Interviews// Splash Damage Founder, Paul Wedgwood

SPOnG: (Laughs) Obviously you guys are a success story at the moment in terms of the UK development scene, but then there is a company like Eidos upping a load of its operations to Canada and stuff. How do you see the UK development scene at the moment?

Paul Wedgwood: I don't really see... I mean, I see publishers shutting studios that they've bought, but then I'm anti publisher-owned independent studios anyway. That just follows my perspective of how I think things will turn out – if you get bought by a publisher you probably don't have a future.

For the UK industry as a whole, though, I think people like Rockstar North, Ninja Theory, Rebellion, Relentless, Fronter, Splash Damage – we'd probably argue that there isn't a problem with the games industry in the UK.

It's easy to find commercial reasons to work in a different country. It's the reason why a lot of companies outsource their art to places like India and China and stuff. But, I think it's wrong to blame the games industry or the government for the reason you're moving. It would be far more honest to say, 'we're leaving the country because we're going to make more profit in Canada', rather than 'we don't have the money we need to reinvest in our business'.

It's exactly the same reason why, when you hear (about) people selling their studios, and they say 'we did it for the staff so they'd have financial stability'. And you're like, 'Oh, so you didn't get a cheque for £20 million then?'


SPOnG: So you don't think the government should be bringing in Canadian-style tax credits, then?

Paul Wedgwood: The Isle of Man has no tax, and they've made three, maybe four movies in the last two/three years. And I think Run Fatboy Run is the only one that stands out – and that was made maybe four years ago now and just came out this year or last year. Having no tax doesn't guarantee the success of an industry, and I think an industry that's saying, "Oh, we should really be taken seriously", and then sticking its hand out and saying "Can you give us some tax credits please"... they're conflicting arguments.

If you say, we really want you to respect us (as an industry) don't then stick your hand out and then ask for money back from the government.

Anyway, just moralistically, I'm not a big fan of business in the games industry. If it's possible to make games without the business part, I'd love that. Having politics involved... I don't want MPs to know that we're doing this and to come over and start getting involved. It's better without.

There are tax credits, anyway, for research and development at the moment and they're so hard to take advantage of that I think having more wouldn't really make a huge difference. I don't really think that's the major problem.


SPOnG: Following on from not liking the involvement of business, what do you think of download platforms like Xbox Live, PSN and WiiWare which allow you to circumvent publishers?

Paul Wedgwood: Finding a more convenient way to get game content to people is an inherently cool idea. If I'm playing through Mass Effect, and I'm able to download an expansion when I get to the end for three or four or five pounds and then continue playing... A better example – Knights of the Nine for Oblivion – it's a really cool idea.

The difficulty in the past has been, certainly up until a couple of years ago, people's perception was, they wanted something physical, they wanted to own something. Same reason with me – my wife and I have maybe 1,200 DVDs because of my compulsion to own the DVD even if I'm never going to want to watch it again in the future, so we don't do a lot of rentals.

But there is a huge market for rentals of games, there is a huge downloadable market for games, and then you just have to look at the success of things like Steam to see that this is becoming a reality. It doesn't matter what publishers want or don't want.

People are going to find the most convenient way to get stuff, and to say that it's not going to happen or that it's not going to be really significant is like saying that iTunes won't be a success, or like saying the Internet has no future.