A couple of years ago, you said you'd sworn off talking to the press following an interview with another publication. What's changed?

When I had that interview with Rock POE currency trade , Paper, Shotgun, I said that explosive thing. It was a slightly childish thing to say and it was in the heat of the moment. Looking at it now and what is sensible, it'd just be silly and stupid and childish for me to refuse to talk to people like yourself. Ultimately, this game has just been released so a lot of the press will want to talk to the principal designer on the game. We should do that, we should have that chat, but what I shouldn't do and continue not doing is to pre-hype games before they're out. My rule is simple: I'll talk about a game if it's released, if it's out, and players can get their hands on it. The thing that I'm fascinated to talk about is the background—where a design came from, where an idea came from and how it evolved.

Do you think you've been guilty of over-hyping in the past?

When it comes to work I'm such an obsessive, to the point where it becomes the only thing in my life. When you're working with people, part of your role is to find the exciting elements of the game. It's very hard to filter that out and think: oh gosh, I mustn't say that because that may not come to fore. I've been very guilty in the past of being just too excited about the thing that I'm working on at the time. People may or may not believe it, but I'm never doing this thinking: oh, this is going to sell 10,000 more units if I tell this lie. To me, it all really started back in the Fable days when I said to the press, we're going to make the greatest role-playing game of all time. That was the first time that that line was really taken and interested.

But, as I said, when you're standing up to a team, you don't go up to a team and say: Right, we're going to make quite a good role-playing game, not the best one, though. You've got to get a team excited and it's only the excitement and enthusiasm that actually makes any note. But, as I said, those things if they're written in the wrong way and are read in the wrong way, they can be taken as promises. If you say to me, okay, the next Spider-man film is going to be the greatest film of all time, my anticipation is going to be up. I think in today's world you've got to be very skillful with the message when you're talking to POE divine orbs consumers, especially about something that doesn't exist. If that thing does exist, then I think you should comment on it and discuss why you took this approach or that approach.