I’m Dominic Wheatley, founder of Domark Software (later changed name to Eidos plc). I set up Eidos US office in San Mateo. Launched Tomb Raider at E3 in LA in ’96 when CEO of Eidos Interactive. AMA!

How do you pronounce Eidos?

Eye-doss!

What's a cool fact about Tomb Raider that not many people know that you want to share?

So Toby Gard, the lead designer at Core, met a gorgeous girl who went to the famous UK private school Gordonstoun at a party. She was his inspiration (and way out of his league!)

What is the biggest difference producing video games back in the '80s and now?

So now I run Curve Digital, and we only publish games online (console and PC). The delight of not having to buy and sell discs in boxes is wonderful.

In the 80's of course we started with cassettes in boxes. They only cost about $1, but a small company could go bust if it made too many that then didn't sell. That just got worse in the 90's when Sega/Nintendo then Sony came in and we had to buy the finished product from them (as they were the 'manufacturers') at nearer $10 a unit. Sometimes we made too many and had to junk them, sometimes we didn't make enough (for Christmas) and lost out on possible sales, which hurt! Now, we just do Steam, XBox Live etc digital downloads and - we never have too many, and we never have too few!

Were you the inspiration for Wheatley in portal 2? How do you feel about this?

That I really don't know! (I'm gonna check it out!)

Wow, guess I have to ask because no one else has yet: are we ever getting more entries in the Legacy of Kain series?

Not sure that was on my watch, sorry!

Dominic Wheatley just let us know that he is on mobile and the signal seems to be a bit week. So please start leaving your questions and he will answer once the signal is back. Maybe he will lost signal several times but he keeps coming back and answering new questions.

Ask him what crap ass provider he uses so I can avoid it.

Orange Telecom in South West France! Still, the views from the deck are great! :) No one here.......

Wat code to get Laura nake?

You naughty chap! (you are a chap?)

Did you work on Commandos? Thanks for that absolute gem of a game. How much manhours go into making a game like that?

Can't take the credit....!

What is one modern gaming "tool" you wish you had in the OG Tomb Raider? Ie crafting, skill tree.....?

I wish we had RE4!

Hi Dominic, thanks for doing this AMA!

1. Favorite video game ever?
2. What do you think of the new Tomb Raider? If you could take anything from the reboot and apply it to the original release, what would it be?

Space Invaders! I loved playing this on the Intellivision in the officers mess at The Guards Depot in 1980. (I was a Guards Officer in the British Army).

On Tomb Raider, there have been so many versions since I left it's hard to comment. However, the mistake I would not have made over the years is the continuous re-drawing of Lara. I would have stuck to the original, perhaps developed her in line with ever increasingly better graphics, but held to the original.

What piece(s) of advice would you give someone looking for a career in game development?

I think unless you have a very obvious talent and training, the best idea is to join a games testing company, who are always recruiting. That way you get an 'in' into the industry, and a job on your CV. Then, after you've been trained there (say 6 months -1 year) you're ready to apply to do QA within a studio, for a live dev team. You're now embedded in a games dev team and making friends. You can then move up into which ever discipline you like, programming, level design, art etc.

What can you tell us about Rampart?

We did Star Wars on Amiga/PC/Atari ST, licenced from Atari Games (Coin-op division in Milpitas). We did such a good job, Atari asked us to do home computer versions of all their coin-ops, and Rampart was one, although not the biggest. I recall it did 'OK'.

What happened to the Timesplitters series? Did another publisher pick it up? Will we ever see a reboot? Huge fan of all 3 games, but TS2 multiplayer and map-designer sucked more of my time than most any other games.

I'm not sure actually - after my time, but I think it could be Crytek.

I was 16 when Championship Manager came out, and 17 when Championship Manager Italia 93 was launched.

How do you feel about utterly ruining my transition to adulthood? I've literally had one girlfriend.

My heart goes out to you and millions of other boys who never found out what that dangly thing between their legs was really for.......

hahahaha........D

I was going to ask something similar. How does Dominic feel about Championship Manager being the ultimate chastity device for many young men?

