Sidhe Interactive
The Idea
The company has an open policy on pitching original Intellectual Property (IP) which Business Development Executive Jos Ruffell says is really important for the industry.
There is a big difference between being a work-for-hire developer as opposed to being an originator and owner of IP and content. Sidhe has 'pitching rounds' where any member of the staff can come up with an idea, put together a design document and pitch it to the staff, which is how Gripshift came about.
Pitching rounds are held frequently but are dictated by the company's needs, so if there is no spare development resource then it's not done. Pitching is done as an open forum where everyone's ideas are heard and then votes are taken on a number of different criteria – 'game you would most like to work on' versus 'your favourite pick'. A balance is struck between what people are excited to work on and what they think is the best idea.
The point of this is that what is potentially going to be the most profitable may not necessarily be what everyone wants to work on. Some of the biggest success stories in the industry have been titles that, according to Jos, most developers wouldn't have really wanted to work on. He notes that 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' sold an enormous number of units one Christmas but he can imagine that the guys working on that would have preferred to be doing something unique and original.
The top five 'picks' from a pitching round are taken away to be discussed at upper management level and decided upon according to the company's needs and what sort of game is being pitched. Nowadays, games don't necessarily have to be in physical disc format; games can get to market via direct downloads through the Xbox 360's Live Arcade. This being the case, the company may be able to balance that smaller Live Arcade title with another Playstation Portable (PSP) project, although generally they are looking for one clear winner.
Producer Andy Satterthwaite came up with the concept for Gripshift and became its producer. His original plan was to pitch a Future Racer, but once Sony had announced the release of Wipeout Pure went back to the fundamentals – "What do I find fun?". He took concepts from classic games Super Monkey Ball and Stunt Car Racer plus other games he had been planning, and emerged with the idea of "a platform game with cars".
After working with a company artist who put together some conceptual art Andy took Gripshift to the pitching round. Although it actually came second in the vote management decided that the "first place' title was too big a scope whereas Gripshift could be developed with the available resources and still make a great original title for the company.
After it was selected from the concept approval process for development, Andy became the producer and designer for the project. Although not guaranteed, Sidhe tries to ensure that the concept originator for a title gets a key role in its development.
