Joystiq interviews Joseph Olin, president of the AIAS

When he isn't busy plotting the demise of numerous rival and lesser-known academies (like the Academy of Interactive Baguettes and Pumpernickels, of which BioWare is a member), the well-spoken Joseph Olin is orchestrating the annual Interactive Achievement awards. Each year, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences turns to its member panel of game developers and highlights what it believes to be the best games of the year.

With the AIAS awards show taking place on 8 February at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, we decided it was about time to quiz Mr. Olin about all things award-winning. In the second part of the post, you'll find a lengthy interview touching on the recently announced award nominees, the selection process, non-human academy members, Capcom's objections and of course, the act of mowing Joseph Olin down with a machine gun.

The AIAS announced their nominees for the Interactive Achievement Awards last week. Why do you think gamers should look up from their glaring screens and pay attention?

It's all part of the quest of making great games, and I don't believe that any game is created without the game director and the producer trying to make a great game. It's about the people who are responsible for creating these games being given the opportunity to say, "There's other work out there that's really important, that I was really impressed by," and that as fans of games, we should know about them. There are a thousand plus games a year released in America, not counting the different games that never seem to make it across the Atlantic or Pacific and for so many people, after you've played three or four different titles, the question is, "What else should I play? What else should I consider?" We hope that the Interactive Achievement Awards process gives game fans the perspective of what game makers think are great games and hopefully, with their approval, games they should go out and play or consider playing.

Would you say the focus of the awards is more on recognizing individual games or individual developers?

Well, I think it's a combination. I think that our awards are split into two categories, one being the craft categories where we look at games under the microscope in terms of the various components it takes to be successful -- animation, art direction, voice performance, character performance, engineering, online engineering etc. -- and I think that those are important, if not directly to game players, but certainly to the body of developers and people who make games. There are things out there that they should be proud of, that their peers and colleagues have done over the past year and they deserve to be recognized, both in terms of their development studio, the publisher, and certainly as individuals. In fact, in this year's awards, we're actually naming the individuals responsible for achievement within the craft categories.

If you look at the Oscars, for instance, there's a considerable focus on linking actors and directors to movies. Do you think it's important that, in game development, we get to a point where developers can be likened to stars? Where you can buy a game and say, "Oh, this is designed by Peter Molyneux," or whoever, "this will be a good game."

I think that you cited a great example with Peter Molyneaux, and certainly Will Wright tends to come to the top of the list. For people who follow action games, Alex Ward and his team at Criterion have some notoriety or recognition within the game-playing community. But yes, we certainly think it's important that the people who are responsible for creating games become better known to fans of games and game players in general.

I suppose it's also important from a developer's perspective to actually be able to work for that award, to get the recognition for his or her game.

Well, we'd like to believe so and based on the amount of support we get from the development community, as well as the publishing community as an organization, that the ability to have a peer-based system really becomes critical. I can't say that specifically if a title wins an award for best original music score, that would necessarily lead you when you're at a retail outlet to want to play that game versus another game, but within the process of development and as publishers and creative people are saying, "Gee, I'm working on a new title", the fact that somebody won an award for original music composition certainly helps his or her career or his or her opportunities to contribute to the process of making a great game.

So, you could, in essence, view awards (if they reached a certain level of prestige) as a motivator for creativity or persistence.

We certainly believe so. Again, in the parallel to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Oscars, I don't know that if a film wins for best editing that you know who the editor is, other than for his or her 15 minutes of fame within the guise of the telecast. And I don't know that you would choose to see a movie whether it won an award for best editing or not, but those people are in the business of making film. The editorial process is so critical to what people ultimately see when they go to a movie house or when they put a DVD into their machine at home, that it's an important thing to recognize. I certainly think that's true with some of our craft categories, where I'm not sure that if a title that wins for visual engineering, that's a reason to play a game if you don't like the type of game that it is. But as a casual observer, you'll note that a title that hosts a number of wins and was obviously singled out by the voting members of the academy, has demonstrated excellence across a number of levels. All of these elements contribute to what you will hopefully enjoy as a great game.

