Tag Archives: david jones

Realtime Worlds boss David Jones it to keynote UK conference Develop this summer, as confirmed on the official site.

Jones created GTA and Lemmings, and is currently overseeing APB’s development. As far as cheeses go, he’s pretty big.

“Develop is the most prestigious development conference in the UK, and I’m looking forward to coming to Brighton as it’s a great opportunity to share some of my experiences of making games – both good and not so good – plus tell a few of the Realtime World’s stories to my fellow developers,” commented Jones.

More through the link. Develop runs from July 14-16 this year, and is well worth the trip.

Hugely anticipated crime MMO APB is the culmination of 20 years work on GTA, Crackdown and sandbox gaming in general, Realtime Worlds studio boss Colin Macdonald has told VG247.

“I don’t think so,” said Macdonald when asked if the game was a straight evolution from Crackdown.

“It’s been on the go for quite some time, long before people starting seeing Crackdown and we got a sense of Crackdown’s success. It’s the bastard child of everything we’ve been striving towards over the 15-20 years that Realtime Worlds, DMA and David Jone have been making games.

“It’s where we want to go in terms of sandbox gameplay and everything that started with Grand Theft Auto and was evolving through Crackdown.”

Macdonald added that APB brings plenty to the table that’s never been seen before.

“Some things we’ve taken a lot and there are also a ton of areas in APB that are completely new and unique to APB itself. So, there’s a mix of things that came from Crackdown, but as much as anything it’s just what the company was set up to do, what Dave’s always wanted to do from GTA and before Crackdown and APB.”

An APB beta is on the way, with both the public test and the game’s actual release happening sooner than many thought, Macdonald told us last week.

There is, however, no date on the title as yet.

Realtime Worlds head David Jones has said that the $50 million the developer recently secured to continue work on APB and various other projects is a simple reality of triple A games creation.

“It’s easy for some people to underestimate what it really takes these days to produce a great game,” he said, talking to GI. “So we’re very resolute, we know what it takes, we know how much it costs, and we don’t kid ourselves that it’s going to take anything less.

“Just sticking to that principle, not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, both internally within the company and with investors, saying yes, it is a lot of money, but truly that’s what it takes.

“Unfortunately these days it does take that amount. Crackdown wasn’t that long ago and our development budget was something like $50 million, and even that to me now, I don’t know if I could do anything for much less than that.

“You’ve got the Call of Dutys, GTA IV – some challenging stuff to try and beat out there, or at least set a bar equal to that.”

Lots more through the link. APB’s down for a 2009 release.