WoW, to me anyway, says the following.
If you stick to your vision, allow the creative people to create and stay out of their way, and your vision is a kick ass game, you make a kick ass game.
It says to me that you don’t have to have your min specs look like a NASA mainframe to have a great game. If Todd draws his butt off and R.A. writes his tail off, none of it matters if the game sucks…
It says to me that by the year we launch you don’t have to launch cross platform to get MILLIONS of players, but if you can, you should!
It says to me that players want to trust your brand, and will trust your brand, if you stay true to it.
But the one thing it says to me above all else is that you never ever allow anyone to impede your people and production. You, meaning me, as the leader here, must provide the incredible creative talent every possible chance to do it the right way and keep the business aspects away from them at all possible times.
It does say one other thing, if you do hit the nail on the head, you are going to make a company full of people stupid rich too.
Definitely not a bad way for things to play out. I appreciate the response. To be honest, I’ve never actually played WoW although a lot of my friends and co-workers try to convince me otherwise. Something about it never really caught my attention.
I was kind of surprised about the initial responses in this thread, such as the can’t wait to play this business model. Personally, I feel like this teaming up shows much more promise, it shows a dedication to more than just the technical side of things. Have other MMORPGs really involved a best-selling author and artist? I honestly don’t know, but it seems like in this case, this team implies a strong focus on the content so I would imagine they would only get the best technical staff to collaborate on their intentions.
Anyway, as I said, good luck. I’ll definitely keep my eye on this to see how it progresses.
I’m curious, did you have to license “Green Monster” from the Red Sox to use it as part of the name of the company? If so, was that built in to your contract?
(If I recall the stories about the signing, there was some stipulation about being able to do promotion as a Red Sox player, which generally requires MLB licensing or the teams to be involved, blah blah blah. But I may be misremembering this.)
Anyway, glad to have a Red Sox player in gaming, since I become a Sox fan when I moved to Vermont. I transferred my love of the Angels, another tragic team; seemed like a logical fit… and then both ended up winning a World Series, sheesh. After growing up in the center of apathetic fans, Los Angeles, the passion out here is incredible. Possibly even unhealthy.
Not entirely unlike MMO fans, when you think about it. Being a Sox player has probably prepped you well for a future of people calling you horrible names and of having irrational expectations.
You should totally get Todd Pratt on your game. And maybe Doug Glanville too.
Green Monster is not owned my the Red Sox, MLB owns all team licenses and copyrights, but we own Green Monster Games. Believe it or not, and it’s hard to believe, the artist that came up with this did so with no concept of who the red sox are, or what the green monster is. He’s from India.
We were after a 3 letter tag for the company name, knowing games would be the last word, so G, and we wanted something catchy and memorable. He had GMG, and plugged in Green Monster on his own, it was hilarious when he submitted it because he didn’t know even then what it stood for outside of our company name.
Then having to name Munch just fell into our laps as our mascot.
The question was probably whether you licensed the use of “Green Monster” from the Red Sox, as it is a registered trademark of Boston Red Sox Baseball Club Limited Partnership (along with other entities).
Sorry to restate your question steve, but now it is of intellectual interest to me too.
The question was probably whether you had to license the use of “Green Monster,” as it is a registered trademark of Boston Red Sox Baseball Club Limited Partnership.
I’d be highly surprised if SOE is not either one of the partners you mentioned, or the publisher.
This industry is a very small one and very tight knit. Almost like a high school campus. Everyone knows everything about everyone else, or thinks they do. Hiring tech and lead talent means finding studs, which means finding people that have been there and done that, which means finding people that are already employed and secure. To do that you better bring alot more than money to the table to hire these people, and I think that’s something that’s working incredibly well right now and will as we go forward.
Yeah, I know. I’ve got the business cards from the same people, but three different organizations. And, usually at least one of those cards has SOE on it somewhere.
Your second point is the one I was getting at. Celebrity + Known MMO Addict + Money = Good Reason To Move Across the Country. God help someone from San Diego dealing with Boston winters.
I’m pretty sure someone suggested the Arnold career path to Vin. Movies like Twins and Kindergarten Cop really helped to broaden Arnold’s fanbase and appeal.
The Pacifier wasn’t bad. It had it’s good parts and it actually holds up on second and third viewings.
That said, it’d be nice to see Vin in a good action-adventure soon.
Schilling also did or maybe still does own Avalon Hill which makes some pretty kickass tabletop strategy games. If he’s putting part of his $13M annual salary towards developing a game, more power to him. Bob Salvatore is from this area I think, though my understanding was that he moved out west a while back. He’s not exactly scraping by financially, either.
Of course, the expectation that SoE will publish it should stamp out any hopes of the game experience being worthwhile, no matter what the company ends up making.
Worse comes to worse, Schill can use this to computerize some more of those Avalon Hill games.
I dunno, do you really think they’ve hurt the “image” of video games? They may not have helped it in any meaningful way, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve detracted either.
Personally, I think Curt should get us a real Squad Leader computer game going on. Random maps, dynamic campaign generator. Combat Mission with a budget!
I’m still scarred from the experience of playtesting the last “Squad Leader” game that came out. Anyone else still having flashbacks from that experience?
