Channel 4: We seek originality first, not players

Channel 4 Education commissioning editor Alice
Taylor extolled the virtues of giving originality of content more attention than the number of players it will attract at a panel at the 2010 Develop Conference in Brighton today.

Having presented a quick recap of the indie titles published by Channel 4 Education to date, Taylor described the way in which she believed those games had increasingly moved away from a traditional definition over time.

“And we have found that the more traditional a game, the bigger the player numbers are,” she said.

“But we are happy to lose some of those numbers in trying out something original. Privates makes us laugh.”

Elsewhere in the panel, Taylor hit out against notions of DRM and excessive levels of IP control online.

“You can’t stop things on the internet – not unless you start messing around with ridiculous technology that screws users, and we won’t do that,” she said.