Ecko planned to make Macbeth game

By Ellie Gibson Published 1 December, 2009

With focus on "cutting people's heads off".

Clothing designer Marc Ecko has revealed he had planned to produce a videogame based on Shakespeare's Macbeth - otherwise known as The Boring Old Scottish Play.

"I completely reimagined Macbeth," he told Destructoid.

Ecko said he didn't want to "give it away" but did divulge the game would be a violent action game, with a focus on "cutting people's heads off".

But wasn't he worried about what other people think? "I don't live my life afraid of what other people think," said Ecko.

"Our adaptation, I think, would have made it relevant to people who wouldn't have otherwise known about this great story. It's unfortunate, because a lot of people just don't know Macbeth."

The project never made it past the pitch and demo stage, astonishingly.

Ecko's previous foray into videogames, Mark Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, failed to impress (6/10). But undeterred, he is working with CDV to produce a US version of DS puzzler I Heart Geeks.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • The_Inquisitor #1 2 years ago

    They should call it 'Macdeath'!

  • Chazmeister #2 2 years ago

    "Our adaptation, I think, would have made it relevant to people who wouldn't have otherwise known about this great story. It's unfortunate, because a lot of people just don't know Macbeth."

    And how exactly would making a game that bears very little resemblance to the play it's based on, some how educate people about it?

  • Doctor_What #3 2 years ago

    MacBeth is ace, and not nearly as boring as Twilight (for example).

  • asphaltcowboy #4 2 years ago

    ^^ What Chazmeister said!

    Also, in what sense Macbeth "boring"? Philistine!

  • Stompy #5 2 years ago

    We've already had Hunchback of Notre Dame as an unbelievably fiddly one-screen platformer.

    I vote for taking part in an utterly futile resistance in a 1984 MMORPG. Level by not watching the telly and having actualy friends. The more you level, the closer you get to a jackboot stomping on a human face forever!

  • The-Bodybuilder #6 2 years ago

    I'd prefer a game based on othello......



    with lenny henry as the main character.

  • sneetch #7 2 years ago

    The Boring Old Scottish Play.

    Boring? BORING!!!1!!? Are you mad woman!? :)

  • Golgo #8 2 years ago

    Quite right too, no-one is decapitated in Macbeth. I knew there was something amiss but I couldn't quite put my finger on it! Bet Shakey Baby wished he'd had Ecko around to advise him when he wrote his boring old play...

    (Ecko: just keep making your chav-couture, you arsewipe...)

  • dahsif #9 2 years ago

    I'm gonna pitch a hack-and-slash game based on "Paradise Lost"" by Milton.
    YOU GET TO PLAY AS THE DEVIL!!!1111 AGAINST GOD!!

    I'll call it "DEVIL MAY MAKE YOU CRY"

  • SirDespard #10 2 years ago

    When shall we three meet again? Well, I might be on Live later, send me an invite? Yeah right...

    Anyone remember the C64 Macbeth game? A text adventure, three or four separate sections, slightly obtuse, got pretty much nowhere with it. I think it was published by Creative Sparks.

  • nuanimal #11 2 years ago

    I want Pride & Prejedice in the form of an obscure Japanese dating sim! Or failing that an FPS/RPG combo will do.

  • Paulie_P #12 2 years ago

    Maybe EA could pick this up after they've finished butchering Dante's Inferno.

  • RobotRocker #13 2 years ago

    Ecko cursed it by calling it Macbeth anyway.

    /Obscure?

  • el_pollo_diablo #14 2 years ago

    lol

    "I completely reimagined Macbeth," an arrogant tshirt designer with dillusions of grandeur told Destructoid.

  • knocker #15 2 years ago

    Shigeru Miyamoto is rumoured to be working on Super Mario Andronicus.

    As it's nintendo, the rape and mutilations will be mini-games (*yawn*) while the infamous pie scene includes a cameo by cooking mama.

  • YourMessageHere #16 2 years ago

    True story: I saw Henry V in manga form at a bookshop the other day, in three different editions, no less: original text version, with very small type in very large speech bubbles; simplified text version, with larger type and less Shakespeare-ness, for the thick; and "plain english version" with much bigger type, all semblence of literature surgically removed, and, presumably, dribbleproof pages. That too was a fucking travesty...it's only irrelevant if you haven't the imagination to empathise or the patience to read, you cretin.

  • el_pollo_diablo #17 2 years ago

    Someone should do a decent Chaucer game. I love a bit of Canterbury Tales, me.

  • TriggerHippie #18 2 years ago

    Much ado about nothing.

  • knocker #19 2 years ago

    People are far too pompous about Shakespeare.

    Halo 3 and Mario Party 7 "derivative" and "repetetive" they say.

    Yet Shakespeare gets away with Richard 3 and Henry 5 because, apparently, it's "art".



    All those negs ! Hmph. " The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
    Edited by 1 at 02/12/09 @ 12:25

  • riz23 #20 2 years ago

    At concept it went a bit like this: "Is this a 3/10 I see the joypad towards my hand? Out Damned Ecko! Out I say"

  • Lummox #21 2 years ago

    Macbeth's Not Getting Up: Scots Under Pressure

    /coat

  • growleroo #22 2 years ago

    I'd rather play MechBeth.

    *visions of stomping round Elsinore in a huge metal scotsman*

  • metalangel #23 2 years ago

    @YourMessageHere: was there a manga Romeo and Juliet? I can't help but imagine that in the Japanese interpretation, 90% of the book would be taken up with Romeo graphically laying the pipe to demure underage Juliet. With the other 10% being him angsting it large with fellow emo prettyboy Mercutio. Oh, and some shit about a feud and some monks and stuff.

  • YourMessageHere #24 2 years ago

    I can do better/worse:

    http://my animelist.net/anime/1699/Romeo_...