RonEnix

Paul Hollins is an industry veteran who’s worked span until his last produced game Rugby Championship Manager. Paul Hollins used to work in games publishing with most of his experience from Midas Interactive. He also had consultancy roles for Electronic Arts and BERR, one of the members of IGDA and is currently looking into games and learning.

Whilst working for Midas Interactive he had published many successful games. One of the highlighted games was the Mary King Riding Star. This was a success due to the fact that advertisement for this game was done more differently. This game came bundled with other items that girls usually buy, and there were very few games that were specifically targeting girls at that time (1990s). This was a strange marketing approach but made the game sell for large amounts.

Many of the games Paul had published were mainly sport related titles. The developers of Midas: Interactive Entertainment was lead by Paul to produce more licensed titles. This allowed him to linger around sport celebrities and getting free tickets to events at a young age, quoting “no days where ever the same”.

Back then (1990s) working conditions where appalling. Many developers are placed into a small room all working, eat, living in a confined space. Publishers had big pressures to meet deadlines. It wasn’t nice being in the industry back then. Developers had a hard time negotiating with publishers if you don’t have a back portfolio of released games. Publishers will simple turn their back on developers. Back then Paul would receive 20 or more games proposals a week which is one of the possible reasons that publishers have strict rules for picking up developers and their games. Eventually working conditions started to improve when IGDA stepped in. Could be one of the reasons for Paul being a part of IGDA.

Paul finished that job with a not so impressive bang. The last game he commission was an utter failure. Rugby Championship Manager he commissioned had been developed by Italians who have a different view of Rugby altogether.

The session was rapped up with Paul handing some helpful tips in getting into the industry, mostly concerning about developing your portfolio, writing your opinions down about articles you see about in the industry, and “live and breathe games”. He talked briefly about the future of the game industry were we could see development costs increase by 200%, a Hollywood style business model, online distribution of games which he brought up a question: “will publishers even be needed?”, and what effect liscencing will have in game creativity.

On the whole the session was very interesting talk from Paul and it’s always a pleasure hearing from a very experience individual. An very impressive and entertaining guest lecture.