Charles Cecil speaks to Codeworks

On Wednesday 28 October, Charles Cecil will attend the London Games Festival as the keynote speaker at GameHorizon’s Best of British conference. Charles Cecil is the man behind the most successful console-based adventure franchise of all time, Broken Sword. Codeworks caught up with him ahead of the event to interview him about the current British games industry.

An interview with Charles Cecil

What do you think are the British games industry’s biggest strengths?

The greatest strength of the British video games developers is, as in so many other fields, design and innovation. Culturally we like to master the art, learn the rules: and then subvert them. We are irreverent. GTA3 could only have been created in Britain. Likewise Tomb Raider. As part of the Best of British event, I plan to draw a link between British games developers and their historic contemporaries - such as William Hogarth whose beautifully crafted but lewd paintings were considered so outrageous when they were created.

Did you ever consider developing games in another country?

I have no immediate plans to develop games outside the UK, despite the clear tax advantages of doing so. Apart from enjoying living in the city of York, I find that a critical mass of talented people, located within a limited geographic area, is vital in forming a dynamic, creative team, to approach projects in an innovative and original way. I am delighted to have recently worked with, amongst many others, such luminaries as Dave Gibbons who has brought my recent projects a totally new art style, and composer Barrington Pheloung who has created excellent, evocative music for our games.

Which other British games industry developers do you think have had the biggest impact on games industry globally?

There are so many: most recently the Rockstar team for the GTA3/4 series; before that Core with Tomb Raider; Peter Molyneux for Populous and more recently Fable; David Braben and Ian Bell with Elite. Not forgetting the stars of the 80s: JonHare and Chris Yates at Sensible, John Ritman, Dave Jones at DMA - and whatever happened to Andrew Braybrook and Steve Turner at Graftgold? The list is endless…

Where do you see the British games industry heading?

The British games industry is at a crossroads. To build value, British developers need to develop and continue to own the properties that they create. However the traditional route of going through a publisher requires an independent developer to fund the idea through to prototype, then assign the IP to the publisher for further funding - which is clearly crazy. This forces developers down the work for hire route - which makes more commerical sense in the medium term, but ultimately builds value for foreign publishers.

Having almost no British publishers is hugely disadvantageous: US publishers will always feel more confident giving a project to a local developer rather than an overseas one, because they can visit them more easily, talk to them in the same courts under the same legal system. For all these reasons, they will be prepared to pay considerably more to a local developer. This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that North American developers also benefits from tax credits and subsidies which means they both get paid more and can then claim a proportion back (up to 40% in the case of Canada). Unless this issue is sort out by the politicans, then I see the British retreating into creating smaller, more innovative projects, while the expensive blockbusters go abroad. It happened to Tomb Raider - it will happen to more projects.

What do you think are the British games industry’s biggest weaknesses?

The most obvious area of support would, of course, be tax credits. But political support and recognition is also very valuable - particularly to balance the often illfounded and ignorant attacks by certain parties. I am really encouraged and excited by new wave of political support for the video games industry, both creatively and in recognising the huge economic benefits. Ed Vaisey, MP (Shadow Minister for the Arts), is an ideal person to have talking about the benefits of the industry at the ‘Best of British’ event. 

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