Interview Leon Boyarsky talks to CGM

[dojoteef]

That would be the same Irrational that had their first contracted game CANCELLED on them, leaving them out in the cold. That would be the same Irrational who's first published game SS2 despite being excellent was a poor seller. The same developer that was able to land games with more mass market appeal akin to landing a D&D licensced game and one based off of the Source engine using one of the more popular modern PnP RPG licenses that Troika landed.

Irrational now have the money to self fund, because they made smart business decisions that allowed them to gain the financial stablity they currently enjoy. It also seems Irrational understood the need to do the work that was needed in order to gain the financial independence to create the games they want.

I think they are a shining example of how an independent can find a place in the market. Going from Ken Levine's living room to a multi-studio establishment. Here is an excellent article that highlights the struggles they had to overcome in order to get to the position they are now in. Here a few choice highlights:

According to general manager Ken Levine, the studio began its life in his living room in 1997, when he and fellow employees Jonathan Chey and Rob Fermier of now-defunct Looking Glass Entertainment decided to leave their employer to form their own company

Irrational's start was bumpy, to say the least. The studio's first contract was to create a single-player component for Multitude, Inc.'s PC shooter FireTeam, whose multiplayer game was so good that the single-player game got canceled. This meant that Irrational was out of its first job.

Irrational wound up with a publisher for the project, which eventually became System Shock 2--the game that Irrational had wanted to work on since the beginning. Some might say that the game's development was a remarkable accomplishment, considering that it was completed within the span of just more than a year and took a single-player-only, hardware-rendered DOS-based engine and converted it into a 3D-accelerated game with working multiplayer.

Don't go counting out the hard-working efforts of other companies like Irrational. They've had it just as hard as anything Troika had and they came out on top. I'm tired of hearing excuses. I'm sad to see Troika go, but obviously Tim, Leon, and Jason didn't do a good job of running the company.



EDIT: I'd like to mention that this is about as fair of a comparison between two real world companies as you are likely to get. They both started up around roughly the same time frame with a similar sort of approach. Both have had hardships. Only one came out on top.

 

[Calis]

Yeah, you might have a point there, Dojo. The Troika boys started their own thing to have some kind of independence in what they could develop. And they started out right away with ambitious projects without the business experience to back it up. This pretty much shows with Arcanum.
Design philosophy: make a game with a fresh setting, huge game world and make everything incredibly reactive.
That, they succeeded in. However, already with this first game, it was apparent that this was way too ambitious for a fresh company: it tried to do too much, and succeeded at only a few of the things it tried. Personally, I liked the setting, the reactive game world, and the writing a lot. I hope we'll see some more of the writing flavour of people like Chad Moore in future RPG's by other companies.

Couple that with (apparent) poor business decisions, and you have a recipe for something that'll eventually turn to disaster.

So yeah, kinda their own fault, but we love 'em for trying, anyway. I don't see anyone else making RPG's with that kind of nifty reactiveness.
Since I never really played the next two, I won't comment on those.

 

[Dhruin]

Mmm, there are some parallels with Irrational but the big difference (other than having an Aussie studio) is the type of projects they have chosen. I like Irrational very much but FF, Tribes and the upcoming SWAT 4 and FF2 have much wider appeal than Arcanum or the type of post-apoc Troika would likely pitch.

Now, you could say that is all part of their business sense -- and you would be right -- but it doesn't necessarily strike me as better (from an RPG player's perspective) that Troika might have alternatively produced some strategy games, a MP action game and be around to talk about doing some hardcore TB or RPG stuff in the future. For all that Irrational are great and talking about stuff we might like, let's see how they go if/when they actually make real RPGs.

 

[Volourn]

"much wider appeal than Arcanum or the type of post-apoc Troika would likely pitch."

You cna't get much wider appeal than a D&D game or a a game where vampires are the focus espicially when the game in question has Big Booby Vampires!

 

[dojoteef]

Calis, I'm very much of the same opinion when it comes to Arcanum. For many people on these boards, Fallout is the quintessential RPG for them. For me, it's Arcanum. Yeah there were some problems with it, but I enjoyed it more than any other RPG I've ever played. I'm sorry to see Troika go, but I'm not willing to play the apologist for their demise.

Dhruin, it's true that some of the games Irrational are making are more mainstream, but you certainly can't say that about Freedom Force or System Shock 2, which were their first two games. Despite recieving critical acclaim from so many publications those two are very much niche products. I don't see how you can say they did better than Troika's products. They seem to be on fairly equal footing to me.

 

[Dhruin]

"much wider appeal than Arcanum or the type of post-apoc Troika would likely pitch."

You cna't get much wider appeal than a D&D game or a a game where vampires are the focus espicially when the game in question has Big Booby Vampires!

Bzzt! Wrong! D&D games are mainstream for an RPG but not compared to mainstream categories like FPS/action and strategy. I think Bloodlines probably has mainstream appeal but it's hard to be sure - how many hit Vampire PC RPGs have there been? None, you say? Gee, that definitely proves the public eats them up.

(Surprised you left yourself so open, Volourn )

Strategy is the second largest PC category after action/FPS - I don't see why FF is a niche title. But even so, it's one game among some high-profile sequels - the 5th? 6th? Tribes entry and the 4th SWAT game is pretty safe ground.

Good on them - but it's not quite the same.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Dojo is right. This is all Troika's fault. If they'd made Yet Another FPSâ„¢ then none of this would've happened.

Joking aside this was the news I as expecting to come back from holidays to. There are several factors in Troika's demise, some of them clearly Troika's fault, others the fault of publishers. Publishers historically don't like things that aren't SLAM DUNK!. Troika failed to prove they could deliver a slam dunk. If ToEE was less buggy and had more story, then perhaps that might've been different. Honestly though, I don't know.

