God Save The UK Developer?

Thanks to TotalGames.net for its GamesTM-reprinted feature on the alleged fall of the British game developer. The piece argues: "It all used to be so different in the Eighties. Ignoring any rose-tinted arguments about whether games back then were better, worse or more peanut butter-flavoured, the inarguable statement can be made that they were certainly more British." But now, even though "the most popular game of this new decade - Grand Theft Auto - is British, despite all of Rockstar's attempts to hide the fact", the piece laments the lack of distinctive UK games with Python-esque worldwide impact: "Of course, it doesn't cost £5 million to pick up a pen and start writing a sketch about parrots, but surely the odd very obviously British game could be smuggled through?"

Coming Soon

[samael]

Black & White 2
Fable
BC
The Movies

And that's just from _one_ UK group....

Re:Coming Soon

[Cipster]

Also Football Manager (the renamed Championship Manager which is supposed to come out this year).

Re:Coming Soon

[bear pimp]

• Rage
• Hotgen
• Kaboom Studios
• Computer Artworks
• Mucky Foot
• Crawfish
• Attention To Detail
• Silicon Dreams.

Just a few of the studios that were lost (as touched on in the article)

Also, Infogrames (I won't sully the name of Atari by using it) pulled the plug on it's UK studios. Core has been pulled apart and is left with a far smaller development staff and a custodian manager.

It seems like the UK games industry may go the way of the UK film industry, the investment just isn't there unless Hollywood (EA let's say!) decide to pay for it. Let's face it, UK development is wholly reliant on US money. Maybe the independent movement will be it's only saviour as it seems to have been with the UK film industry.

Re:Coming Soon

[antime]

Psygnosis became SCEE Studio Liverpool several years ago. They were part of Sony even before the name change.

GTA3 London

[Singletoned]

Personally, I'd love to see a London version of GTA3 like they did with the original GTA.

They could probably buy the 3d map of London of the people who did The Getaway. Didn't they spend something 3 years creating a map of London and then wasted it on a terrible game?

Real world map data in games

[@madeus]

Yeah your right about The Getaway, what a terrible waste of time. I could see that gameplay was going to be a stinker from the start though (from the very first interviews it's clear they had no compelling gameplay-focused direction). I've been wondering about that since the games release. Granted it's not the best version ever (the version in MSR/Gotham Racing was far better IMO), but surely the companies who develop these games would want to sell the map data to other developers?

I mean it's a hell of a lot of work to build these maps and I can see it could be worth it if your going to hang on to them to release in future games (as MSR (origional title on the Dreamcast) has done with Gotham Racing 1 & 2), but with a title like The Getaway, if they don't plan on re-using and/or selling the map data, I think a manager on the project should be asking themselves why they want to go to so much bother to create a large urban environment modeled on a real life city. Surely it would be lot easier to just have an entirely fabricated layout that just had a similar feel to the city it's intended to represent (ala the GTA or Driver series).

I've actually recognised parts of New York and San Fransico and London from games and used them for navigation in these cities (specifically on the maps I'd played in MSR/Gotham Racing/which although they have been altered slightly to allow greater playbility, are otherwise excellent representations). I also recognised a few of the more well known areas of Toyko in the recent Bill Murray film Lost in Translation, because I'd seen at least two or three of the locations in MSR. I live in London and certainly think these maps are realistic, and it would be great to have access to them in other games genres (Tom Clancy Rainbow 6 style single player games, Counter Stike style multiplayer games, GTA/Driver style games, even old fashioned RPG/point and click adventure games) and of course I'm sure they could be useful for other recreational purposes such as tourism and even local planning authorities might have an interest (the police too very possibly, for practicing crowd control, crime prevention, courter-terrorist scenarios, etc).

