Oâ??Donnell: ‘We donâ??t want games to be more like films’

The second part of Develop’s interview with Marty O’Donnell is now available online, offering the Bungie audio director’s thoughts on the comparison between games and film and the changing nature of the games industry.

Speaking on having game soundtracks compared to those of movies, O’Donnell said: “I think it’s incorrect, that’s actually a mistake. At Bungie, and probably a lot of other studios, we’re not looking to make games more like films.

“From a production standpoint, you want to be as polished as a film can be, but we’re making completely different experiences. When you ape something, I don’t care what you’re doing – you’ve made a mistake if you’re trying to sound like something that’s already been done.”

Speaking of being an internal audio director in an era where much audio work is outsourced for games, he added: “At some point, the game business has to mature enough where you could just have a house of game animation specialists or lighting specialists, all working with a core team that owns the IP – a bit like an Alfred Hitchcock, you know, he writes the script, storyboards it and is the director, but hires in for everything else.

“That will still possibly the sort of thing that makes sense from a business and creative standpoint as things need to be more and more specialised. But I don’t think we’ve hit that yet. I still think there’s an advantage to having the whole team together.”

For more of the interview, including O’Donnell’s fight for 5.1 surround sound in the original Xbox and Weta Digital’s astonishment at the level of technology in games, click here. Part one of the chat can be found here.

Keep your eyes stuck to developmag.com for our full interview with Bungie studio manager Harold Ryan, coming tomorrow, and our talk with Microsoft Game Studio’s Phil Spencer on the ‘loss’ of Bungie, Bizarre and Bioware, to be published later this week.