Derek Smart is running out of chances.
“Right now, in all of my 14 games I’m nowhere near 10,” Smart tells me, referring to the videogame review scale, in which a “perfect” game is considered a 10. “I’m somewhere near a 6 … but I’m not going to keep trying and keep doing this when I’m 90.
“It just doesn’t work that way.”
I’m sitting in a hotel room in San Francisco with Smart and his PR handler, just a quarter mile from where the most famous game developers in the world have gathered for the 2012 Game Developers Conference.
Smart is dressed, well, smartly. Nice shoes. Casual, but expensive-looking shirt. Gold jewelry. A self-confessed millionaire, he carries himself with the air of a man who has come into money, but still understands the value of hard work.
On the desk in front of him is a laptop computer running the product of that work: Line of Defense, his latest game.
