Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Ukerric said:

Do not mix jobs as well. Being the CEO means you make sure your company works. Being the game producer means you make sure your game works. Those are different jobs.

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Exactly.

Ukerric said:

She worked in the game industry for quite a long time. That means she knows the culture, the mindset, the specifics of the industry, and that"s what she needs to know. No one is going to ask her to design items, supervise coders. At best, she"s going to pick what art is going on the box.

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We have art people for that, but again, exactly.

Well if she"s not going to choose your box cover art, allow me to submit my work of art for consideration.

And I have spent all these years paying pro"s to do it....

Your block of lower text is shifted slightly to the left. Other than that, it looks great! Please correct the error and resubmit immediately. Thank you.

It"s a design feature. The offcenter text helps catch the eye.

James said:

It"s a design feature. The offcenter text helps catch the eye.

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Interesting strategy. It definitely works. Welcome aboard!

Too Much White .

On a more serious note:

I"m beginning to see this trend of pre-judging up and coming games on a more regular basis. And not just here. Some may see it as a good thing, because it will make developers think more seriously about producing the highest quality game possible. Yet others will see it negatively because it may tend to shy them away from mmos entirely, because they may feel the genre is becoming too demanding.

I guess i"m more "middle of the road".

In that, I mean I expect a lot of familiar ideas being reiterated, and not so much in the way of major innovation. Simply because whats familiar, works. Whats not is a major risk. A new way of doing something is generally a good thing. But it seems that in this genre, its an extreme risk that can cost you the farm.

With that in mind, I don"t regret my career choice in construction management.

I shall try and present my thoughts about the other side of the argument.

This company has been running for a while, and promoting someone well liked is probably a better avenue than bringing in a hot shot outsider to take over. Continuity in projects is important. I"m really surprised Curt didn"t bring this up, but then I"m not sure what"s going on and if he"s involved day to day.

Also, with so many names and egos she might have the right temperance to run the ship. Some ships require Bill Parcells. Some Tony Dungy. Some require Tony after Bill.

While I still think her resume is sparse, and might make it harder to get funding, something tells me the mainstay of getting investor coin was and is Salvatore"s name, Curt"s history, and Mcfarlane"s media sales and potential.

In checking 38s website and mission their ultimate goal appears to be as a media company pursuing a lot of avenues. Given their goal of selling books, comics, card games, action figures, T-shirts, coffee cups, and Coperni-qbert dolls in addition to their mainstay games division, getting someone who is a well rounded person primed for content distribution with hooks into various entities and large companies actually makes more sense.

Brett seemed more a pure game guy from his past.

Anyways, all of this is jack shit hyperbole on a message forum about gaming. I"m still disappointed Hartsman and Tigole weren"t pruned away to work on the MMO, as really that"s all this board really cares about at the end of the day.

Frax said:

Well, yeah, you kind of want your chief executive officer to be a business person first. It is a business that has to make money or it fails.

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If someone is coming to me pitching a deal and wants me to put up money, although in my heart I would love that person to be a gamer and avid about it, in my mind I know I would be more likely to invest in something pitched by someone who shows more interest in making money then in building the perfect game.

Rayne said:

I"m beginning to see this trend of pre-judging up and coming games on a more regular basis.

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You act like this is a new thing. It"s human nature to shit all over things the moment we hear about them. Look how well the "THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!" glass is half full philosophy has worked out. I wouldn"t have it any other way either.

I mean, as a gamer, Yahtzee is right. Pessimism just makes more sense. You either get to have a smug attitude because the game in fact did turn out to be shit and you can rub it in the face of all the crushed dreams of fanboys or you are pleasantly surprised when the game turns out really well and everybody is too busy having fun to rub it in your face that you were wrong.

I"d much rather tell Curt his game is going to blow chunks (without my brilliant design idea"s that is) and have him try to prove me wrong then cup his balls and blow gently on the tip of his cock and then look butthurt when my 100 dollar collectors edition is in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart for 15 bucks a month after release.

Pessimism about games is the safe bet, it"s like checking in a game of poker. Everyone has been a fanboy and been burned by going all in at some point or another.

Zehn - Vhex said:

You act like this is a new thing. It"s human nature to shit all over things the moment we hear about them. Look how well the "THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!" glass is half full philosophy has worked out. I wouldn"t have it any other way either.

I mean, as a gamer, Yahtzee is right. Pessimism just makes more sense. You either get to have a smug attitude because the game in fact did turn out to be shit and you can rub it in the face of all the crushed dreams of fanboys or you are pleasantly surprised when the game turns out really well and everybody is too busy having fun to rub it in your face that you were wrong.

I"d much rather tell Curt his game is going to blow chunks (without my brilliant design idea"s that is) and have him try to prove me wrong then cup his balls and blow gently on the tip of his cock and then look butthurt when my 100 dollar collectors edition is in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart for 15 bucks a month after release.

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Well, I know it isn"t anything new really. I guess I meant to say its just a lot more visible now than it was, say pre-WoW. And I suppose it could be attributed to any number of things. Such as growth of the genre, or the high standard of what many consider a success. Success is based more on an arbitrary number these days, rather than the fun factor and staying power as it was earlier on.

In my line of work, anything above what you pay out initially is profit. Therefore the venture was a success. In mmos, at least early on, that same philosophy applied. But in this era, its more about how many millions are playing, rather than the profit margin. To me, the old mantra still applies. If the game builds a solid fanbase, and the revenue that fanbase generates is enough to turn a reasonable profit and keep it alive and expanding, its a success. Niche or otherwise.

