Interviews// UFC Undisputed 2010 - Neven Dravinski, Producer

SPOnG: What was the biggest challenge and your greatest achievement in developing this title?

Neven Dravinski: The biggest challenge was in the gameplay itself. At it's core, we're talking about new things that we're doing and modes and things we want to improve, but I always want to bring it back to a great fighting game.

Let's be clear, yes this is a sports game, but at it's core the most important thing for our team is to deliver a fun fighting experience. You have all these other modes, but ultimately they're superfluous if the gameplay experience itself isn't good. The challenging thing is encapsulating a sport like this into a controller on a game, and then improving on that year over year.

Last year I think we had a great basis to start from, this year we crushed 2009's game to the point where you play last year's game and realise just how far we've come in the space of 12 months. I was playing it just the other week to compare, and I was trying to do these moves that almost felt instinctive now due to countless hours of playing the 2010 game, and I was getting frustrated at not being able to perform sways and switches. It's a testament to the evolution of the gameplay, and I'm glad that people will get a chance to try all these new features out in the demo on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.


SPOnG: Yuke's is a Japanese developer and THQ is a Western publisher of the studio's work. Of course there has been a lot of discussion as to the cultural and business difficulties the Japanese industry is facing on a global platform. What's your opinion on the matter, having worked heavily with Yuke's?

Neven Dravinski: You know, it's hard to say – you certainly have a lot of Japanese developers that are popular in the West. Games like Tekken, Street Fighter... those are games that have done very well over here. There are also more esoteric games out there that maybe Western developers don't quite understand. But at the same time you look at Nintendo first-party games and how huge they are, regardless of their country of origin.

There are aspects where I think, as a culture, the Japanese do things differently – their investment in things is different. A good example is online. In Japan, online gaming is not really something that's revered. Over here in the West, and certainly in Europe, online is a huge aspect of development. So it's hard to say. I can't make sweeping generalisations like 'the Japanese have to get better at this, this and this' – it really depends on the situation and the developer. It depends on the game as well. I think there's certainly some subject matter that transcends culture very well, and some that doesn't.

It's really hard to make cultural generalisations, because the same could really be said about American developers as well. There's plenty of games we put out that leave you scratching your head thinking 'who thought this would be a great idea?' But you know, to each their own, and there's a market for everything out there.


SPOnG: Speaking of online, what can we expect from UFC 2010 in terms of modes and potential downloadable content?

Neven Dravinski: We're not really confirming nor denying the existence of DLC (laughs), but as far as online goes we have online fight exhibitions, and online fight camps where you can create 'clans', form a camp and train with those camp members. If you spar with them, you can earn points that you can add to your fighter in Career mode – and it's also a way to involve the community a bit more this time around. Going out, creating a camp, fighting people in other camps, special camp leaderboards means you're representing something bigger than yourself. There's a camaraderie and I think there's a really cool scope for friends to get together.


SPOnG: Neven Dravinski, thank you for your time.

Neven Dravinski: Thank you.