It was so radical, and people didn’t even notice it. It wasn’t like Molyneux making a speech about redefining the boundaries... they just went ahead and did it.

Chris: They can do any game - Indiana Jones, and what’s the other one?

Batman.

Chris: [laughs] Batman! Just awesome. These are going to be super successful games, and they are the future, these designs, this philosophy.

What’s interesting is that Supreme Commander is completely the other way. We’re exhausted when we play it.

Chris: It’s a game for people who have energy to expend. There’s another type of game where you recharge. Then there’s what I consider the height of design, which allows you to expend then recharge, cycling your energy. If you’re watching TV, it’s pure recharge. How many people fall asleep when watching TV? Because you’re not doing anything, it’s a mental massage.

Gaming traditionally - which we’ve witnessed for the last 20 or 25 years - is where you drain your batteries. Really, you get away and finally get up and go. RTS, FPS, you name it. Now our industry has started to explore relaxing games. The analogy I use is mowing the lawn. When I ride the lawnmower, I put my son on it, he falls asleep and when I’m mowing, I don’t think about steering and gas and cutting grass... I think about life. I think about work. I think about things I have to do. I recharge. I re-create. Not recreate. RE-create. I charge my batteries up.

When I finish mowing the lawn, I haven’t done a chore - I’m actually ready to take on something. I’m sitting on my ass on a lawnmower, so there’s not a lot of physical energy there. That’s what I think gaming needs to be. Look at your Saturday. Do you want your entire Saturday to be laying around or do you want your whole Saturday to be about working, or would you rather a combination of both? You do some chores, you do some errands. You lie, you sit, you enjoy. It’s a balance. I’m striving for that in my next designs. To create a balance of energy output and energy input. [Pauses, worried he’s gone too far] That’s not too much?

No, it’s great.

Chris: We’re getting to a place where we’re talking about games in brand new ways, which we’ve never talked about before.