My colleague at Channel 4, Adam Gee, recently attended NESTA's event launching their almost-half-mil fund for UK gaming developments, and there summarised my and Matt's plans for games and education.
Develop covered his talk, and the news that Channel 4 and Introversion are developing something together has hit the wires with some alacrity. Not surprising! Introversion are well known, well loved, and, well, brilliant. However, developing in this context is TV-speak, and Chris gently clarifies the news here on the Introversion forums.
In sum, yes we're "developing" Chronometer (working title) with Introversion, but it's in pre-commission, which is to say, there is no ink yet on any contract to develop and deliver a full and finished game.
We're working towards that, of course, but it is a bit premature to say it's a finished deal. Here's Chris on how it happened:
It’s always been clear to us that it’s not a project we could ever afford to make ourselves. So the project sat there in The Bespokery all this time, a fascinating thought experiment in ambitious game design and nothing more, until Channel 4 approached Introversion and asked us if we had any game ideas we’d like funding for.
Our initial response was something along the lines of No. But the more we thought about it, the more we found Chronometer actually fitted the requirements extremely well, and their deal on offer was something we hadn't seen before. We pitched the idea to them and they approved the first exploratory phase pretty soon after.
This is probably a good time to explain the workings of pitching to us, because if you've read this far, you might be interested in it. At the moment (and I stress that, as we're flexing the system as it goes) we are still working along the lines of how Channel 4 - as a broadcaster - has always worked.
It goes more or less like this:
- We look for ideas from the UK new media and games industries, preferably ones from independent companies or individuals.We'll consider going abroad where very necessary, but usually we're UK-centric.
- Ideas that look fun get a small amount of money to develop into a pitch, or if already at pitch stage (far more common), then a somewhat larger amount of money to develop into a production proposal. This stage usually takes a few months, and is called Development, which is where misunderstandings with the games and programming communities can arise.
- Production proposals with a still-interesting idea fully worked out, plus a timeline, a solid budget and a good-looking team of talented people, might get a commission. Also known as the Build or Production stage, depending on whether it's new media or telly.
- ... some months later, the green-lit project completes and goes live. Here's an example!
Chronometer, which I'm hugely intrigued and excited by, is still at stage 2. More later, as and when, of course.
With thanks particularly to Chris here. Also, I do wish we had less confusing terminology for all this stuff, but there you go: hello cross-platform world and all its foibles.
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