Don't get me wrong, the fact that my current Cambridge United FM 18 save is going strong says that I'm still in love with the game.

I suppose my actual question would be something along the lines of: did you have any inkling that the game would become one of the longest running and successful game franchises of all time? More to the point, when did it become apparent that the game was about to explode?

See my last!

And no, I didn't have a clue it was going to do so well, or indeed be so addictive. Paul and Oliver Collyer were/are such perfectionists in their assessment of players attributes that fans everywhere not only recognised the accuracy but also came to believe it across all the teams. This gave the game a credibilty that was new to the genre.

The game sold slowly aat first, but we started getting more and more re-orders from the shops, and that's when we commissioned Champ 2. When that came out it was huge. Sadly, after I left Eidos, the boys were seduced by Sega. Wouldn't have happened on my watch!

What is the biggest lesson you've learned since the release of your first game?

Our first game was Eureka! and it did OK. But that was not what we expected. We thought it's either gonna bomb or be big!

I've learned that games publishing is an exercise in optimism. :)

Hi Dominic! As soon as I heard the name "Domark", I immediately remembered one of my favorite games from my childhood: Absolute Zero)

My question is, were you involved in this game at all? If so, can you share your thoughts on the game or the development process for it? Any insight you can offer on the game at all would be a real treat!

Since I was about 8 years old when I picked up the game off the shelf at CompUSA (based solely off of the box art, as was standard practice back in the day), I never was able to get past the 3rd or 4th mission. I have tried a number of times over the years to find a way to play the game, having naturally lost the game CD, but have never had success. I got it working for a bit on DOSbox, but it always crashed at a certain point in one of the missions. It's still a personal goal of mine to complete the game one day, even if I have to scour the internet for an original disc and build a DOS machine myself to do it!

Anyway, I just wanted to drop in my two cents and share my appreciation for what I believe is one of the more "obscure" PC games to have existed. Sure, it was pretty simple, technologically, but I think Domark did a great job of working with what was available at the time to create a pretty heart-pounding and memorable experience for this young fellow!

That's so interesting! I remember that Colin Boswell (a Brit I had moved to California) was lead programmer, and we used the Simis engine. It was a rather strange in-house project. I'm afraid QA was pretty poor in those days, so playing through and ensuring no bugs before replicating discs was not routinely done.

I've atoned for my sins - my Catalis games group now includes Testronic, a games testing company with over 700 testers. working for great publishers like Riot, Ubi, Nintendo, Capcom etc.

Thank you for your custom - why not check out Curve-Digital and see my new games! :)

Thanks for so many amazing games! How proud are you for having a ring road after your character? I have always found it to be a far superior road than Brian Clough Way.

Thanks!

Can you ask your friends to make a new Legacy of Kain game please? That game was such an important part of my childhood that it got me into theater due to the amazing voice performances and story.

I'll look into it....

If you could acquire and develop any underutilized or inactive IP to make a game... what would it be and why?

Oh - you need to come and work with me! This is a great question.

I'm always looking for 'old' IP that can be reprised. In fact, my agent sent me a note today on an old Atari driving game that is available and that could be cool.

I tried to get Elite off David Braben years ago - big miss! ha ha.

There is gold in them there hills! Thank you for the answer.

Personally, I've thought of dozens of games to pitch with various properties, but just don't know who to talk about it.

well you can take this offline and visit the Curve website contact - mention me to the CS crew

Computer Science undergrad here. What kind of technical knowledge do we need to know for a career in game development? Any programming languages or software that the industry particularly wants to see in our resume?

I'd love to be able to give a full answer to this, but perhaps you might contact the guys at Curve through the website or my guys at Kuju too, and get a steer on it. Cheers D

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I'm here! I was cut off in deepest France...... :)

What are the chances of us seeing any Legacy of Kain projects in the future? Is there any plans or desires for a reboot that you've seen as a publisher?

This would be up to Square Enix - not my gig anymore....

