To reassure myself of the fact that there are indeed true gamers left inside the gaming industry I decided to ask Dan Jevons for an intervieuw (his enthusiasm for the products he deals with at last E3 genuinly touched me, thats why I listed him as one of the few positive things I experienced at E2 2K1 in my E3 editorial for this website) and much to my delight he agreed .

Most of you wont know who Dan is and what he does while some off you might know him as former GameFan editor, Knightmare .

He is so much more tough and got to where he is today by sheer talent and his passion for videogames.

These days he spends his days as Executive producer at Conspiracy Games and as such is responsible for the deal they have goin with Treasure (one of his favourite companies) .

In this intervieuw he talks frankly and openly about himself , Treasure's new projects, adult content in games, etcetera.

Enjoy.

Ali: I’ll start the interview.

Dan Jevons: Bring it on!

Ali: So who the hell are you and why the %$&%? are you wasting our time?

Dan Jevons: Hmmm. That's a tough question, Ali. Let me think about that one…

I'm Dan Jevons. I'm Executive Producer at Conspiracy Entertainment right now.

Ali: Seriously tough, can you tell our readers a bit more about yourself, like what got you started in this industry, places you worked at, current and future career outlook, etc.

Dan Jevons: I've been working in the games industry for the past 10 years or so.

I worked at Future Publishing as a Freelance journalist. Mostly on Super Play magazine.

Got my first full time game job at EMAP publishing in London working for Rich Leadbetter on Maximum magazine, which was hardcore while it lasted.

While at EMAP I worked on a bunch of mags including Mean Machines, Sega Saturn Mag and C&VG. But I freelanced for pretty much all of them. After a year or so of that I moved to America. Took a job at GameFan working for Dave Halverson. Actually a few EMAP employees made the immigration. Worked there for a while as Senior Editor

Ali: People like Matt Van Stone?

Dan Jevons: No, Matt wasn't one of the originals. It was Dave Hodgson, Gary Harrod.

Ali: Where did Casey Loe come from and what is he doing now?

Dan Jevons: I met Casey when I was working at GF. He left before I did. He's currently a major contributor to Versus books. He writes a few guides a year, living in Seattle.

Ali: Yeah, so I heard... why'd he leave? Internal turmoil with the Mullet?

Dan Jevons: Yeah pretty much.

Anyways, I worked at GF for a year and a half before the whole GF/GR split happened.

I actually got fired from GF just before the split. I'd say 70% of the staff went with Dave to GR. I worked at GR for a few months. Did the Quake 64 strategy guide. Then I left and went to Seattle to work for Lobotomy Software. They made Powerslave, Duke Saturn, Quake Saturn

Ali: Ah Lobotomy, Powerslave/Exhumed on Saturn FOREVER!

Dan Jevons: Heh, Powerslave is one of my favorite games so I was really excited to go work with its creators.

Ali: On Caesar’s Palace 64?

Dan Jevons: That's right baby! And Shadow Madness a little.

Ali: Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

Dan Jevons: Well, you've got to understand, the concept we had for Caesar’s Palace was awesome… It was like a first person Monkey Island adventure game set in a casino, with gambling. But you could walk around and talk to the other gamblers, chat up girls.We had crazy quests involving Elvis impersonating vampire slayers and secret agents.

Ali: Cool.

Dan Jevons: It never happened. We were pretty incompetently managed. But I made a lot of my best friends there.

Ali: Insert Halverson joke in article.

Dan Jevons: Dave takes a lot of flak, but you know what, he's okay. He has a big heart. And he has more passion for the game's biz after all this time still than anyone I know. He really loves games.

Ali: I know.

Dan Jevons: That's why he still does it.

Ali: Nobody unless they’re seriously masochistic would stay after that much abuse.

Dan Jevons: So I worked as a Games Designer for Lobotomy. That's where I got my development training. Lobotomy was picked up as an internal studio for Crave Entertainment. Along with Craveyard, the ex-Square guys who did Shadow Madness. And a third team headed up by this guy from Japan who made Parasite Eve.