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a company took take up making and maintaining maps of the central areas of large ubran cities with a view to reselling the data for just these purposes, though I think they'd need to have other primary sources of income too, as it's hard to see their being enough money in it in the short or even medium term. I expect that if a corporation doesn't a comminuty effort would though. It would probably be a lot easier for a community effort to provide up to date images for accurate textures too (something that's very easy for anyone with even a cheap digital camera), and to report recent changes, even provide photographs of streets to help mappers in expanding the maps (as obviously existing physical maps alone don't give nearly enough information).

Re:Real world map data in games

[metamatic]

Maybe they're planning to use the data for the upcoming The Getaway 2.

Similar story from the BBC

[Pete (big-pete)]

The BBC [bbc.co.uk] has a similar story [bbc.co.uk] from a year ago...Peter Molyneux suggesting government help for up and coming game studios, similar to the way the film council helps the British movie industry.

-- Pete.

Never noticed the impact

[Anonymous Coward]

All the games I played on my Apple //gs were American.

All the NES games I enjoyed were Japanese.

All the arcade games I've ever enjoyed were Japanese or American.

And every game I've ever enjoyed enough to buy since the NES days have been Japanese, or in quite a few isolated cases, American. The only European games I've ever bought or enjoyed were PC RPGs, the occasional DOS shareware shmup, or ASM demos (not really games). Not to troll, but as an American, I've just never noticed first-hand the influenc

Re:Never noticed the impact

[easychord]

Never heard of Elite, X-Com, Populous, Syndicate, Goldeneye or Donkey Kong Country? These games may not fit into your normal buying habit but you may be able to find someone who has played one of them if you look hard enough.

If you want to look for influence Populous pretty much invented a way of doing strategy that was pretty influential. Elite is a wee bit influential as a trading, space combat and general open ended game.

A lot of British games are garbage, but you could say that about anything from anywhere.

Re:Never noticed the impact

[0x0d0a]

I wonder -- was I the only one that didn't really like many Rare games very much? As for DKC -- I know a lot of people got into DKC, but I always was a little suspicious that *most* games are pretty decent if you give yourself the chance to get into them, and that Nintendo pushed DKC hard.

I knew that Populous was from the UK, but I didn't know about X-Com. Those were both genre-starters, not just good sellers.

Re:Never noticed the impact

[johannesg]

I never really liked Rare's games either. I've played DKC a bit, and I thought it was competent but ultimately rather boring. This criticism is true for many modern platformers, BTW. Everything is so smooth, so polished, so... Meaningless. I remember games like Jet Set Willy where I positively _feared_ certain jumps or rooms. It was frustrating, but ultimately also far more rewarding.

I'm not entirely advocating going back to pixel-perfect jumps and instant death, but I'm sick to death of jolly tunes, brig

Re:Never noticed the impact

[johannesg]

yes, but those are all OLD games. The article laments that there are no NEW British games that have a major impact on the world, and all that remains is old glory.

Much like the country itself, then...

Re:Never noticed the impact

[GearType2]

I know your being sarcastic, but yes in fact many people have not heard of medieval total war or could even link it to their developer if that have heard it.

Parent comment

[uyfuyfuy]

But the parent comment said he didn't remember any British games, there was no mention of a time frame.

Re:Never noticed the impact

[nickos]

I guess if you'd had an Amiga or Atari ST during the late eighties/early nineties you might think a little differently. The majority of games for those platforms was European (probably because these machines didn't sell well in the US market).

Back then of course you could still write a game yourself and take it to a publisher. Nowadays it's all teams of 50+ people, and noone will risk investing in a quirky idea anymore. It's a shame really.

Being half british and half american...

[heldlikesound]

Having two passports is not the only privilege I enjoy, I also am able to appreciate British humor, Faulty Towers, The Office, etc, that many here in the states simply don't "get".

Could this be the case with games too? Many aspects of British culture seem to completely go over many Americans heads....

When are we going to see a cricket game from EA?

Re:Being half british and half american...

[Yorrike]

I am of British decent and having English parents, I too appreciate British comedy (although most of New Zealand, my home country, "gets" it too : ).

The problem here is that the main markets for games are North America, Japan and Europe, all with cultures that don't find the constant sarcasm of British humour ammusing as we Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and (I'm guessing here), Cannucks, do.