I appreciate that you and your team have supported Linux/SteamOS recently with your games. Have you seen enough sales from Linux/SteamOS that you will continue this trend? And maybe more importantly, will Shadow of the Tomb Raider be a day 1 Linux/SteamOS release?

Edit: Is there a bot that downvotes every mention of Linux in threads relating to gaming? Replace Linux with macOS or Nintendo Switch and there would be no issues whatsoever. What the hell?

One for the Eidos team!

Didn't Eidos do Deus Ex? Does anyone else instantly hear that first sound from when you booted it up?

WHHHHEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeerrrrWHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRR DUUUUDudadudu, du duuuuudududududuuuuudududuuuu

we did indeed....

What are your plans for the next Deus Ex game?

Not my gig.....SqE

When you gonna release more Commandos games?

Hmmmm.

What kind of tricks were employed to overcome the technological limitations of the time when Tomb Raider was released?

I'm afraid you're asking the wrong guy! I'm not techy. But at the time, devs were moving to 3D (Like Doom), and Core had an engine that did a great job given the limitations of hardware at the time. TR displayed a look and feel that was different and really took hold.

Did you ever jerk off to Lara's triangle tits?

I'm guessing from the question that you find yourself in this situation several times a day......

Championship Manager 01/02 was the best game you guys made, did you ever play it?

Ha! I was not a football fan and when the game came in for eval, I wasn't interested.

But, believe it or not, it was my CFO Jeremy Bard who persuaded me to fund it and publish it - what a great move!!

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That is a great question. Nowadays I tend to watch others play, especially games we are thinking of backing. It's time really - and seeing games all day rather requires you to cool jets and watch Netflix at night :)

What would be the #1 tip for an upcoming developper? ( Indie Developper)

Get a good demo, flesh out the script and go find a small publisher like Curve Digital (my gig) Team 17, Devolver etc.

If you can, self fund all the way.

Please don't try to self-publish - that's really hard to do nowadays.

What do you suggest are the first steps towards becoming a professional game designer?

take one of many courses offered by Unis these days Abertay, for example.

Sorry for the hyper-generalized question, but thank you for responding!

If you wouldn't mind answer another question, more specifically I was wondering:

I am thinking of finishing college with a major in computer science and a minor in video game design, is there a specific variation of that you would suggest? And where would I take these certificates first, like straight to a dev. studio? Or to an indie dev. Or somewhere else entirely.

Thank you again! I really appreciate it, as a younger college student who has little knowledge of the world, but lots of ambition and inspiration, find myself consistently frustrated with a lack of clear direction.

Hey look, it's very difficult starting out, I know. Firstly, it depends on where you live. I can guess it's the US, but the main centres for vid games dev is SF and LA. of course Austin is on the up, plenty in Florida too. But if it were me, I'd get a camper van and go to San Fran.

Do a search on small dev companies there and visit their websites. They all advertise open positions. Take ANY job, even QA, just to get a start. Then the opportunities will open up. It doesn't matter QA is beneath your skills, it's a way of 'joining up' and it won't be long before the new community you've entered will offer you a big opp.

Yeah, you're right and I actually live right next to LA so that's good. I'm assuming that by QA you mean quality analysis, correct?

From what you've said in a different comment, I guess I'm also lucky because my father made the game design merit badge, so he has been in contact with a number of people in this industry that I'll have a connection to.

Thank you again, having any sort of guidance is a load off my back, especially when its clearer shot than most people have given. 😁

QA - Quality Assurance - i.e. looking for bugs. Games Tester. Embeds you in the dev team. You look, you learn, you see the opportunites.....good luck!

Why did you ditch Warzone 2100?

after my time!

At least Woody Harrelson actually showed up to his AMA and didn't just have people plug his stuff while he was busy doing other things. How hard is it to find a computer or a phone in seven hours?

I'm here now - deepest France is not super connected, but it generally works. Plus we have had huge storms. Sorry to be late - I'm catching up, bed now more tomorrow.....D

Did you have a hand in Cutthroats? I have so many good memories of that game and wish guest I still had the CD.

after my time!

What was it like starring in Portal 2?

