Ewan Lamont, Legendary Games

When I first laid eyes on Ewan Lamont I knew that he was a business man, here is a subtle aura of professionalism and authority which is something which is desired by many; especially me.

Ewan Lamont introduced himself to the room as explained briefly on what he was going to cover over the course of this session, most interesting of which seemed to be that he was going to present the room with the opportunity to play his new game which is currently in development. But before that Ewan decided to talk us though his history and experiences in the video games industry, this started by him explaining how his long running partner Gavin Rummery joined the games industry in 1995. It was from here that we were shown a short News cast which documented the massive impact which an original video game title had on the market which was the brilliant Tomb Raider. Personally I grew up with my PlayStation and the first game I owned for it was Tomb Raider, I loved every minute of it and after taking the trip down memory lane watching this News cast really appealed to me.

Following this Ewan moved on to talk about the implementation of online in the video games industry, this was seen by a trailer which we all witnessed for a title created by a company known as Climax which Ewan worked for and their partnership with Games-Workshop to create an MMO set in their respected universe. This title unfortunately never made it to the market and in Ewan’s words lost the race to Blizzard’s massively popular MMO World of Warcraft. But with that aside he still showed appreciation for working on the project and then moved on to ask the audience about what roles they wanted to do in the games industry. This led to a variety of job roles being mentioned, which was really interesting to see the amount of diversity amongst the room.

This brought Ewan to his next point which was setting up an indie company, he explained how the decision needed to be a viable option but explained how the industry is changing in a way which supports this particularly in that digital media will be better than retail in 2013. With that in mind Ewan went on to talk about how starting up your own business like this requires a collection of certain attributes, these being;

1.     Being passionate.

2.     Being enthusiastic.

3.     Obsessing over the project.

4.     Letting it consume you.

Now the last two might seem like a negative however Ewan assured us that they are vital to the success of a new business and that they are a big part of the requirements involved. This brought Ewan to his next key piece of advice, the fact that funds are the key and to prepare for being a little skint! So, what else is required for the succession of a new business? This was what Ewan came to next; he showed us just how important working for Hire and that the Investment process is a difficult venture however it is very important to the growth of the business.

Following this explanation of business growth Ewan brought us to the second part of the lecture which was where he began talking about the titles his company has worked on as well as his current title in development names “Type 0” what interested me most about his initial explanation about his work in progress was that it was created using a new type of software called HTML 5. This new software format is a form of coding for software which is completely universal with devices, if there are internet capabilities then it will run this software! And that is an amazing feature.

What came next was the opportunity for the entire room to take part in playing Ewan’s new game but not only that we were to contribute to the Quality Assurance of the game itself. This was what really got me excited as the process of working with a game currently in development is an industry standard job and the fact of the matter was we were all given the opportunity to take part and try it for ourselves. Getting the opportunity to really reach out and touch the video games industry is something which is consistent with every single event at Confetti Medias Industry Week and it is something that keeps my interest and passion for games flowing every single day. It is only here that students like myself are able to rub elbows with an industry professional like Ewan Lamont and really learn just how the industry works.

By Samuel Johnston, FDSC Gaming student