Niche games, as one drenched in Brit comedy would be, don't usually warrent the huge investments another racer, soccer game, Madden or FPS would, simply because they don't sell as well.

It's just a shame Rare decided to start sucking really badly, because their games had me in hysterics right the way through. I mean, having a slick robot salesman offer you a dodgy motor in Jet Force Gemini was just fantastic. Banjo Kazooie had similar moments in it.

The Western development studios, have slipped into a method of providing for the lowest common denominator, which the Python fan is not a member of.

But all is not lost for we British appreciators. EA have, after all, been making Cricket Games [electronic-arts.com.au] since the 16 bit era. And here's a site [cricketgames.com] dedicated to cricket sims.

Re:Being half british and half american...

[scabb]

Blah, "British Humour" is nothing special, and does not automatically equate to "Python fan" (hate). As for The Office, well I'm definitely a fan, but a lot of that character is borrowed from Steve Coogan's "Alan Partridge", which I heartily recommend as 'alternative', weirdo Brit humour.

The thing is, not everyone over here (Britain) 'gets' The Office. It wasn't popular at all until it started winning awards, and a lot of people still can't stand it at all. We don't tend to like Seinfeld & Curb Your Ent

The national culture of games

[0x0d0a]

Or rugby. I remember a lot of "extreme football" type games over the years, but not rubgy.

There have been some good British interactive fiction games. The kind of dry, highbrow "English humor" goes nicely with a text-based format. (Speaking of which, while Spiderweb Software isn't UK-based, does anyone else think that they do a nice job of dark English-style humor? If it weren't for American spellings, I would have thought that the Exile series had British roots.)

One could say that the flood of LoTR takeoffs ow a certain something to the Brits.

Finally, I wonder whether I'm just being a bit over-stereotypical. I mean, there is a "British feel", sure. But how often does that come out in games? I mean, say a game is developed in the United States. Is there really an "American feel" to it? What would an "American feel" be? It doesn't seem that games developed in a nation tend to always stick with the stereotypical feel of that nation. If I had to put forward a few guesses, and try to avoid all the cultural mixing and people moving from one country to the other and whatnot, I'd say that:

* The Japanese seem to do more games with intense personal sacrifice. They seem to use energy weapons (the sort of thing with big fancy beams) in their games more. Soldiers in Japanese games seem to focus on duty, and not on a malfunctioning institution or the individual culture. The Japanese seem to frequently use acronyms (for organizations, military branches, vehicles, weapons, etc). Military uniforms are often more stylish and ornamental than depictions of real uniforms (I have heard that this may derive from the same place anime culture does -- the wildly different hair and clothing colors are to assist viewers in distinguishing between different characters in a nation where many people are of the same race -- a harder task than in the US). I see less topical games, fewer set in present time, and more in either the past or the future.

* The US seem to have more conventional weapons -- I know that the "US gun culture" is probably a bit exaggerated in attempts to pigeonhole the US, but we go for a broad variety of real weapons in a lot of games, and like thumps and thuds. A lot of US-based games seem to focus on soldiers at an individual level -- perhaps four people -- and point out their individuality, rather than their military roles. Dysfunctional institutions seem to play a greater role. Uniforms are toned down, and more often realistic depictions. I see a lot of games set in the present day.

* The UK is very, very different when it comes to weapons. Perhaps it's just because fewer folks are marching around with guns than in the US, but weaponry is often much lighter. (While this is a movie, I still experience a minor bit of culture shock every time I see Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. The deal that was made over the machine gun, the deal made over obtaining two shotguns, and the fact that knives played a role were so different from US movies, where it's a good bet that the mercenaries would have been carrying a rocket launcher and blown something up.) I think that there's a greater tendancy to do dry humor, and I think that most would agree (see my example of Spiderweb Software's Exile series for an example of a non-UK game series that has similar style). It may be me just me trying too hard to find differences, but I'd say that UK games have a greater tendancy to include more subtle cultural styles in factions in their games. I think that there are fewer games relying on absolutely split-second twitch elements, and somewhat more puzzle-like elements. The military seems to stay more out of British games.

