Gordon Hall sold his first commercial game to a company called Firebird when he was a teenager. Over the past 28 years, he has set up Mobius Entertainment, sold it to Rockstar, ran what then became Rockstar Leeds and developed three handheld Grand Theft Auto titles, among other games. He also stepped in to run Rockstar San Diego for around a year during the production of Read Dead Redemption.
After a break from game development, he’s back as chief creative officer of Activision’s new mobile studio in Leeds, The Blast Furnace. Its first title, Pitfall on iOS, is released today. We sat down with Hall to discuss his company’s vision for the future of mobile.
After Pitfall, do you have other Activision IPs coming to mobile?
At this point we can't mention any new titles, but Greg [Canessa, head of Activision mobile] and I have a remit is to look at all of Activision’s IP from retro all the way through the eighties, nineties and noughties. And also to the future for original new content. I can probably say what we’re not doing more than what we are doing – what we’re not going to be doing is taking games and porting them over and fudge in a control mechanism. Anything we do will be taking IP, and the original creative thoughts of the developers who built these fantastic games and franchises, and going forwards with what we want to do with the devices we have now. We’ve got so much more memory and CPU and GPU power.
With the console market in a malaise, why has it taken so long for Activision to move into mobile?
I think the console space isn't dying – the whole world’s got a recession on at the moment – console’s here to stay and that market might change but it’ll always be a pillar for Activision. Activision has taken its time to come to mobile because they’ve been very thoughtful about it. They’ve been watching, making sure it’s not a bubble, making sure that the ecosystem was right to enter with big, important disruptive titles that will have meaning. I think once they realised that it was trending towards being favourable for a big publisher to put serious money behind quality and innovation that’s when they decided to pull the trigger. And they’ve done it in a big way.
This is a new division, it’s headed up by Greg Canessa who was instrumental in creating Xbox Live Arcade, so this guy understands infrastructure. I’m sure you’ve heard about the Flurry deal, the indie deals that we’re doing – it’s a big operation. Where The Blast Furnace fits into that is to go for quality and innovation first and foremost and ensure that the titles that we do are impactful and meaningful. We’ll do all sorts of titles out of this studio over the years – it’s a case of looking at the titles and seeing what will make an impact.
What’s your position on freemium? Is that a big focus for the studio?
The microtransaction model I do like – you’ve got to walk a fine line so that you don’t abuse it. If used well I think it allows a developer to put a serious amount of money into a title and then still sell it incredibly cheaply or for free. Then you live or die on whether people enjoy playing your game. The games that are great will make money, the games that are poor and don't satisfy the player in the first five minutes won't get any of that revenue – that’s brilliant for the end user.
What kind of games will you be making for mobile?
I’m not going to comment on any other titles, but I do foresee the Blast Furnace doing a suite of titles from back catalogue titles to current large IP. It’s a quality studio, it’s top to bottom industry veterans, it's not cheap to run, there is intent to create impressive, important titles – if they’re small and visceral they can still be important. I’m certain there will be large scale, deeply immersive, incredibly rich experience coming out of The Blast Furnace, definitely.
Does this new investment in mobile signal a shift in priorities away from console development at Activision?
I think we should ignore comparing the console side to the mobile space, it’s like apples and pears. Mobile’s here and it’s growing at a blistering rate, people are becoming more aware of the opportunities within the mobile space. We’ve got a unique system whereby we can get feedback within a few seconds on what the players are doing and that gives us an unprecedented level of control over the game and the ability to change the game and meet what players want. I think that’s the new horizon we’re breaking through at the minute.
If developers get that right and care about the games and push quality I think this magnetic attraction to mobile will just grow and grow and grow. I’d like to see it grow exponentially over the next few years. The numbers are coming our way. There’s a tidal wave of change. People are playing games who never played games before, and when they play our games we need to give them a really great experience.
Can you tell us a little about the studio and how you came to be involved?
They’re done a brilliant job. It’s a great environment and the guys they’ve pulled together are all industry veterans. They’re all guys with ten to 20 years of industry experience. To have the opportunity to be surrounded by Britain’s very best talent in a new start up in what is probably the most rapidly expanding sector of the gaming industry? You can't say no to that. It’s just phenomenal. I want to be in there with the guys and produce some fantastic product. When this offer came along I couldn’t say no.
What kind of size studio are you building? Are you still recruiting?
Activision have a policy of not actually talking about the size of its studios, but at the minute we’ll probably just be recruiting a few more guys. They’ve done a great job of building this studio with all the talent we need, so we’re pretty close to being done at this point.