Journey 's Hunicke: The industry must come together, evolve, and innovate

"No one would have given money to Notch for Minecraft -- now look!

-- now look! That kind of effort comes from a genuine love for the medium itself -- and you can’t say that only this tiny niche of indie developers has that love -- everyone in the industry has that love."

- Funomena CEO Robin Hunicke

Rather than accentuating our differences, the game industry needs to come together, evolve, and innovate, says Funomena CEO Robin Hunicke, in a new interview with The Guardian.

"If you have someone in your company, who’s been working on your Call of Shooty franchise and they’re really excited to create a game they can share with their young daughter, let them. Like Ubisoft didwith Child of Light . The more that larger studios can support these efforts, the better. True, they may not be as profitable as a giant game, but they are the spirit of the industry, they’re the way we move forward."

Her studio, which she founded after completing work on Journey and leaving ThatGameCompany, is currently working on PlayStation exclusive Wattam with Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi.

Wattam offers a different style of game design from many other console titles, she says: "... it really is about how you play with the system rather than having a system designed specifically to give you a feeling of achievement. You have to find the achievement yourself."

That's because game development is itself a journey of experimentation, in her words: "It’s like getting in a boat and sailing off to where you think an island is, but then there’s a huge storm, and eventually you find the island – but how many of you are left in the boat – and how crazy are you?"

The full Guardian story has more from Hunickeand offers a deeper look into the play of Wattam .