Interviews// June Industry Insights: Ste Pickford, Zee-3

Posted 12 Jun 2013 16:00 by Svend Joscelyne

People: Ste Pickford

As part of an ongoing series, SPOnG gets the unedited, open and highly informed opinions of developers, producers and more in the vast world of computer games.

Industry Figure: Ste Pickford
Job Title: Co-founder
Company: Zee-3
Best Known For: Kuros: Visions of Power, Wetrix, Naked War, Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint

With over 25 years of development experience behind him, Ste Pickford has created a number of legendary gaming experiences. Alongside his brother John, Ste has made a whole heap of titles for home computers, consoles and mobile platforms.

At the moment, Ste is running Zee-3 with John, an independent studio that is currently seeing success with Naked War and Magnetic Billiards: Blueprint. You can keep track on the guys' progress on their projects via this website. We asked Ste on his thoughts on consoles, E3 and disruptive tech.

Do you feel that we are entering a new console generation too soon? Or can it not come soon enough? And why?

It's all about the games for me, not the hardware. A new console generation means I have to buy new machines to play games on, which for the first time feels like a pain.

There isn't a generational jump that's exciting me, and all that the new machines are likely to offer is increased DRM and reduced consumer rights, so I'd be happy to stick with the consoles we have.

Ouya and Oculus Rift have generated a lot of positive buzz. How disruptive do you think these products will be when they are released to the public?

I confess that I've not got a particular interest in Oculus Rift as I've never been particularly interested in VR. Everyone says it's great though, so I hope it works out, and I look forward to giving it a try.

Ouya, I dunno. I can't see it. Gaming has always been about the games, not the hardware, so my interest in any hardware platform is based on the games available for it. I hope it does work out, because the existing hardware manufacturers have really let down developers over the years, so it would be nice for a developer friendly platform to succeed.