Louis Castle was the co-founder of Westwood Studios, which created the Command & Conquer series and many other software gems like Lands of Lore or Blade Runner. When Electronic Arts acquired the studio in 1998, Louis moved on to EA L.A. as Vice President of Creative Development. We talked with him about Westwood, trends in the industry and emotions in games.

GG: Louis, what is actually your job: Vice President of Creative Development sounds impressive, but what does it mean?

Louis Castle: Well, it’s a role that was created around my unique qualifications at EA Los Angeles. I have the opportunity to contribute to a variety of products in many different ways. Sometimes it might be a business contribution, but quite often I’m really involved in the day-to-day game making: Sitting in the various creative design meetings, art meetings, and basically trying to come up with ideas to make our games better or even great. My job let’s me work on many games and contribute to many different things. With C&C 3, for example, my fingers are all over it, because of course I got asked about the universe and the fiction and the art.

GG: Do you miss the old times at Westwood when you would single-handedly create a game?

Louis Castle: Oh no! The last time I made a game from scratch to finish was probably a 2-and-a-half-years 80-hours-a-week endeavor. And even then I can’t say it was me alone because there were a hundred people working on it. The last time I made a game by all by myself was probably back in 1987. I guess I miss the simplicity of it, you had a concept and you could drive it all through to completion. But I don’t miss the monumental task of trying to do everything by yourself. It’s much better to work with a team that has professionals on board, you get much better work done when you hire the best artists and coders that can program much better than I could ever do.

GG: But didn’t you have much more control about what the game would turn ou to be?

Louis Castle: I don’t think so. For me personally, I had a wonderful time working on Battle for Middle Earth 2. I was able to go out and prototype it myself, I was all over the design of that for the 360 version. And as it came together and we felt confident about it, the team was assembled around the product and we brought it to finish. So that was as close a control as I’ve ever had over a product. I think EA is a place where you can have an incredible amount of control about the creative content, as long as you are willing to stick to your guns and say: “This is the game I wanna make”, and you’re convincing in your arguments.

GG: Obviously, the games market has changed since those old Westwood times. But what about the gamers?

Louis Castle: I’m not sure the gamers themselves have changed. I would say it’s mostly about cultural changes. People are much more comfortable with digital media. They’re much more sophisticated as gamers. Some of the interfaces we have now have preconceptions that are only possible because people have been growing up with interactive entertainment. You don’t really have to teach someone how to use a mouse or keyboard or gamepad. So we’re free to spend much more of our time on richer content. We also have a much broader base of people interested in games. So we have to make sure that everything is as intuitive as possible.

GG: But modern games are much more complicated than let’s say back in the 80ies. Take the GTA series, for example, there is so much to do, and the missions are difficult, too.

Louis Castle: That’s my point exactly. There are games that I would have considered far too difficult a couple of years ago. But the consumer becomes more and more educated. Take your example: The minute you start playing GTA, you can play right away. But to really explore it, it takes a lot more knowledge and experience. Although I do not necessarily agree with the amount of buttons you have to press on the gamepad…

GG: What is your opinion on interfaces, especially on the console side?

Louis Castle: We are really happy about the interface of the 360 version of Battle for Middle Earth 2, we will carry that forward to other products like Command & Conquer and others. Because it’s very intuitive and reactive. Such an interface comes from hundreds of iterations, and lots and lots of work. Sometimes it’s the hardest thing to come up with the simplest answer. Every button is a sort of mental verb, so you can create complex orders by simple actions. You don’t need a lot of sequences of buttons which have no relation to what you’re trying to do in the game.