Interview: Traveller’s Tales on LEGO Batman and Corporate Ownership

Fri, Aug 1, 2008

Among the games we saw at E3 in mid-July, we quite enjoyed our time with LEGO Batman — our preview confirms as much. We’ve had our eye on LEGO Batman for a while now, although not strictly because it looks fun; GameCyte has been curious about the unique opportunity the game represents for its creators from a business standpoint. LEGO Batman, you see, is being developed by TT Games, and is being published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. There’s no surprise there, obviously; Warner Bros. happens to own rights to Batman in every form: DC Comics is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Warner Bros. Pictures is enjoying huge box office returns on Dark Knight, and I’m pretty sure I saw a guy dressed like Batman on the CW the other night.

However, if you’re not the sort of person who follows the hugely expensive world of corporate mergers, you might have missed it last year when WBIE made the decision to buy TT Games, making the developer part of its in-house team. TT Games had already started development on LEGO Batman at the time, and this move would make the game a financial double-whammy for WBIE, allowing them to reap the benefits of both publisher and developer when the game is ultimately released. In addition, if they wanted to, Warner Bros. could probably bring some of their influence to bear on the game’s direction — Batman is their property, after all, and they could take an active role if they were so inclined with their newly-acquired development team.

We contacted TT Games to see how things had been progressing behind the scenes since the acquisition. We spoke to Jonathan Smith, VP of Publishing for TT Games, and discovered a great deal about retaining creative independence, the good side of publisher/developer relations, and the continuation of TT Games’ goals for kid-friendly games.

GameCyte: What can you tell me about the acquisition process by Warner Bros. Interactive?

Jonathan Smith: Well, it ties in to the history of Traveller’s Tales and TT Games. You know that we’re based in the UK; you know that Traveller’s Tales has been, for a long time, one of the leading independent game developers across the world, specializing particularly in games based on licensed properties and games for children. We created a company called Giant Interactive Entertainment about five years ago, me and my business partner Tom Stone, as a publishing business that worked with Traveller’s Tales to produce the first in a new generation of LEGO games, which was LEGO Star Wars. We had, and continue to have, long-term rights to the LEGO brand, and we’ve followed up on the success that we had with LEGO Star Wars with a number of other LEGO titles since.

Bats & Robs We joined together the publishing side of the business, Giant, with the development group, Traveller’s Tales, just before the release of LEGO Star Wars in about 2004, to create TT Games as an integrated company specializing in games for “young gamers” — a sector of the gaming audience that we’d always felt was somewhat neglected and under-served, and needed special attention. We had then, together, quite considerable success with the follow-ups to our first LEGO game, with, particularly, LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, and then LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. In the meantime, Traveller’s Tales, as a development company, was also working with other publishers on titles such as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and the Transformers game, most recently.

From that position, where we were specializing in family games, working with big properties, working with movie properties, working in the global console entertainment market with a legacy of some success, it actually became a very natural conversation for us to have with Warner Bros. We were talking with them about possible rights to the Batman universe — to the DC universe, but Batman in particular — for a LEGO game, and to be honest, we sort of fell in with them. We liked them, and they seemed to like us! And, at the point that Warner Bros. made a strategic decision that the gaming business was very relevant to them, to their business, and to their consumers, both now and in the future… I think that what we had done up to that point gave us the credibility that we could bring to making Warner Bros. a leading player in that industry. That, and the opportunities we had for the future, made it a very natural and very easy fit.

GC: Since that acquisition, has being owned by Warner Bros. changed the way you work, or the expectations for your games?

JS: *pause* Not in the slightest. I hesitated just to think if there’s any way in which this has changed it whatsoever, but the promise that was made to us when we joined together with Warner Bros. was that we were being bought as we were, and in order for that to continue and to fulfill the plans that we had, we would continue to operate in the shape that we had done up to that point.

What the Warner Bros. relationship has brought us, what they’ve promised us and what they’ve delivered on, is, first of all, that corporate heft of a big business. When we’re operating globally, there is a level where we can “get by” in certain corporate functions, but knowing that they are properly and professionally covered since we were acquired by Warner Bros. is a mercy for us. Also, crucially, operationally for our business, and for what we want to do and what we want, creatively, to get out of the business as well… the access to additional licenses that Warner Bros. has brought us has been terrific as we plan for the future. In particular, right now, working on LEGO Batman as part of the Warner Bros. organization… I’m not quite sure what the familial relationship is, whether we’re cousins, or second cousins, or perhaps even siblings with DC Comics… it’s a great pleasure, and does make things a lot easier.

Also, I don’t know how familiar you are with the operation of the business, but on the distribution side of things — we’re content creators at TT Games; we have to rely on other companies to do the distribution for us. The distribution operation that Warner Home Video brings to bear is, of course, second to none, and as they’ve grown from that to create Warner Bros. Interactive, as a global game distribution organization, it’s very convenient and helpful for us to be a part of that.

GC: Well, clearly, TT Games had wanted to work on LEGO Batman since before Warner Bros. entered the picture. Is that correct?

JS: We made our initial contact with DC Comics, that’s true.

GC: Why Batman, then? What inspired the choice of Batman as the next LEGO game?

JS: Because he’s the world’s greatest hero! Because he lives in a universe of the most colorful, brilliant, fun characters. Because we’re fans — and we were fans of Star Wars when we did LEGO Star Wars, and I think that comes through in the games we’ve made. We’re fans of Batman as well; I’ve always been a DC fan. That’s definitely where we’re orientated. In terms of the relevance for a broad audience, which is something that’s important to us, Batman is someone with nearly 70 years of heritage, relevant both now for older gamers like us, parents like ourselves, and for our children, and other people’s children as well.