I look at examples like AO, EQ, EQ2, and yes, to some extent even Vanguard, as examples of various levels of success. And I think therein lies the problem. That way of thinking is lost in the muck of gamers that are simply unable to accept that not every game is designed with thier specific tastes in mind. And in that thinking, many believe that if a game doesn"t get absolutely every detail nailed to thier personal qualifications, its the epitome of failure.

Yeah. If I were Curt, i"d be afraid. Actually, i"d be terrified.

Fear of failure is something I"ve had an abundance of since I can remember. It was the single largest motivator for me as a player. Others found fear of failure to be a paralyzing thing.

Success in the MMO space is, depending on perspective, very skewed. Some people in the business world see WoW and think "millions = success, less = fail" when nothing could be farther from the truth.

Don"t let anyone at 38, or anyone that knows us ever tell you that "knocking WoW down" was a goal, it wasn"t, and it won"t be.

My goal was to assemble the most talented team possible, and deliver something that hadn"t been done before.

If the team delivers on that, we"ll be ridiculously successful. Focusing on what others are doing beyond seeing where game play is headed, what innovation is occurring, is detracting from time, effort and money that should be directed at what you are doing.

I look at Blizz, SOE, all of them like I looked at other teams when I played, they"re growing the audience we will deliver too. That"s a win.

If you log into Copernicus or Mercury and do NOT like it, that"s on us. I just need to get you to log in, after that I"ll take my chances.

Ngruk said:

If you log into Copernicus or Mercury and do NOT like it, that"s on us. I just need to get you to log in, after that I"ll take my chances.

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You know, I read that and immediately thought to myself:

Its like building a spec house for pure profit. You build the best you can with what you have, put it on the market, and the diceroll begins. Out there somewhere is someone who wants that house. For exactly what it is. Or isn"t sometimes.

Looking at Bretts history I suspect it"s a combination of two things that have caused this :


i) He is someone who will probably be doing Business Process Re-engineering rather than just running a company. 38S are a pioneer in being an MMO developer, built from scratch, whose whole approach is built around quality. That is 100 times more difficult to achieve than it sounds.


ii) He is probably on the verge of a little burn out right now. Two - three years on this sort of project (ie implementing change - new standards and new ways of doing things - and "encouraging" other people to adopt it with you) is, firstly, incredibly stressful and demands 100% of yourself and, secondly, he will have achieved as much as he can without degenerating into a "normalized" approach, where it"s hard to continue to implement improvement. It"s time to hand it off to the right person.



Those are the reasons he will have given. I suspect he is also a high achiever who wants a new challenge.




Anyone who questions whether MacClean commands enough respect amongst game designers are off their nut. She is Chair Emeritus of the IGDA, for a start.

Rayne said:

You know, I read that and immediately thought to myself:

Its like building a spec house for pure profit. You build the best you can with what you have, put it on the market, and the diceroll begins. Out there somewhere is someone who wants that house. For exactly what it is. Or isn"t sometimes.

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Except that this house costs around 100mm to build

Ngruk said:

Except that this house costs around 100mm to build

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LOL, fair point.

Rayne said:

You know, I read that and immediately thought to myself:

Its like building a spec house for pure profit. You build the best you can with what you have, put it on the market, and the diceroll begins. Out there somewhere is someone who wants that house. For exactly what it is. Or isn"t sometimes.

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It is an interesting comparison. The money guys go the other way around typically and do market research and then churn out a shitload of cookie-cutter houses at the highest marginal rate of return that they know will sell but hey, that"s business right?

You can apply it to almost any business really. Producing cutting-edge custom software doing novel things is far more fun than churning out specific compliance crap that does nothing more than hit the check marks but, as usual, the boring stuff pays well. There is a cost and risk associated with doing something interesting and I applaud those willing to bear it.

Ngruk said:

Fear of failure is something I"ve had an abundance of since I can remember. It was the single largest motivator for me as a player. Others found fear of failure to be a paralyzing thing.

Success in the MMO space is, depending on perspective, very skewed. Some people in the business world see WoW and think "millions = success, less = fail" when nothing could be farther from the truth.

Don"t let anyone at 38, or anyone that knows us ever tell you that "knocking WoW down" was a goal, it wasn"t, and it won"t be.

My goal was to assemble the most talented team possible, and deliver something that hadn"t been done before.

If the team delivers on that, we"ll be ridiculously successful. Focusing on what others are doing beyond seeing where game play is headed, what innovation is occurring, is detracting from time, effort and money that should be directed at what you are doing.

I look at Blizz, SOE, all of them like I looked at other teams when I played, they"re growing the audience we will deliver too. That"s a win.

If you log into Copernicus or Mercury and do NOT like it, that"s on us. I just need to get you to log in, after that I"ll take my chances.

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The problem is that it seems that you think the story is something that will maintain a playerbase which is not true. It"s an interest gatherer, something that will give you a competitive edge in the marketplace if your lore is superior.

What KEEPS people playing MMORPG"s has not changed in a long, long time. Without going into too much detail people play for the sense of achievement, to fulfill their competitive nature, or for the social aspect of MMORPG"s.

A lot of people think Blizzard is taking a risk with Cataclysm but they aren"t. The new lore will simply generate new interest in old content, same with the new races. A new race doesn"t mess with balance, but will result in a lot of content being reused. The reason it"s not a risk is because they aren"t changing the core aspects of the game that make it successful. Their system of rewarding players appealing to their sense of achievement is staying the same. The lore is simply a way for them to generate new interest.

Blizzard understands that the story is an interest gatherer, NOT the driving point behind why people continue playing their game. If you think you can simply "improve" on the storyline / lore and that"s all it takes for the game to be successful you are in for quite a disappointment. The story is what generates interest, the system and how it appeals to players sense of achievement, and player"s competitive and social nature is what keeps people playing.