Live Magazine February Issue February 2014 | Page 34

al lowe
said they loved it, the writing, they
thought it was funny, they liked my
games and I had a good track record. I got all these stories and when
we finished the pitch, a lot of them
said things like ‘well this is the first
game I’ve seen in years that I would
actually play myself’ which is kind of
a scary for a guy who is running a
game company. And yet, everyone
of them would say ‘what are your
comparables?’ and because there

what they could find in the realm of
action comedy and all they could find
was ‘Psychonauts’, the Tim Schafer
game. I mean it was a good game,
but it had very off putting graphics
and it didn’t really... it looked like a
child’s game and yet it was anything
but and so, they checked the sales
figures and said ‘that only sold so
many thousand copies, so that’s all
we could fund your game for. You
can’t do it for that price. We can’t

been done? Where could we push the
wall?’ and the attitude is totally different now.
Finally, what advice would you give
to any developer who is contemplating putting sexual content into
a game?
Be prepared for the consequences.
I think that is the best advice I would
give. I wouldn’t say don’t do it, but you
should be ready to not only justify it,

“..BUT YOU SHOULD BE READY TO NOT ONLY JUSTIFY IT, BUT ALSO TO PUT UP WITH
A LOT OF HASSLE FROM A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT YOU TO EXPRESS
YOURSELF OR ARE WILLING TO MAKE YOUR LIFE MISERABLE BECAUSE OF IT.
were no action comedies at that time,
we would say ‘there really isn’t any
comparables available - it’s unique
property’ and that just shut the door
right there. It was just the same as
saying ‘please don’t give us your
money’, because what they would
do inevitably is go back and look at

fund you’. In other words, you cant
make money, because it won’t sell
any differently than this other game.
You just can’t fight that.
In the 80’s, Sierra’s attitude, and I
think most of publishers was, ‘What
isn’t on the market? What hasn’t

but also to put up with a lot of hassle
from a lot of people who don’t want
you to express yourself or are willing to
make your life miserable because of it.
I’m hoping that will one day go away,
but I don’t see it being much less today
than it was 25 years ago.