Charles Cecil - Biography - Managing Director of Revolution Software

Managing Director of Revolution Software

In 1989, when Cecil was still working at Activison, he decided to set up his own development studio. He contacted Tony Warriner, who had worked with him at Artic Computing and Paragon Programming, and Warriner brought in a fellow programmer, David Sykes. Together with Noirin Carmody, his then-girlfriend, they founded Revolution Software (March 1990). The company was originally located in Hull, but moved to York in 1994. Besides becoming Revolution's managing director, Cecil would focus from the start on writing and design. At that time the graphic adventure genre was dominated by LucasArts and Sierra On-Line, and they wanted to create something in between, an adventure game that didn't take itself too seriously, but did have a serious story. For Revolution's first title, Cecil conceived with others an innovative game engine, called Virtual Theatre, and the engine itself was designed by Tony Warriner. The result was Lure of the Temptress (1992), and though it was their first product, it became one of the successful games that would follow. For the second title, Beneath a Steel Sky (1994), often referred to as a cult classic, Cecil contacted comic book artist Dave Gibbons. He had met Gibbons when he was still at Activision, and he admired Gibbons's work on Watchmen. Gibbons became involved in the design of the game, and their collaboration would inspire Cecil's next move.

The divergence of and distinction between film and video games is one of Cecil's pet subjects, and his interest in cinematic techniques and technical developments would become manifest in Revolution's upcoming titles. He started to hire external talent from the TV and film trades for the big-budget production Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996). Already in the next year the sequel, Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror, was released. By the end of the nineties, when the adventure market changed, he had to change course as well. In stead of the previous games, that were point-and-click adventures, he chose to move to 3D and direct control with In Cold Blood (2000), a narrative driven adventure game with action elements. At the same time a second title, Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado (2000), was developed after DreamWorks's film The Road to El Dorado. As Broken Sword was originally intended to be a trilogy, a third episode was planned. Unlike In Cold Blood, that combined 3D characters with pre-rendered graphics, the third Broken Sword game, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon (2003), became a real-time 3D adventure game, with mild action elements (such as using stealth, climbing, shimmying, and pushing objects). Initially, when he announced that Broken Sword 3 was going to be a 3D game, it caused an outcry by the fans of the series. Cecil had had no choice to adopt 3D though, for when they needed funding in the beginning of 2000, publishers had become obsessed with the idea that everything was going to be 3D. But he had always been keen to move to 3D, as it allowed more special effects and would make the game world more alive. In the same year, he decided to release Beneath a Steel Sky (and Lure of the Temptress) as freeware and the source code was given to ScummVM. The result was that millions of people played the game for free in a very wide range of devices. It would foreshadow Revolution's bright future. He could have said that as a marketing genius he planned it, but as he stated a few years later, that would have been a dreadful lie. However, some hard years were ahead for the company. Over the years it had grown into about 40 people, but the year after Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon one of Revolution's projects was canceled, and he had no other option than let everyone go.

In May 2004 Cecil announced that Revolution would go “back to basics,” which meant that Revolution, that had set itself up as both designer and producer of video games, would focus more closely on design. As he stated in various presentations, the situation was caused by the fact that big publishing companies had been controlling for years the supply and demand side of the game market, and little was left for independent developers. Though publishers made tens of millions on the games, Revolution was losing money on every title they produced. In the new situation, he implemented the so-called Hollywood model, in which a producer and director come together and assemble a team to create a movie. For the fourth Broken Sword game, Broken Sword: The Angel of Death (2006), he decided to work with Sumo Digital. They took a number of the former Revolution staff and concentrated on production, while Cecil concentrated on design, story and game play. Because Revolution had received a lot of feedback on the decision to abandon point-and-click, the player was allowed to choose between point-and-click and direct control.

At the end of the decade things changed by innovations such as broadband, new platforms and digital portals. In the new situation game publishers and other middle-men were no longer needed. Revolution could now start to self-publish and the relation with the audience, a relation that Cecil had always valued, could be restored. In March 2009 Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - The Director's Cut was published by Ubisoft for the Wii and DS that included new material. In July 2009 Revolution announced on their website a new division, called Revolution Pocket, together with the first title of the new division, Beneath a Steel Sky - Remastered. In the announcement Cecil stated that the digital revolution had changed the game for developers, and that more titles would follow. He had been contacted by Apple to see if he would consider to bring Revolution's classic titles to the App Store, and Cecil on his turn had contacted Dave Gibbons to work on new editions of Beneath a Steel Sky, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - The Director's Cut and Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror - Remastered (2010). The release of the first Broken Sword game was celebrated at the Apple Store in London in February 2010. According to Cecil the digital revolution, and in particular the App Store, saved Revolution. As was announced on Revolution's site in December 2011, the dramatic change enabled Revolution to self-fund their next game. Develop, that ranks development studios based on Metacritic data and chart success, ranked Revolution Software in 2011 among the top 50 most successful development studios in the world. On August 23, 2012 Revolution revealed that they were working on a new Broken Sword game entitled Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse and they launched a Kickstarter campaign. Though Cecil was approached by a huge publisher to publish a Broken Sword game, Kickstarter was preferred, because they would be able to control development, finances, and marketing. The project was successfully funded within two weeks.