Interviews// Rebellion's Eric Miller

SPOnG: It’s a strange one, because Rebellion created the original AvP shooter which this year’s game was a follow-up to. Did you work on that project back then?

Eric Miller: I wasn’t part of that project. I’ve been at Rebellion for about four years now. But Tim Jones, our project lead for AvP 2010 was part of the original AvP design team.


SPOnG: It just seems like a bit of a shame that things happened the way it did, and the community reacted so unkindly to it.

Eric Miller: Well - again, speaking on a personal level, not as a representative of Rebellion or Sega - I’ve got to say I was absolutely disappointed. You can’t not be. You pour your heart and soul - and to some extent, your life - into a game and obviously you want to see it succeed.

When the first reviews started coming out, it was pretty clear that there was quite a polar response. People either loved it, or they really hated it. There were few people saying ‘I like some things about it, and I don’t like some other things about it.’ It was almost completely one-sided, one way or the other.

I think if you look at a lot of the reviews on Metacritic, that’s absolutely the kind of flavour that I get. Some people were giving us 90, and others were giving us 50 or 40 [laughs]. Where’s the stuff in the middle?

I don’t think anyone expects to release the perfect game. I don’t think we were blind enough, as it were, to expect that. But it was a little surprising, I must admit. I’ve worked on five or six games now in my career, and never have I had or seen such a massive difference in opinion.

I think what was probably the worst part of it all was the fan reaction. You don’t want to disappoint those guys… but that was completely polar as well! Some people were excited and happy about AvP, and really got the idea of where we were trying to go with the mechanics, and some thought it was awful.

In much the same way that for darts, we’ve looked back at the old games and tried to take those criticisms on board and move forward with it. Certainly we are looking at AvP and not being blind to what people thought about it.


SPOnG: That was in development for a while, wasn’t it, AvP 2010?

Eric Miller: Development was around three years, so it wasn’t too bad, but the project was actually part of the Vivendi-Activision merger. Like Brutal Legend and a few other games, AvP was determined to be surplus to requirements.

And it was at that point when Sega got involved because it made sense for them - they already had Colonial Marines in production. So we basically got picked up halfway through development, and it was from that point actually where things… there were some design changes.

So I wouldn’t necessarily say that we had a full three years on the project. New publisher, new ideas, and a ultimately a change in direction.

We had a healthy timeline, and a healthy budget, but not quite… [pauses] …But you know, I totally appreciate the consumer’s point of view. The consumer doesn’t see how long you spent on it, how much money you were given, how much time you had, the trials and tribulations and what you went through to make the game.

The consumer sees that he’s paid £40 for a game, and he expects it to be as good as something else for that same money. That’s the experience you try and deliver, whether you have £1 to make a game or £100 million. Obviously it would be nice to have some consideration! [Laughs] But you know, we’re all grown ups and realistic about this, so.


SPOnG: So no chance of an AvP darts board as downloadable content or something?

Eric Miller: [Laughs] Er, no.


SPOnG: It might work to take your frustrations out, after all. You should do it.

Eric Miller: [Laughs] Well, I don’t know quite what OG have planned, or how far along the discussions with Fox they are, but to my knowledge we’re not doing anything regarding DLC.


SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time.

Eric Miller: Thank you!

PDC World Championship Darts: Pro Tour is available now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii.