Diesel on Tigon: create games that are accountable to the film

1:00 PM on 03.11.2009   |   Brad Nicholson

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During a conference call on Friday, I posed what I thought to be an interesting question to movie star and owner of Tigon Studios, Vin Diesel. I asked, where he saw Tigon in to years. Initially, he handed the reigns to Ian Stevens, Tigon’s head game producer (you can read that response here.) Vin echoed Stevens, but branched his response to include an interesting point: Tigon has to make games like Wheelman -- which is being created simultaneously as a film and a game -- accountable to the movie it was conceived from. That reality will only be realized by taking it easy, making sure every game is as polished as possible. You'll see the fruits of those labors when Assault on Dark Athena hits in April.

“We’re not in any rush. We take great pride -- we don’t try to churn out a game every six months -- in creating content that’s deep, that you can play again and again that complies with the consumed experience,” Diesel said. “One of the coolest things about having this company is bridging what Ian just said -- bridging great films with great games. And having them being accountable for one another. That’s the concept. That’s the idea. We moved forward to get performances in the same way you would get a performance in a film. Writing in the same way you would get writing in a movie. Commitment across the board on a ‘producorial’ level in the same way you would approach a film.”

He continued: “Because of [the commitment] we have these compelling aspects to the game that you don’t normally see with franchised games because so often there’s a detachment from the film portion of the film portion and game portion of the IP. One of the coolest things that we’re really proud about is what we just did recently with a fresh, brand new IP called Wheelman.”

Hit the break for the rest of his response.

“What’s so cool about that is that we were able to launch this IP, develop it to such a degree that both the movie and the game are being created simultaneously. That’s rare. And hopefully within two years we’ll have pulled this off. It’ll be the first time an IP has been, I guessed produced, simultaneously the movie and the game on an original IP. We’ve never seen that before,” he said.

“Hopefully in two years, games like that and the movies those IPs will answer your question. We take  a lot pride in every property we release and we commit ourselves to. I can’t say that we’ll be filling the shelves with games but the games that we do create we’ll stand behind because we would have put blood, sweat, and tears into it.”