Now, I'm sure to draw criticism. Yes, I'm trying to extrapolate from an extremely small sample set, but these are admittedly based on feeling and opinion rather than a full-blown study. Furthermnore, there are individual counterexamples to all of these. Bungie, Shiny Entertainment, and Spiderweb Software both put out games that I'd consid

Re:The national culture of games

[Captain Nitpick]

(Speaking of which, while Spiderweb Software isn't UK-based, does anyone else think that they do a nice job of dark English-style humor? If it weren't for American spellings, I would have thought that the Exile series had British roots.)

If you like Spiderweb [spiderwebsoftware.com]'s stuff, you should take a look at Jeff Vogel's [spiderwebsoftware.com] other site, Irony Central [ironycentral.com].

Re:The national culture of games

[0x0d0a]

Wow. Thank you. At first I was dubious, but then I started reading "Why We Need More Reality Television" in the "Scorched Earth Party" section. It's great. :-)

Re:The national culture of games

[orthogonal]

Finally, I wonder whether I'm just being a bit over-stereotypical. I mean, there is a "British feel", sure. But how often does that come out in games

Yes, the fact that Grand Theft auto is British, but that's considered a dirty little secret to be suppressed, is telling.

British gaming needs to take inspiration from its love of its own culture, and not, as the Beatles sung, "hide that love away".

I suggest the following games:

• Stiff Upper Lip the game of not showing emotion, set in the dehumanizing and homoerotic milieu of the British Public school;
• Sounds Like Class in which the gamer determines the birthplace, social class, and future prospects of a series of avatars, based solely on their accents;
• Fun with Football the irreverent, off-the-field game of being the most violent soccer hooligan you can be;
• MotherF****r of Parliaments, in which the player competes to come up with the most inventive insults in a Parliamentary session, without going so far as to call down the wrath of the Speaker of the House;
• Partition!, a strategy game in which the end of Empire gives the player, "Lord Mountbatten" the opportunity to create two countries and 60 years of enmity between them;
• and Bad-Teeth!, the game of identifying British ex-pats all over the world.

Re:The national culture of games

[antime]

How about an updated version of How to be a Complete Bastard [c64.com]?

Re:The national culture of games

[dearg]

Fun with Football the irreverent, off-the-field game of being the most violent soccer hooligan you can be

You mean this [gamespot.com] game.

Re:The national culture of games

[metroid composite]

I mean, say a game is developed in the United States. Is there really an "American feel" to it? What would an "American feel" be?

Not Japanese-feel is what I'd associate with it.

RPGs - more based off of D&D and role playing than a prescripted story
More realistic instead of anime feel
Far more likely to be a first person shooter or racing game
Far less likely to be a dance game, dating sim, or 2D Fighter
Real-time strategy is, as far as I know, almost exclusively American/European. The Japanese game

A cricket game?

[uyfuyfuy]

I'm not sure that matches that take days on end to play, obsessive attention to the weather and long periods of inaction are quite what EA's target market would go for.

I'd buy it though.

In fact, more to the point, when are we going to see an accurate, real-time coarse fishing game? Now that's British.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

[kyz]

[Rare is] about the only British developer rich enough to risk alienating a few Yanks

It's true. If you want to tap into the Nation of Consumers, you have to dumb down your game to their lowest-common-denominator tastes. Or you can create a cultural gem of a game and starve.

Perhaps what we need are a few loss leaders. Revolution are giving away [sourceforge.net] Beneath A Steel Sky, with its undeniably British sense of humour.

Re:Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

[Yorrike]

Oh come on. Rare were rich enough, but what counted was they had enough respect to get away with such things, but since Jet Force Gemini, or maybe Banjo Tooie, Rare have sucked.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Donkey Kong 64, Conker's BFD and ESPECIALLY Starfox Adventures (a game that actually made me angry when I played it) were all terrible games. Rare are a hollow shell of their former glory and I doubt very much they'll be producing anything of any note again. They are merely the studio Nintendo had lost confidence in, and Microsoft bought at outrageous price, for nothing more than bragging rights.