This is true of just about any entertainment industry, but there's often a considerable gap between games that are critically acclaimed and those that are financially successful. How can we get obtain some convergence between the two sides?

Well, I think that looking at the finalists for this year, for the most part there was a closer alignment to titles that were commercially successful and titles that were singled out for their excellence in craft.

Gears of War would be an excellent example.

Gears of War is an excellent example. I think that Loco Roco is a good example. I think that certainly looking at some of the genre categories, that Daxter from Ready At Dawn and published by SCEA, was a successful PSP title this year, commercially as well as critically.

It's interesting to note that you would hope for an award win to influence a game's success in such a way that it would sell more, but you wouldn't want high sales to influence its ability to win an award.

You know, sometimes I think that... it's tough. I don't know, and certainly looking at some of the titles that were singled out for awards over the course of the academy's history, that if you look at the games of the year, I don't think that there's too many games that would be considered anything other than great, in terms of having been singled out as great games, as winners. I do know that we've had titles, certainly a title like a couple a years ago -- Katamari Damacy, from Namco. That was a game that received, I believe, three awards from the academy, including an innovation award, and it was hardly a financial success in terms of units sold relative to other titles that it competed against within the guise of the year. You know, I'd like to think that one of the academy's missions is to provide recognition and to be able to say "Game makers believe these games are important, are quality," and that publishers will take the opportunity to promote their winning titles to a wider audience. So, when you walk into a Gamestop, or a Best Buy, you'd say, "Oh yeah, that's the title that won for innovation, it must be doing something different. I should check it out."

Katamari Damacy is a pretty interesting example, because the word-of-mouth on that game kept rolling and kept getting bigger, eventually resulting in a sequel.

That's true. But, in terms of the actual unit sales, if I'm not mistaken, I don't believe Katamari cracked the top 100 in the United States.

Which is a pity.

It is a pity. I always found it as one of the three or four games that I actually played to completion -- because it was fun. I think, again, the academy's mission can help to provide a forum to celebrate an achievement of great work. But much like the Oscars or the Emmy awards or the Grammy awards, those organizations don't promote the award-winning titles. It's up to the publishers and the labels and the film studios to decide how to best market their award-winning work. In some cases, some publishers are very good and very aggressive about it, and others ... they lag. We continue to hope with each passing year that publishers whose work is recognized, will take the opportunity to be more aggressive in exposing the title to a wider audience.

It's a team effort.

It is a team effort. I think it's good for the industry, it's good for publishers, it's good for the development community who are ultimately the men and woman who really break into a sweat in the process of building a game today.

I'm thinking it's pretty difficult to make nominations and choose winners for these awards -- just looking at internet forums, people can barely agree on games in general. Hoisting five games above others must create a lot of disagreement amongst the members of the academy and the people keeping an eye on the awards.

I suppose. I don't know that the voting members of the academy find it difficult, but I do know that in the process of considering games among peer panels that there's a lot of honest debate and a lot of conversation in terms of discussing the merits between games. I think that's easier to do within the microscope of a craft category. I think it's much easier to talk about comparative value of work when you're only looking at one aspect, as opposed to the totality of the game experience, but as flawed as the process may be -- because it involves, you know, humans -- and as objective as we try to be, we bring a level of subjectivity to the process.

Have you tried replacing academy members with non-humans?

I think that in some cases, for the peer panelists to be able to consider 25-30 titles, they probably become one with their machines.

Well, if you had a robot to objectively evaluate every single aspect of a game, perhaps there would be less disagreement. Or maybe there would be even more disagreement ...

I was going to say, I'm not sure there wouldn't be more disagreement. Again, the respect that the peer panelists have for each other and for their colleagues whose work they are tasked with evaluating, they take it very serious. There is a lot of conversation and I think that in some cases, titles that game players may have thought demonstrated excellence in a certain thing, may not necessarily be ... they don't use the same filters as somebody who's actually charged with making a game, or who's responsible for game animation for his or her studio, has to apply when they evaluate their own work. I think that's what makes a critical difference. It's hard to say that positive reviews and good metacritic scores don't have their place, they obviously do, but from a game makers perspective, they view the work much differently. I think that difference should be celebrated and brought to the attention of people who are fans of games and game players in general.

