as The Sims and Clash of Clans.
Molyneux himself left Bullfrog shortly after it was acquired by the American giant Electronic Arts, to found Lionhead Studios – also based in Guildford. Not to be tied down, he left again once Lionhead was bought by Microsoft. He then founded his latest gaming venture 22cans.
Peter is clearly loyal to his hometown. He gives talks at the University of Surrey, and invites local schools to see how the studios work. He says he is proud to produce things that he can put a ‘Made in Guildford’ sticker on. But video games are often accused of being damaging to children; does he feel there’s any truth to that?
“Games are just another entertainment medium. It’s the difference between Fifty Shades of Grey and Enid Blyton”, he declares. “If I only watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I’d think that the cinema is bad for children. Not all games are like Call of Duty.” He points out that the Playstation is now 21 years old. “There are people who have grown up with games, so they know what they’re about.”
Molyneux may simply be fond of Guildford, but for everyone else, he was unquestionably the draw. Barry Meade, a colleague of his at Bullfrog and now director of Fireproof Studios, explains:
“It wasn’t just because there was a video games company happening here, it was that it was probably the best in the world at the time. They were here, they were the best, and Peter was a visionary games maker”.
The size of the industry has only continued to grow. Last August, video game companies were allowed to start claiming tax relief as a creative industry – a decision that generated an estimated £50 million for the UK in its first six months.
Nor is it just the developers who are prospering. Video game reviewers – both serious and comic – can earn serious money from their online efforts. The most famous make hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in advertising revenue, often simply for playing games in an entertaining fashion. British gamers are developing their own crop of celebrities, with names like ‘Totalbiscuit’, ‘Yahtzee’, or ‘KSI’.
Playing games for a living isn’t limited to comics and reviewers – some gamers live off prize money from tournaments, which others watch live or online. Last year the game Defence of the Ancients 2 held its international championship in Seattle, with a total prize pool of over $10 million. These electronic sports – or ‘eSports’ – are only growing. The US has even recognized professional gamers as athletes, granting them the same access to international visas as any other sporting pro.
Despite the advent of the gaming elite, games are becoming increasingly accessible to everyone. Mobile phones can access a huge array of free games, such as Candy Crush and Fruit Ninja, though as some are discovering, ‘free-to-play’ often isn’t. Lots of little ‘optional’ payments – called microtransactions – can stack up quickly.
Setting aside the possibility of children accidentally racking up hundreds of pounds in costs on their parents’ mobiles, Peter Molyneux finds free-to-play “a fairer model than we are used to. As a society, we are used to paying up front. With free-to-play, you are paying as you consume”. However, he’d rather it was all fair play – “it must not be pay-to-win”.
He also feels this sheer variety of games is a huge opportunity for creative freedom. “If I had pitched the idea of Angry Birds to you – that I throw a bird at some sticks to make some pigs fall down – I am sure you’d have been reaching for the straitjacket! But independent studios can make games that break the mould.”
Kickstarter, the online crowdfunding website, is often a source of support for such studios, allowing them to drum up resources for the most outlandishly entertaining concepts. Molyneux himself turned there in 2012 to fund his latest effort, Godus. Indeed, at the time he described it as “the only way to make a game in today’s world”.
Though now, three years later, his enthusiasm is somewhat tempered. Advertising your game before it’s fully defined “is a hugely risky undertaking that can be very destructive to the final quality of the game.”
Presumably, giving people specific expectations is a real problem when your process is so experimental?
Molyneux says, “What ended up happening with Godus is that people get a view of what the game is going to be like from what you’ve said, and that view is quite often different from what the final game is.”
Godus was intended to be another ‘god game’ for PC, a return to form where players would link the worlds they’d sculpted into a huge universe populated by billions. What’s actually been produced is a fairly charming mobile game and a lot of angry, disenfranchised Kickstarter backers.
Molyneux is hugely repentant, declaring that he’ll make sure everyone gets what they paid for… but this isn’t the first time he’s shot for the moon. The father of Guildford gaming is somewhat notorious for pitching hugely innovative ideas that turn out to be impractical to implement – for Fable, his second game with Lionhead Studios, he boasted that the grass would grow in real time.
It’s telling that, despite a reputation for failed resolutions, Godus raised more than half a million pounds on Kickstarter. To most, Molyneux isn’t dishonest, just hugely passionate, creative and overambitious; qualities that have lined his path with U-turns, but also turned his hometown into the UK’s video game central.
A week after speaking to us, he unveiled his plan to avoid causing further disappointment in Guardian interview. “I think honestly the only answer to this is for me to completely stop talking to the press.”
Of course, Peter then proceeded to give interviews to several other news outlets. Where the flighty godfather of Guildford games is concerned, it seems, some things never change.
You can Follow @22cans on their Twitter, or find out more on their website
Additional reporting by Charles Raspin
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