Ali: Ah, so that’s how you ended up at Crave.

Ali: Was Conspiracy your idea then?

Dan Jevons: Yes it was.

Ali: Whas Shadow Madness really composed of most of the Evermore team?

Dan Jevons: They left Square and formed Big Rain

Shadow Madness actually started at Square, went to Big Rain and then to Craveyard. Ok, so Crave shut down all their internal development. Which meant the entire studio in Seattle was closed; 60 or so people were layed off.

In fact, I was the only employee to remain working for Crave!! The director of product development at Crave, Mark Burke, had met me a couple times and we'd talked about games. I did some evaluations for him of potential Japanese localizations; Radiant Silvergun on PS1, Grandia on PS, some other stuff. So he offered me a job working in Acquisitions at Crave. I moved to LA and worked as Acquisitions Manager for about a year and a half. That was great

Ali: Sorry to but in at this point but why didn’t the PS1 Radiant Silvergun get a release after all?

Dan Jevons: Ok, so as far as I can tell, there was a breakdown in communication between Crave and ESP. That's the official reason.

To be honest, I don't think the conversion was that great. RS really pushed the Saturn hardware. They maxed out the dual processors.

It's my favorite overhead shooter ever.

Ali: Hi-resolution insanity, even to this day you can put it next to DC and PS2 and yes the new RS-like XBox shooter as well.

Dan Jevons: Although Ikaruga is pretty bad-ass, if I do say so myself.

Ali: Umm let’s continue with the interview thing.

Dan Jevons: Right. So I worked in acquisitions for a year and a half.

Ali: So that’s how you got to work for Crave. How did Conspiracy start then, and how did you get the deal with Treasure?

Dan Jevons: There were some internal issues at Crave that I didn't really want to deal with.

Okay, I'll take your questions one a time here.

Conspiracy started through a guy called Sirus Ahmadi. He worked for a while at Funsoft in Europe. He came to America and set up a company to help Swing Multimedia AG (a European publishing company) acquire American licenses and relationships.

Ali: Algerian in Germany?

Dan Jevons: Sirus is Persian/German.

Ali: Ah my bad, long time since I heard the name.

Dan Jevons: Conspiracy got Swing the WB licenses that we have today. Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Flintstones, American Tale, Land Before Time.

Swing needed these licenses to build their portfolio to go public. In return for working on these deals, Sirus got to publish the titles in America and make Conspiracy basically the American arm of Swing. So when I came on board, Conspiracy had just started as a publishing company. I got hired as Executive Producer, which meant I would have to do all publishing duties.

Ali: Yes?

Dan Jevons: In kind of a sink or swim position.

We're still a pretty small shop. It was a great opportunity for me to get into Production, something I wanted to learn more about.

Ali: And the treasure deal?

Dan Jevons: Since then Conspiracy has expanded really rapidly.

Okay, so when I came onboard at Conspiracy, Sirus already had some good relationships with Japanese licensing companies. He knew an agent who came from ESP pretty well. The guy represented Treasure.

As soon as he mentioned this to me, I totally flipped of course.

Ali:

Dan Jevons: I pushed pretty hard for us to do as much with Treasure as possible. The first deal was Bangai-O in the US.

Ali: A pretty old game by then.

Dan Jevons: Yeah it was getting a little long in the tooth. But it's a classic and as a journalist and gamer I felt it deserved to come out in the States.

Then Stretch Panic (Hippa Linda).

Ali: Or Freak Out.

Dan Jevons: I remember being on the other side of the fence complaining to publishers that these great Japanese games never got released in America or Europe. So once I started working for a publisher I wanted to make sure I did something about it.

So Record of Lodoss War we got too. These days pretty much any decent PS2 Japanese title will come to the States through some publisher or other.

Even Ka!

That mosquito game is coming.

Ali: Through Eidos, no less.

Dan Jevons: Right. I mean, did hell just freeze over? Eidos releasing a quirky niche Japanese product. People are really desperate for product right now.

