Feature: 'Playing Catch-Up: Thief's Randy Smith'

In another of today's main features, weekly column 'Playing Catch-Up', chatting to notable video game industry figures about their celebrated pasts and promising futures, speaks to former Thief franchise designer and subsequent director Randy Smith about his post-Thief life. In this extract, Smith gives a refreshingly optimistic view on the future of interactive narrative: "People say this periodically, but I think there's a push from major publishers to have games with real emotional impact. It's been a real transformation for me, when I left Ion I wasn't optimistic at all. It was like, 'Wow, game development sucks. I want to be a consultant because there's nothing I want to devote my life too.' And there's definitely a lot of crappy stuff out there, but I feel like people are trying to be more innovative, and are pushing the art of interactive narrative into a legitimate form that is recognized." He also discusses, in some detail, his termination from Ion Storm while directing the third game in the series. "I had that sense of dedication to the project, but I really wasn't happy anymore at all, and I really wanted to leave. So being fired was cool! It was weird and awful, but at the same time, it was just what I needed. What I was gunning for." You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including details about Smith's upcoming work, which includes Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Open Season (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).