Interviews// Breach: Atomic Games' Peter Tamte

SPOnG: What about the controversy that surrounded Six Days in Fallujah? What was the situation at the studio and Konami when the game got cancelled?

Peter Tamte: Well to be clear, the whole idea of Six Days in Fallujah came from marines who fought in Fallujah – people that we had worked with on our training systems. These marines came back from combat, told me about their stories and said 'Peter, you should make a video game about this, absolutely.'

So when I hear, especially in the mainstream papers, talk of not respecting the troops – that's largely coming from people who I don't think have ever spoken to troops (laughs)!

I'll tell you that every single marine that I spoke with that served in Fallujah supports what we're doing. Now that doesn't mean to say that absolutely everybody supports it, but a majority of them do, particularly after I explain what we were doing with the game.

My frustration in it was that there were certainly a lot of people who really don't know what they're talking about, who were criticising aspects of a game they had never seen, never played, and they were supposedly representing the view of people they've never spoken to (laughs)!


SPOnG: In comparison, TV, films and books have been able to do what Six Days in Fallujah tried to do for games. Do you think the reaction from the media is proof that the games industry isn't quite on a level pegging with other creative forms?

Peter Tamte: There is no doubt that to many people, both inside and outside our industry, video games are toys. I tell you this because I've had this discussion with senior people inside a lot of publishers. There are people running publishers on a management level that I've spoken to, and when Six Days in Fallujah comes up it becomes clear that they only think of video games as toys.

That, to me, is the frustration. Video games should give people a deeper level of insight into real-world situations, that can't be offered with a passive form of media because you can actually make these people participants. And yet to have people in our own industry say that they don't want to tackle a mature matter like that...

I wish the industry would not be so afraid of dealing with these situations, because if we were able to do what we wanted with Six Days in Fallujah, it may open people's eyes to all sorts of new things our industry could do. That would be a good thing for an industry that, quite frankly, is stagnating right now.


SPOnG: There are developers who say that they make games purely to provide entertainment value – like a gaming equivalent of an action film or something – and that's the way it always has to be. What do you say to the argument that games are meant to be entertaining, and that's the bottom line?

Peter Tamte: Well, I look at where our industry is at right now, and the reality is that in the Western markets video game sales at retailers have declined in the last two years. Some may say that's influenced by the recession, others may say that it's because the industry's not cranking out new experiences.

At the same time that you're seeing traditional sales decline for two consecutive years, we're seeing this explosion in Facebook games, iPod games and all these other new forms of gaming. So to the people who say 'we just make toys,' I've got to say that we've run that course. Video game sales have stagnated now. Isn't it about time we tried something new?


SPOnG: Time for the industry to evolve, you say?

Peter Tamte: Exactly right.


SPOnG: Do you see that evolution in the digital distribution market? Where do you see that space going in the future? Those kinds of experiences you'll find on a full-price disc, will we get to a stage where we can have those on our consoles as our sole source of software?

Peter Tamte: Well, we're trying to drive to that right now. I think we, as video game creators, have to recognise that as more people are able to get their media content digitally, that that is a threat to the amount of time spent playing video games.

We need to make video games as accessible as other forms of media content. Again, if you look at iPod and Facebook gaming, it's all digital – and that's where the growth in the industry is right now.


SPOnG: Is that where you're going to be focusing your efforts on in the future, in the digital space?

Peter Tamte: I don't know for sure. I know that we want to push things a little bit with Breach, and we want to surprise people with offering a broadly accessible experience that's fresh.

But like I said, we're going to retail as well on the PC version, and in the United States a lot of retailers have committed to that. I would love to see a model across the board in the industry where consumers have a choice of either buying it in store or online.


SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time.

Peter Tamte: Thank you!