Computer game soars to the top of the adventure games charts

9:55am Tuesday 3rd October 2006

CHARLES Cecil, that legend of the computer game industry strides into Starbucks coffee house in Coppergate, York, looking lively yet relaxed, and it's not surprising.

The spring in the step of this founder of York-based Revolution Software is because the latest version of his Broken Sword series has again soared to the top of the adventure games charts.

Computer games aficionados cleaned out the first batches of Broken Sword: The Angel of Death as soon as the game hit the retail shelves last week, priced at £34.99.

They are taken through all the unpredictable twists, turns and dramas of George Stottard - Charles's ageless hero and alter ego - that have made the series the world's most popular ongoing adventure.

But there is another story that Charles has to tell - about the evolution of Revolution which is just as much of a thriller - and it is partly the reason why we meet at Starbucks rather than his office.

Where just two years ago 30 people worked frenetically at Revolution Software's offices in King Street to produce this one blockbuster, today there is just Charles and while he still has an office, his base tends to be wherever his mobile phone is.

He is as free as a bird and why?

Because he has altered his working methods to embrace the Hollywood studio model.

Revolution Software no longer employs people; instead it pulls together teams to undertake specific projects.

"Overheads of about £100,000 per month had to be paid even while awaiting new projects to be assigned. Any downtime more than wiped out profits from projects, " he says.

"In Hollywood, a producer and director come together and build a team specifically to create a movie, and once it is complete, the team will disperse.

"The effect has been a heightened creative environment and ultimately people still do the work on a freelance basis and can expect to earn more."

As one of the founders of Game Republic, the alliance of videogame developers in Yorkshire and Humberside, he says he has remained true to its aims - to encourage and promote the development of videogames in the region "When Broken Sword: The Angel of Death was commissioned, about a third of my former staff worked on the project either as freelances or as employees of one of our partner companies, primarily Sumo Digital, based in Sheffield, which produced it."

Another local company, Media Mill based in Strensall and headed up by ex-BBC radio journalist Jerry Ibbotson, was commissioned to act as audio director and to create all the ingame sound effects And the in-game music was licensed from York-based Sugarstar, who provided specially-written songs by the emerging electronics band Ubernoise.

At just 44, Charles is at the top of the adventure games tree - particularly in Europe. The first three Broken Sword games sold more than $100 million worth - close to one million copies each.

Of course it has made him a good living but don't run away with the idea that he is megawealthy. "The economic model is stacked against the creator, " he says, wiping the coffee froth from his upper lip.

"For example, while the third Broken Sword sold $20 million worth, half of that was taken by the publisher, THQ, and of that we received 20 per cent - or $2 million. Our development costs were more than $2 million. It was a case of win some, lose some."

This, he insists, is no whinge because the artistry is more important than the money, but the Hollywood-style approach, by reducing overheads, would make projects more lucrative.

Fate moved him to become a pioneer in adventure games. He was originally going to be a mechanical engineer, but while he was at Manchester University on a course sponsored by the Ford Motor Company he met another sponsored student, Richard Turner "He had just disassembled the Sinclair ZX81 ROM, one of the very earliest home computers.

He set up a company in Hull called Artic Computing and I joined him."

Both were fascinated about the fusion of creativity with logic as they made their first, crude adventure games. 'In those days you didn't learn: You pioneered. We didn't know the rules so we made them up as we went along.

"I wrote a number of text adventures, interactive stories in which you tapped simple words into the computer and if you made the right choices, the story unfolded.

"The first game was called Inca Curse and looking back I realised to my shame it was very much inspired by Indiana Jones. To this day I still think that Indiana Jones is the greatest of adventure movies.

"My objective in video games is to write one as thrilling and exciting in its medium as Indiana Jones was as a movie."

They sold their tape cassette games with instructions in a self-sealing plastic bag for about £10. Then, in the early 1980s, Artic approached WH Smith, the first multiple to publish videogames and they snapped them up 5,000 at a time, selling them for £5 each.

"Normally video creators were paid about £100 for the project so sadly it didn't make me rich, " he says.

Then in the mid-80s wellfunded US companies entered his market and Artic couldn't cope.

Charles was approached by US Gold, based in Birmingham, to become its development manager and two years later he was poached by the big US company, Activision, to work in a similar role.

Activision was distributing adventure games by an American Company called Sierra. "They were incredibly successful games, but they were not as good as they could have been - and I felt I could do a lot better."

So he formed Revolution Software in York "and the rest, as they say, is history."

His wife, Noirin Carmody, is his business partner "so she can't be a computer widow, " he chuckles. Their daughter, Ciara, 14, and son, David, 12, "provide excellent market research, being avid and expert game players" They live in Ogleforth, in the shadow of the Minster where he has an office "but generally I find myself operating from my partners' offices."

So the adventures of George Stottart - dramas linked to thought-provoking puzzles - go on.

"We have decided that George Stottart would never age although he has changed. He's moved from 2D to 3D over the course of the series but he has an interesting evolving character.

"In many ways I share his outlook - probably his ludicrous optimism and his determination to solve knotty problems."