BS: I was going to ask you a long time ago about the PC and PS3 thing -- making the versions have network interoperability.
MR: We have the capability to do that using GameSpy, because it's the same online system between the two. We decided close to the end of Unreal Tournament 3 that we weren't going to do that, because for us, it meant keeping compatibility between the two different versions of the game on the PlayStation 3 and the PC.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but when you go to create a game for a console, you have a rather lengthy certification process. Which is a good thing. I'm not criticizing that, but it means that it would be very difficult to bring in a change to the game, or hunt down a cheat or exploit -- things of that nature. It could take weeks or maybe months to ship that update on the PlayStation 3.
So what do we do? Do we sit on the PC version for a couple of weeks or months while we go through this process? We really didn't want to hamper our PC players with that kind of responsibility to the console. We really wanted to make sure that we had a really great -- and I'm very proud of the guys who have made what you played tonight -- a great PlayStation 3 game. It feels just right when you're playing it, and there's enough subtle differences between the PC game and the PlayStation 3 game that making the two compatible would be a challenge.
We would definitely have to change some things on each platform to make them similar enough that we could have cross-platform play, and we didn't want to sacrifice our PC audience -- our tried and true customer that's been with us for a long time. We felt strongly that we didn't want to make them suffer for our art.
BS: Certainly that is true, but Guitar Hero III is releasing a patch day-and-date with the 360 proper release, because there were some co-op problems.
CN: That is true, yeah. Guitar Hero III released a patch the same day that the game came out. The patch was ready for the game's release date.
MR: Oh, sure. That's not uncommon. We did that with Gears of War. A lot of guys do that. A day-one patch is almost a necessity these days!
BS: I was just saying in terms of that being a limiting factor.
MR: Remember, they sent us the game before that. Weeks or months earlier, it went through cert, got put on a disc, manufactured, and shipped around the world. Quite a bit of time elapsed from one to the other, whereas an online patch is a different story.
BS: So in terms of being able to make mods and maps and stuff on the PC and then play them on the PS3, is that still happening?
MR: Absolutely, yeah.
BS: How did you get that to go through? It seems somewhat technically difficult.
MR: No, I mean, we have Unreal Editor on the PC version of the game, and the content is compatible between the two. That's the thing that people don't realize. When you take a level in Unreal Tournament 3, you build it on PC. The exact same levels you're running between the PC and the PS3.
The things that are different between the games aren't really the levels. They're the speed that certain vehicles move, the firing rate of weapons, the turning radius for the player camera. Things like that are tweaked specifically between PC and console. But the levels and the content itself is 100 percent compatible. It's really no big deal. You make something on the PC, and say, "Oh, now I can go test it on my PlayStation 3," right then and there.
What we do to finalize it, make sure it makes the most efficient use of memory, and runs the fastest, is we bake it down to the PS3 version, but that's just like saving a file in Word in a different format. If you save it on a PlayStation 3 format, you can stick it on the Internet, and someone can download it, put it on a memory card, and import it into their PlayStation 3 version of the game. That works really well.
BS: Level files are pretty small, in general.
MR: Not always! There's more than just levels we're talking about here.
BS: Is it also possible to do graphical mods?
MR: Absolutely. You kind of have to divorce yourself from the idea that levels are just maps. Let's say you have something called the level. A level can contain maps, vehicles, models, static masses, materials, UnrealScript code, our digital scripting tools, matinee cinematics, and cascade particle systems. That's what our game content is. Pretty much what any gamer would want in a level.
BS: To me, that's surprising. You don't have to comment on this, but people have had trouble developing things for the PS3 because of the way it deals with certain types of data. If a modder is creating a mod, obviously they're not going to be as savvy as PS3-committed developers. It seems like it would be...
MR: I don't understand that logic.
CN: Well, the engine's already running on the PS3.
BS: Right. The engine's running. That's the hard part.
MR: A mod maker doesn't have to be any less savvy than Epic Games. That's what we do. We get the engine up and running on the platform, get it to run fast, and get everything to work. It takes a while to learn the system and do that, but once that's done, any content that runs on a PC that's roughly equivalent to the performance of the PlayStation 3 should run pretty much the same on the PlayStation 3. It's a breakthrough. I know it's hard to wrap your head around.
BS: I'm thinking about new assets kind of stuff.
MR: Yeah, people create completely new assets. It's a wonderful thing.
BS: To me, that seems to be a bit of a conceptual leap, in terms of how people are trying to run stuff. Maybe I've got it all wrong.
