IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Warren Spector Feels 'Strong Sense of Responsibility' with Mickey

Posted August 9, 2010 by James Brightman

Back at E3 this year, we had the pleasure of chatting with industry veteran and Epic Mickey designer Warren Spector. We discussed the challenge and pressure of working on the iconic Disney character, the appeal of new tech like 3DS or other motion platforms, his thoughts on game design and more.

IndustryGamers: Working with Disney must be great for you, but at the same time I’m sure that means there’s immense pressure because Mickey is their brand, their iconic figure… pretty much their entire history. How much creative freedom can you have? Obviously, it’s sort of a darker feel and that is something unique that you haven’t seen in the Mickey Mouse cartoons too much. What are your thoughts?

Warren Spector: The word “pressure” comes up a lot, and there’s always this subtext behind the questions that I get about Disney. I think people want me to say, “oh, those guys crushed me.” But it’s not like that. They came to me with the idea of making a Mickey Mouse game. They came to me with a treatment for a game and there are some critical elements from that original treatment that I fell in love with and are part of the reason why I wanted to do this, one of which is Wasteland, the idea of a world for forgotten and rejected Disney creative efforts. So it’s not hard to sell them on their own ideas.

The company, long before I got involved... they said, “We’re not going to make any Mickey Mouse games for a while. We want to give this character a rest, then we want to come back when we have the right game.” And it’s been about 10 years since Mickey appeared in a game other than Kingdom Hearts, where, you know, he’s kind of a secondary character. What I have felt is a really strong sense of responsibility. This is the guy who’s on all of our business cards and every Disney employee feels a sense of ownership of this character. And not only that, I mean there are probably literally billions of people around the world who have encountered this little guy and have some childhood memories of him, or they love him because they see their child interact with him; or they remember watching the Mickey Mouse club when they were younger; or they’re cartoon geeks like me... I mean, everybody has a relationship with this guy and so I feel a strong sense of responsibility.

And the way I’ve tried to deal with that is by making sure I involve appropriate people at Disney in determining what the creative constraints are on this project. But every project has creative constraints; every project happens within a creative project box. And usually, because I’ve never worked with a license before, with an existing character, usually I just define where that box is for the team and say “here’s the box, guys.” I literally use that metaphor. And this time I said, “that’s going to be a real mistake.” If I try to do that I’m in a world of trouble. What I tried to do is involve people at Disney every step of the way, from people at feature animation. I’ve had meetings with people at Pixar about the project, people at consumer products, people at the highest executive levels to make sure everybody was on board with, “it’s ok to have the creative constraints here, the box is this big. Yes, go.” I very consciously always try to push too far and then pull back, so some stuff that people have seen, some stuff that people have heard, was just part of the normal creative process of, “let’s push too far to really find out where those lines are.”

But at the end of the day, I think what people are going to look at is where we’ve ended up. Where we’ve ended up is a game that’s going to have gameplay that satisfies Deus Ex fans, and gamers, that’s accessible to people who are non-hardcore guys, Disney fans, kids, parents, etc. I think we’ve accomplished our goal, and I think we’ve given Mickey new abilities and put him in a world that really allows him to become a true hero and a game hero.

IG: The game's exclusive to the Wii, so it takes advantage of the Wii motion stuff, but now that the two other companies have revealed their motion plans with Kinect and PlayStation Move, is there any thinking for the future about taking advantage of those platforms and those new technologies?

WS: Well I’m certain Disney has plans for those other platforms on plenty of projects…

IG: Right, but you, personally, are you looking at those?

WS: All I’m doing is trying to get this game done, are you kidding me? (Laughter) This has been a labor of love, emphasis on both “labor” and “love.” You know, we have a lot of work to get this game done. So we’re just working on the Wii exclusive version right now, and if we’re ever going to do versions on other platforms, someone’s going to have to tell me, and they haven’t yet, that’s for sure.

IG: Ignoring whether or not you’re going to bring this to those other platforms, but just in general, what are your thoughts on those new motion platforms?

WS: Well, as a developer, options are good. When we started this project, you start talking about a core mechanic of drawing and erasing, and it’s natural: the remote is your brush, basically. Everybody gets that. At the time, it was the only console that had that perfect, appropriate control device. It also had the broad audience that appeals to me very strongly, right now, and it appeals to Disney, so it was the perfect choice for this game. Now, there’s no technical reason why we couldn’t do this on other platforms, but again, it’s not like there are plans that I’m aware of.

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.