On the topic of disagreement, Capcom recently expressed some concern with the nominations, going so far as to imply that a developer needs to "buy its way in to the AIAS" to be recognized. Is that fair?

Well, I think that the comment is patently untrue. Nobody has ever bought an award. Nobody has ever written a check to the academy and received an award in exchange. If it was that easy, we could probably dispense with a fair amount of staff and other expenses, and just not go through the process. I think that Capcom's point is that the academy's rules, in terms of how it governs the Interactive Achievement Awards, are published, have been in place in their current form since I was appointed president of the academy nearly three years ago, and that they knew what the rules were well in advance of their recent comments to members of the media. The academy's perspective is that Capcom declined to become a member of the academy and only they can determine what those reasons are. I certainly don't have any insight into their management's decisions, and as the head of the organization, all I can do is respect the decision that they made or that other publishers make with regards to participation and the process. But the way the process works is that the peer panelists, these men and women, independently play and evaluate any games that fit within the broad rules of engagement for awards. Basically, sold in the US between the 1st of January and the 28th of January of this past calendar year, for first sale date in the United States. Capcom's titles, including Okami, Dead Rising, one of their Mega Man handheld titles, were considered by a wide variety of panels as part of the process.

So, it isn't as if the AIAS turns a blind eye when you're not a member of the academy?

No. The rules are pretty clear. Ultimately, to be eligible for an award, you need to be a member publisher. The title must come from a member publisher of the academy. In some cases, when titles have been written in, the publishing company has been invited and elected to formally submit the work as an academy member by joining the academy. In some cases, titles are written in and a member publisher hadn't elected to submit, and in some cases the developer will submit the title, which is fine. These are the rules we are, as an organization, tasked with having to apply and try and apply them fairly across the board. Our only complaint in terms of Capcom's process is that these rules should not have been a surprise to them. They were published and sent to them back in October of this past year, as we began the formal call for submissions.

If I were to make a game, say Cogs of Peace, and it was widely considered to be the best game ever, I would be presented with the opportunity to join the academy and go through the whole process?

That's correct. As a rule, we don't discuss what our fees are, suffice to say that they're predicated on US domestic software sales volume only. So, for the larger companies that make dolls and other things, we don't really care about that, it's strictly what US software sales are. Our fees to join as a member start at $1000, and in most cases, as a percentage of any publisher's marketing budget, the fees are reasonably insignificant. I say "reasonably" only because significance can be judged by a variety of different filters and it depends on whether you're the one writing a check or not. Again, I respect the fact that Capcom has made a decision and they abide by it, but to denigrate our process or to cast a negative light on our process, I think, is unfair and shows a misunderstanding in terms of how the process works.

I think the greater misunderstanding is Capcom's insistence that Okami was such a brilliant game (which it was) shortly after they shut down the studio that made it.

I won't defend Capcom's decision because ... I don't know how to. All I know is that running a business is running a business and that Capcom's management is tasked with trying to create and balance great games and to do so in a way so that provides return for their investors, no different than any other business. Their decision to shutter Clover have been debated by others much closer to the situation. I don't know that one of the statements that has been attributed to Capcom was that Okami was definitely an award-winning game... I can't really speak to that because it's the creative and technical voting members of the academy who ultimately determine that. I feel that within the guise of the ballot that went to all our creative and technical people for selecting the finalists for games of the year that a Capcom title was a part of it and didn't receive enough votes to become a finalist. That's just one filter. I think they also reference the absence of Resident Evil 4 and how it was an award-winning game and they supported the Choice awards. You know, Resident Evil 4 didn't win any Choice awards from the Game Developer's Organization last year, at least not according to their website.

If it comes down to not getting chosen, period, then there's not too much you can say against it.

