By: Brian Crecente

I had a chance to chat with Marc Ecko recently about gaming. I taped the thing and asked my lovely wife to transcribe the rambly conversation for posting on Kotaku.

The conversation lasted about 30 minutes and in it we talked about Getting Up the future of Ecko Games, his love of Bob Ross and the systems he plays and played.

He struck me as pretty down to earth for a rich graffiti artist, and he definetly seemed to know his shit when it comes to gaming.

Brian Crecente
What is your sort of response to the reaction (to Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure)? It seems like it has been sorta mixed, though in general if you look at the scores it seemed to do pretty well when it came to grading. Some people kind of bashed it, but it wasn't like people gave it an F.

Marc Ecko
Right, right. I was content I thought that, you know, I learned a lot from the process. You know the best critique is the consumer, I think that, you know, that it was definitely very interesting how polarizing it happened to be, at least online within hardcore gaming communities, that it was like either people loved it or they completely characterized it like it was shit.

B
Right.

ME
But it was kind of interesting. Ultimately, my emphasis, my focus has to be professionally as I focus on the medium and as I learn and I try to, you know, climb myself on the gaming space, you know, I try to focus on the product and learn from the feedback.

B
Well then it's sort of...I was curious about that, are you, it sounds like in sort of reading other reviews or other interviews that you've mentioned, that you're hoping to make this into a franchise, that there might be sequels.

ME
Yes.

B
Are you thinking of expanding, in coming out with other original titles as well?

ME
Yes, that is my intent.

B
So, now is this is it under, I've forgotten, did you release that one under the label Ecko games or was it Atari?

ME
Yeah, it was released under, it was published by Atari licensed to Atari through Marc Ecko entertainment, and actually, in that, in this iteration of Getting Up we used the Ecko unlimited brand based on the simple brand of awareness

B
I got you, but you think Ecko games is gonna become a brand?

ME
It would be our, my hope in the spirit that Complex Magazine became a brand.

B
Uh , any sense on what other sort of things you might look at? I mean obviously graffiti in Getting Up, but what other sort of topics do you think you might wanna expand on?

ME
Oh man, it's so eclectic and diverse I think if people, you know, are thinking because I'm, you know, an advocate for graffiti or for urban culture and you're thinking I bring only more pure urban narratives to the market, that it's not the case at all. You know without showing my hand too much, you know, I could just tell you that if you love me or if you hate me it doesn't really matter but please just understand how much I've truly just loved the medium of gaming and I believe in it despite, you know, what some in the game industry are saying this week, that teens aren't interested anymore. I don't know if you saw that .

B
Yeah, yeah I did, I did see it.

ME
You know, so, you know, I just think the medium is an exciting place and I think it's the wild west of media culture and it's a place that I just, you know, I caught the bug, I...its so an amazing professional and creative experience, so, you know...just expect the unexpected. Without showing too much of, just don't expect like more. I don't think I'm gonna do a break-dancing game.

B
Well, you know they have one, what was it -

ME
I know.

B
Was it Konami that came out with it I think or...

ME
I think there was one that's even just was announced, actually it was one that was built by this Canadian developers and it was published by Ubisoft.

B
Right, right, that's right. I actually know -

ME
It wasn't even that bad of a game actually, the code was pretty good. It was one that, I think there was one that Konami or someone else is about to release in Europe only.

B
Right. Well, do you think, I mean I think some of the issues that the game initially ran into, your game initially ran into was that there's this feeling that a lot of the people are trying to cash-in on the whole urban scene.

ME
Right.

B
And you know, unfortunately I think you even mentioned that you were sorta lumped in with 25 to Life and Bullet Proof.

ME
Right.

B
I mean do you think that's an issue? I mean, I think, I mean it seems to me like there's a lot there that you could work with but is it, does it bring too much negative with it?

ME
No, no I just think creatively we wanna touch broader topics, I think, you know, the other topics, the other narratives and other types of games that we will try to, you know, this is, Getting Up is very personal, you could hear how passionate I am about graffiti, you know, just a topic and this is a part, comes from a part of my life, you know, when I wrote the script for it now, I was at a place where I was six plus million dollars in debt and I look back at that time and I think I was playing ostrich a little bit, like, it was comforting for me to escape into this little world of New Radius and Trane and play this game in my head because it allowed me not to have to think about how shitty my business was and how much work I had to do to turn it around and it was very personal and maybe even selfish of me to wanna kinda close that part of my life out, you know, I turned the business around with my partners and a few years later I dust off the script and that's where getting up was born from. My love for and my desire to wanna get into this space probably stems more from the experience of having worked on Getting Up, but umm, and the talent that I'm meeting and drawing, you know, from in terms of my staff are drawn from a much broader base of talent whose, you know, a cultural, you know, the culture of cues and threads they're drawing from a much broader or different or even often sometimes more specific than urban culture so I don't think my only motivation in being in the gaming space would be like to exploit my understanding of that, that's not my motivation, it's to hopefully try to make good games, you know, and try to dance a medium and do our spin on what we think is good and hopefully consumer votes as well.

