SPOnG: Do you think that kind of depth and substance is something unique to your game, in comparison to other titles on the market?
Nick Laing: One of our goals from the offset was to teach the world
MMA, and help players appreciate stuff, so this is just one of the ways we accomplished that. In regards to our competition, we started developing our game two years ago, so pretty much all of our core principles were in place and developed before I saw the first (
UFC Undisputed) game. Now we're in an interesting situation where we can see the other game and... it's interesting, but at this point, that game is in the past, and we're working on October 19th and getting the game we've been working on for two years out the door.
SPOnG: Has the fact that UFC is involved with THQ's game posed a problem when it comes to development on your title? You mentioned having UFC fighters – did the league basically come up to you and say you couldn't have this guy or that guy? How did that pan out?
Nick Laing: There was some
news of Dana [White, chairman of UFC] making those comments. That was... how long ago, a year ago or something like that? We didn't see an impact from that at all, other than positive actually. He was kind of like one of our best PR representatives that month.
SPOnG: I imagine they can't be angry about getting their fighters and their brand in as many games and outlets as possible, right?
Nick Laing: Yeah, I think so. We are definitely all about the fighters. We're more about making sure we take care of them, and making sure that they understand that we respect them and that we want them to be a part of this title. If anybody was worried about it – if they felt like their career was in jeopardy or something by signing with us, that's okay. You know, take care of yourself. We'll be here if you want to come back and our door is always open to new fighters. We certainly don't want to put anyone in a tough position.
SPOnG: You had a little publicity stunt fighting Alex Reid just now, right? Do you know of him? What do you what do you think of him as a fighter?
Nick Laing: Is he around? No..? Well, I beat him. I beat him up pretty bad. Yeah... it was a little bit embarrassing really... I hope he's not here.
SPOnG: So you don't fancy his chances with Tom Watson at the end of this month then?
Nick Laing: (Laughs) Well actually, he really knows his stuff. Obviously he's got some extra celebrity around him. I'm not familiar with
Big Brother, but I knew about him as a fighter. And he's married to that model, right? Jordan? Woooah! (laughs). Not a bad life. I wish him all the best, and I will be watching very closely.
SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time.
Nick Laing: Thank you, I appreciate it.