Re:Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

[real_smiff]

DK64 came out two years (IIRC) before 'Tooie. I'm not arguing with you, i'm just wondering how you rationalise Rare "starting to suck" on the N64. I thought Conker was meant to be good [metacritic.com], it certainly had the Rare/British sense of humour.. JFG seems a pretty standard shoot/collect-em-up.. don't see how it is better than DK64 (which is also heavy on the collecting stuff side). Each to his own i guess, but you have got modded up +4 insightful so i wondered what you meant. I haven't heard of Ghoulies or SF Adv.

I *liked* Conker's Bad Fur Day

[the_skywise]

Granted it didn't introduce any radically new play elements and had a really bad ending... But as an experience of an interactive cartoon, it was fun and at the very least, DIFFERENT then the normal pablum put out today.

But I agree with you on everything else.

Ironic

[0x0d0a]

The majority of the open-source games that I've contributed significant quantities of code to have had Europe-based teams, even though I live in the US.

I just stopped adding code to another open source Linux game put out by a UK developer to read Slashdot.

As for commercial games, what about LionHead Studios (Black & White, and one of the nicer game development boards out there)?

One of the most influential games to hit the PC in a long time, Max Payne was developed by Mobius Entertainment, which is UK-based.

Finally, I agree that it's a shame that the UK-based Bullfrog isn't around any more, but they *were* responsible for one of only about three Windows-based games I ever purchased -- Syndicate.

I do wish that games used more British voice actors, especially female. Ah, British accents. :-) God, why haven't the Brits taken over the world on the strength of that accent alone?

Maybe some of it is that (traditionally) computers were rather expensive in the UK. This may have gone away out over the last ten years, but I remember being absolutely appalled at what a number of computer types had to pay for their equipment in the UK. It takes a while to get over a lack of cheap hardware -- I think a lot of people start out game development on a home computer, so you feel the echos for years if people have older hardware. Also, what was with the whole Acorn thing?

Re:Ironic

[Wuukie]

One of the most influential games to hit the PC in a long time, Max Payne was developed by Mobius Entertainment, which is UK-based.

Actually the original PC game was developed by Finnish Remedy Entertainment [remedy.fi]. Mobius has made a GBA port of it.

Re:Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... We did.

Then we gave it back.

Re:Ironic

[Chuck Chunder]

for various definitions of "gave"

Most Popular Game

[Deliveranc3]

Most popular game? Oh you mean CS... um I don't think it's british.

When I was in Britain the people seemed kind of depressed, I think that might be why they don't make games.

Re:Most Popular Game

[easychord]

I don't see why anyone would have any reason to be depressed with you around.

Re:Most Popular Game

[0x0d0a]

I've never been to the UK, but I have a couple of friends that head over (admittedly, to London) and seem to have an incredible time partying it up.

I wonder what musical tastes in the UK are like -- whether they mirror the US or what.

Re:Most Popular Game

[May Kasahara]

When I was in the UK this past summer, Robbie Williams was allll over the radio @_@

Other than that, the music was good-- pretty much what people in the US listen to. We also visited a friend while I was there who was planning on heading to one of the big summer music festivals shortly (I think it may have been Reading, maybe not); the lineup she described to me sounded wicked cool (well, aside from Oasis :P).

The only thing was... CDs in the UK are so expensive! I went into a couple Vigin Megastores while

Re:Most Popular Game

[scabb]

No, no, no, no. Even if you like that bad, bad genre, you're only going to get the more popular tunes playing on Kerrang. Linkin Park and Papa Roach and all those other excellent acts seem to occur plenty lots!

