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Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Interview: Ian Livingstone

The industry legend talks Lara, the new Golden Age of gaming, why UK needs less game journalists and more game designers, and that Panorama report.

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It's an odd scene in London's usually bustling St Pancras Station.

In the middle of the station's shopping district, Ian Livingstone, OBE and Life President of Eidos stands beside a mammoth mosaic made from fifty-six iPads, forming a single piece of artwork that commemorates Lara Croft's debut on Apple's iPhone and iPad.

But while there's a buzz generated around Livingstone as he chats animatedly during interviews, its in sharp contrast marked silence to his left. there over three thousand weary commuters line the side of the station, desperately trying to get a seat on one of the few departing Eurostar trains that day, the service affected by the adverse weather conditions. There's the occasional quizzical look over as a flash goes off, but most stare sullenly into the middle distance. It's an odd juxtaposition.

Once publicity snaps are shot, we retire to a nearby coffee shop to watch the unmoving lines of people and the travellers that hurry past with packed travel bags, seeking alternative routes homeward.

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Livingstone is a marked constrast to the suited and booted execs of the industry. Dressed casually, the 61-year-old veteran's eyes spark with amusement when discussing the worsening weather conditions, and while he's friendly, his remarks are to the point, short and considered. There's a sense he's mentally guarding himself for the questions to come - after so many years in the industry, he used to it.

This is the man, after all, that created Games Workshop, went on to become the public face for both Eidos and one Miss.Croft, earned a O.B.E for his life-long achievements in the videogame field in 2006 and is currently compiling a report on videogames to be published in the new year. He's an icon in the industry - a compliment that he's very quick to laugh off when it's suggested.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

How's the Christmas spirit?

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It's good. I'm enjoying-well,my kids are enjoying it. We spent the whole weekend building this monster snowman in the back garden.

You find your videogame habits have changed with the children?

Well I have to look at the age ratings now [laughs] "No you can't play Call of Duty - I'll play it when you go to bed."

We're looking at a Lara Croft game launching on a digital distribution model, on a mobile device rather than a standard games platform, and its not carrying the Tomb Raider name. Things have come a long way from ten years ago.

I think everyone is going to have a mobile device and that's become a games platform in itself. It's not just a logical step - it's necessary. Necessary that everyone with a key franchise gets on there as soon as possible. I've heard predictions that revenues from network sales are going to pass those of packaged goods by 2013.

Is it a necessary jump for the industry as a whole?

Yes. There's Facebook, that has become a games platform with half a billion people on the network, and over half of them playing games. It's a serious games platform and new platforms are emerging all the time and most of them, if not all of them, have online functionality. We have to be in that space.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

What's your thoughts on motion control with Microsoft and Sony joining the fray in the last couple of months?

It's great! Every new device...that's the beauty of the games industry. Technology drives innovation, new ways of playing games all the time. Other entertainment industries are quite static, whether its music or film, apart from CGI...the experience is pretty much similar every time, but with games there are new ways of playing. And so if you are the controller with Kinect or you have motion control with Move and Wii - great! Whether you want to play touch screen or if you want to play with a traditional controller, or playing with keyboard or mouse, and I'm sure there's more to come - it's brilliant. It'll be another platform for us to put content on.

What's the perception of Lara Croft now? Has it remained constant since her inception?

I think she resonates with the audience today pretty much as she has done before. She's had her ups and downs and she's firmly on the up again. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is an extraordinary achievement and won many awards and was a great success and we can expand that success on iPad and iPhone. She's an iconic character and stood the test of time. And just as James Bond has survived the test of time in movies so she has done in games. And the appeal is broadly the same - independent, athletic, adventurous, intelligent girl. Men want to play with her, women want to be her.

You same to have that down to a T. Have you become wearied being asked the same question through the years?

No, my feelings have remained the same. I've been involved with her right from the beginning. She's like a daughter to me.

Do you still feel protective over her?

I never felt like I had to protect her. There's nothing to protect, she's an amazing character. I've always been proud to boast about her rather than protect her.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

She's in good hands with Crystal Dynamics then?

Crystal Dynamics are an extraordinary studio. They are perhaps one of the best studios in the world. Way back when, it was a big decision to move Lara from Core Design to Crystal. But it turned out to be a great decision. The very essence of Crystal is Lara Croft now. They do a great job.

And now with a new Tomb Raider game announced refreshing the Lara character, how do you deal with retaining the ‘classic' Lara? Is there any problem having two iterations of the character co-existing?

