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Ian Livingstone: We need more Laras

By Emma Boyes, GameSpot UKPosted Aug 13, 2007 2:55 pm PT

The Eidos executive thinks that the games industry needs more iconic characters to compete with movies, TV, and comics.

EDINBURGH, UK--Industry veteran Ian Livingstone thinks that game developers need more character. The Eidos product acquisition director, speaking at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival 2007, told the audience that characters were extremely important not just in games, but also as intellectual properties that can then be used in other products.

He showed the audience a series of 40 pictures of instantly recognisable famous characters from the worlds of comics, TV, and movies, including James Bond, King Kong, Fred Flintstone, and Scooby Doo. Next, he showed a small selection of easily recognizable game heroes, including Link, Mario, Sonic, Gordon Freeman, Solid Snake, and Duke Nukem. Surprisingly, not everyone in the audience could put names to the images. This led Livingstone to conclude, "if we all work in the games industry, what does that say?"

The Eidos executive then listed a series of elements which he believes make up a good character, including appearance, personality, name, dialogue, and humour. Agent 47, the murderous protagonist of the Hitman series, became memorable in part because his bald pate and the barcode tattoo on his skull's base. This was a happy coincidence, said Livingstone, since "hair was too difficult to do back then, so we made him bald." The designers then added the barcode on the back of the head to give people something to look at.

Livingstone also talked about the development of the villainous stars of the forthcoming Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. "At first, Kane looked much younger," he said. "He was a bit of a ladies' man--clearly modeled on myself--but he'd had a tough life." So the decision was made to age him and add battle scars to bring his appearance more in line with the story. Lynch, on the other hand, "just looked right right from the start."

Names are also very important, believes Livingstone. He said, "With a name like 'Darth Vader,' you know he's not going to be nice. Now 'Jar Jar Binks,' he's going to be much more fun." Lara Croft had originally been Lara Cruz, and after deciding to make her a posh British lady, the team "looked through the phone book until they found the right name."

Developers should also be adding more catchphrases to games in the same way that Hollywood does, Livingstone believes. He said game characters need the equivalent of Taxi Driver's "You talkin' to me?" and Terminator 2's "Hasta la vista, baby."

131 Comments

  • KingSigy

    Posted Sep 26, 2007 6:16 pm PT

    What makes an iconic characters for movies, tv shows and books is exactly what should be done in video games. You just need your characters to have personality, or to have the gamer become the character (such as Half Life does).

  • joshyoung55

    Posted Aug 21, 2007 2:49 pm PT

    Trying ot make an iconic character isnt as easy as you think. After reading this I tried and it might be my excessive playing of video games that has melted my brain :p lol but there must be a formula to it and im deternmined to find it

  • nebula619

    Posted Aug 20, 2007 3:28 pm PT

    Ian Livingstone wrote the fighting fantasy books, one of which spawned a game "Deathtrap Dungeon". also Gordan Freeman is the hero of Half Life.
    I love gamespot

  • nickythenewt21

    Posted Aug 20, 2007 8:53 am PT

    Then why don't you go and make one instead of telling us there should be more, Mr. Livingstone? I'm sure that Eidos could easily make one, and they could become their mascot.

  • KingKoop

    Posted Aug 20, 2007 2:34 am PT

    Agent 47 - Jason Stratham?
    Lara Croft - Angelina Jolie?
    Bob Hoskins - Mario?

    Realting games to movies is just a bad idea IMO.

  • Wordflow

    Posted Aug 19, 2007 8:23 pm PT

    Hmmmm.......lets see.....

    Master Chief Pac Man
    Ms. Pac Man
    Mario
    Peach
    Luigi
    Bowser
    Link
    Pikachu
    Sonic
    Tails
    Cloud
    Sephiroth Sam Fisher
    Agent-47
    Laura Croft
    Solid Snake
    MegaMan
    Dante

    Easily those are the most recognizable characters in gaming and some may not even know some of those games. Everyone else Spider-Man, Superman, etc, are from comics or movies. But lets think for a second who really wants more memorable characters? Oh thats right the game companies do because having them gives them more money. Please I don't know about the next person but having create-a-character options to your liking is much better these days. We all could do without the over-marketing that some of these so called memorable characters get.

