“We’ve done something that’s never been done before in any video game.â€
During the creation of Don King Presents: Prizefighter, Mr. King had one specific goal in mind – to release a game that was an “emulation and imitation of my life and what it is.†“You’ve got a game of reality,†he says. “In other words, a people’s game.â€
But it takes more than a few lines of hype to get it right. Executive Producer Matthew Seymour said they really wanted to make Prizefighter stand out in this crowded market – most of which is currently dominated by one publisher. “How can you do that with the competition out there?†Seymour asks, knowing that the answer can be found within his game. “One is offering a real huge [and] dramatic experience. We really focus on that with the career mode.â€
But before creating the proper career mode experience, you’ve got to understand exactly what it’s like to be in the ring. Part of that understanding came from Don King’s wealth of knowledge; the other part came from boxing legends such as Larry Holmes. Having yet to get his hands on Prizefighter, Holmes didn’t have much to say on that end. But he was able to relate his career to the game, noting that in boxing, the hardest part is keeping your cool. “So many people say you can’t do this or can’t do that,†Holmes started. “But I remember when they were telling me I couldn’t beat Muhammad Ali. It makes you mad, but I overcame that and did what I had to do.â€
Fantasizing about what could have been, Holmes said that if there was one boxer he could fight today it’d be George Foreman. “I don’t know why Don King didn’t put us together. But I do know why…’cause George Foreman’s scared. He should’ve fought me instead of fighting everybody he thought he could beat.â€
Does Holmes’ semi-cocky attitude mesh with the things Don King looks for in a real boxer? “Mind over matter,†he says. “The mind over matter is what really gets me in a boxer. A boxer can have the physical and beginning of the skills. But what you’re talking about is getting a person with physical prowess. But if his mind is not able to comprehend and direct his physical prowess, you’re going up a blind alley, a one-way street. So when you find boxers that have the will to win, the courage, the valor, and are able to put it into a never-say-die attitude, that’s what separates the weak from the strong, and a pretender from a real contender.â€
But while the two legends could spend days talking about the sport and what it personally means to them, it’s the game that matters most to 2K Sports. Seymour boasts: “We’ve done something that’s never been done before in any video game, let alone a sports video game, is tell the story through a live-action sports documentary. This gameplay and this career mode will take about 15 hours of play, and you are actually the subject and star of this documentary where legends, Don King, ex-girlfriends, trainers, etc., talk about you as if you actually exist.
“We’re quite surprised no one’s ever tried this before considering how ensconced the sports documentary is in athletics. We hear it in the Olympics and ESPN and movies like Murderball, When We Were Kings, Riding Giants – all of that, these were all very cool documentaries, [but have] never been done before [in a game].â€
Smells Like Team Spirit
Matthew Seymour took a few minutes to tell us about the team behind Don King Presents: Prizefighter: “It’s Venom Games. These were ex-Rage guys, and Venom Games is up in Newcastle, and they are a wholly owned studio of 2K Games and 2K Sports, and these guys did Rocky and Rocky Legends. This is one of the reasons we bought ‘em, because we wanted to get in the boxing world and have that in our sports lineup. 2K Sports is all about bringing it to the audience. We’re not afraid to take on the best and bring the action that we want to our audience. We’re key on game mechanics and gameplay and that’s something 2K is known for. So we bought the studio that knows boxing games. These guys have quite a legacy, ‘cause Rocky and Rocky Legends were terrific boxing games, and had lots of strengths in regards to story and mini-games, and people loved the games. We’re going to continue building that legacy.â€
Your Nose Looks Bloody Good
Not all rumors are true. Contrary to reports circulating the Web, Prizefighter will contain blood and body damage. “There’s blood, deformation of the face, there’s bruising, everything that you would see in a fighting game,†Seymour promises. “2K Sports is all about making it as real as possible. We’re not gonna pull any punches (pun intended) on things like blood. But we didn’t get hung up on it, and maybe that’s where some of these rumors are coming from.â€
 
A Little Bit More
The career mode isn’t the only thing gamers have to look forward to. Seymour comments: “We have an exhibition mode so you can fight in the ring with your friends on the couch. You can choose from 40 licensed professional boxers, 10 of which are legends of the ring, including Larry Holmes. In addition to that we have a pretty robust multiplayer mode that includes a Fight Club sort of area where it’s a best-man-wins, pound-for-pound kind of fighter, a single-round elimination mode. And in this mode you can also use up to five customized (created) characters, and all of them will be linked to leader boards.â€
Temptation Island
You can’t be a star without temptations. But can you give into your temptations and still be a star? This is one of the emotional battles players will face in Prizefighter’s career mode. “We read about what all these athletes do off the field, off the court, outside the ring,†Seymour notes. “The bling, the splash, and the sponsorship. Tiger Woods makes more money off the course than he does on the course. That’s part of being an athlete. Some fail at that. And that’s what we wanted to bring to the table. All these temptations you have to deal with – all these people wanting a piece of you.
