1er interview :
We have got a chance to chat with Petr Vochozka, CEO of Czech-based developer company Illusion Softworks about their recently released action game Mafia for PC. First part of interview includes questions and answers about fulfilling of their expectations, amount of sold copies during first months, problems with release in Italy, average rating in reviews, patch plans and possibility of multiplayer addon or AI improvements.
Tiscali Games: How did the situation in your company changed
after releasing Mafia? You must feel a great relief from tension when the entire work on Mafia is finally finished. Did the Mafia team get some deserved days off or does the work continue without interruption?
Petr Vochozka: Mafia was a great milestone and experience for us. It was the first game from the new generation, where we leave nothing to chance. Since we must admit that with Hidden & Dangerous we were, to a great extent, successful by fortune ( as well as was another game Operation Flashpoint by Bohemia Interactive Studio), several years ago we decided to work the way that we would be sure of success.
The whole development has lasted for 3.5 years which is not unusual for such a big game, however it was spoken of the game too early. The last year of development was extremely exhausting for the psyche of all the staff and when we completed the game we had a great feeling. We really try to give the staff some days off, however it is not possible that the whole team takes three weeks off because the work on several language and console versions continues. All members of the team took some days off individually. We will take the remaining days off during the Christmas time.
Once you estimated that the amount of sales of Mafia would definitely reach “one million” worldwide. Do you think that this immodest estimate will be achieved? Do you already have some numbers indicating the amount of sales in the USA, United Kingdom or Germany covering the first months?
Petr Vochozka: I really mentioned one million sales several times. One million of PC version of Mafia including console versions will be sold for sure. The half of them may fall to PC version for full price ( or slightly reduced price) only. We have some specific numbers, however we are bound by the contract with our publisher Take2, therefore we cannot make them public yet.
Are you satisfied with your strong position in worldwide sales charts? Did you expect a better position or did you expect from Mafia to keep the position longer?
Petr Vochozka: The more the day of release approaches the more accurate your estimates can be. In reality, I expected to achieve such a position, however in a corner of my mind I hoped we would keep the first place during the whole Christmas time : )
In this context, I have to mention that the majority of best games are released just in the time period from September to November ( sometimes even in December). Therefore to get a good position in charts is much more difficult than in February or June. In the United Kingdom during the holiday time it is enough to sell approximately 1 500 sold copies to win the golden position in charts compared to the time before the Christmas when even 15 000 pieces may be required to achieve first place. The most important to us is the amount of sales and it is great. Hidden & Dangerous have never achieved the first position. The Mafia has, except in the USA ( sixth position was the best achievement), attained the first place in charts everywhere. I consider it to be a kind of progress made by our company.
With respect to the overall costs of the development do you think that Mafia will be more successful from the view of sales than the first Hidden & Dangerous?
Petr Vochozka: Mafia will be more successful, however mainly due to its future ports for consoles. Hidden & Dangerous accounted for 90% of all sales of PC version ( only Sega Dreamcast and budget release designed for Sony PlayStation were slightly unsuccessful). We expect that the Mafia will include the most of the consoles. We really needed success. It is unbelievable 3.5 years since the H& was released!
After releasing the game, did you meet more cases when the game failed to be understood by people in some countries as it happened in Italy? Do you think such incidents complicate acceptance of the game or is it a good publicity for free?
Petr Vochozka: In Italy, two government officials opposed the game saying that the game is an instruction how to enter Mafia! They probably did not notice that the game took place in 1930s and the ( real) Mafia today uses quite different procedures… : ) Besides this, our game shows how NOT good it is to be a Mafioso, how bad the end can be. Politicians started to nag at something about what they knew absolutely nothing. For us, it was a great publicity for free. Without this affair we would have never attracted attention of so many media. We make a fun of it.
Personally, I do not understand attacks on violence in computer games. There is much more brutality in movies and they can be watched by de facto anyone. If someone goes into streets and starts to steal cars and shoot people defending himself afterwards that he is following the GTA3 game, he’s completely nuts.
We are sure you pay attention to reviews and articles on the Mafia game - do you keep any statistics? If so, what is the average rating? Which opinion or verdict made you personally or the company the happiest?
Petr Vochozka: We monitor all reviews and readers’ opinions published on the web. We also keep statistics and make analyses to know what is popular with who and what not. Up to now, we have had about 70 reviews and the average rating is 90.18%. What pleased us the most were German magazines which are generally by about 10% stricter in their final rating. Despite this fact, the Mafia always received more than 90%. The most we made fun of a review of an Italian religious who criticized us for disregard for God, using nasty words etc. and gave the game about 29%.
Some time ago a petition was initiated to create a patch and recently in an interview Dan Vavra confirmed preparation work. What part of the game exactly will be corrected? Is there any chance that the multiplayer racing, which are so called for, will be added to the game? When could the patch be approximately released?
Petr Vochozka: The patch should correct only some remaining errors, problems with HW and, for example, offer a reduction of difficulty of the problematic race in sixth mission. It is likely that we will also offer a small bonus but not the multiplayer. It has never been finalized and its completion would take several months, which we could not afford. The patch will be released very soon.
One of the occasionally criticized features of the Mafia is the AI of characters in some missions. Is it still possible to improve it from a technical point of view or is it not? If so, are you going to try it?
Petr Vochozka: AI is not perfect in any game, however we have not received any substantial criticism regarding the Mafia in this matter. AI cannot be improved. If you make any, even small, adjustments it will affect the whole game and it would have to be debugged or optimized again. It means months of work and there is also no guarantee that something will be really improved. If you compare several reviews you will find that it is the AI which is highly regarded for a number of its details. According to our experience it is unfortunately the Czech Republic where the criticism about AI is spreading.
Second part of interview about mods, possibility of expansion pack, differencies in upcoming console versions, current status of Vietcong and Hidden & Dangerous 2 will be published next week.
