Making a play for the future DAVE JONES Creator of notorious Grand Theft Auto, his dream is of massive multiplayer online gaming, finds Kristy Dorsey

In the ensuing years of controversy stirred up by the series, it's somewhat surprising to hear Jones describe how the backers of the first GTA actually played up the game's violent aspects. The game's publisher, BMG - now part of the Sony BMG entertainment group - went so far as to hire publicist Max Clifford to set a chain of media coverage in motion.

It worked very well, Jones recalls, with carefully-placed news articles followed up by television coverage.

Everything went as Clifford had planned, to the point where politicians saw fit to intervene.

"We had MPs standing up and condemning GTA, even though they had never seen it, " Jones said.

"That's where I think their arguments fell down.

"When they saw it, the look of disappointment on their faces was incredible. The graphics back then were nothing like they are today, so the original GTA wasn't exactly realistic - it was much more like a cartoon."

OK, fair enough - but if today's graphics had been the standard in the mid-1990s, would Jones have written GTA in the first place?

"That is a tricky question, " says Jones, who together with wife Pamela shares the responsibility of screening music and games before 11-year-old son Michael gets a crack at them.

He pauses a few more moments before conceding: "Me personally, I probably would not have taken it as far as Take-Two has taken it. They probably went too far in San Andreas (the latest in the GTA series) - some of the stuff like killing hookers and that really pushed it to the edge."

It is, however, no longer Jones' problem, as a series of deals led to the transfer of both the game and the firm that created it into US ownership.

Around the time of the release of the first GTA, Jones decided to merge DMA with quoted UK games publisher Gremlin Interactive. The Scottish operation remained the group's main design studio, and continued work on the GTA2 sequel that was released in 1999.

By that time, Gremlin had sold the IP for GTA to Take-Two, even though DMA would continue to develop the game. Gremlin in turn was then purchased by French games publisher Infogrammes, whose portfolio of more childfriendly titles did not make a natural home for GTA. Infogrammes decided to sell DMA, and as Take-Two already owned the IP for GTA, it was the natural buyer for the business.

The deal, which saw DMA renamed Rockstar North, was completed around the same time that Jones decided to leave the business.

After sitting out for a year, he set up Real Time Worlds in 2001, with the aim of capitalising on the massive multiplayer online gaming (MMOG) market.

Although still based in Dundee, Jones is looking to the Far East to realise his MMOG dream. The company recently announced that its first game, APB (All Points Bulletin) , would be released in 2007 by a South Korean publisher Despite some MMOG successes such as Everquest, MMOG in the US and Europe has attained only a fraction of the popularity it enjoys in Asian markets. Jones believes MMOG will catch on, and offers the opportunity for significant financial reward.

"These games last for two years, not for two months, " he said, adding that the social interaction of playing with huge numbers of other people was an important draw.

"As a player, I really enjoy it when a game has an online component, " he said. "The premise is that simple - they are much, much more fun."

The relative longevity of an MMOG also stems from the fact that because it is online, it can be adapted and extended to suit users' tastes. Being online can also require the daily input of hundreds of staff at the back-end to maintain servers and provide other technical support.

Jones believes this final aspect of online gaming could be the Scottish development sector's best shot at getting a significant slice of the billions in global revenues generated by the games sector. He says that although companies here have gained an impressive reputation for the creative aspects of games development, the majority of the benefits of this have f lowed elsewhere, primarily to those firms that publish the games.

"I think (MMOG) is the one chance we have got now of creating something where the benefits stay in Scotland, " Jones said. "There is potential there - you could host the whole of Europe from Scotland."

After nearly 20 years in the industry, Jones should have a good idea of how the trends in the gaming sector are moving. He has lived through the cycles that follow the release of new games consoles, not to mention the fads that see certain games acquire levels of popularity that might not have otherwise been predictable.

Upon leaving school in Dundee in 1982, Jones joined the local Timex plant, which at that time was making Sinclair ZX81s and ZX Spectrums. Jones described it as an ideal job for him at the time: "Then, the idea of having a computer at home was a dream."

But after nearly four years of studying and working on the hardware side, Jones decided he was more interested in the software that ran on the "dream" machines.

He took voluntary redundancy and signed up to study programming at a local university, then splashed out on the purchase of a Commodore Omega.

Having stepped back from a regular salary, Jones figured he needed a way to recover some of the cost of the computer. He decided to start writing computer games, and took nine months to complete his first title, Menace, which he described as a "classic arcade-type game".

He sold Menace to the UK's Psygnosis, and received 75p for every copy sold. He reckons about 5000-10,000 copies were sold.

"It covered the Omega, and it bought me a car - it was great, " he said.

This was followed by another arcade-style game called Blood Money, and by 1989 Jones had decided to leave university without a degree to set up his own games business. He had no idea what to call his new enterprise, and finally settled on the acronym DMA - "Doesn't Mean Anything".

Jones says he was unsure about leaving university early, but had been told that if things didn't work out within a year, he could return to the course.

"I just thought sod it, even if it is just a lifestyle business, I'll give it a go, because I enjoy it so much, " he said.

Under Jones's stewardship, DMA wrote a total of 15 games, not including the dozens of different versions of programming needed to get a single title to run on different computer systems. Along the way he worked with a number of other trailblazers in Scotland's computer games industry, including Visual Science founder Russell Kay, who did the PC programming for the 1991 cult hit Lemmings, which was originally written by Jones.

Despite his track record, Jones laughs upon hearing himself described as "the godfather of Scotland's games industry", a journalistic shorthand with which he has been tagged. While admitting to a certain amount of pride in Scotland's games industry, he adds that others have had a significant inf luence on the sector's development.

"The best thing, I think, is that we have created something that is recognisable on a global scale, " Jones said. "But at the same time, you can't sit back and rest on your laurels.

"Is it sustainable? Yes it is, but like I said, you have got to remember that most of that is not f lowing back to Scotland."

Now facing the prospect of turning 40 in October, is "the godfather" feeling his age? While Jones certainly shows no signs of moving on, he admits that such thoughts do occasionally cross his mind.

"I always wonder if I will design a game that I just don't understand, " he said, recalling the first time he had a shot at playing Pokemon.

"I just don't get it. I picked it up and tried to play it, but I just don't understand the appeal."

VIEWPOINT When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up: The only thing that ever crossed my mind was being an architect. Because computers were not on the scene then, I guess architecture appealed because you could design and then build something, so there are some similarities.

What drives you: I do it because I love it. Could you be a chef without enjoying food? It's the same with games - you have to love them to be in this business. To me, it goes handin-hand.

What car do you drive: A Lamborghini Diablo. As a child, that was the poster that everyone had on their walls. On a day-to-day basis, I drive a Lexus.