“The temptations with [Penthouse model] Heather Vandeven… Obviously Heather’s not trying to call you up when you’re a lonely chump. You’ve gotta work your way through the career mode before she starts calling you up and asking you out on dates.
“Essentially, with temptations, it’s not all bad. The more you’re seen with hot girls, in commercials or whatever, the higher your media profile is. We have this media profile, and when you go into the ring with a high media profile, you’ll have the crowd support behind you. The more crowd support you have behind you, the more adrenaline you’ll have and the more signature punches you’ll be able to throw.â€
Q Me In
In between punches, GameZone threw a few questions at Executive Producer Matthew Seymour.
Give us some history on Don King’s connection with the game. How much has he been involved with the development process?
Matthew Seymour: Don’s been massively involved. From the start, we met with Don a number of days – the writers and I and designers – spent three days with him straight, hours and hours. Don works crazy hours, he’s just like us and the press. He burns the midnight oil. It kind of began with hearing a lot of stories from Don. And not only Don but the people that work with Don. Surprisingly enough, most of his vice presidents of broadcasting and operations are women, so that’s always nice.
There was that element, and then there was the element of Don being in this mockumentary, if you will. Don was one of the stars of this mockumentary, or sports documentary. He did tons of voice-over work. And we were always showing him stuff throughout the development cycle. Not only of himself but of what we were doing with the boxers. And he threw in ideas for what we should do with the game with his boxers and others that we had. It was a lot of back and forth and give and take.
Don has a massive, massive [boxing] library, probably one of the biggest in the world, and looked at what we could use to tell the story and also as unlockable as you progress in the game and in the career mode. I can’t count how many times I’ve been on the phone [with Don] or how many times I’ve been at his office in Florida working with him. It was really fantastic and a lot of fun ‘cause he’s an extremely funny man. A great time to be had.
[The hardest part was implementing] all the stories, all the stuff. Don’s been promoting for over 30 years now. How do you implement all these fantastic stories? Some are too funny or too crazy. I mean, he told us loads of stories about dealing with the boxers’ wives or girlfriends, and some are a bit salacious and could never be put in unless we were an M-rated or even an AO game. But that was probably the hardest part – just not having enough time and people in our development cycle to put everything in that we would have loved to have.
Prizefighter is about to enter a ring that’s currently owned by EA’s Fight Night and will see further competition from EA’s FaceBreaker this fall. To nostalgic gamers, Punch-Out is still the champ. Obviously these things came to mind when beginning this project, so what did you – as developers – think about in the planning stages, and how have those concepts led to a game that can stand tall in the ring?
MS: Fight Night is a beautiful game. They did a terrific job in many areas. It was a fantastic launch title. But they kind of missed it…You can’t get everything right first time you go for it, especially when you’re a launch title. They were a bit short when it came to the career mode. We knew we could deliver that and attract a lot of people.
I think the career mode is very important. At the end of the day, your friends go home and you still got some energy, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna wanna play and you’re gonna wanna become the heavyweight champion of the world. So we focused on that, and we focused on gameplay mechanics, ‘cause 2K Sports is known for that and so is Venom Games.
When it comes to FaceBreaker, with all due respect, FaceBreaker isn’t a boxing game. It’s a hybrid. It’s kind of this crazy fighting game that has elements of boxing in it and looks like it could be a lot of fun. But it’s not a boxing game.
2K Sports is all about integrity to the sport itself, whether it’s NBA or the NHL, or our football stuff or MLB, we’re all about bringing you the ultimate experience of what it’s like to be an athlete. Part of that is having this career. We’re taking it a little bit further than some of the other 2K Sports, where inside and out of the ring are equally as important.
I look forward to playing FaceBreaker and the next Fight Night (Round 4). But we’re doing something different and I think there’s room for all of us.
On the marketing note, I just have to ask: product placement was a bit extreme in Fight Night 3. Your thoughts? Is this just something gamers have to get used to, and will be a part of Prizefighter as well, or do you believe the future isn’t shrouded in Burger King advertisements?
MS: I’d say that was a little bit of an overkill. Was the Burger King guy in the press conference a little bit spooky? Yeah. Granted, we all got a chuckle out of it.
But the bottom line to me, and this is a 2K Sports thing, is that it’s about keeping it real in the integrity of the sport. To us, there’s more than Everlast and Burger King in the world. We went out and got all the boxing licenses – well maybe not all of ‘em but close. Not only do we have Everlast but we have Lonsdale, Grant, we have CompuBox, who are the guys who count punch hits, and all of that.