Ali: Isn’t that partially because original content (especially for PS2) is expensive to produce and takes a long time to materialise?

Dan Jevons: As a smaller company, we couldn't afford to go out and spend millions and millions of dollars on original milestone based development right out of the gate.

Our strategy was to work on licensed product (the WB, Universal licenses I mentioned earlier) and ex-Japanese localizations to begin with. That lead us in to bigger projects like Enclave.

Okay, what do you want to know about Treasure?

Ali: Ah okay, a little more about Treasure which is of interest to our European readers, I was Freaked Out when I found out that (har har) the first original Treasure game produced for Crave was released by Activision in Europe before the US and Japanese releases, can we expect the same for their future titles, and what can you tell us about their future titles?

Dan Jevons: Well Freak Out was released by Swing in Europe. And it was a little weird that is shipped their first. But you've got to remember, Swing paid for the game.

Right now we're working on two more announced projects with Treasure: Tiny Toon Adventures - Buster's Bad Dream for GBA, Tiny Toon Adventures - Defenders of the Looniverse for PS2 and GC.

Ali: Hmm, so it was not through Activision?

Dan Jevons: Not Activision. I don't think so. I mean, maybe. I didn't pay to much attention.

Ali: You say two announced games, this does of course imply unannounced games as well, can you give us any hints as to what those might be and/or when they might be announced?

Dan Jevons: I could give you a 'no comment' at this point. It's too early to say. You can probably figure out what we would LIKE to do.

Ali: The same as every day, TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

Dan Jevons: Yes! *narf*

No, I think Treasure aren't going to want to work on another licensed product for a while. They actually asked US about Tiny Toons.

Ali: EXCLUSIVE Treasure working on new original content for XBox, details might be forthcoming.

Dan Jevons: Heh. I love Treasure. I think the best thing for them is to create original content.

Ali: I agree.

Dan Jevons: Having said that, the PS2 title is looking great! Defenders of the Looniverse is like Rakugaki Showtime meets Gauntlet. It's crazy, 4 player madness.

Ali: Hmm, sort of like a Parappa meets Guardian Heroes all out melee?

Dan Jevons: The director of the game was the director on Guardian Heroes.

Ali: Off to get a few buckets for my drool. This interview is going slightly off tough.

Dan Jevons: Okay, sorry. So ask the next question

Ali: This is supposed to be after all about the man Dan Jevons.

Dan Jevons: Two words. Well two words and a letter: Ghouls'n'Ghosts. That game inspired me. Though to be honest I was already a huge game freak before then.

Ali: So you’ve told us some things about yourself, could you now elaborate a bit more about the things that make you so passionate about games, why you dedicate your life to it, how you entered the business and tips for people who would like to do so as well.

Dan Jevons:

I've always loved games. I'd love to say that my first game experience was Pong etc. like everyone else but to be honest I don't remember that. What I do remember was a space invaders machine at my local swimming pool that pretty much hooked me in. I like the idea of controlling fate, even if it's not yours. And I like hand/eye co-ordination challenges. It's hard to explain why games have the appeal they did at such a young age. But regardless I knew from a young age that's what I wanted to do.

Okay, so how did I enter the business. Well I created a black and white photocopied Fanzine when I was at college. It was called 'Capcom Fanzine' and it was all about Capcom games and news and strategy. What happened was I sent a copy in to EMAP and they covered it in NMS and said it was really good etc. I used that coverage combined with a bunch of writing samples to get my first freelance job at Future Publishing. I ran the hints and tips column in SuperPlay for a while. It was called Mode 7. They payed me by the word so I always used to just rant and rave about everything I could in the tips.

Ali: Smart.

Dan Jevons: Well they cut a lot of it out. But the money was great while I was still at University. I'd just get sent this sack of mail from Future each month and I'd compile the best cheats etc.

That was a really cool magazine. One of the first to have a heavy Japanese influence. From the logo to the coverage. This guy called Will Overton did all the covers and internal art. He was really good. I don't know what he does now. I think he got a job in the biz.

