Reeve Thompson:

Reeve: Yes, but we have a very good programming team. You have to remember that what I'm able to show right now and what I can demonstrate, and what is actually working back at the office, are not always the same thing. So this demo version is not as far along as the game is back at the office, so some of that that you're seeing � and there is still quite a bit of work we have to do, no doubt about it. But some of it, collision things, we just need to tag certain objects for collision that we haven't currently tagged, so some of it's actually on the art side versus the programming side. So I think we're going to be there.

C-E: Not much media has been released on this game.

Reeve: No, we've been focusing on it from a private perspective. From a sort of marketing perspective, we've been focusing on the titles coming out for the holiday season. So now as these games sort of start coming out, like Bounty Hunter, and things like that, you're going to start seeing more information about the games that are coming out this spring, like Red Rock.

C-E: Oh, okay. What is for you the ultimate game to produce? You're ultimate dream.

Reeve: I'd have to say I'm pretty close to it right now. This is definitely my favorite genre of games � I love action/adventure. I'm a big fan of the Zelda games, I'm just about done with Star Fox right now, and this is the type of game that I like to play. I've done quite a few Star Wars games for Lucas Arts, and I'm happy to being doing something that's not Star Wars. It's fun to do something that's original, that's your own invention, so this has been a super fun game for me to work on. I've been working on it for 2 years and I've loved every minute of it. It's also the most talented team I've ever worked with.

Reeve: I went out to California after college and I knew some people who had connections to Lucas Arts, and some of them started working at Lucas Arts after I got out there, so I knew some people that were there. And then basically a producer position opened up, and I had producer experience � I worked at Panasonic Interactive Media, and I worked at a small developer in San Francisco as a producer � and so when this job opened up, I applied and went up for an interview, and they liked me, and so I started working there about three-and-a-half years ago.

It is one of the best places on the planet to work, I think. I love working there. The people are so creative. We're celebrating our 20th anniversary this year and it just has a fantastic history, looking back at the games that we've produced.

And right now is a really good time for the company. We're doing some really interesting stuff. We're doing more original games than we ever have; we're working with better developers than we ever have. I think we're becoming smarter as a company, and we're moving more and more towards the consoles. It's a really exciting time to be there.

C-E: What do you think of the video game industry in general now, how it's developing?

Reeve: I think that video games are here to stay. There was a long time ago when people thought they were a fad and then there was the crash in the early 80s of the video game industry. And then the market started to stabilize as we got to the NES, SNES, the Genesis, the Saturn, and then in through the PlayStation. When we have a companies coming into the market that were not originally video game companies, like Sony and Microsoft, it's obvious that this is a very big industry. There's a lot of money to be made and it's a growing market in general. I think of it as a growing art form in general.

And I think that more and more people are realizing that this is a form of entertainment that's here to stay. Just in the same way that movies have been around for a long time, I think video games are going to be around forever. It's a really exciting industry to be in. I grew up with video games, and my parents didn't, so when I go and talk to my parents about what I'm doing, they don't fully understand it. But nowadays, all kids grow up with video games, and when they think "What am I going to do this afternoon", they might go see a movie; they might watch TV; they might play video games. They don't really make a differentiation between those art forms and video games. And I think that more and more people are going to start looking at video games as an art form.

C-E: At an older age, also.

Reeve: Yes, absolutely. I also think there's sort of been this stigma that video games are toys, and toys are for little kids. Well, that's not the case anymore. I mean, the average video game player is in his 20s. As the age of video game players gets older and older, in not too long we're all going to be 40 and we're still going to be playing video games. And at that point it will be just be understood that everyone plays video games. And I think that's the way the industry's going. And it's exciting to be part of it in that regard.

There are a lot of things also that could damage video games. I think they're getting more and more expensive to create, and in the same way that Hollywood seems more and more tied to blockbuster movies and spending all this money on movies and recouping everything on the opening weekend, the video game industry is sort of falling into some of those traps as well. It costs more to make a video game now than ever. It's more and more important to get out and sell a ton in the first week. So those are some traps and those are things that could damage our industry and damage innovation, but overall the video game industry is just getting bigger and bigger and I don't think anything could stop it.

Reeve: I don't think there's any doubt who's going to win this round. I think in fact they're already won: the PlayStation 2 is the dominant console. They're the first time that a company has been able to dominate the console market for 2 different hardware cycles, the PlayStation and the PlayStation 2, and that's not going to change this round.

Microsoft is very interesting in the approach that they took, having the network adapter and Internet built in, also having the hard drive. I think that those are things you're going to see in next-generation consoles from Nintendo and Sony. That's the way it's going to go. I think it was a little early for Microsoft to do that and they're not really benefiting from it right now. We'll see how that changes when XBox Live comes out.

Nintendo took a different approach as well. They sort of said, Look, we're just making a video game system. It's not going to be a DVD player. Because of that they were able to be cheaper than most.

In terms of the market, it's very interesting, because Microsoft and Nintendo are kind of neck-and-neck in the U.S. � Microsoft has a bit of an advantage � but here in Europe it's Nintendo. That makes things tough for a company like Lucas Arts, because we then are making games for Europe that might not sell as well in the U.S. and vice versa. And so it makes it more difficult to decide which console to go with. Obviously you go with the PlayStation 2 but when it comes to the other two, it makes it a little more challenging.

Personally I like the GameCube � I'm a GameCube fan. I own two consoles at home � one's a PlayStation 2 and one's a GameCube. And I just like the type of games that come out for the GameCube, I like Nintendo. You know, with Microsoft everyone who has an XBox has halo, you have to have Halo, but there aren't really many other strong titles for the XBox, where on the GameCube you've got to have Mario, got to have Zelda, and when you have to have those two, you're going to buy the Cube. That's why I knew I had to have a GameCube, because I knew I wanted to have Zelda. That's one of those games you have to play.

C-E: Thank you very much for your time.

Reeve: Thank you.

>>> Interview Part 1