RSS
Home
DJ Hero Developer Q&A: "We're doing something credible and unique that represents the DJ"
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
Activision's DJ Hero hits stores this week. The game focuses on the aspects of DJing the way Guitar Hero did with the guitar. DJ Hero comes with its own turntable game controller and features 93 remixed songs and personalities like DJ Shadow, DJ AM, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Grandmaster Flash, Daft Punk, J. Period, DJ Yoga and others.
Last month we were able to head out to San Francsico, play the game and talk with developers about the creation of the game, the music, and DJ culture. We cornered Christopher Lee, commercial director at Freestyle Games (the DJ Hero developer), and got the details on the development of DJ Hero.
How many DJ controllers did you guys go through until deciding on the one you have now?
We went through a whole bunch, actually. When we started developing the game almost three years ago, the first thing we tried to figure out was, what’s the controller gonna be? And the one thing that was good for that period of time was that people were really embracing Guitar Hero. So we became confident that we can design a new turntable controller. That brings us challenges because that means you have infinite opportunities in terms of the game mechanic. But it’s kind of cool because that also means you can do something really innovative. So we maybe went through 12-15 iterations. The first one was just built in someone’s garage out of wood and the idea was just to figure out size and shape, where would you put the buttons and how would the turntable work. Then you get the challenge of figuring out the electronics and if you can do what you want to do, whether you can truly authenticate and replicate what a DJ does.
So we went through a lot of iterations, got the controllers into DJs hands, ask them how we’ve done, if we’ve diluted it too much, have we done something that’s authentic, are your interactions the same? So we went through a long, long cycle of that, talking with DJs that work for Freestyle, we got about 20 guys who are full time professional DJs, but we also take it out to Grandmaster Flash, Jazzy Jeff, DJ AM or DJ Shadow and just get them to play the game and figure it out. It was a long process but I think the tipping point for me was when we bounded the buttons on the turntable. It just means your hands are always there, you’re always touching the vinyl, and you always have to scratch the record. SO then we figured, we already kind of have a mechanic that feels real so, we then just start to make it more authentic and a bit more aesthetically cool.
How did you guys go about choosing the music and making them all remixes instead of straight-forward songs?
We wanted to be as bold as possible. Obviously, it’s kind of a music licensing challenge to get the rights to remix that music. It’s not public domain, it’s not very common for you to go out there and buy these remixes. Every remix in the game is unique; they’ve either been created by the celebrity DJs or by our own DJs in-house. We thought that’s what we wanted to communicate about DJ culture – that it is about finding records, making them work together, being able to execute that performance. That was the cornerstone at the very beginning of creating the game. It’s gotta be about making records work together, showing how you can crossfade and cut between the records and that was really the journey. It actually helped us figure out okay, if that’s how the music is gonna work, we can then figure out the game mechanic and the controller from there. That is definitely how we wanted to start out.
How did you guys go about choosing the personalities and DJs for the game?
That’s a pretty long journey as well. Some of them are so obvious, you can’t do a DJ game without Grandmaster Flash, he just wouldn’t allow it. So in things like, when we start to think about how we’re going to do the tutorial, he was like clearly, “It has to be me, I invented it so I have to tell the new kids how to do it [Editor’s note: The scratch was actually invented by Grand Wizzard Theordore].” But yeah, some of them were so obvious that we just couldn’t really do the game without them. It’s almost as if the game wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t get certain people excited and involved. And then it becomes a bit of a domino effect from there. We would speak to Shadow and he would offer to hook us up with Z-Trip, and he would be like “have you thought about the Scratch Perverts?” Then the Scratch Perverts would come in and say “hey, we brought DJ Yoda with us,” so it just got critical mass real quick and a lot of people wanted to be involved. It even got to the point where, which is where we are right now; we’re doing a lot of downloadable content (DLC) with artists because we just couldn’t get everybody in the game. So there’s going to be some exciting stuff coming around launch and after launch.
Of course guys like DJ Shadow and Yoda are DJ/turntable purists. Did you get any skepticism about the game when you approached guys like that?
To be honest, I think that they have every right to be skeptical. It’s kind of like, what are you doing? You’re making something that’s like a really technical and challenging art form and you’re trying to boil it down and give to a mass market? So what we did is just made the game playable quickly. So we showed them a playable game, albeit maybe not as visually sexy and maybe the turntable wasn’t quite as finished as it is now, but it was something we could give to those guys and say here it is. This is what we’re trying to do, something that is credible, that is unique, that represents you guys. We’re in no way suggesting that we can boil down the whole thing but it gives people an appreciation of how much talent goes into creating what you guys do. So across the board, as soon as people play it, they’re like okay, I get it. I get what you’re trying to do and we want to be a part of it. So that was the critical thing, if there was skepticism, it was a case of like here’s the game, here’s the turntable, spend a couple of hours with it, we’d like to know what you think.
One of the big things that add value to Guitar Hero is the downloadable songs and content. Will DJ Hero see something similar?
Absolutely. We’re working on that stuff right now. As I said, we finished the game about a couple of months ago and obviously it’s going through submission and getting ready for manufacture, since then we’ve been working on downloadable content. So a whole bunch of really interesting artists who we didn’t get time to work with during the initial game development or we didn’t have access to and they managed to kind of reach out and find us; now that DJ Hero is starting to become a bit more widely known and the press has started, there are a lot of artists out there saying maybe we should talk about maybe what we would want to do in the future. We’re in a lot of good conversations now and we’re producing a lot of interesting downloadable content.
