Game firm has all to play for

I SUPPOSE it’s not surprising that when meeting the CEO of a video games company set to take the world by storm, that he would be drinking from a Space Invaders mug. The legendary  game helped bring gaming to the masses and the trio behind Open Emotion Studios are hoping to emulate some of that success with the release of their newest game, which is being published by gaming giants Sony.
A previous game designed by three longtime pals, Paddy Murphy from Clonlara, Mike Naughton from Parteen and Colm English from Dublin, has already had five million plays worldwide and expectations are high that their new game, their most ambitious to date, could end up becoming a classic.
Mad Blocker Alpha: Revenge of the Fluzzles is set for release in time for Christmas and will be available for the PSP and PS3 through PlayStation’s online store, while other games are also planned for release by Sony. There are also plans to launch a game for the ever-growing iPhone market. Not bad for a company that has only been in existence for just over a year.
Paddy explained how the company, based in Castletroy, Limerick, formed.
“I was always mad into games  and for years I’ve worked in sales. Last year, I was talking to Mike – we went to school together but hadn’t spoken in a while – and he told me he was getting involved in game concept art so I asked him if I came up with an idea would he come up with the pictures. Colm, who I’ve known for years, was doing programming. We just started talking and throwing out ideas and it just came from there.”
Things moved quickly for them, with the trio finding office space and creating their first ‘flash’ game within the first month, which was available to play online. “I’m terrible for just throwing myself into things,” laughed Paddy. “We created our first game, MadBlocker, a precursor to our new game, and we did it in two and a half weeks and sold it. It was a case of we knew we had to do it to pay for the office. If we were working from home there would be no sense of urgency. It was a case of literally every month we would make another game to pay the bills.”
There is no doubting the popularity of video games at the moment, with Paddy telling us the old image of ‘computer geeks’ is long gone. “Games are just everywhere now, everyone has experienced games in some way now, whatever their age. My grandfather is 85 and he finished Goldie’s Revenge. When I was growing up it was nerdy to spend your time playing video games. Now I look at young people and they’re worshipped for being good at games. They’re meeting online to play and it’s like, ‘oh man I can’t believe you got past that level’. I still can’t believe that something that was such a niche years ago, it was weird and crazy to be into games now it’s really accepted and promoted.”
The studio first approached Sony in March with ideas for video games, putting together a 10-year-plan with ideas for smaller-scale games in the immediate future, as well as big budget future projects.
“Everybody we knew were saying there’s no point, you’ll never get that. But within three days we got a response from them. We were like, oh my god,” he recalled.
Three months later they returned to Sony to pitch ideas. “We spent three months working on this presentation and the week before it I lost it when my hard drive broke down so I had to rewrite the whole thing from memory. We were so terrified that they would be all businesslike and formal but they just made us feel at ease and they loved our ideas.”
With Sony now on board, the trio had to invest in more equipment, getting outside investors and grant aid. They continued working on other projects, creating the game Goldie’s Revenge, which was bought by Addicting Games, owned by MTV/Nickolodeon. The game has since been sold to other companies all over the world. “That game has had over five million plays worldwide. I used to be in a band and you’re just not used to the amount of people you can hit with a game, it’s insane.”
The trio have travelled all over the world, meeting fellow games developers and some of the biggest names in the industry. “Since we got back from Japan, we have just been locked away in the office developing the new version of MadBlocker. We’ve just hired our first employee, Eoghan O’Donovan, who is invaluable. We’ve been joking with him that we’ve been working here for a year to try and get our credits on a PSP game and he comes along and three weeks later he has one,” he laughed.
According to Paddy, while video games have never been more popular, there seems to be a lack of game development companies in the country. This is something Open Emotion Studios is keen to tackle in Munster.
“There are lots of guys in Dublin who do some computer stuff but actual development from initial idea to releasing the game is rare. That’s why we’ve been building relationships with colleges, taking on interns to give them valuable experience in the field.
“I tend to undervalue myself because I didn’t go to college. But we went to a talk in Dublin, speaking to some students about what we were doing. One of the girls in the class sent me an email telling me she was planning to drop out of college but the talk made her realise that yes, there is a place for video game development in Ireland. A lot of people don’t want to move abroad but there are so few jobs in this field. Hopefully that will change.”
According to Paddy, there is no shortage of talent out there, particularly in the Munster region. “I don’t know if it comes down to the colleges but there is a vast wealth of creativity here compared with other parts of the country. Some of the people we have met have been insanely creative and to not have the outlet to be able to get the work experience is a shame so we’re planning to take on a lot of co-op students from UL next year. That’s one of the reasons we set this company up, to give people the experience they need to get into the field.”
Speaking about the new game, he explained that its look is like a traditional Tetris style, allowing for a certain level of familiarity for newcomers. “You’re not going to be scared off but although it starts off simple, which draws people in, it gets progressively a bit crazier and there are different difficulty levels. Also, because its available online at the PlayStation store, it’s perfect for a company like us because there are no manufacturing costs and it makes it very affordable to buy. We’re planning to release it in December, so we’re hoping that when kids have their big, cool Call of Duty they might take a little look at this thing with the crazy blocks.”
Next year, they will also release through Sony a new game, Ninjamurai, a play on words combining ninja and samurai. “They got a great kick out of that in Japan,” laughed Paddy.
While the main focus for the company at the moment is on computer games, Paddy revealed they are planning to get involved in a variety of other fields. “We went with the name Open Emotion Studios because we didn’t just want to be a video game company, we’re looking at film, books, comics and animation,” he told us.
Open Emotion has been so busy developing games and negotiating deals all around the world that they never got around to having an official company launch. Last month, Paddy contacted New York based Anamanaguchi, the band behind the Scott Pilgrim video-game soundtrack, and the band have agreed to play at the company’s official launch in Dolan’s Warehouse, Limerick on November 19.