Ha ha. Coincidence....

What do you think is the most impressive game ever made?

Call of Duty. Boring to say, but it has it all.....and long legs.

Hey Dominic! With the release of all the Tomb Raider movies and toys, do you or someone like Toby get to see a cut of that? I always wondered how a video game to movie translation goes for the game developers... if it's a licensing thing, separate etc.

Actually the money goes to the company, Eidos, not individuals. But my Testronic company does QA for Eidos, so we see Lara coming in and out of our building!

Hey, San Mateo! I currently live in the Bay Area and San Mateo isn't too far away. What are your favorite memories of the Bay Area and maybe share a restaurant that you enjoyed while here?

I enjoyed setting up our US business there, but it wasn't new to me as I'd been visiting for years. I loved the easy lifestyle, the upbeat nature of North Californians and the towns like Menlo Park and Palo Alto. I used to shop at Draegers and I guess Evvia was one of my favourite restaurants. However, there was a tiny French restaurant on Camino Real just nearby called Le Pot au Feu, which looked like nothin' but had fantastic food!

My favorite two games produced by edios were battlestations Midway and Pacific. What we're some if your favorits. Either produced by your company or otherwise?

I thought we did a great job of the first ever F1 game (Sega Gen) and AV8B Harrier Assault was a top flight sim (Simis).

Did you see Angelina Jolie before designing Laura Croft or did she just happen to look just like her?

I wasn't involved, but I did think that was great casting.

The Game came out wayyy before the movie buddy, that's why they call it a "video game movie".

I think he means something along the lines of; did you design the game character based on Angelina Jolie in real life and then they cast her later for the movie because they look very similar? Not “did you design the game based on the movie character.

No, the Lara character was based on a real girl - a Brit.

Any relation Doomdark/Domark? ( Singletons game).

No - we did publish Lords of Midnight from Mike, who sadly passed a few years ago.

Hello! From yours and Eidos' POV, how did Diakatana/the collapse of Looking Glass and the resulting fall-out look? Did it change your friendship and/or working relationship with John Romero?

So I left as founder and CEO in 1997, so was not there for various car crashes enjoyed by my successors!

this is axtually an AMA im interested in, first off you are a legend.

what is the hardest decision you have had to make regarding your company?

The hardest decisions are always when (from time to time) you have to make lay-offs. It hasn't happened to me in a long time, but in the early days we expanded and contracted without much capital behind us.

What is the biggest misconception about game development people have?

That you have to spend a large amount to make a successful game. We published Human Fall Flat (Curve) from a dev who did pretty much the whole game himself. It's brought in over $15m so far, and will do more over the coming years (now out on PS4 nd XBox today!!)

How do you do your market research to determine whether an audience exists for your idea?

Funnily enough I've never been a big fan of market research when it comes to green-lighting games. I sort of rely on gut feel, a sense that is informed by all sorts of info and data that comes to me daily via so many ways: chats with other pubs or devs, meetings at shows, the press of course and the guys.

The real trick though is to make your best guess on what 'is going to be hot' in 18 months, not what is obviously hot today, because any game you back will take that long to come to market.

I used to get annoyed by retailers telling me the sort of games to publish based on their previous weeks sales data. A good publisher thinks ahead.

Do games suck more now than they did in the 90s, or am I just getting old?

I think like music, all art forms go in cycles. So there are great musical decades and pretty light ones. I have about 8 teenage girlfriends of my daughter pool partying and almost all the music they are listening to is from the '70's!

Games used to be judged by not only how playable they were but how they pushed the hardware. Now that part of the fight is over, but the sense of 'wow - how did they make this look so great on my Amiga?' has also gone.

At E3 this year, everyone was saying to me that the games haven't changed in 6 years, lots of deja vue. But behind the curtain I was shown new tech that is going to kick everything off again big time, and no, it wasn't VR!

How come so many big gaming companies have big offices in San Mateo county vs Santa Clara where a lot of the other tech companies?

I think EA started it! We based oursleves in Foster City then moved to Sansome in SF. Great days....

