Dave Jones has quite a resume in the gaming industry, having worked on a variety of franchises from Lemmings to Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown. Speaking at the Brighton Develop conference, the designer said how he is a big fan of users creating their own experiences.

He is, in particular, proud of what Realtime Worlds achieved with the original Crackdown. "We developed the city to function as a platform game, where anything you could see you could climb or jump to," he said. "It had other aspects, too, such as light RPG trappings, but we began to realize that our main innovation was our drop-in, drop-out multiplayer that managed to be successful in an open world."

Still, despite the game's almost unexpected level of success, the return on investment wasn't high. "With Crackdown we sold about 1.5 million copies, but even at that we pretty much only managed to break even," he said. "It was due to the amount of factors that were out of our control as the developer, influences such as GameStop's amazing used-game sales; we know 1.5 million new copies were sold, but it's likely there were 2.5, three million sold when you include used."
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APB developer RealTime Worlds has said that the online market still has a lot of untapped potential and can offer new creative and business opportunities for developers.

Speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton, RTW boss David Jones said the company has assessed all the growing areas in the videogame market – including social, iPhone and Wii gaming – but it became clear that next-gen technology and online opportunities are where "the big dollars are".

"One of the reasons we want to go into the online space is because it opens a wealth of opportunities," said Jones. "Online, as far as I'm concerned, is very, very much untapped. It's kind of like winding the clock back ten or fifteen years. There's a huge amount of scope of online for innovation and for forging genres to really set a bench mark in many different areas."
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Dave Jones took to the Brighton Develop Conference stage this morning to deliver his talk on how to make a successful game and take it online.

Eurogamer reported live from the event, capturing a blow-by-blow account of all he had to say, offering you sense of Develop and what it's all about. And because it's just round the corner, clearly.

Why? Well, Dave Jones helped create Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings, before going on found Realtime Worlds and make Crackdown. Now, Jones works on APB, the ambitious and perhaps ground-breaking urban MMO with big veins and tattoos.

Read on for the full coverage of Dave Jone's talk, in which he discusses why APB went online and the benefits of it. The earliest entries are presented first.
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From PS3 Attitude: "David Jones of Realtime Worlds gave a keynote speech at the Develop Conference this morning in Brighton, UK.

During the impressive speech, he showed the technology behind their forthcoming title, APB. This open world 'cops and robbers' game looks impressive, as is the server-based technology behind it.

But the question on our lips was the most obvious – could this PC-based MMO come to the PS3?"

Includes a quote from David Jones...
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Realtime Worlds boss Dave Jones has just confirmed in his Develop keynote that APB is a server-based game.
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The videogame developers' plans for growth are set for it to continue to considerably more than 300 employees by early 2010 when it will have launched its next title, formally revealed as set to be published by Electronic Arts at this year's Electronic Entertianment Expo (E3) earlier this month, APB.
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Realtime Worlds man David Jones has expressed his utter delight that APB is as it should be with the business side "going really well" for the team.

It's "hats off" to Nintendo for nailing motion-control with Wii, now Microsoft has got to appeal to core gamers with "the right kind of killer software," doesn't believe core games are suited for it.
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Realtime Worlds' freshman game, Crackdown, managed to spin the action genre on its head when it was released. Now, two years later, Crackdown showed off its next title, A.P.B. (All Points Bulletin), at E3, and the game looks like it could be one of the Next Big Things when it comes to MMO games.
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Though the press release doesn't indicate that the game will appear on other systems than PC, a spokesperson told TeamXbox, "We're not giving details out at the moment, but it is being developed for Xbox 360."
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Contrary to what was originally reported ages ago, it now appears that APB, the MMO designed by Grand Theft Auto creator Dave Jones, will not be coming to Xbox 360 and is instead PC-bound.

A press release issued by EA, APB's recently announced publisher, indicates that the game will only be released for PC. The release window was also announced as early 2010.
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Well the long wait is over, here, courtesy of Ulric, is a little gift for the community;

"Hi everyone at APB-Evolved, we just wanted to quickly say thanks for all your patience recently whilst we've been quietly pushing forward with the development of APB.

We know this can be frustrating for fans, so to show our appreciation we have decided to inform you guys that yes we WILL be at E3 this year and this will mark the start of lots more news, activities and information coming out about APB: All Points Bulletin.

Here is a brand new screenshot made especially for you guys to give you another look at the awesome character customizations that will make up a large part of APB.

See you all at E3.

Realtime Worlds"
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Edge writes: "Realtime Worlds, developer behind the upcoming MMO All Points Bulletin and the Xbox 360 title Crackdown, has made two new appointments that will lead the Scottish studio's operations team, which is based in Boulder, Colo.

Will Leverett is now serving as director of customer service, while Patrick Bays is manager of game operations."
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Realtime Worlds has tipped Vivox to bring voice chat to their upcoming cops-and-robbers MMO, ABP. It looks like the game is getting a pretty robust voice chat offering too, with users able to customize their voices via voice 'fonts' (um... like Helvetica?), and have access to one-on-one chat, group chat, and localized 3D chat.
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Duthie adds "Many companies have laid off large numbers of talented staff in recent months and we see GDC as a great chance to tap into that talent pool. With the economy the way it is, many people don't want to think about committing to a permanent move, so what we're offering is a number of contract positions for folk to come to Scotland, help us to a successful launch of APB, and then reassess their options when the economy is hopefully in better shape. We can take care of work permits process, relocation, housing - all anyone's got to do is get along to our recruitment stand at GDC to kick off the process."
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Edge writes: "With the ongoing development of the cops and robbers MMO All Points Bulletin, Dundee, Scotland-based Realtime Worlds has appointed two new execs.

Brian Ullrich, who was recently a producer on EA Sports' NBA Live 09, has joined Realtime as director of development.

Ullrich has also worked for Nintendo, Software Creations and DMA Design, which is now GTA house Rockstar North, a studio that Realtime Worlds founder and CEO David Jones helped establish."
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Realtime Worlds community chap Chris 'Ulric' Dye just confirmed that crime MMO APB is now in the final stages of internal alpha testing, and will next make the move into a closed beta phase.
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Ripten writes:

"Calling all gamers: we have a situation on the internet, all units respond.

All Points Bulletin, the MMO from UK developers Realtime Worlds – the people behind Crackdown, that game that you bought for the Halo 3 beta – is accepting email addresses in preparation for beta testing."
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VG247: Realtime Worlds president Tony Harman has just put out a statement saying the time wasn't right to show crime MMO at E3 this year thanks to some heavy business shenanigans surrounding the game in early 2008.
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Hugely anticipated crime MMO APB is the culmination of 20 years work on GTA, Crackdown and sandbox gaming in general, Realtime Worlds studio boss Colin Macdonald has told VG247.
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Speaking to VG247 at Develop in Brighton today, Realtime Worlds studio manager Colin Macdonald said that news on timing for the already-announced beta for massively anticipated crime MMO APB isn't far away.
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