MR: No, that's what's so special about this game. We're enabling people not just to move the furniture around in the levels we give them. You've seen in-game level editors, and that's essentially what they do. They let you move blocks and stuff they already created around, and in the most sophisticated one, maybe it lets you make terrain and things like that. We're divorcing ourselves from that kind of ridiculousness.
This is the full power of the Unreal Editor. The same editor we used to create the games is now available to you. You want to import your objects you made in 3D Studio Max or Maya? Bring them in! You want to code an UnrealScript? Code an UnrealScript! All those things you can do. If they fit on our map, you can stick them on the PlayStation 3 and they'll run!
BS: How does exactly that go through you?
MR: It doesn't go through us.
CN: Does Sony not care?
MR: It's user-created content! It's fantastic! I can't understand why people are so nervous about what Sony... no, Sony's wonderful. When they embrace user-created content, that's what it means to be an open system. That's why we're on PlayStation 3 first -- because they are embracing user-created content. It's not just moving the deck chairs around the boat. They are embracing real art.
CN: They have technical requirements for people who make packaged games. Someone could make a giant map that says "F*ck Sony. Microsoft rules!" or something like that, or even something that's just offensive to other players.
MR: If you're going to allow user-created content, you're going to allow user-created content.
CN: It's not going to be... I bet they're going to police LittleBigPlanet and other stuff.
MR: Well, LittleBigPlanet is more of an example of rearranging chairs on the deck, right?
CN: It's pretty robust.
MR: This is the real thing. You can't import your own models in LittleBigPlanet. You can't write script code in LittleBigPlanet.
BS: I think it's kind of like baking the stuff so that it's proper for release. Is there going to be any kind of...
MR: We have nothing to do with that process. Users do that themselves. It's user-created content. This is amazing! It's a little tough to get your head around. We don't know how deep people will take it, or how players will embrace it. They could do lots of things or littler things. We're going to encourage it, because we're going to create a mod contest. We're basically going to throw money at people to take a chance at it.
CN: You're saying that Sony understands and they're really into it. This isn't going to be happening down the road on the 360 version, will it? Or can it?
MR: We'd like to. That's one of the challenges in figuring out how to bring this game to the 360. Right now, Xbox Live is a closed system, so when we finish the PC and the PS3 one and maybe take a little break for Thanksgiving and Christmas, we will sit down with Microsoft and have a dialogue with them and say, "Here is what we want to do. How can we do it?" They may or may not embrace it. We don't know. That's why we've made the game for the PlayStation 3 first, because we knew exactly what the boundaries were going to be.
BS: I feel in a way like the PlayStation 3 -- in terms of downloads -- is kind of like the Wild West. Since they haven't set up a specific structure, it's "every man for himself," in a way.
MR: That's what user-created content is. I'm always shocked when I talk to media, and it's like, do you want to censor people? I know it sounds incredulous to say that, but that's kind of what I hear you say.
CN: I never came from a PC gaming background, so that sounds totally weird.
MR: "Why aren't they putting chains on people?!" Why do you want that?
BS: It's not like that with YouTube.
MR: When YouTube finds questionable content, they take it down. We'll have a mechanism do that too.
CN: Well, if it's an open system, how can you take it down?
MR: We have a way to blacklist mods that do bad things.
BS: It's not that we want chains, it's just that it's so...
CN: I mean, look at all the different console systems. They've always been like that.
BS: Sony is very conservative with what they will release on their console in a package.
MR: Again, I think it's really clear. If you want to make a DVD and play it on your PlayStation 3, you can. If you want to make a DVD of whatever it is -- whatever questionable, crazy, ridiculous movie you want to make -- you can burn it on a DVD-R and go play it on your PlayStation 3. If you want to record music on an MP3 CD or a memory card or play it off your computer, you can do that now on PlayStation 3, right? If you theoretically had a Blu-ray burner, you could do the same thing with Blu-ray. If you want to have your movies or photos on the PlayStation 3, you can do that. It's your content! There's really no difference.
CN: But it's point-to-point.
MR: It's not point-to-point. They're going to let you show movies to other people in Home, for example.
CN: Yeah, but your house is locked or open as you choose.
MR: That's not that much vastly different.
CN: I don't disagree...
MR: I have to make the choice to go and download the mod.
CN: I guess I feel like console users just might not be aware of what they're getting into.
MR: At least in the beginning, the way it's going to work at launch is they're going to have to go and get it themselves, and make the choice and put it on their console. They're going to go to some website, download a mod, and make the choice to actually install it on their console.