  • kappareign

    Posted Aug 19, 2007 5:57 pm PT

    comparing movies to games is like apples and oranges. besides, celebrities from movies are in the news all the time, video game characters are not. games already have iconic characters anyway. pac-man is a freakin yellow pie chart and everyone knows who he is. hes been around for over 25 years!

  • X-RS

    Posted Aug 18, 2007 9:10 pm PT

    booooo!
    we need fear effect 3!!

  • vmfstorm1

    Posted Aug 18, 2007 2:53 pm PT

    I have to say, that Agent 47 really is one of the most identifiable characters from games, we all like certain games, like gears of war and the like but if you see the main characters, for instance master chief, without his trademark gear than you would certainly be unable to recognize them. Characters like Lara, Agent 47, Sam Fischer and some others are so easily recognized mostly because of the way they speak their personalities and features rather than their gear. With most modern games, again games like Gears of War and Halo come to mind, the characters are monotonous, there are amazing story arcs, but by the end you have no real acquaintance with the character you've just played for 20 hours or more with. I also believe that overly deep names, such as last names with roots in latin and greek that mean something related to the game are simply too difficult for most to remember, I don't think many are familiar with PsyOps, but the main character's last name was scryer, and unless one looked it up they would never truly understand the relationship to the protagonists last name and the underlying themes of the game (the word scryer is actually someone with psychic abilities). I just think that game developers get so caught up in coming out with sequels, prequels and games to make a quick buck that they don't realize that games with an identifiable villain or hero will sell so much more than one without, Tomb Raider went through something like 8 years of sucking before a worthy sequel and it still sold well because Lara Croft sold games. All I'm saying is that we as consumers shouldn't continue support of games that aren't even worth playing.

  • M-ManLA

    Posted Aug 18, 2007 1:44 am PT

    Agreed. But damn, Lara Croft was going to be Latina at first? Sweet.

  • fastpunk

    Posted Aug 17, 2007 5:33 pm PT

    I can certainly agree with the guy. There just isn't enough personality in video games these days.

  • greater_bird

    Posted Aug 17, 2007 12:14 am PT

    I figure he has a point. Without Lara Croft to keep it afloat the Tomb Raider series would never have survived the many duds they put out. When they kicked it back into life with Tomb Raider Legend, all those ads of Lara jumping off a cliff virtually sold the game on their own.

  • DesRed

    Posted Aug 16, 2007 11:18 pm PT

    I understand the fact that games are considered intellectual properties (IP) but turning characters from a video game into IPs? Is that really necessary?

  • barbierian205

    Posted Aug 16, 2007 8:51 pm PT

    DepressionMoon: Who the hell is Gordon freeman?

    lolz at ^

  • DepressionMoon

    Posted Aug 16, 2007 7:32 pm PT

    Who the hell is Gordon freeman? Anyway I quite agree with this man. In order to break into the mainstream we need icons like Lara, Mario, Sonic, and Link, not to mention cut down on prices, but that might not be too easy. What we have to do is show the public the artsful side to gaming in addition to the iconic or trademark characters. We also need another Videogame awards show beside the god awful one on Spike where they do nothing ,but try to make us laugh with bad jokes. it needs to be taken seriously and more respectively. You know how other award shows give out awards to people who have done something great in the past. well they could do that to and give mention to the old school. I might be able to contribute to this with my own character in a few years.

  • EL_Punisher85

    Posted Aug 16, 2007 1:27 pm PT

    well i think so far the iconic characters you guys have are fine but it would be soooo much better if you guys had more iconic characters it would be for the best i think..............do it for the fans man! hahahha........

    "Hasta la Vista, AMIGOS"

  • BumpNGrind26960

    Posted Aug 16, 2007 5:12 am PT

    I don't think the lack of iconic characters is a problem, though some more iconic characters would be nice, but i believe it is more to do with the price of the games, granted that the games are properly expensive to develop and manufacture, but £40-£50 is a bit steep, couldn't the minimise the cost of the games without destroying any chance of a profit, how are the younger generation like my self at 16 be able to afford to buy these games, when we are only able to earn minimal money

  • pete_merlin

    Posted Aug 16, 2007 4:38 am PT

    what am i, chopped liver?

  • RaiKageRyu

    Posted Aug 16, 2007 1:50 am PT

    Gaming ain't totally mainsteam yet.

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