What's the deal with Eidos and Square Enix? For a very long time I thought Eidos became Square Enix because all your titles suddenly became published by them (Tomb Raider, Hitman)

SqE bought Eidos, kept the name as a publishing imprint.

Whose idea was this?!

search me!

What's your opinion on ea (and others) buying up small developers for their ips?

It's business. Of course, if individual devs aren't happy they walk, so these big companies have to work well with them or they cross the street.

Sometimes being owned by a bigger entity can bring all sorts of benefts for small devs - $$s to invest, better wider marketing and reach to players. It's not always a 'really bad thing'.

How to get started in game industry? Your story? Cheers from Czech Republic

Ah well, if you want to hear my story you'll have to take a seat and settle down with a thermos, blanket and some sandwiches.

One day maybe I'll write it, even if just for my kids.

I was 24, been a soldier, worked in advertising and left to start a games company above a shop in London. The rest is history!

Are we ever going to get a new Lords of Midnight game?

I'll put it on the list....

So, what happened to Mark?

I left for the US and left him to run the European team out of London. I'm not sure he really felt comfortable on his own. Couple of years later we agreed he'd move on and I replaced him with John Pirie. Later, we IPOed the company by reversing into a shell called Eidos (hence the name change from Domark) on the London Stock Exchange. Mark sold his shares and did alright.

Do you still stay in contact with any of the old domark /eidos crowd such as Ian L?

Also just want to say hi, I worked as a tester for domark in Putney and then eidos in Wimbledon :)

I do indeed see Ian Livingstone quite often. Also Mike McGarvey, who has worked with me since, Paul Baldwin who is my sales guy out in San Fran, and I saw Colin Boswell at E3 who now works for Google. I could go on - I love my old boys and girls.

So what are you doing now BTW??

Wow that's quite a few of you still see each other! I moved out of games quite a few years ago as it never really paid that well compared to testing other software, I now work as an engineering manager at compare the market so still in software.

well done! Do you have a real pet Meerkat? :)

How was your day?

Thanks for cutthroats terror on the high sea I miss that game.

Well I have a place in deepest France, and internet connections are poor, so I'm late on all this....

How did Deus Ex become an Eidos property?

We bought ION Storm from John Romero

Thanks! Any good John Romero stories? or Warren Spector stories?

You trying to get me into trouble? :)

tomb raider is my favorite! how do you come up with the storylines, settings, concepts, and designs?

It was Core Design, Sheffield based dev team run by Jeremy Haeth Smith. When we bought US Gold, Core came with it and TR was already under development. Toby Gard was the guy behind it.

What is the best game you have worked on/produced?

The one I really enjoyed on all levels was the Atari coin-op conversion Star Wars

Hey, what's your opinion on loot crates? And in general, the idea of selling additional content. Is it on the up and up?

I cant help but think companies make a game, and then cut out a certain amount of content to then be resold at a later time.

Big question.

In general, I believe in customer choice, so I think if people hate things they won't buy them.

But I think adding content is cool, especially when a game catches on and people want more. Holding stuff back would not be honest, but thinking about the possibilites of adding is fine.

When is the next commandos coming out?

not mine!

Were you consulted for any of the Lara Croft movies? If so, how many people on the staff and in the cast actually played the game?

I had left Eidos before the movie deal....sorry!

What is your favorite type of cheesecake?

Can I send you a raspberry?

How many polygons make up Lara Croft's boobs these days?

100,000,000,000, - I could go on.......

Where should I start when looking to get into the marketing/advertising side of games? (I am a fresh graduate with an advertising degree)

One for my Curve guys - Curve-Digital.com

Did you ever dodge taxes?

I always pay my taxes, but I rage at the Gods when the filing is made......

Any interest in reviving Legacy of Kain?

See above posts

Favorite movie you would rather play as a game?

Blade Runner

Was there ever any hi t of truth to naked Lara in the early Tomb Raiders, maybe it was a Dev joke. Ever tempted to sneak it in, or had to tell someone to remove it?

Not to my knowledge, but rumours are fun n'est pas?