B
Do you, do you think you might be coming out with a Getting Up for the next gen, any of the next gen consoles?

ME
Yeah, I think, you know, I think right now the core focus for Getting Up strategically, I mean, you studied the business so you know how wacky the business is right now.

B
Right, oh yeah.

ME
I consider next-gen to be PSP, I consider next gen to be the trend in hand-held, I consider...you know, so philosophically getting into a next gen console version we really have to see what the scope is and Id rather define the scope by other publishers taking the gamble and figuring out how people are going to exploit, you know, and exploit these new boxes and kinda learn on their dime rather than rushing in to building something that at this current state when so much is still gray about the ps3 and its developers getting going through the learning curve much like they did when the ps2, between ps1 and ps2 even though this leap is far. I think the leap is greater, not necessarily in the tech but in terms of expectations, consumer expectations the leap is kinda out of the world.

B
Oh yeah, totally.

ME
You know, so you gotta be, we have to be very smart and purposeful about defining what we want that next gen experience to be about since so much of it I believe is going to be based on community experiences.

B
Oh yeah, yeah. Well I sorta asked and Im sure, I know you've talked about this and thought about it sounds like, the whole Revolution and the fact that they've got it seems like controls that could be very conducive to like, you know, if you want -

ME
Yeah, we're totally we're all over that you know like we're probably more likely to go there before even like a next gen on the other boxes, that is conceivable but we're honestly, we're really, you're really just doing due diligence, you know, we're meeting developers and trying to get an inventory of people's tech and their ability to push the brand, the game play experience forward. Since so much of that is defined by what the developers gonna do it's the time in doing our due diligence.

B
Did you, this is sorta a crazy question but did you see the announcement in April that there's gonna a be a Joy of Painting game coming out?

ME
Yes, the Bob Ross thing?

B
Yeah

ME
Now how fucking epic is that.

B
Oh I know, and it's funny 'cause obviously it's not, it's not urban culture but it's interesting 'cause in a way it's got, you know this following.

ME
First of all, I just like anything that has magic white or, you know, (imitating Bob Ross) "We just need a little bit of burnt sienna here, a magic white highlights on the bird." Did you ever watch Bob Ross?

B
Oh yeah. It's so funny 'cause like everybody knows who he is, it crosses like all lines.

ME
It's unbelievable like his estate because he's passed you know, he's not alive.

B
Yeah

ME
I love Bob Ross. I used to come home from school and just obsess on that show.

B
That is so funny

ME
He made me so relaxed it was like taking a Quaalude, you know, I'd have like four Oreos, a cup of milk and I'd veg out and remote between Bob Ross, and like, Bugs Bunny, and like, you know or get on my Intellivision or whatever.

B
You, and I know you've been quoted as saying it but, you know, you've said several times that you're a hardcore gamer. Have you played games most your life?

ME
Oh yeah. Of course, I mean if you came up in the 80s and the burbs? You know, how did you not?

B
How old are you?

ME
I'm 33

B
Okay, so we're like the same generation.

ME
Yeah, so you know the 80s was the death of, the death of sport as American past time for young boys and it was the birth of gaming as the great past time, at least for our generation. I know that I learned about sports through engaging in game-play.

B
Right

ME
Growing up in Lakewood, New Jersey in a largely black and Latino community if you went to public school system there was hockey, you know, but I learned about hockey through playing hockey games, you know, and as much as I thought I understood the rules of football. I actually, I think I played better in real life by having had kinda learning about some of the, how offenses and defense line up and strategies, and so certainly gaming was a huge part of what informed me, you know, growing up as much as hip hop was.

B
Do you, do you have most the systems now or what systems do you play most

ME
I have every system that's available right now and I have all debug kits and stuff and I find myself mostly playing my PSP just because of convenience.

B
Right, right.

ME
So I, you know yeah, mostly I'm mostly playing that. I have my 360 and I've, you know, playing, we just got Oblivion so we're playing that.

B
Yeah it's a good game

ME
The boxing game the Fight Night

B
Yeah, Fight Night 3

ME
It's really, really super strong

B
Have you seen the DS yet?

ME
I have seen the DS, yeah I have one here and I think the purest gratification of gameplay comes from the DS right now from a trend perspective.

B
Yeah

ME
I think we even talk about like hard-core, you know, addictive crack cocaine gaming, you know, the DS is doing it right now.

B
Yeah, I think, I think you're probably right. Well, and it's again another thing that could be a great platform for something like -

ME
Yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah, yeah, yep for sure.