Tag Archives: Kareem Ettouney

Develop organisers have announced that the opening keynote of the event, a chat with LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule and ex-SCE WWS head Phil Harrison, will be the main headliner later this month. Harrison, who first brought the company to Sony’s attention, will interview co-founders Alex Evans, Mark Healey and Kareem Ettouney for a session called “Living Inside a Molecule” on July 20.

Develop takes place in Brighton between July 19-21.

Mark Rein. In a bubble bath. Playing with Halo and Gears of War dolls. Enough said.

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LittleBigPlanet is nothing if not unique. Media Molecule’s game-building cuteathon is headed up by company founders Mark Healy and Kareem Ettouney, and you can get a good idea as to why the game turned out the way it did by watching our interview with the developers after the break.

We filmed this at Develop earlier this year. There’s tons of good stuff in there, so be sure to watch.

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Media Molecule boss Mark Healy was worried the firm’s take on Metal Gear Solid for LittleBigPlanet wasn’t going to sit well with Kojima Productions, the developer’s admitted to VG247.

“We were slightly worried that our first attempts weren’t going to go down too well,” he said.

“We see Metal Gear Solid as quite serious, a hardcore, intense thing. Obviously, what we did was quite cute, almost satirical. But they loved it. They’ve got a great sense of humour and they really embraced it.”

Phew. Fellow MM mega-chief Kareem Ettouney added that the collaboration in general was glitch-free.

“It was really great,” he said. “We met Mr Kojima in America, and he was telling us how excited he was, how much he liked the results.

“We got a lot of support from the Metal Gear Solid team – beautiful assets. Everyone was really excited. It was a very smooth example of collaboration which celebrated the two brands and retained the identity of the two.”

Kareem and Mark were speaking to us at Develop in Brighton earlier this year. You can watch the full interview here.

Want to see what happens when you ask Media Molecule co-founders Kareem Ettouney and Mark Healy if they’re working on a disc-based sequel to LittleBigPlanet?

Hit the link.

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Speaking in this Electric Playground episode, Media Molecule’s Kareem Ettouney has mentioned that YouTube uploads are on the way for LittleBigPlanet.

“A lot of people in the LittleBigPlanet World are really keen on showing off how they made their creations,” he said when asked about upcoming features.

“It’s an obvious need. You go on YouTube and [see] all those videos. Let’s give the users a tool that can stream the content and put it on YouTube.”

It is fairly obvious, yep.

Current games that make use of PS3’s access to the YouTube API include PixelJunk Eden, PixelJunk Monsters and Noby Noby Boy.

We’ve asked Sony for an official line on this, so we’ll have that soon.

Thanks, LittleBigPlanetoid.

LittleBigPlanet art boss Kareem Ettouney has told VentureBeat that the days of cock-waving graphics-mongers are done and dusted. The here and now is all about the expression, man.

“I think all of the game industry has done an incredible job of using the technology they have available. But for the last 10 to 15 years everything was graphics-driven. You heard about how many polygons were on the screen at once or how a car can crash and take damage with realistic physics,” he said.

“After this period, we’ve entered into a period that is about expression. It’s about expression and content and not about the capabilities of the consoles. We are moving into a territory that’s much more fertile.”

He added that user-generated content was something to be feared by developers, but embraced.

“I believe the game development community will learn and evolve and respond and react to the phenomenon of user-generated content,” he said. “Allowing gamers to express themselves will only enrich the experience.”

More through the link.