I don't see any problem with that at all. She's big enough to be able to cope with different images surrounding her. She can be stylised - you could do a cartoon version of Lara Croft and she would still be in context within the games, the way you can with Batman. You have Batman the movie and Lego Batman - it's still Batman.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

With the new Lara and Tomb Raider tent-poling the retail release, will ‘classic' Lara be relegated to digital releases from now on?

Well we haven't announced what platforms she'll be in. The image that has now been created for Lara Croft for Tomb Raider, the new one, is extraordinary. The amazing response we've had from people show people care about Lara. The thing about Lara Croft is that she is different to everybody in their minds so you can't actually say one image will forever be Lara Croft because she is something to everybody.

Are icons still important, or has the industry shifted to brands, such as Call of Duty or Uncharted, rather than a singular character?

I think its both. If you've a great brand like Call of Duty or FIFA, and characters are brands in themselves, like Mario, Lara Croft, or Sonic - they became brands.

How's it feel being an icon yourself?

[laughs] I wouldn't know that.

But you're much admired across the board due to your accomplishments. Does it ever surprise you from the reaction you get from fans?

I've been very lucky to convert my hobby into a business. I started Games Workshop way back in 1975, not to start a business up but playing games with my friends and then saying "let's make a business out of this". And that's what I've always done. The pleasure has always been to self-induldge in games. But that other people have enjoyed what I've been doing? Fantastic.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Looking at the UK industry over the years, what's your perception - is it still going strong?

[long pause] The UK market got up to a flying start in the 1980s with Clive Sinclair and affordable computers...its no surprise that games like Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Fable etc etc were created here. The problem with the UK, and not just with videogames, but other creative industries, is they're great in creating intellectual property but not in hanging onto them. So there's two issues at the moment.

One, you got high costs in the country, and secondly you haven't got the right skills anymore. You've got huge demand for artists and animators - those with the right skills for the studios and they're simply not there. And those that we have got are being tempted to move to Canada. You talk to recruiters and they say one in four of the best people are shifting to Canada. And I want a situation were people believe the UK to be the best place to produce games. Because we are very good at making games. Its just that a lot of our game companies have been bought by foreign companies and given our heritage, its just madness.

And you think that tax breaks by government and such would prevent this?

Tax breaks would certainly help. Its not a handout its more creating an even-playing field. Unlike Quebec, there's no tax break in the UK like there is for film.

Its quite clear from the research that we're publishing in the new year that we're not addressing the issue. We're churning out so many journalists, and media study courses. We want people to have the hard skills necessary to make the games rather than the philosophical knowledge about the games.

And lastly, access to finance. So many developers find it hard to get access to funds, be it state funds or banks. Its very difficult for investors and innovators to see eye-to-eye about videogames. It's a very dynamic and fast-moving industry so its easier to say no to game companies than take the risks and invest. Now with the move to online I do see investors struggling to keep up.

But there's never been a greater opportunity than today for content creators to reach a global audience via high-speed broadband. It could be a new golden age of gaming. You don't have to upfront these massive production and marketing costs and go through traditional distribution channels for products to appear on retail stores. Small to medium sized teams can access global markets.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

It feels like things have cycled back to the eighties, with small development teams able to garner such success.

That doesn't mean to say every game is going to be successful that goes online. For every Angry Birds there probably ten thousand lost causes. But the opportunity is there to do the right thing. What self-publishers need to understand is that publishing isn't just putting it out there, but involves marketing and that's the bit they have to learn about the most. Discovering and reaching audiences is not a simple matter as putting it out there.

It'll always be necessary to have a marketing team alongside the developer, rather than one team self-promoting?

If they could, they should get someone close to the product to get them into the it and do their own PR. You don't necessarily need be able to do corporate press releases. The world is connected and they want to hear someone talk from the heart rather than reading a sterile "I'm delighted to announce that-" They want to know about the person behind it, and you build up trust and get a lot more exposure, I think.

What do you think of the response to the Panorama report?

To addiction? As I said in the report there's no evidence of anywhere that supports that there is any addiction associated with games. If you got hundreds of millions of people playing games or any other activity there are bound to be one or two people obsessed with what they do.

Panorama seem to want to find the extreme cases and try and pull a view that games are addictive rather than a balanced view that for most people 99.9 percent of people it's a great entertainment activity that's absolutely not addictive.

It's addictive in the sense that anything you enjoy doing you want to do again and again, be it playing golf to watching X-Factor. Should JK Rowling make her books shorter because you might be addicted to read the whole thing in one go? It's a nonsense trying to prove addiction. Its sensationalist.

Read our thoughts on the new Tomb Raider here.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

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