Through game development, there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t make the final game. What’s on the cutting room floor?
Quite a few mixes. Our process starts with what we in creative call sketch mixes. So like 20 or 30 seconds worth of remix, what works with what and how does it play. So we’ll get that to the artists and get it into a sort of focus test, a consumer test, then give it to our game designers to see if they can make it into an interesting game mechanic, so there’s a bunch of those that didn’t make it through. We just thought there was better content or there was a more exciting way we could make the game. We licensed over 100 tracks but we shortlisted 800, so that gives a lot of room to play with in downloadable content in the future. What surprised us more than anything was everyone we approached, everyone we talked to, everyone we wanted to be in the game from Scratch Perverts to Yoda to Jay-Z and Eminem, the moment you explained what we’re trying to do and why we’re doing it and how we’re doing it, they were just all in. There are very few people that we think “wow, we should have worked with them, if only we’d been able to talk to them,” so there’s nothing on the cutting room floor that we would have put in the game, we’re pretty delighted on how we managed to package it all up.
The game showcases different sides of the DJ culture with both dance/electronica and hip-hop. Was that the intention from the outset?
From the very beginning it was variety, that’s the luxury of the DJ, you can kind of pick anything and just go with it. It’s a very, very eclectic mix and deliberately so. There are just people that don’t like specific genres of music and we didn’t want that to be a reason for people not to want to experience DJ Hero. So what we also do, which is unique and essential, is the music is available as soon as you open the game. Music rhythm games I think have a made a mistake in the past where I got to play 30 tracks I just don’t like to get to the ones that I do like, then half way through those 30, I’m bored. So we just open it up so if people don’t like hip-hop or don’t like electronica or they don’t like dance, it doesn’t matter, they can go and find the stuff they do like. Also I think in the way we’ve done the remixes, is a lot of people seem to think, “Aww I love Dizee Rascal or I love Black Eyed Peas, I’ll play that, but I’m not so sure about the Marvin Gaye side or Tears for Fears, but I’m gonna go with it.” Then they figure out that there’s a whole bunch of music that maybe they’ve completely dismissed and maybe now it’s quite interesting. People end up going through this mad journey on the game trying all the setlists and figuring it all out.
Are there any unlockables at all?
We have a few; there are mixes that have been created by Flash, Jazzy Jeff and Daft Punk. They’re partly unlockable in the game. We have a journey, not a rags-to-riches journey, it’s not a story mode, but if people really want to unlock the characters and some venues and some of the tracks then there’s more available than there is from the outset. The point is the majority of it is right there. So you buy it, you bring it home, you get your friends around and you’re ready to go. You don’t have to spend four or five hours unlocking everything before you can have a party.
Are there any differences in the game between consoles?
It’s pretty much the same across the board for Xbox 360, PS3 and PS2. We pushed the platform on the Wii and visually it’s super impressive. We wanted to make sure the same content, the same music is on everything.
Some of the music and artists you have listed here can be explicit at times. Did you get clean versions for the game so it wouldn’t be M-rated or will there be explicit versions?
We wanted to hit as big an audience as possible so there are no explicit lyrics, it’s accessible to everybody, and I play it with my 9-year old niece. It’s totally cool. It’s kind of good because you can control the scratching, and you can put a scratch where other things shouldn’t be, so we had that luxury. We didn’t shy away from any content; we just thought there’s no reason why we shouldn’t work with specific music we want. To do that, if there’s lyrics we’re not comfortable with, we’ll just find a way to cut across, crossfade, scratch it, whatever it might be. There’s such a massive range of music out there that we didn’t want to limit it in any way but we did want to make it totally friendly to anybody who wants to play.
DJ AM worked with you guys on the game. How did his passing affect the team?
It’s one of those things that catches you by surprise. Obviously we’re devastated. He was a real, real, passionate part of the process and a real ambassador for the game. As I said, everyone we worked with got it, but some got it more than others and AM was one of those guys. He just totally understood what we were trying to do, he totally understood how to create mixes that were fun to listen to, fun to play and then when it came to things like the E3 concert with Jay-Z and Eminem, he orchestrated the whole thing. It was just insane. Yeah, it was a really sad moment. We wanted to work with him throughout the franchise, throughout the lifecycle of anything we do in the future, so it was a real shame.
Can you give some details on the Jay-Z/Eminem edition of the game?
We started working with Jay-Z and Eminem earlier this year and talking to them about how they wanted to be involved. What we decided to do was a special edition that kind of celebrated them being involved and celebrated them together for the song they did in the past. We decided to call it “Renegade,” we decided to do an upgraded turntable controller, and it will ship with a turntable stand but what I think is most interesting is they’re actually releasing new albums with the game. Some of it is “Best of…” material, but there’s also some new music on there. The reason we wanted to do that and the reason they wanted to do it, is they see video games as a new vehicle to reach a different audience. So obviously partly of what we’re doing is remixing their songs and giving people the opportunity to play their songs but their thought is “if people are going to buy this and they might not have listened to some of our stuff, we need to find a way to get that music to them as well.” So the came up with the idea of well, why don’t we just compile completely original never-before-seen albums, so that if someone does buy this game, maybe they know Jay-Z but haven’t listen to Eminem or maybe they just don’t know either of their music, but they like video games. It’s an opportunity for them to reach out and hopefully get other people involved in their music.
Related Articles:
Comments
.jpg)
.jpg)
