ZoeMode - Games Design and Development

ZoeMode - Games Developers based in Brighton under the umbrella corporation of Kuju. They mainly work on casual lifestyle games for social occasions for friends and family e.g Dancing with the Stars... Anyway, lets not dwell. It was a very informal presentation which was a welcome relief. Rather than show us what they were working on at present, they described their education and careers upto and including their positions at ZoeMode. From Jon Taylors' pitch i got an impression of the volatile nature of the industry and the narrow minded but ruthless attitudes of EA and the like. The frequency that games companies open and close was shocking, and so many projects with potential and promise that will never transpire to see the light of day. He talked with an almost bitter realism, a man who had a dream but has already accepted a lesser fate. Well this is the nature of the business, producers want games built on generic templates that fit the popular demographic, and in that sense he was happy to be working on games like Singstar. These are a more challenging thrill because it is a fresh format still in its infant stages and outside of his comfort zone.

From Ste's presentation i gathered his name is infact Ste, not Steve, it's STE. I hope i spelt that correctly... I liked the fact he was initially a games journalist, reviewing for Edge in a pretty top-cat postion. This was early Nineties when games were not mainstream reading material. It was encouraging that he seemed to naturally fall into this role after sending out a Fanzine to many a music magazine. After an undisclosed GTA walkout he got a producing job at Sony, however it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I think Ste described it as "thankless" as he had no creative input in the development of the games and his quirky dreams were being crushed. Which reminds me of "Crush" a game based on an insomniacs repressed memeory. Because of the story it allowed the two creatives to design some very interesting subconscious environments, with puzzle solving tasks and a dark gothic undertone. Now i think he has his fingers in as many pies as the Creative Director of ZoeMode and enjoying the job immensely due to the variety and influence he has on the creative process.


-> a few things i took away with me: The competition vs collaboration issue of creativity and coporations. They seemed opposed to the idea of Wikinomics, and taking the more fundamentalist perspective of Andrew Keen, favouring competition over collaboration.
Be aware of the should-be obvious difference between East and West games nature and players attitudes. The East sounds more promising, with more scope for narrative structure and general artistic interpretation.