So really when I applied for the staff writer position at EMAP I already had some published material and it made my life a lot easier.

But my recommendation for people trying to get into the industry is be aggressive. Get out there and create stuff. Web sites, magazines, reviews, whatever. Put together a portfolio of your work. If you can't get the experience, create the stuff yourself. Of course that just applies to journalism.

Ali: Ah yes, but looking at a lot of your colleagues, writing about games seems to be a good way to get noticed by the companies out there.

Dan Jevons: Absolutely. Game journalism is a training ground for designers and producers. You'd be amazed at how many people in this business really don’t know, or care to know, anything about games.

Ali:I know, I’ve searched long and hard to find gamers inside the gaming industry. In the end I had to settle with you.

Dan Jevons: Another good friend of mine, Ryan Lockhart, just made the transition. He worked for GameFan as Orion, then Incite and EGM. He just got hired at Seven Studios as a games designer.

Dan Jevons: I've had kind of a strange career path. I’'ve just been given these great opportunities. I guess this business is the same as any other, in that, it's not necessarily what you know but who you know.

Ali: True, true. So you worked in publishing in the UK and then left for the US, what brought this on?

Dan Jevons: Hmmm. Well for one thing the money. I was getting paid 11 thousand pounds a year in England at the time. Living in London. That's pretty tough. That's what, 15, 16 thousand dollars.

Ali: Before or after taxes?

Dan Jevons: Before!!

Ali: OUCH.

Dan Jevons: Yeah but I would have really paid them for the opportunity. So Gamefan was offering me more than double that. Plus I just needed to get out of London for a bit. Personal reasons. And I wanted an adventure.

Ali: And with GF you got all the adventure you could handle right?

Dan Jevons: Yeah! Those were some crazy times. I'm sure you've heard the stories.

Ali: I did but I’m sure most of our readers didn’t (and I’m sure you could tell me a lot of stuff Fatbabies would pay a small fortune to have).

Dan Jevons: Yeah. You know, the trouble is, a lot of the people involved are still my close friends.

But that place was madness. Go back and read Dave's Cybermorph review again.

Ali: Why?

Dan Jevons: Because he was high when he wrote it without knowing he was high. Someone put acid in the coffee on deadline night. Seriously!!

Ali: Oh yeah that. Come to think of it, you must be one of the only ex-GF people who at one point had amicable relationships with both Dave AND Eric.

Dan Jevons: I told you I got fired from GF. I also got rehired not a month later. That was kind of the ritual at that place. I never had anything against Eric. We didn't get on that great at GF but we've become friends since I left.

Ali: Ah yes, do you still play games as religiously as you used to or has it diminished since you left games journalism?

Dan Jevons: I play a lot of games. I recently just took down Maximo, State of Emergency, MoA:AA, Return to Castle Wolfenstein… I play a lot of Counter-Strike still.

But I don't play as much as I did. I can't now! I have to much work. But I do pretty good.

Ali: As a gamer, what do you think of the current state of gaming?

Dan Jevons: Hmmm. Well I think we're standing on the brink of the next big game revolution right now.

Ali: Meaning what exactly?

Dan Jevons: We've gone from 2D to 3D.

Online console gaming. It's been a dream for quite a while, and PC gamers have had it for years, but I think what Square are doing, and what Sony and MS have planned is really going to change the face of console gaming.

I was playing Halo on-line the other night, through my PC. And it was a really bizarre experience. I was playing a game on my TV, full screen, pad in hand, against other humans.

Ali: Someone clearly never heard of a little deceased machine called the Dreamcast…

Dan Jevons: I played DC games on-line! In fact, I played Saturn games Net Link. I played a lot of Duke Nukem co-op.

Ali: Another Lobotomy programmed game.

Dan Jevons: But playing Halo, with an HDTV and 5.1 surround sound, it just felt strange. It's a home theatre experience, but on-line. It's kind of hard to explain what I mean.

Ali: Ah yes I understand what you mean.

The transition from 8bit to 16 bit brought us the refinement of 2d in both graphics and gameplay.

