MC: First, I want to ask you about the Blitz Games website (www.blitzgames.com) which may be one of my all time favorite game developer sites. It just put me in a good mood as I clicked around. Clearly, quite a bit of time and effort went into it. What value does your website bring to your company? Is it a genuine business tool, representing what Blitz is about to potential business partners and employees? Or is it just an amusement? I was definitely amused.

Philip: It’s definitely a business tool but we’re glad you like it! We’ve got a very talented web designer in-house and it’s pretty much all his work. We wanted it to be fun, almost like a game in itself, as well as be easy to navigate and have all the information easily accessible. These days it’s vital to have a strong website presence and we like to think that we can strengthen our publishers’ efforts in promoting our games by having such detailed mini-sites on each of our titles. As well as that, people tend to judge their first impressions of a company by its website in this day and age so we wanted it come across in a way that reflected what we’re like – fun, accessible and professional!

MC: Before I leave the website topic, I did want to ask about the "GameOn" section of your site, which is actually an impressively deep careers site that you originally launched just about four years ago. The site contains detailed information about industry job roles, along with industry advice, a list of UK-based schools offering game-related programs, and tutorials for the major disciplines. What inspired you to put all this information together and maintain the GameOn site?

Philip: When we were starting out as teenagers the equipment we were using (such as Sinclair Spectrums, BBC Microcomputers, Vic20s, etc) was very accessible. You could get right at the source code for any of the games you could buy and you could teach yourself how to program with a bit of perseverance and a lot of late nights! Nowadays teenagers have PS2s or Xboxes and while the games are way, way better, there’s no way of getting to the operating system of the machines or actually checking out programming. We began to realize a few years ago that this was having the effect that loads more people were playing games but not many of them were experimenting in the way we did, and therefore learning the skills that would bring them into the industry in later life.

MC: In a 1996 interview by your father Malcolm, Andrew said that your Dizzy games were more creative than taking an idea from a film or sport. (For those who don’t know, the Dizzy games were original 2D games featuring an egg character and other "yolkfolk" and which spawned a cult following in the UK). You guys have created games based on films such as Lilo & Stitch, Chicken Run, The Mummy Returns and now the upcoming Bad Boys II. Some developers seem frustrated that the big publishers are leaning more and more on licensed properties – that it is increasingly tough to get original game ideas to market. What is your take on the matter today?

Andrew: It’s true that it’s increasingly tough to get original game ideas picked up because with so many more games in the marketplace (and each one costing so much to make) each publisher is streamlining their product range to only include ‘safer’ bets that they can be sure of big sales with, and that usually means sequels and licenses just because there’s already a proven marketplace. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get an original game made. We’ve recently released Zapper for Infogrames and although it’s inspired by some classic games of old, it’s an original character with bags of personality and the team had an enormous amount of creative freedom.

MC: Another licensed title you worked on was based on the film Titan AE. Ultimately, Fox Interactive pulled the plug after you had developed the game for both PC and PSOne. Apparently, the film had not done as well as they expected. What do you take into consideration now when agreeing to develop a film-based game?

Andrew: This is always a risk and everyone involved in the Titan project was really disappointed when the game was cancelled but it’s an unfortunate aspect of the industry that games can get canned at any time, whether they’re licenses or not. When we’re offered a licensed project we obviously check out the license itself and try to predict how strong it will be in a year and half’s time when the game is released. At the end of the day, though, there are a huge number of considerations that our management team go through before accepting any project – checking out the license is just one of them.

MC: When I told a friend of mine that I would be interviewing the Oliver Twins, he raved about how much he loved your game Fuzion Frenzy for Xbox, a game that’s outside the current shoot ‘em up norm, at least here in America. Can you tell me more about the game and its development?

Andrew: Glad you liked Fuzion! There’s an original title for you! ;-) It’s always a big hit with everyone who plays it and the team who worked on it were often found staying late just having fun with their own game during the development! It came about when Microsoft came to us and said they wanted a fun multi-player game for the late-night ‘post-pub’ gaming crowd that would get lots of people on the Xbox and buying extra controllers. We came up with Fuzion Frenzy in just 10 months and ended up being the first ever game to get through Xbox approval! It was obviously a pretty hectic development schedule and we put a huge team on to it but it paid off because we continuously get complemented on the finished product.