I don't think that changes anything in terms of RE4 being a great piece of work. It's very entertaining, it's a great step in the RE franchise. We leave it at that.

I'd like to name a game that's been nominated and get some comments from you, based on whatever experience you've had with it. Like Overall Game of the Year -- Wii Sports. Why do you think it deserves the award, if it were to win?

Well, I think it's immaterial whether I think that the game deserves Game of the Year or should be considered for it. That was the voice of the game development community singling out that and four other titles.

You don't agree or disagree with them?

I don't disagree about any of the titles that were selected for the overall game of the year. They all have their merits. I can say that I've played all of them, some of them better than others. I mean, you certainly would love to meet up with me on Gears of War online, because I'm a pretty easy mark. I have this thing about remembering to stay under cover.

See, maybe that's a reason it could be Overall Game of the Year. Because I'd be able to shoot Joseph Olin.

I think that based on some of the press coverage I've seen over the last 48 hours, I can start my own site! [Laughs]

And then you'd be in many people's sights, right?

That could be an XBLA game! I think all the games for Overall Game of the Year are examples of titles that, first and foremost, are fun. They demonstrate a fair amount of innovation in terms of play mechanics and story and experience, and they cover a wide range of genres. I mean, you've got Guitar Hero II. I'm not quite sure how you classify that other than "It's just fun." Elder Scrolls IV is arguably a role-playing game, but it's a role-playing game unlike so many others in the past. Legend of Zelda, which I think arguably is one of the great franchises of role-playing, is really as much an action/adventure title as it is role-playing. Whether you play it on the Wii or you play it on the Gamecube, it's a great experience. And Gears of War is just fabulous.

It even got a nomination for innovation in gaming, which I think is one of the more debated awards, simply because the innovation in that game isn't really obvious to the person that says, "It's just another shooter."

That's true. And again, I think that points to the difference of having game makers be responsible for determining and defining, within the set of games for the year, which games demonstrated innovation in terms of the execution. I think that a lot of the things that lead the teams at Epic Games and the building of the Gears of War title are really evident. They're certainly evident to game makers. The physics engine, in terms of how it works in real-time, their rendering engine, the ability to move background into foreground ... those are all things that are new and exciting and different, and certainly lend to the unique gameplay experience that I think you find when you play Gears of War. Sure, I agree that at the end of the day, it's a shooter.

Well, that's simply the genre it's lumped in. Many believe that "innovation" is simply something you drop into a game like some sort of object, and there it is. You should be looking at the big picture, if I'm not mistaken.

I think that the titles that were up for innovation mirror a lot of what you see in the overall game of the year. It's because they added things to the gameplay mechanics that were different than titles that had preceded them. I certainly think that there's a lot of interesting things in each of those titles, regardless of whether they have great commercial or critical success. They all did well on their own. Some of the comments I've seen regarding Viva Piñata ... people were surprised that Viva Piñata had received six academy award nominations. From my perspective, I don't know how anyone should be totally surprised. There's a lot that goes on in Viva Piñata that Rare and Microsoft should be proud of. Obviously, looking at the peer judges and the game makers, they agree.

Several people were surprised by how popular it turned out to be, even though it wasn't exactly a massive commercial success. It was unusual to see it in the Xbox lineup.

I think that whether you can say it was a strategic consideration Microsoft made in trying to broaden the audience for the Xbox 360 platform, or in recognition that there's a wide range of ages of game players who are looking for an experience that isn't like Gears of War ... it's almost immaterial. What's material is the fact that the craft that went into the design and the execution of Viva Piñata is superlative. It is fun, it is visually entertaining and provides a different type of game experience as suitable for a number of players for all ages and for adults and children to pay together.

I suppose that's quite applicable to Wii Sports as well.

Oh, without a doubt. Anecdotally, all I can say is that I'm probably the only person in my house who has the least amount of time spent on our Wii, because I can't get my wife, my daughter and their friends to stop playing.

At least you found one.

[Laughs] Well, I would say that's probably one of the few privileges I get in running the academy.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Olin!