Publishers don't support British games

[Operating Thetan]

Look at Startopia-British humour, social commentary, excellent gameplay, and sweet fuck all in the way of support or marketing from the publisher ( a recurring trend with all of Muckyfoot's games that would lead to them closing down last November)

How about Giants:Citizen Kabuto? Possibly the funniest game ever made, innovative genre mixing, and a marketing budget of 5 quid.

I live in Guildford, and 4 years ago it probably had more development houses per capita than any other place in the world. Now half of have gone, despite putting out good products (we'll ignore Blade 2), or disappeared up their own arses into creative limbo, and in the main IMO it's the publishers who can be blamed.

Famous/Influential British games

[Anonymous Coward]

Elite, Populous, Dungeon Keeper, Tomb Raider, GTA series, Carmageddon, MUD, Donkey Kong Country, Goldeneye, Starfox, Barbarian, Syndicate, X-Com, Shogun/Medieval:Total War, Dizzy series, Monty Mole series, to name a few

IMO, there are very few US developers (Origin at their prime, Looking Glass Studios) who can compete with the best of Britain in terms of innovation.

Like in Japan, the most successful US developers, such as Blizzard, are those who take an unoriginal concept and polish it

In Britain, the most successful developers were those who developed new genres

BTW, you can keep Derek Smart. We REALLY don't want him back.

The Galapagos of game developers

[0x0d0a]

IMO, there are very few US developers (Origin at their prime, Looking Glass Studios) who can compete with the best of Britain in terms of innovation.

I really wonder. Is it because the British just happen to come up with a lot of original ideas? While it's not impossible, I'm a little dubious. I wonder if perhaps it's because you have a lot of developers that are physically isolated from the mass of US and Japanese developers, and have a chance to go their own ways.

Perhaps the real answer to game diversity is to find a couple of islands, dump game developers on them without access to the outside world for a couple of years, and see what new things spring up. :-)

Knowledge sharing is good, as it allows building upon past mistakes and god ideas. However, I claim that what is "apparently better" may not always actually be better. Someone may have to make an apparently non-ideal mental path to arrive at a better final solution. The problem is that if there are lots of ideas floating around that are "apparently better" and lead someone away from finding alternate, potentially better solutions.

Every time I see a game developer say "Has $FANCY_WELL_SELLING_GAME-style $FEATURE" on a new game's featurelist, I've seen a developer not run out and come up with a potentially better solution.

Oh, well. Honestly, people complain about the lack of innovation in games, but I can't help but think that things are better now than in the console days of the NES/SNES. Man, there were enough cloned platform games out there to choke a horse...

Re:The Galapagos of game developers

[Anonymous Coward]

I think one of the main causes is a difference in corporate ideas. There are dev studios where less than half the staff have a degree, a situation that would be unheard of in America

Also, we don't really have the whole geek/jock thing in schools, which leads to a completely different geek culture.

I'd also place Thatcherism and it's social legacy as an important influence

Re:The Galapagos of game developers

[rasteri]

Yeah, taxing the poor to hell really helped people develop games...?

Am I missing something here?

Re:The Galapagos of game developers

[Jon Peterson]

Err yes,

The culture of the early / mid 80's was very much individual focussed. This made it feel possible for a lone teenager to actually write produce sell and get rich from a game. And they did - lots of 8-bit platform games in the UK were complete 1 man efforts. The platform makers (commodire, BBC, Spectrum) didn't have a strangle hold over the software market, and the Sony's and Nintendos weren't in the picture.

Meanwhile in the US it took whole companies to produce games for the NES and other console systems that dominated the games market.

This resulted in a large pool of entrepreneurial UK game talent, and those individuals in the 80's went to to found studios in the 90s but still championing the individuality and freedom that had done them so well in the 80s.

Re:The Galapagos of game developers

[JonnyCalcutta]

I wonder if perhaps it's because you have a lot of developers that are physically isolated from the mass of US and Japanese developers, and have a chance to go their own ways

I'm sorry, but in the UK people are actually aware that a whole world exists outside their borders.
In fact taking your suggestion and reversing it creates a more likely suggestion - that its the UK's openness to the rest of the world that creates a melting pot of original ideas. Whereas the US and Japan, in their competition to determine who can be more isolationist, tend to follow the same old well worn pathways.

