An interview with Mark Sample

After our training days, Mark Sample, game designer for Ubisoft, kindly let us ask a few questions about the industry and his career.

An interview with Liz Ritson.

After visiting the Woodhorn Videogame Nation Exhibition I sent an e-mail to the Exhibition and Events Officer, Elizabeth Ritson, in the hope of her answering some questions. This was her response:

1.       Have you done any other exhibitions like this?

"We haven’t done another exhibition on gaming specifically but we do show a ‘blockbuster’ style exhibition each year at Woodhorn. These are large scale, charged-for exhibitions on diverse themes. Exhibitions in the past have included Wallace and Gromit, Cars of the Stars and Walking with Dinosaurs. These exhibitions bring new experiences to Woodhorn’s visitors and to the wider region. They also offer the museum an income stream, as the rest of the museum is free."

2.       What do you intend to do next?

"The next large-scale exhibiton in 2012 is ‘Invasion’ which features props and costumes from Science-Fiction film and television."

3.       Have you found that the older or the more recent games have been more popular?

"The older games had more of a novelty/retro/reminiscing factor for adults. The visitors who played these games in the past were less likely to still have them in their homes which gave them strong appeal within the exhibition. However, young visitors who were used to gaming on newer consoles such as the Wii tended to spend longer with the games and consoles they were familiar with. We also found younger visitors tended to be more intuitive with all the games and quickly mastered games they had probably never even heard of until visiting the show."

4.       Many games have certain age restrictions, has this caused any problems in showing these games?

"The curators were very conscious and careful about this issue and there was a section dedicated to more controversial games such as Grand Theft Auto and Bully. Rather than have these games available to play, we showed short promos of the games or articles about the games which were suitable for family viewing."

5.       Have you had any problems that you have had to overcome in the showing of this exhibition?

"The main problem we faced was communicating the subject of the exhibition without making it seem like it was just an arcade/opportunity to play games which visitors may well already have access to at home. I don’t feel we were hugely successful at overcoming this barrier as we found visitor figures for this exhibition were sadly lower than for previous blockbuster exhibitions."

6.       How many visitors would you estimate have come to the exhibition?

"We had just under 9K visitors to the exhibition, but this is less that half of the visitor figures we would expect for our blockbuster exhibitions which have previously ranged from 19-24K visitors."

7.       Now that the exhibition has finished is there anything you would have done differently?

"I think we have learnt a lot from this exhibition and we will be in a stronger position to identify risks in the future. For example, for our next exhibition we have been much more clear with the organisers from the outset about our expectations of exactly what comes with the package and given ourselves stricter deadlines. This has given us more time to plan the exhibition build which means we can make the most economic choices.

We have also learned that our audiences appear to be more attracted to/willing to pay for exhibitions that are very child/family focussed such as Dinosaurs rather than more specialist in nature such as the history of gaming.  However, Woodhorn is committed to maintaining a diverse exhibition programme rather than simply being driven by the most popular subjects. "

Retro Game Exhibition

Everyone outside the exhibition.

Nat enjoying the retro
gaming merchandise. 

The Woodhorn Videogame Nation Exhibition was basically a timeline of the development of the gaming industry and the technology brought about from it. Starting with a selection of games from consoles such as the Commondore 64 the exhibition showed that the first games were mostly based around puzzle solving problems similar to those seen in modern games such as Little Big Planet. This seemed to be the result in part to the lower quality of graphics allowing the most simple of shapes made from very large coloured pixels, and the processing power of the machines which only allowed a simple 2D platform to be created.

Retro gaming consoles

The exhibition then continued on through the history of the gaming industry showing not only the games and consoles but also the effect of gaming on society with game related merchandise. This helped show the effect that computer games have had on society as well as the development of the game consoles themselves from the tape readers to the games on cartridges.

Me and the gang showing off our
Donkey Kong based ties

Charlie checking out
the arcade games

Further through the exhibition there was the more modern game consoles including the pioneering Xbox Kinect which allowed you to use your body as the controller which was a step on from the Nintendo Wii’s use of the motion controlled console. 

Captain America - the story of a small weedy man getting bigger

Captain America has succeeded in fulfilling the expectations of fans of other Marvel films such as Iron Man and Thor with plenty of action and a classically retro feel. The CGI graphics were used less than I expected for a film based on super heroes; but when it was used it was done superbly, to the extent that people in the pack cinema were openly arguing which body really belonged to Chris Evans (playing the protagonist Steve Rogers).

Based during World War 2 the story follows Steve Rogers; an asthmatic weakly who can’t step away from a fight, who volunteers for a scientific experiment which he is told, could change the course of the war. When this weedy kid is transformed into a muscle machine the people around him set out to each use him for their own personal gain. At the same time the films antagonist, a group called Hydra lead by the evil Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), find an ancient artefact which they mean to use to DESTROY THE WORLD (what an original idea, right?).

The tension of the film was lifted by common use of comedy which is often seen in movies produced by Marvel Studios. In this case the main punch line was mockery of Steve Rogers’s former feebleness.

As with all films this one has its shortfalls. The storyline is not overly imaginative and has a strong feeling that it has been condensed. Also there are points in the film where you can see the producers have not thought things through, a kamikaze nuclear bomb thing having an ejector seat being one.  

But despite these problems the film I feel was overall a success and was certainly enjoyable to watch.