Thu 9 Aug 2007
I’ve known the Kingsley brothers for many years. Imagine, I remember visiting Rebellion while they were working on Aliens Versus Predator back in ‘99. We always bump into each other at various annual industry events (most recently at Develop in Brighton). Overall, they are great guys and fun to chat with about games and the industry, etc.
Jason Kingsley always struck me as particularly “cultured”. We’ve talked about English history, naval warfare, colonial exploration, and his triumphs in polo - among other fascinating topics.
Towards the end of a recent Gamasutra interview, Jason is asked about what he’s up to outside of games. His response:
I’ve given up polo. I joust now. I take my risks by galloping towards another man on a horse, while carrying a big stick and try hitting him hard around the chest and head. No, it’s relatively safe compared to some of the thing I’ve done. What I like about it is it gets me out and about, and away from the technology. Sometimes it’s nice being Jason with a horse who dresses as a knight, as opposed to someone who owns a games company.
I’m also interested in that period of history and spend time teaching kids about it. Recently I was down in Carew Castle for the 500th anniversary celebration. It was great getting the kids engaged in their own heritage. Some are cheeky little buggers, but with some of them, you can see their brains going, ‘Wow, I’ve met someone wearing armour’. I think games are important to people, in terms of entertaining them and making them happy. It’s a valuable thing for society but it’s nice to do educational stuff too.
Wow, jousting! And, teaching kids about medieval history. Cool.
Certainly, I’ve heard of other developers doing interesting things outside the context of work/games (eg, cancer fund raising marathon, Safari adventure to Keyna, mentoring inner city kids, etc). But, I don’t hear or read about that many examples.
Are we all just too modest/humble to discuss our outside-of-work hobbies and interests and achievements? Or, is everyone just too dang busy to have much in the way of hobbies and interests and achievements that aren’t game related?
(Tangential aside: In an odd way, on a meta level this also plays into my previous post on “celebrity”. Meaning, if developers were less absorbed with games, would they seem more “human” and interesting to the culture at large? Does it matter?)
August 9th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
To attempt to answer the tangent: I think that’s true for many(most?) celebrities. They are celebrities, just not for what they for work, but also what else they do. I bet more people know about Paris Hilton going to jail than people who saw Simple Life or the sextape.
August 10th, 2007 at 8:30 am
my hobby: making more games.
*sigh*
August 17th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Hey, technology is great but you have to take time to do some things to give you inspiration. I can’t say that I would give up living on the beach. Its just so easy to take break. I think being away from it helps you get some business perspective and spur those creative thoughts too.
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
“Aliens Versus Predator for PlayStation back in ‘99″
Is this a real game?
I did the classic gamer nerd thing that I do whenever specific games are mentioned on blogs and tried to think back to the time of release, remember whether I had played the game, and bring up whatever magazine articles I had read to the front of my mind. When nothing was recalled for the Playstation (the PC version is well known, of course), I assumed it had simply slipped under my radar and I did another gamer nerd thing: checked GameFAQs.
I simply can’t find any record of a ‘99 Aliens vs Predator game for the Playstation. Did you mean the PC version, or was it a conversion they were working on which never saw the light of day?
Re: “Chill” in comment 1, I think that in Paris Hilton’s case her jail sentence was only such a big deal because she was already famous from other exploits and so the media could rinse the story in the way it did. Comparing numbers of people who know about her because of the jail story to people who have seen the sex tape isn’t a very good test as the events have completely different impacts - the news story is sudden and operating over a short period whereas the sex tape spread Paris’ name (and continues to) over a longer period and in a much longer-lasting fashion. It’s similar to how there was a point last year when Madeleine McCann was a better known name than, say, Julian Clary, but this is already reverting to how it was before the Madeliene incident as she fades out of the news and Julian Clary retains identity awareness from those on whom he has made a long-term impression and continues to entertain. Paris Hilton’s sex-tape celebrity and her jail sentence celebrity are two different things operating in completely different timescales. My point is that the “what else they do” is usually confined to small term shallow interest which doesn’t stick around for more than a few months before everyone has forgotten about it while the actual “work” is what keeps people famous in the long term.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:35 am
@Jim:
Thanks for the post. It was a while ago… Guess my memory is playing tricks on me. It must have been the PC version. I’ll update the post.