DIZZY HEIGHTS
PHILIP OLIVER ON THE OLIVER TWINS’ VAST CONTRIBUTION TO CODEMASTERS’ BUDGET OFFERINGS
When you began working with Codemasters, it was a new company. What made you confident that this would be a good move?
We were 18 when we met the Darling brothers at ECTS in London in September 1986 and they appeared to be the same age as us with the same skills and passion for making games. The other people we dealt with at publishers were significantly older and never created games themselves. They were business people just trying to make money from those who could make games, often not paying those developers. Most were real cowboys exploiting young creative developers and this was what we most wanted to avoid. Richard and David were different in all the right ways and we really felt we could trust them. They had created many successful budget games for Mastertronic and wanted to copy the model but do it better.
What did the budget-game market allow you to do that the full-price market perhaps wouldn’t have allowed?
There were massive expectations surrounding full-price games. They required detailed design plans, schedules and contracts. As teenage developers we just wanted to make games. Budget games had fewer expectations so we could simply make a game quickly without all the palaver and design them on the fly without having to justify or have anyone approve. Then we’d present it to publishers to see who would like to publish the finished game. It was our risk, but we were learning and improving all the time.
How long would you generally spend writing a budget game for Codemasters?
By the time we met Codemasters, we were very proficient developers and we knew we were capable of making games that would prove fun. But, to avoid too much risk and keep the momentum going, we always gave ourselves a maximum of one month to develop a game.
Why were a lot of Codemasters games based on recognisable mechanics or concepts, from Robin Hood and ghosts to simulators?
Just prior to meeting Codemasters, we realised that instantly recognisable and appealing titles were essential for sales. When looking at many games across several shelves in a shop, customers will only spend a second or so looking at each box. In that time, the title, cover and theme must be good enough to get them to stop, pick up the box and turn it over. Then you had the opportunity to add more details and screenshots and hopefully convert curiosity to a sale. Codemasters’ art and design for their packaging were brilliant and definitely the best of all budget publishers at the time.
What impact did Dizzy have on the market when it released?
Well, Dizzy wasn’t considered a key release for Codemasters because it didn’t follow the formula of picking an already established popular theme. It only published Dizzy because it didn’t want to upset us as our previous games were its biggest sellers and we’d presented them this as a finished game. Codemasters knew that if it refused to publish Dizzy, we would have taken it to other publishers and potentially be tempted away forever. It made a good call!