In terms of gameplay, there are specific reasons why Batman and Gotham City are cool places for us to be. In particular, the characters have got such strength of personality that the LEGO treatment — which is unique, where we just build the characteristics of these characters into a particularly stylized, iconic form — there are certain types of characters in the world of fiction which can better translate, more strongly translate through that process. And it’s clear that the iconic characteristics of Batman, and the villains as well, that have carried them so successfully through entertainment and imagination over the decades, meant that they would work very well; and so it has proved that they are all brilliant to play with. And of course, they kick ass…

GC: *laughs*

JS: …which is really vital when we’ve got an action-character type of game that’s got lots of fighting. He’s a great detective, which fits with our puzzle-solving. He’s got access to fantastic technology, as well, which works a lot with the gameplay mechanics that we have in the title.

GC: Tell me more about LEGO Batman. What is it going to bring to the experience for gamers who have already played the previous LEGO games?

JS: LEGO Batman brings a new world of characters and a new city, Gotham City, and it’s got a completely different feel to it from the games we’ve made before. Now, we’re not throwing away what we’ve succeeded with in the past, so it’s still got the two-player drop-in/drop-out feature, which has been very successful with us — particularly with an audience of parents and children, so they can play together in a very fluid way. Siblings and friends can play together. You’ve still got cool gameplay mechanics that have worked well for us in LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indy, like using LEGO elements in the world that you find to build new models with, and discover surprises in the world like that. You can still collect LEGO studs throughout the environment and use them to purchase more characters to play with. It’s still friendly, and charming, and accessible, and funny, and easy, and polished, and — I hope — brilliant-looking.

Bane Brawl So, what Batman and his cohorts have been able to do… in some ways, it’s affected everything, but I think there are a few things I can certainly pull out. One would be the new combat system we’ve got: I said Batman kicks ass, and the villains, of course, are pretty ferocious in the way that they deal with opponents. So, we’ve really amped up the level and the creativity of the combat in the game. We’ve given you lots of new moves you can do, both as Batman and Robin, and the individual moves of the villains as well. So there’s more delight in the melee combat. Obviously in LEGO Star Wars, we had lightsabers, and for LEGO Indy we had guns and pistols, as well as Indy’s whip. Batman doesn’t have either of those things; instead, he’s got a wide variety of great hand-to-hand fighting moves, and a new system we’ve put in, which is a sort of comic-book spectacular feel to the fighting.

I mentioned the technologies and the gadgets: These are really, really cool, and as we play the game increasingly with children — which is something we do a lot of as we go through development, to make sure every element of the gameplay is honed for them — we find the ability to change Batman and Robin’s abilities by picking up new powers is something they’re really responding well to. Switching between different characters has always been something we’ve made a big deal of in the LEGO games, and being able to switch as a character, switch as Batman or as Robin between different suits with radically different powers is really cool.

So, Batman can jump into his “Glide Suit,” which lets his spread his wings and literally glide across long gaps. Or, he can switch into his “Detonation Suit,” and place Bat-Bombs which he can remotely detonate. Robin can switch from his normal outfit into his “sub-aqua” outfit, or his “Technology Suit,” or he’s got this “Electromagnetic Suit” which stomps around with big clanking sounds, with big metal plates on his boots which actually enable him to walk up walls, and even on ceilings if they’re metal, as well. They really love those powers; that’s definitely a very cool element of the new game.

What’s also important in the new game is a thing called “Villain Mode.” Up until now you’ve played the story from the good guys’ perspective, but you can also unlock a parallel story path where you can take control, directly, of the bad guys, and see the whole narrative from their point of view.

GC: How many characters can we expect?

JS: There’ll be everyone you expect. And there are more than 30 to unlock.

GC: Do you have more liberties to play with the Batman franchise now that Warner Bros. owns TT Games?

Joker Ivy JS: No, not at all — we’re still a licensee. In that respect, we still have to be true to the brand, true to the characters, true to the property. What we do have is a huge liberty — and that’s exactly the right word — to play with those characters by being in the LEGO universe. It gives us permission to do things that, if we weren’t in the LEGO universe, would be unimaginable. We found that with Star Wars, we found that with Indy, and we’re certainly finding that with Batman. It’s a great privilege for us to be able to go to those places, and go there with that particular sense of fun and sense of humor, and mix things up — be surprising in that way that LEGO gives us.

We don’t get special favors just for being part of the family. But then, we’ve never been able to imagine something that we, as fans, have felt is right for LEGO Batman that the folks at DC and Warner Bros. haven’t seen our side on. We wouldn’t want to go anywhere inappropriate for the characters — otherwise it wouldn’t be Batman, and then he wouldn’t be LEGO Batman.

GC: So you wouldn’t say there’s much of a noticeable difference in working on the Batman property, from, say, Indiana Jones or Star Wars.

JS: No, not at all. All of the people at Lucasfilm were brilliantly supportive of the game, and what we were doing with it, and were extremely helpful. Similarly, at DC Comics and elsewhere within Warner Bros. — these are people that live with these characters, month in, month out, year in, year out, and they’re a terrific resource for us to be able to tap in to. As I said, they’ve always been supportive of what we’ve been doing with the game, and that’s great.

GC: Has the Warner Bros. acquisition sparked any inspiration to work with their other properties? Any thought to developing, say, LEGO Harry Potter, or LEGO Lord of the Rings?

JS: I apologize if this just sounds like I’m just dodging the question; I’m afraid you’re reaching for something I’m not going to be able to make a statement on. I have quite a standard response; I apologize if it sounds pat, but it is true: The world of LEGO is full of infinite possibilities — anything can enter into that LEGO world, lots of great characters and stories are out there for us to bring into that world in the future.

We would like to thank Jonathan for taking the time to answer our questions. LEGO Batman will be available in North American in September, and in Europe in October, for every major gaming system.