Dev Box Interview: Blood Bowl’s Project Managers

It usually takes a small army to create the video games that we play, and, most of the time, all of the focus gets put on the game itself, and not on the people that came together to make it. Our Dev Box interview series takes a look at some of the unsung heroes (developers, producers, artists, etc) that have committed their lives to entertaining all of us. In this week’s Dev Box we are letting Cyanide’s Villepreux Antoine and Pierre-Marie Chavarel (you get a bonus this week), who recently worked on “Blood Bowl,” for the Xbox 360 and PC, provide us some insight into who they are as a gamers, and how they ended up working in the game’s industry.

Names:
Villepreux Antoine
Pierre-Marie Chavarel

Titles:
Villepreux Antoine : Production Director / Blood Bowl Project Manager / Blood Bowl Lead Programmer
Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Blood Bowl Assistant Project Manager / Blood Bowl Lead Programmer
Company:
Cyanide
Job Description:
Villepreux Antoine : Production Director : Supervising all project progression /
Facilitating relations between teams and direction. Blood Bowl Project Manager :
Ressources management, schedule handling, supervision, project direction. Blood Bowl
Lead Programmer : Architecture / Framework setup, technical choices, programmers
supervision…
Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Blood Bowl Assistant Project Manager : Team Management for
Blood Bowl extensions (additional content, updates). Blood Bowl Lead Programmer :
programmers supervision for Blood Bowl extensions.

First title worked on:
Villepreux Antoine : Microïds : War&Peace / Cyanide : Chaos-League
Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Blood Bowl

Most recent title worked on:
Villepreux Antoine : Blood Bowl
Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Blood Bowl

What game has most influenced you, and why?
Villepreux Antoine : Age Of Empires when I was younger : it gave me a big interest in RTS development from a coder perspective. More recently World Of Warcraft : It has setup new standards that we all follow now. Also it enforced the conviction that next-gen rendering wasn’t everything.

Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Well it’s kinda hard to think of only one game…I’m thinking of EverQuest – the first MMO I ever played – of course it wasn’t that good-looking but I actually felt I was a part of the world. More recently I was quite impressed by Uncharted 2, the game does almost everything perfectly: graphics, audio, story…

What are you playing right now?
Villepreux Antoine : I just recently stopped playing WoW. Currently enjoying Torchlight.

Pierre-Marie Chavarel : I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for some years now, still enjoying the game and eagerly waiting for the new expansion. I’m also playing a few games on PS3 like Killzone 2, Uncharted 2 and more recently Darksiders (great game!).

What was your first break in the games industry?
Villepreux Antoine : Looking for an internship as a programmer, my first CV went to Microïds and it was my first answer, my first interview, and my first job in the industry.

Pierre-Marie Chavarel : During my programming studies I had to look for an internship. I always was passionate about video games so I decided to try out some studios around Paris. After a few interviews and lots of unanswered mail, Cyanide gave me the job and I was quite happy to set a foot in the games industry…”Now I’m in!”.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
Villepreux Antoine : “Simpler is better”.

Pierre-Marie Chavarel : I can’t really think of anything right now…

Where do you look for inspiration?
Villepreux Antoine : Playing other games, seeing what’s working, and looking at others playing, looking at their reaction. Also reading technical papers and post-mortems.

Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Playing other games to see what’s working and what isn’t. Reading players feedbacks, whitepapers.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about game development?
Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Things that look simple are usually not once you dig into them.

Who do you think will come out on top this console generation?
Pierre-Marie Chavarel : I don’t really know who will end on top – Nintendo is well out of reach with Wii and the DS – but Sony might do better after a difficult start. Things are looking brighter now with the PS3 price drop last year and the numerous exclusive games coming out. Players and developers are considering it more then ever.

What do you think is the biggest problem current games suffer from?
Villepreux Antoine : Uniformization. Too many games look the same. Because of good sales, some think they’ve found the success formula and won’t try anything else.

Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Most publishers don’t want to take the risk to release innovative games so they either work on new iterations of their games or “clone” successful games. Of course the latter doesn’t work that great.

What is the most important thing that has happened to gaming in the last 10 years?
Villepreux Antoine : WoW.

Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Nintendo made a bold move with the Wii. It might not have lived up to the “gamers” expectations but it actually introduced many people to gaming which is a good thing. Now they only need to keep them playing and that’s a hell of a task!

Where do you see gaming in 5 years?
Villepreux Antoine : Bigger companies making bigger games with bigger budgets, better graphics, better stories…but better gameplay I’m not sure about it, while smaller companies will be forced to innovate and target other audiences. Can’t wait to see if Blizzard will innovate or not with their next MMO. Also following next CCP projects…

Pierre-Marie Chavarel : Gaming has been pretty strong the past couple of years with games like Halo 3, GTA 4 and Modern Warfare 2 besting the film industry. I’m sure we will see more games of that quality with better graphics and – I hope – deeper stories and audio, the most important things to a game in my opinion.

Related Posts:

• March 3, 2010 -- Dev Box Interview: Zoë Mode’s Producer Brynley J. Gibson
• January 28, 2010 -- Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Producer Picks His Favorite Box Art
• January 27, 2010 -- Dev Box Interview: Press Start Studio’s Philippe Rapin
• January 26, 2010 -- Blood Bowl Review: The Football Video Game Based On A Board Game
• January 22, 2010 -- Blood Bowl Trailers Break Some Bones