NWF: Speaking of what the companies are doing and/or not doing, there was some discussion that EA was going to include your head tracking in BOOM BLOX, and then suddenly it was announced that head tracking was no longer going to be available as the discussed easter egg. We're pretty interested in what happened there, if you can discuss it at all.
JL: I was a little disappointed to hear about that. I have been in touch with Louis Castle, who was involved in that decision, and it's actually a pretty complicated decision, and I don't know if I'm at liberty to explain exactly why, but I understand why they decided to take it out. Rest assured that I know EA is still interested in including it, and so are several other companies, so even if it doesn't come out next month, it will probably be integrated into games within the next year.
NWF: So you do think we'll see it in this generation?
JL: I think so. If Nintendo doesn't do it, I'm fairly sure that Sony and Microsoft may be interested in doing something similar. It's simply ... the kind of visual experience that head tracking provides is simply an evolutionary step in display technology and interactive displays, and it would be foolish not to embrace that progress in technology. It's not so much a feature, it's just a technological step forward, similar to 3D TV, that will eventually come. Nintendo may or may not decide that this is an okay idea, but even if they don't, it will come in some other form from some other provider.
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NWF: You know, that's interesting, because there's a lot of discussion any time we see another of your projects. Nintendo fans just blow up with excitement, because what you're doing with the Wii remote is so much more interesting than what a lot of actual Wii games have done with the motion controls. Why do you think that is?
JL: Well, I don't have any rules to conform to. In truth, when choosing to make something for a game console, a developer has to sign a lot of agreements and play within a very well-defined space that determines what they can and cannot do. I have been talking to some Wii game developers and they've said that ... if a game requires too much motion or requires ... they had some word for it, but essentially, if it requires too much movement on the player's part, Nintendo asks them to pull it. There are all these internal guidelines they have to conform to that prevent them from doing anything too -- I hate using the term "outside the box," but this is a box that has been defined by Nintendo and they literally can't step out of it. The video game industry is also extremely market data driven, which is unfortunate. The investment levels keep going up and up, and the certainty of return keeps going down, and as a result, marketing has more control over development. And if marketing says something isn't going to sell, or if marketing has no data on it, so if something is too radical or if it's a new IP with a new story or new characters, and it's untested, marketing tags it as high risk. If there are safer, but more boring [laughs], the decision tends to be to make the more boring title, which is unfortunate. That's actually why I decided not to work at any game companies specifically, like Electronic Arts or Ubisoft, because my ideas would have likely been squashed quickly by marketing.
I wanted it so bad.
