Another World's Chahi: There's More Creativity Today Than Seven Years Ago

Eric Chahi, the renowned designer behind Another World (a.k.a Out of this World) and Ubisoft's upcoming From Dust said creativity in games is more prevalent today thanks to lower-cost options. Today we have more creativity than some years ago -- maybe seven years ago," he told CVG. "2000 to 2003/4 was really a time where there was no independent scene, there were few risks -- it was very rare." But since then, new sales venues for games have lowered the financial barrier for game developers, allowing them to take more creative risks. "Digital distribution, which started on PC then later on the console, was a really, really major step that saw originality coming back," Chahi added. Last year, Chahi announced that he is working with publisher Ubisoft on the unique downloadable title From Dust, his first video game since the late 90s. From Dust is a god game of sorts, in which the player manipulates the terrain, water, and lava in order to shape the world, guiding and protecting a tribe of humans who dwell there. The impressive tech simulates the world in real-time, which creates a number of complexities for players. He told CVG, "The less [a game] costs the better it is because the less it costs the more creative freedom we have. It's true that there are more creative things on the low budget side than on the AAA side. If you have a graph of creativity it will be lower on the AAA and higher and on the lower [budget] because creativity is not linked to the development cost."