Interview: John Williamson

It's that time of year again—Halloween is upon us and the SAW series is scaring up big business at the box office. This year we get an extra treat (or is it a trick?), as the gore-fueled franchise hits gamers like a blunt force trauma to the skull with the first ever SAW title. We sit down with the president of Zombie Studios John Williamson to find out what it was like to unleash Jigsaw into a medium that could use a good scare.

Play: What was your part in creating Saw: The Game? Did you ever have any moral reservations about working on a project like Saw?

John Williamson: I am a very hands on Producer so I do a lot more than just make sure that we are on schedule and milestones are being approved. I wrote the original pitch that landed the project at Brash (the original publisher) and I helped co-write (with Chris Harding) the story and helped design many of the game mechanics (with Ian Vogel and Richard Dormer). No moral reservations to working on SAW. It was actually a breath of fresh air. I had wanted to work in survival horror for a long time but wanted to do something based in reality without ghosts or the occult. SAW is the perfect franchise for a survival horror mechanic tied to reality.

Furthermore, all the original projects that I am pitching to game publishers and Hollywood are all Transmedia properties. The movie, the game, the graphic novel don’t just tell the same story, but they expand on different parts in the same universe. Our SAW game doesn’t simply retell the SAW movies, as old movie based games did.Rather it expands on the SAW universe. The game takes place in between SAW 1 and SAW 2. Gives insight into characters from the movies, introduces new characters.  Our first movie based game, Disney’s Atlantis, also followed in this vein. It was the first time that Disney let a game tell the backstory of one of their Major Motion Pictures.

Saw has been called “torture porn” by a lot of well-meaning buffoons. Plenty of controversy surrounds the franchise, and I can only see the controversy increasing now that user interaction is involved. What sort of flack are you expecting from parents, religious groups, primetime news networks, and humanitarians who don’t believe in the “everlasting love” of John Kramer? Are you concerned about the possibility of negative media attention?

I wasn’t aware that one could be a buffoon and be well-meaning…All our buffoons on this side of the pond are not well meaning, they are usually just elected. Frankly, I don’t see SAW as “torture porn.” Other movies that came after SAW fall under the torture porn label, but SAW is different because of 2 elements. First, the concept of choice. In the SAW universe the victims usually have a way out, they just have to be able to make a painful choice to get out. That is what audience members bring of themselves to the traps, they want to know if they could make that choice if they were in that trap Second, all the SAW movies have a twist at the end. An ending that alters your perception of the movie that you have just watched. That is what keeps people coming back year after year.

As much as I like a good controversy, we didn’t have any here in the US over the game. SAW, due to its huge financial success, has managed to go mainstream (while still keeping the gore level very high).Wal-mart one of America’s biggest and most conservative retailers never carried the SAW movies, until last year. This year they have not only the movies on DVD and Blu-ray, but our game as well, and all SAW themed Halloween costumes.

Brash was very concerned about backlash real or imagined. And as such they enforced some design restriction with that backlash in mind. But there never was any significant backlash from any corner. There were quite a few people who didn’t understand how we could make an 8-10 hour game out of cutting your foot off with a hacksaw and questioned the game in that way. But everyone who played our demo at E3, came away impressed with what we had done and the tack we had taken with the game design. The Escapist for example did a mea culpa over their preconception of the game vs. the game demo they played.

[Concerning Konami stepping in as publisher of Saw.] Please be honest: Are there aspects of the way Konami took over publication of Saw that you would have liked to change, or were they supportive, or did they try to make changes to the game in mid-production? Also, is it true that Konami plans to focus on Saw, as a gaming franchise, with the same devotion as the Silent Hill franchise?

The changes that Konami had us make where the aspects that we didn’t want in the first place. They were elements that we had put in place at Brash’s directive either from the backlash fear or business mandates on features we had to have. Once Konami came on board, we were free to make the game more graphic and intense and speed up the pacing in places and remove the features that don’t belong in survival horror. Konami does want to make SAW a game franchise and they do know survival horror with Silent Hill. The SAW universe is rich enough to support games for years to come. The team and I have no shortage of ideas, features, and most importantly traps we want to use in sequels. Furthermore, a franchise would let us tweak some gameplay elements and expand on others.

Are the concepts of choice and consequence important in gameplay, as in the movies?

Choice is a key element in the SAW movies and we do have choice in the game. From what weapons you use, to the order you solve some of the larger puzzles to the path you take, to how or if you kill some of the enemies. There are even two endings the player can choose from, Truth or Freedom.

(cont...)

• Showing Page 1 ( of 2 )
• 1
• 2

blog comments powered by Disqus