|
News ReleaseCore Talent Games Is Joined By Raymond Chua As Chief Financial Officer(4 Feb 2009; Toronto, San Francisco) Today Core Talent Games (CTG) is pleased to have Raymond Chua join it as Chief Financial Officer. Raymond is an entertainment accountant with extensive experience on film and television projects. As CTG’s business model is influenced by film industry practice, CTG views it critical to have Ray’s expertise on board to help CTG carve out a process uniquely suited to game development. Raymond’s expertise working on Canadian and US motion pictures shot in Toronto – combined with his passion to bring the strengths of project-based development to the game industry – gives CTG a strong lead in achieving its goals. Raymond has over 14 years’ experience in film and television production and financial management. He has worked as a Production Controller and Accountant for organizations like Twentieth Century Fox, Disney, MGM, Viacom, CBC Television, Hearst Entertainment and Starz Animation. Raymond was a Financial Analyst for Canada Film Capital, reviewing and assessing numerous projects shot in Canada, many for American clients, and financed by the production service tax credit. He is a former member in good standing with the Directors Guild of Canada and IATSE (for Motion Picture Technicians) and has devoted energy into CG animation and VFX. Asked his view on the decision to join Core Talent Games, and CTG’s mission, Raymond responded, “What we find is that game development is a subset to the computer industry and relies on the talent of highly skilled programmers. The whole software development process of coding and testing will hopefully produce a great application. Users will want it installed on their system… That’s good. “However, to me, I think game development should also be defined by our consumers and what it should mean to them as well. If our consumers are primarily seeking entertainment and our games are marketed as entertainment products, and furthermore, if we define ourselves as part of the entertainment industry, then why is it that the game design elements are treated almost sometimes as an afterthought? For instance, I find that enough of the current popular titles marketed out there are highly derivative of games of past. “A film may suffer from poor storytelling or weak character development if too much of its energy is focused on visual effects. Here, I see the parallel drawn. Both industries have experienced technological leaps in visual development. With rising costs associated with it, do we see incremental increases in sales correlating with these investments? That's hard to tell because in both industries we can find numerous examples of hits and misses. I believe that if these entertainment products don't engage us or fire our imaginations, we'll take a pass and wait for something better. Although sometimes we're wowed by these technological advances because it really contributes to the game or film, we're also wowed by simpler works because the design or storytelling sucks us in… ”When United Artists was formed by four actors, a known studio exec proclaimed ‘the lunatics are running the asylum’ back in 1914. Without distribution or a studio backlot, it was deemed the ‘Little 3’ in Hollywood. Yet, from that the industry evolved into a free agent based system. “The entertainment industry thrives on reinventing itself. Creative renewal so to speak. The game development industry tends to lean on technology as their engine for growth. This sort of rationale will have its limit. Take for instance the console wars. In terms of sales, the PS3, advanced in technology, trails behind the Wii. Nintendo focused on design and spent less money to build their units. The marketplace clearly sought out fresh over tech. “I took an interest in producing the best games… Would I be able to attract the best work from a talent? The principals of CTG are firmly committed to this. That's its mission statement. CTG looks at it this way, ‘What if we treated game development more like it's an entertainment product and we concentrated centrally on good game designs?’… “It is easy to be skeptical about creating an independent game company that has a portfolio of game designs… But that's the norm for a film producer – to work on numerous scripts before one gets produced. Would you expect a veteran filmmaker to risk building a company around a single title? As they say, ‘You're only as good as your last hit’. Having a good script provides the basis of attracting interest (talent and financing)... without renting a studio and equipment, hiring cast and crew, shooting and editing the reels. Its unpredictable to know which script will succeed. Therefore developing several will increase the odds. “Consequentially, that means, we're going to need to spend more energy grooming core talent, game designers." Interview Contacts: Toronto: San Francisco: # # # |
 |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||