Interviews// UFC Undisputed 2010 - Neven Dravinski, Producer

SPOnG: I've been playing the game today and having those sort of 'Oh look, my face just got smashed in!' moment too. It does seem like one of those 'pick up and play' games. How do you make that balance to create something accessible, yet deep? I notice the right analogue stick for grapples and submissions plays a big part into this?

Neven Dravinski: The inherent charm in making an MMA game is creating those 'Oh wow' moments. The sport itself is so nuanced and dynamic, that so many things can happen - we've tried to replicate that in the game here.

From a design perspective the depth was one of the great victories we were able to achieve - how can you encapsulate an entire ground game on a controller? It's almost a ludicrous task when you consider the amount of options available.

I think the solution we came up with is very representative of real UFC fighting, and it's interesting to see the fighters themselves agree when they pick up the game for the first time. I've sat down with loads of them and asked them 'So, when you're in the Octagon and you get on the ground, do you guys freak out and just flail all over the place?'

They tell me no, and that it's very much a case of you keeping a cool head and performing your commands in a very calm manner. It's the same with the game - once you start inputting commands in a collected state and start being quite technical about your abilities, you realise you can input very specific manoeuvres. There's no real element of randomness.

When you figure out the nuances of the new quarter-circle or greater-than-quarter-circle turns on the right stick, the game becomes infinitely easier. These transitions apply to all the grappling and clinching, and it something we introduced for this year.


SPOnG: What was your experience in working with the UFC fighters, Dana White specifically. Is Dana a bit of a gamer himself?

Neven Dravinski: Dana's a casual gamer in the sense that he plays with his kids every now and then and comes to our events. Dana White is my hero – he just gets things done and he's such a great supporter of what we're trying to do and he really brought us into the fold.

He said to us 'I want you to never question or ask for anything, I want you to feel like you're part of the UFC team – anything you need, you just shout for it.' And true to his word, he'd get us whatever we need. At this point, we're literally part of the UFC production team now, working with their photographers and production guys to get game assets, access to their fighters and their people. We work with their executives to get all the stats as well, so it's been an incredible partnership – one of the best licensor partnerships I've ever been involved with.

I've worked on a lot of licensed products and I can say without question – the amount of access we get is unparalleled.


SPOnG: Yuke's and THQ are also involved with developing the WWE wrestling games too. By comparison, would you say WWE's easier or harder to work with?

Neven Dravinski: They each have their own unique challenges and dynamics. The Yuke's Yokohama team works on WWE and there's a team in Osaka that makes the UFC games. So there's this healthy competition between those two sister studios... I don't really know too much about the dynamic of the WWE side of things, but with any sort of relationship it has its own unique benefits and challenges. I can say without question that I'm completely happy with how ours is with UFC.


SPOnG: Electronic Arts is also developing an MMA game to compete with UFC. What do you make of that?

Neven Dravinski: Well, the winners here are the fans, right? If you're a gamer and a fan of mixed martial arts, whether it's UFC or any other organisation, you now have two publishers putting out a game several months apart from one another.

Ultimately we don't really know what they're doing, but all we can do is make the best game possible. With more studios diving into MMA games comes new opportunities for gameplay dynamics and control, so we'll see what the future holds.