Dan Jevons: There are so many possibilities with on-line game design that have not been explored yet. Look at the most popular MMORP right now - people are killing rats! Not even in real time!

3D games are getting refined, this is true. The 32bit hardware just couldn't let you do it. The visuals always held you back.

Ali: The same seems to be happening with 3D this generation compared to the previous, after the refinement process is over, ever more demanding gamers will want the next big new thing. What do you think that will be?

Dan Jevons: I told you. On-line.

The next big step for game aesthetics is going to be photo-realism. That's what we're working towards. It won't happen for a while, but it's coming.

Ali: First a little jab at Yamauchi, online is a fad.

Dan Jevons: On-line is NOT a fad. And you know what? GC is going to suffer for that. Sony have the right idea, but you're going to need to buy 2 peripherals to gain the full experience.

Ali: I know, they already are with several projects on hold or altogether cancelled by third parties.

Dan Jevons: MS put it all in their system, right out of the box. I digress again. Sorry.

Ali: Anyway, what I wanted to ask you (no problem its my fault) is with regards to photo realistic graphics.

Ali: Did the success of Shrek and the utter and total failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within teach us that humans are not interested in digital representations of that which they can witness each and every day or that at least is proportioned realistically?

Dan Jevons: Oh ok. Well you're talking about the difference between movies and games.

A few points about the FF movie:

1) It was trying to be photo-realistic but what you actually saw in the movie was anything but realistic.

2) The movie failed because it was just a bad movie.

Had James Cameron written the script and had the premise been better, the technology would not have been a bad thing. Titan AE was an animated movie. Traditional hand drawn animation mixed with CG.

Ali: I understand your point, but previous similar enterprises (Titan AE springs to mind) suffered similar fates, and what I was trying to get at was the similarity between games and movies in that people want something more imaginative, something that challenges their own imagination

Dan Jevons: Hmm. Well when you look at a game like Shen Mue, which was trying to be as realistic as possible, everyone hailed it as a visual and graphical accomplishment.

I think games are different from movies. The trouble is, for movies, CG like in FF is a step BACK from reality. For gamers, graphics like FF would be such a step up we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.

Dan Jevons: Right. I get your point.

Ali: Hmm I see, but in the end despite going for the graphical tour de force games from time to time, don’t gamers vote with their wallets for the next cutesy Nintendo platformer anyway?

Dan Jevons: Nintendo has their fans. I guess it was disappointing that Jet Grind Radio didn't do better. Conker didn't sell well either. Though there were a lot of factors involved in that.

Ali: Conker swears, pisses and makes sexist jokes, of course it didn’t sell.

Dan Jevons: GTA3 continues to sell.

Ali: But hey, Conker allowed us to get drunk for free at E3 a couple years back.

Dan Jevons: It's all about matching your demographic. GTA3 is the right game at the right time for PS2. Conkers was not a great N64 title. Had it come out on PS2 I think it would of done way better.

Ali: Ah we agree.

Dan Jevons: I actually really enjoyed Conkers.

Ali: GTA3 is more then beating up hookers.

Dan Jevons: GTA3 and now State of Emergency.

Pushing the envelope in terms of adult content on PS2.

Ali: Do you think adult content is something that should be pushed?

Dan Jevons: Hmm. It's a matter of opinion. If I don't like the message that GTA3 is making, I just wouldn't buy the game. In actual fact, you don't HAVE to do these evil things in GTA3. It is up to the gamer.

There are of course limits of decency. I personally thought GTA3 was morally objectionable.

Ali: I see. So no moral objections to whatever a developer might choose to put in a game as long as it isn’t marketed and sold to the young ones?

Dan Jevons: There was a lot of stuff in the game that I thought was going to far. But do I think that the game should be banned just because I didn't like it? Absolutely not. Hey I've actually got to go. I am being summoned into another meeting.

Maybe we can finish up some other time?

Ali: Okay.

Dan Jevons: Ali! Take it easy!

Ali: Later, same!

··· Ali