MC: By the time this interview runs, the world may very well be at war. I read an article today on the reason behind the overwhelming number of Academy Award nominations for the film musical Chicago. The thinking is when the world is a rather scary place to live, people look more for whimsical escape than harsh reality. Do you think current world events do, or will, have an impact on games?

Philip: I think it’s a valid assessment that people seek more fantasy when reality gets a little too harsh. We’ve seen it time and again through our history – just look at the cinema boom in the 40s and the launch of futuristic TV shows such as Star Trek in reaction to the start of the cold war in the 60s/70s. We’ve even seen it recently since 9/11 with fantasy and superhero films like Lord of the Rings and Spiderman giving the public a more hopeful vision of the future and I think that games fit into this ‘escape from reality’ well. There was also evidence that showed that immediately after 9/11 there was a huge uptake in video rentals and game purchases, simply because people were less inclined to travel and more inclined to do leisure activities that meant they didn’t have to leave the house.

MC: In your experience, have you found the approach to game development to be different between the UK and the US, or other countries for that matter, or has game development also become something of just one global village?

Philip: Different companies have slightly different ways of working in different parts of the world and that’s always been the case but as the industry grows up there are more and more standards appearing. Publishers expect a certain level of service and quality from their developers regardless of where they’re based and that’s only to be expected. We’re more than happy to encourage this because we’re confident that we’re one of the best run and most creative developers around.

MC: GIGnews receives many questions from people saying they’re a new game developer and they need to know X or they need to know Y. Generally speaking, at least based on the questions asked, many seem ill-equipped to be starting their own company. Do you have any general business tips for these folks? Lessons learned in your experience?

Philip: My one bit of advice to someone trying to start their own games business nowadays would simply be: don’t! Let me explain… When Andrew and I started all we needed was one computer, a desk, the two of us (and lots of coffee), and in about a month we could produce a game ready for market. Now, if you want to make even an average PS2 game, you need at least 20 people, tens of thousands of dollars worth of computers, software and development kits, office space, and support staff to deal with admin, recruitment and payroll issues. And all that’s assuming that the publisher will pay you for the development process, either up-front or monthly. If you’ve not got a publisher on board then you need to factor in another couple of million dollars to pay the ongoing salaries and costs of your team.

MC: Working with family can be a tricky business. Not everyone is suited to it. You guys obviously have made it work. Do you think you would have had as much success individually? Do you each bring something different to the table making the whole greater?

Philip: We get asked the whole ‘twins’ question a lot and we both think that it’s generally been more of a benefit than a hindrance. In the early days it’s what kept us going – if we’d simply been mates we’d probably have just yelled at each other and walked away but because we had to have breakfast together the next morning most disagreements didn’t last long! As we went into business it became a benefit in a different way. As twins we’ve always found that we tend to think about things in the same way and now that we’ve got a business of over 140 people it helps that we can effectively be in two places at the same time!

Andrew: Initially we both did a bit of everything towards making each game but as we began to hire people and the business grew we naturally went in different directions, and away from the coalface of development. I was always the slightly more techy one and I became the Development Director, now the Chief Technical Officer. Philip was better at speaking and representing what we were after and became the Managing Director, and later CEO. It’s not just the two of us running things now though, we’ve also got an excellent Chief Operations Officer and a HR Director and between the four of us we keep Blitz moving forwards.

MC: If you could narrow your combined success down to three key elements, what would they be?

Philip: Hiring talented people, plenty of hard work and just a little luck!

Andrew: Being in the right place at the right time, having the vision to see how big games would become, and plenty of hard work!

MC: And, finally, I’m from Texas where we eat quite a bit of Mexican food. Whenever I interview someone from Texas, I ask their favorite Mexican food restaurant. Although Blitz Games is not located anywhere near Texas, but, rather in Warwickshire, UK, I still wondered about Mexican food. I did a little research and there appears to be a Mexican food restaurant in Warwickshire (6 Guy St, Leamington Spa) called Chico’s. Have you ever eaten there and, if so, is it any good?

Andrew: There certainly is a good ‘Tex Mex’ restaurant very close to our office. My office is around 100 yards from it. I call it Tex Mex because every couple of years it’s changed hands and changed name, I’m not exactly sure why! I’m very predictable though, I always order Chicken Fajitas and they’re particularly fantastic there! J

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