CN: That surprises me more -- "some website." Not the fact that they're even allowing downloadable content, but the fact that it's from anywhere.
MR: It's great!
CN: Yeah, we're not being negative about it.
MR: You are!
BS: No no no, we're...
MR: I know, and I get what you're saying. It's hard to fathom the fact that, because the console business has been so tightly closed in the past...
CN: Like suing the existence out of people who tried to make games about paying licensing fees.
MR: But remember, this is content for a game for which they bought the game. You bought the game. You're entitled to run your content. It's not like you have to own Unreal Tournament 3 to play these mods. I think Sony's going to have a good Christmas this year. Games like Unreal Tournament 3 will hopefully get out the door.
CN: Yeah, will it be a Christmas with Unreal Tournament 3?
MR: Well, I hope we do. [Rein subsequently confirmed that the title will debut in December for PS3.] Regardless of that, they've got a lot of good games coming, they've dropped the price of their system, and they're embracing this kind of openness. I think this is going to work out positively for them in the long run.
The Unreal Man: Mark Rein Speaks
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CN: I guess I feel like console users just might not be aware of what they're getting into.
MR: At least in the beginning, the way it's going to work at launch is they're going to have to go and get it themselves, and make the choice and put it on their console. They're going to go to some website, download a mod, and make the choice to actually install it on their console.
CN: That surprises me more -- "some website." Not the fact that they're even allowing downloadable content, but the fact that it's from anywhere.
MR: It's great!
CN: Yeah, we're not being negative about it.
MR: You are!
BS: No no no, we're...
MR: I know, and I get what you're saying. It's hard to fathom the fact that, because the console business has been so tightly closed in the past...
CN: Like suing the existence out of people who tried to make games about paying licensing fees.
MR: But remember, this is content for a game for which they bought the game. You bought the game. You're entitled to run your content. It's not like you have to own Unreal Tournament 3 to play these mods. I think Sony's going to have a good Christmas this year. Games like Unreal Tournament 3 will hopefully get out the door.
CN: Yeah, will it be a Christmas with Unreal Tournament 3?
MR: Well, I hope we do. [Rein subsequently confirmed that the title will debut in December for PS3.] Regardless of that, they've got a lot of good games coming, they've dropped the price of their system, and they're embracing this kind of openness. I think this is going to work out positively for them in the long run.
Unreal Tournament 3 for the PS3, now a reality!
BS: I think there's been some kind of message shift from some companies recently, like Rockstar for instance. Manhunt 2 came out, and some Russian kid figured out how to hack it to get unblur some of the censored content and make it normal again. In the past, they would deny that that ever existed. Now they're saying, "Yes, someone did that." It seems like there's a different attitude forming toward user-created content, where people are realizing, "Yes, this is users!" and claim responsibility for users. Is that...
MR: Of course. Companies themselves... with pens and pencils, what you write or draw with those pens and pencils they have no control over that.
CN: Senators believe in the whole-hearted necessity and usability of pens and pencils.
MR: And they should, and they can't believe in censorship.
CN: But they do!
BS: That situation's pretty rough. Those folks don't understand the industry, for one thing, and also..."If it exists in a game or can be done with a game, it's the responsibility of the people that made that originally."
MR: Well, that's silly.
BS: I agree.
CN: I think we all agree, but right now...
MR: They might as well go after companies that sell paint, because some people make objectionable paintings, as opposed to the people who make...
BS: And they used to! I was going to ask, what would you think about someone selling a mod?
MR: The end-user license agreement for the game...
BS: Ah, there we go. Makes sense.
MR: And the law. The fact that it's our IP.
BS: Did people used to sell CounterStrike before it was a proper Half-Life mod?
MR: No.
BS: Okay.
MR: We haven't run into any problems like that. People are pretty respectful. They know they're using our tools, and they've read the end-user license agreement when they installed that says, "You can't use our tools for commercial purposes." But while we say that, we would very much like to have the ability, down the road, to sell mods. That's something we're actually working on behind the scenes.
We could set up a store where users who create mods have a way to monetize them down the road. We think that's definitely a good goal to have. We're looking into that. That's not some new revelation, but we think that is a good thing for us down the road, but in a controlled way, so that we get some reward for the fact that they're using our technology.
BS: So if somebody wanted to be incredibly insane and try and create a racing game using the hoverboard or something like that, that would be...
MR: Well, as long as they make it as a mod and give it away for free, that's fantastic. We love it. And then if they want to sell it, they should just come and talk to us. Red Orchestra's a perfect example. It's out there being sold on Steam and at retail, and it was a mod. We embrace that. There's others that we would have happily done the same thing with. Some of the others that are in the contest actually have licenses and publishers doing it, so you'll see some events on our retail service. But there's nothing wrong with that. It's fabulous.
BS: Do you think Unreal Engine 3 running on the PS3 now is going to help people surmount the difficulties they've been having?
MR: I think that's generally how it works. That's part of the reason why we build a game -- to prove out the technology, and iron all the kinks out of it and make it good. As I've said before, a year after the Xbox 360 was on the market, we had a really good game -- Gears of War -- and that kind of became version 1.0 of Unreal Engine 3 for the Xbox 360. That became a roadmap. It was well-optimized, and licensees could go look at that code. We released it so they could say, "If I want to do at least what Epic's doing with Unreal Engine 3 and get that kind of framerate and performance and visual look or move some of those levers up and down to be different, I can do that."
I think it's the same thing with Unreal Tournament [3 on PS3] so absolutely. I think now, people can see, "Okay, they've got the engine running with this much content." Everybody's mileage varies, because not everybody's making the same game. But, "They have the engine running with this many characters, explosions, and vehicles, and the level's this size, and if I follow that idea, I can get that kind of performance, and if I do less of this, I can do more of that. If I do more of this, I can do less than that." So, absolutely, I think we're at that kind of version 1.0 on PlayStation 3 a year after the PlayStation 3 shipped, the same way we were with Xbox 360 a year after the Xbox 360 shipped. That was a pretty predictable thing, and was what we expected that was going to occur and what we've been telling people.
BS: Have you had to do anything specific for Sixaxis motion control on the PS3?
MR: That's pretty safe and easy to do. On Unreal Tournament 3, we have two primary uses for the Sixaxis. One of them is to control the hoverboard. It actually works surprisingly well once you get used to it. The other is for the control of the Redeemer rockets, which you fly in 3D space. You bank and curve, and again, that's another pretty good use for it. We didn't make it part of the regular controls for running and shooting and things like that, because it just didn't make sense.
BS: Do you have the rumble built-in already?
MR: You know, I do not know the answer. I played a build of the game with rumble support in it, but I have no idea if the shipping version of the game has it in it or not. If it's not in there now, it will be in a future patch. We have have come out and said that we'll support it, and we have it working. I don't know if they felt that it was developed far enough to commit the shipping version or not. In fact, I was going to ask the programmer that question just yesterday, and I never got around to asking.
CN: The DualShock 3 doesn't ship in North America until next year, anyway, so it's not like...
MR: Yeah. It's the same thing with the Home support. You know us -- we support our games for a long time, so I'm sure these are things we will add.
BS: You're supporting these mods for however long, so I'm guessing you'll be supporting the game.
CN: Speaking of Home, have you talked to Sony about any of the limitations of your stuff in Home, or are you theorizing that Home stuff will be coming down the road because Home's going to be big?
MR: We're planning that you'll be able to get a party together in Home and then file into the game from an Unreal space. Home's pretty cool, so we're planning to do that. That'll make it easy for... what I like about that is that you'll be able to form without us having to build a party system. It won't be as detailed as a real party system, but the idea is that we could all meet up in a room and go together in the game.
I think it's really smart that eventually if everybody does that, each company doesn't have to develop its own way to all meet up somewhere and all go into a game. I think that's a very smart way to do it, and I kind of wish Xbox 360 would do that, and I'm hoping that they will at some point. In other words, all these games have these different systems for getting together and then traveling into the games together or playing as teams or whatever. I expect that to be a dashboard functionality at some point in the future for the Xbox 360, and I think Sony's already thinking that way with Home.
BS: Some of the PS3 stuff seems more bolted-on, earlier on. It's funny, it sounds like it's going to be more streamlined than it is now.
MR: I think it's pretty smart what they're doing with Home -- the idea that you can go into Home and get a group of guys together and saddle into the game. I think that's smart, and I think more and more companies making games for the PlayStation 3 Network will adopt that, because it's hard and painful and difficult to write, and why [do it] if the operating system is going to group these eight people together or however many people it is and just give them to you, why not just take it? That's a good thing.
That's how things have worked on the PC for a long time. Years ago, there were things like GameSpy and Xfire, and they all worked that way. Group a bunch of people and send them all to the same server. It makes your life easier as a developer, not having to build that functionality, and it takes a console to make that level of functionality the way Xbox Live has done things more consistently across multiple games.
BS: I didn't really realize, I guess, that Sony was actually building that capability in.
MR: It's one of the great features of Home.