Re:The Galapagos of game developers

[0x0d0a]

I'm sorry, but in the UK people are actually aware that a whole world exists outside their borders.

I'm not trying to look at things quite that extremely.

Obviously, people interact on the Internet, used to use BBSes, and may know other people from trade shows. However, it's a lot more convenient to meet other people in the same country -- maybe you work in Boston, then in Sillicon Valley, and then maybe in Austin, and you have a pretty good cross-section of the ideas floating around.

I don't think that t

Bad Cultural Basis...

[fuzzybunny]

...for games. After all, cricket, pub crawls and football riots, while interesting concepts for games, probably don't appeal to the vast majority of consumers 8-)

*runs*

Armed and Dangerous

[Phoenix Dreamscape]

Planet Moon Studios, the guys who did Giants: Citizen Kabuto, released a game for PC and Xbox recently called Armed and Dangerous. Both Giants and A&D have more than their share of wacky comedy, most of which can be classified as "British humour." In A&D, you have a gun that shoots sharks, a bomb that flips everyone upside down, health packs in the form of teacups, and so on, plus oddball characters like those from Giants. If you want more British humor in games, maybe you should go out and suppo

Re:Armed and Dangerous

[ronfar]

I don't know, I thought I detected British humor in the PC game Sacrifice... I could be wrong about that though... Well, like the Bovine Intervention spell which drops a cow on enemies...

Parrots, just so you know.

[wheresdrew]

"Of course, it doesn't cost 5 million to pick up a pen and start writing a sketch about parrots...."

When John Cleese first wrote the Dead Parrot sketch, it was about a toaster (based on a real-life experience he'd had trying to return a defective toaster). Graham Chapman listened to Clesse read it and told him it'd be funnier if it were a dead parrot instead.

Just so you know

So while it may not take 5 million to create a sketch about dead parrots, it does take talent.

Team17?

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

The Worms creators are still at it, Worms 3D gets released in a handful of days...

(Team17 is based in Osset, UK [team17.com]).

Pah!

[scabb]

Team 17 are still alive and kicking, and we've just seen Worms 3D finally pop onto the shelves. Then there's Rare (Need I mention any titles?), Eidos (Bleh), Lionhead and Revolution, who recently released the excellent Broken Sword 3.

This articles is just incredibly bad. They cite 6 or 7 "classic games" as evidence of the millions of games developers that once spewed out billions of digital children, when in reality that was the case in most countries - the computer gaming world used to consists of lots mor

Death of the Brit Developer

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the great British games industry was built on many factors, but accessiblity of development technology was a major factor. Most games could be knocked out by a couple of teenagers in their parents house. The ZX81 and ZX spectrum home computers (Dragon, Commodore 64) created a whole generation of hackers and many developers in the IT industry owe their start to these amazing machines. People now demand more from their games and development involves a multi-talented team. So the best British devel

One British gem..

[seepgood]

I couldn't let a debate on the UK gaming scene go by without mentioning a real British gem... UPLINK, by a tiny outfit called Introversion Software. Small outfits may be dying out but this is a reminder that, if you have a good idea and keep it simple, the size of the team doesn't matter. Check it out here [introversion.co.uk]

Re:One British gem..

[Nuskrad]

Last of the bedroom programmers, or so they call themselves. Uplink was made with one lead programmer, with a Linux guru doing the port (though not as an 'official' company member). They have been hard at work with the mysterious , and should be releasing details soon.

Good point but...

[AzraelKans]

Good games tend to be international, there are a ton of good japanese games that never make it overseas because they are too difficult to understand or implement (the new jib ribbon paints japanese kanji at the sound of music), and others well.. they are simply weird. Like that japanese game where you train a polar bear to sing? feed a hamster? Or that one where you simulate a train station? or riding a subway train? (thats the gameplay actually getting in and out of a subway train)

Sometimes that "influe