RPGs are also one of the most difficult genres in gaming to get right and notoriously difficult to sell to publishers. RPGs take a longer development time than any other game, meaning they cost more money to do right and as we've all heard, turn-based doesn't sell.

RPG fans are also a petty and obnoxious bunch. Some of us are the kind of guys that complain about the indicator light on the back of the phazer which you see for all of 1.2 seconds in episode #3471 is incorrect, that due to information revealed in episode #3402 the correct colour is green because... I think you get the idea.

Personally, Troika had three chances to prove they could make a slam dunk. In my opinion they got close on two (Bloodlines and Arcanum) and messed up what could've been their cash cow (ToEE - Presuming the D&D license really is all that popular). In the end their reputation probably got the better of them. We regard Fallout as "THE ULTIMATE RPG" that's yet to be bested. Troika couldn't even give us one game that I can look at and go "that's better than Fallout". Given Fallout is now 8 years old, that's pretty sad.

While I wish them well, I am disappointed that they made a vampire game I didn't particularly want, a D&D game that had great combat but which they messed up the story in and made crash on you if you drank the wrong potion and a unique, original fantasy/tech game which had some quality bits but with Diablo-esque combat or really sucky turn-based combat depending on how you played.

Now, if you just put ToEE's combat and graphics into Arcanum...

By the way, I don't care if it's not finished. They should damn well release their tech demo as open source if it's not going anywhere. It may not ever amount to anything but it'd be nice to hope someone could do something with it one day.

 

[Calis]

Dhruin, it's true that some of the games Irrational are making are more mainstream, but you certainly can't say that about Freedom Force or System Shock 2, which were their first two games. Despite recieving critical acclaim from so many publications those two are very much niche products. I don't see how you can say they did better than Troika's products. They seem to be on fairly equal footing to me.

SS2 had a rabid following before development was even started (though by no means mainstream, so I guess your point stands).
But I don't see how you can honestly claim that the concept of a pause-and-play superhero RTS with RPG elements is in any way "niche".

 

[Volourn]

"Bzzt! Wrong! D&D games are mainstream for an RPG but not compared to mainstream categories like FPS/action and strategy. I think Bloodlines probably has mainstream appeal but it's hard to be sure - how many hit Vampire PC RPGs have there been? None, you say? Gee, that definitely proves the public eats them up."

Irrelevant. Theya re still 'mainstream'. You know not one game is gonna be sold to everyone. All games have a built in audience. The bottom line is D&D games have a built in potential customer base of MILLIONS. That's as mainstream as it's gonna get.

And, vampires are always mainstream. Espicially Vampires With Boobies tm.

 

[dojoteef]

Well in looking up Freedom Force online I came across a very interesting and candid article by Ken Levine from Irrational Games. It discusses the difficulties they had in try to get a publisher for a comic book video game that didn't use an existing franchise and how they came out on top.

 

[Calis]

And, vampires are always mainstream. Espicially Vampires With Boobies tm.

5 years ago, yes, but hasn't the popularity of Anne Rice, White Wolf's World of Darkness, and all that been waning for the last years? I don't really know, though. I haven't been to any roleplaying conventions in years; last time I attended one, it had the glorious first-time appearance of the 3(.0)E DMG. (yippee)
V:tM was fairly popular back then, but the die-hard fans (many of whom were into LARPing) were ridiculed back then as well. Even by the RPG crew I ran with, and we *played* a bit of V:tM (just never felt the need to be drama queens about it... we were more into the "badass with fangs" aspect of it).

You might be right about the D&D thing though. I even had a housemate who, even though he'd *never* played tabletop D&D, refused to play any CRPG that wasn't D&D based. Of course, I called him an idiot because of it.
The thing is, though, if you want to capitalize on the D&D popularity, you have to make it accessible. A pause-and-play game with lots of nifty loot to find is accessible. A turn-based combat game with faithful D&D rules adaptation isn't.

On the other hand, I had two housemates who really didn't like the concept of RPG's (and barely knew anything about it), but got into Fallout when I recommended it, because it was turn-based and had big guns. Funny how that works

 

[DarkSign]

Dojo + DarkUnderlord sprinkled with Exitum = perfect opinion on the matter.

'Nuff said.

 

[Fez]

Mmm, sounds like good eatin'!

Can I have waffles with that?

On the other hand, I had two housemates who really didn't like the concept of RPG's (and barely knew anything about it), but got into Fallout when I recommended it, because it was turn-based and had big guns. Funny how that works

I had the same thing happen to me when I got someone to try Fallout, and they were not into RPGs at all.

 

[Dhruin]

And, vampires are always mainstream. Espicially Vampires With Boobies tm.

In your opinion. I'll just wait over here while you it prove it with all those massive sales of Vampire cRPGs.

 

[Shagnak]

My understanding is that vampires are rather passe now.

The Buffy/Angel/faggy goth vampires thing was big in the late 90's, but it peaked a couple (few?) of years ago and has now troughed.

@Dojoteef: had a (very brief) look at the link about difficulties Irrational had in securing support for superhero shite. I don't know if it was savvy or luck, but they made the game just in time for the massive superhero boom of recent years (i.e. especially in the movies). It was great they could capatalise on that I guess, and the net effect was that perhaps it wasn't so "small niche-y" as they thought. Which ever way you look at it, good on them I say.

To all small publishers - move down to New Zealand where it is cheap to to do entertainment and development stuff!! Peter Jackson has proved its possible, and in the interweb age I don't see why its any different for software developers.
And then you get to laugh at our accents and marvel at our sheep! :wink: