Vapourware System Shock 3 by OtherSide Entertainment - taken over by Tencent!

[Aenra]

It's NOT funny! OK!?

...

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.polygon.com/2016/2/19/11057698/heres-what-warren-spectors-doing-about-system-shock-3

Here's what Warren Spector's doing about System Shock 3
Maker of 1994 original is getting to work on newest iteration

Warren Spector has spent the last few few years in academia, teaching game design. Now the man whose credits include Deus Ex, Ultima Underworld and the original System Shockis starting work on System Shock 3 for OtherSide Entertainment.

He still has a few months left of his tenure at the University of Texas in Austin but he's already working part-time on designing the new game. "It's just me in a room, typing a lot," he told me today, during an interview at DICE. "This is my second day on the job so it's a little early to be saying what I'm going to be doing, but I have a concept doc that I wrote up over the last couple of weeks. That's all that exists right now."

"I KNOW THE WORLD OF SYSTEM SHOCK PRETTY WELL."

Spector's most recent work in the game industry was on the Epic Mickey franchise at Junction Point Studios, which he co-founded in 2004 and which parent company Disney Interactive shut down in January 2013. Prior to starting Junction Point, Spector led the Austin, Texas, branch of the studio Ion Storm from September 1997 to November 2004, working on the Deus Ex and Thief franchises.

In December, OtherSide Entertainment confirmed that System Shock 3 was in development. It's the first game in the much-admired series of first-person action RPGs since Looking Glass released System Shock 2 for Windows PC back in 1999. Spector was producer of the original System Shock in 1994. Its emphasis on story and player freedom made it one of the most influential games of the 1990s.

During our interview he made the point that System Shock 3 is in its most early days of development, but he talked about some of the ways he'll be bringing the game to life in the next few weeks and months of its development. Here's what he has planned.

Replay the original System Shock games
His first job is to spend some time with the games that are inspiring System Shock 3.

"I haven't played them in years. I hope it's not weird. I hope I've forgotten it all so it feels new. I think I know the world of System Shock pretty well, but the details are gone. I don't remember every nook and cranny. I need to relive the experience of being at Citadel Station.

"System Shock 2, I didn't have anything to do with. It was a separate team so that one I really need to play because I wasn't immersed in it for so long. I want to get the details back so I know what the fans want and I know what I can do to appeal to non-fans as well."

Have a good, long think
Staring out of windows and going for long walks is a big part of early game development.

"I want to answer some of the questions that we didn't answer in System Shock andSystem Shock 2. I'm thinking about those questions that went unanswered. I'm thinking about what the game is really about.

"If a game is just about what is happening on the surface, like killing everything that moves or moving blocks around, that's boring and a waste of time. Games can have powerful themes and subtext. They can be about more. I am working on what the game is really about."

Recall some important lessons
The teams that worked on those classic games back in the 1990s had some strong ideas about game design, which still hold true today.

"At Origin and Looking Glass that whole idea of players solving their own problems and telling their own stories took root. It was about players playing the way they want to as opposed to the way designers force them to. That philosophy was in those early games but it was nascent.

"Over the last 20 years we know a lot more about allowing players to create their own unique experiences so recreating the experience of playing System Shock would frankly be a waste of time and I have no interest so what we have to do is bring System Shock into the 21st Century using everything we've learned over the past 20 years."

Round up the old gang
OtherSide Entertainment isn't the biggest company in the game industry. Resources are likely to be finite, while expectations will be high. Spector wants to build a new team, based on some of his old contacts.

"If you look at the credits for my last project, Epic Mickey 2, there were 800 people who worked on the game … I don't want to do that again. There are some clever ways to build a small internal team and partner with the right people. Out of the people I worked with on Epic Mickey 2 there are a handful that I trust with my life and I will be reaching out to them and I hope we can get AAA quality without a AAA sized team.

"I'm certainly going to put the word out and see if I can find people who worked on the original games because there aren't a lot of people in the game business who understand the idea of player empowerment in the way that's important to me. There aren't a lot of people who understand the concept of shared authorship. I need to reach out to people who understand those things. I don't want to spend the next year teaching people those things."

Catch up with new ideas
Teaching young students has also reminded Spector how quickly the game industry changes.

"It was energizing being around all those young folks who were just getting started. They taught me as much as I taught them. They are going out into a world that is very different from the one I left and they convinced me that I needed to get back in the world of development so I can learn the things that they know.

"I hope I taught them something about creative leadership but it's important that I understand something about games as a service and data driven design and all that stuff that's second nature to them."

Write, write, write
Ultimately, it all has to be put down on paper, for a plan to emerge.

"I have a process I go through with every game, a series of questions I ask myself. I've gone through that process and I have good answers for all those questions. There's a template that I fill out that describes the game in more detail, but it's very high level.

"The next step is to take all those ideas ... design for me is like sculpting. You whittle away all the things that don't look like the game you want to make. It's not an additive process like painting. You take things away. I am in the process of building myself an enormous lump of clay, and then we'll start whittling."

 

[Ash]

800 people...

 

[CreamyBlood]

It's all a bunch of bullshit, a console game that will "appeal to non-fans as well."

This is just a load of blahoohy pre-hype to get investors on board.

Blathering on about your 'philosophy' of allowing players to engage in emergent gameplay and doing their own thing is a lot different from actually creating a product that, one: exists and two: is fun.

Get back to me in the year 2020 after you've built a studio, assembled a 'team' and finished staring out the window while tearing off bits of clay from the lump of dirt in your restless hands.

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like Chris Siegel showed up at SystemShock.org: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=8209.msg96539#msg96539

Selling Warren short is kind of silly. The guy has a string of hits and a track record better than most in the game industry going back almost 30 years. Saying he wasn't involved as much as Doug in SS is crazy talk. It just doesn't work that way in a LGS type company. The producer, designer, eng exc all have massive input. Trust me, been working with these guys for years, a person's title doesn't really matter in this environment.

I do love this storyline about how old game designers lose their mojo. Seems to me the ones still doing interesting stuff is not old or young, but smart and talented. Ken Rolston did Oblivion in his 50's for example. Did he lose a step? No, that is arguably his best work ever. The beauty about having a very veteran core is gasp--we have all done it before. So many mistakes learned over years. The what if's and what could have beens are still fresh in our heads. We do remember feature 332 that we didn't get to do in Thief. Or the missteps made in the Shock games. Those are not armchair experiences for us, that is personal history. That is just as much a memory for us as our kids being born or our wedding. I haven't talked to Warren about Shock yet, but I bet he has a laundry list of stuff he disliked about any number of his games, and ideas on how to address them.

As for Epic Mickey--it's flawed, but if there is a console game out there that has the DNA of Looking Glass--it's that game. All the tenets of player agency and whatnot are in there. Why did he do that project? My guess is he loves cartoons--his first game was Toon after all. Love it or hate it, if Disney walks up with a big check, let you do the game your way, hell they redesigned Mickey for it, you take the chance. It's not like it was a failure, it just wasn't 'hardcore'.

(Yeah, calling Oblivion as Rolston's best work was not good there.)

 

[Infinitron]

I see he's gotten some appropriate replies

 

[mindx2]

Ken Rolston did Oblivion in his 50's for example. Did he lose a step? No, that is arguably his best work ever.

Come on Chris, at least try to make a sound argument...

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I think you fuckers are happier being miserable.

 

[LESS T_T]

Quite meaty Gamasutra interview: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/266210/The_Comeback_Why_Warren_Spector_is_making_games_again.php

The Comeback: Why Warren Spector is making games again

After nearly three years as a full-time educator, veteran game designer Warren Spector is itching to make games again.

That's a sentiment most developers can empathize with: the innate urge to sit down and just make that game. It's partly why he'll be taking a break from directing the University of Texas at Austin's Denius-Sams Gaming Academy this year to join OtherSide Entertainment full-time, and assemble a new studio to work on System Shock 3.

But another big reason he's returning to game development -- and to the influential franchise whose progenitor, the 1994 Looking Glass game System Shock, he helped produce -- is pressure to be engaged, active and relevant in a game industry that seems to undergo seismic shifts on a regular basis.

"The business and the world of game development has changed so radically, even since I started teaching," Spector told Gamasutra via phone last week. "I needed to get back out and immerse myself in it, so I understood the world my students were about to enter."

In the course of the call Spector spoke to what he's learned about the nature of game design from teaching it to others, and how he hopes to push it forward a bit more by returning to the well of the first-person "immersive sim" philosophy of design he himself helped pioneer, more than twenty years ago.

It was an interesting conversation, so we've taken the liberty of reprinting an edited version below in an effort to shed a bit more light on where Spector is coming from -- and where he's aiming to go.


Why go back to full-time game development?

There are a bunch of reasons. You know, the first thing is, when I first started talking to the university, I told them I'd take a three-year commitment, because the game industry changes so quickly. I was worried that after three years, y'know, the relevance of what I know would start to diminish.

And I wanted to make sure I didn't become one of those teachers who used to make games, who used to know how games were developed and why. I knew I needed to keep my skills honed, so that was part of it. And part of it was just, y'know, I make games. It's kind of what I do. I've been getting the itch to make something. It's been coming on for a while now.

And finally, the last little piece of the puzzle was Paul Neurath, who I've worked with several times at Origin and Looking Glass, he came to me and asked if I wanted to make System Shock 3.

Night Dive Studios published an enhanced version of Looking Glass' 1994 game System Shock last year


Making System Shock is one of the best parts of my professional life, so the opportunity to bring that franchise into the 21st century...I just couldn't say no. Put that all together, and I decided it was time.


You've already been helping Neurath with Underworld Ascendant, right?

Yeah, I'm on his board of advisors. What that means is, I see design documents and get to comment on them. I see videos of gameplay and get to comment on everything from graphics to gameplay.

He keeps trying to send me builds but...this is actually embarrassing to admit, but I don't own a PC. So I just ordered, about a month ago I ordered a killer laptop but I can't get a delivery date on it. So I haven't been able to play any of the builds, which is humiliating. But once my PC shows up, I'm going to start playing builds and giving them feedback on that.

But from talking to the team, and seeing the videos, and seeing the design documentation, I know they're on the right track, and it will be an Underworld for the 21st century. I'm proud to be an advisor on the project.


Let's dig into design, for a minute. How has the field of game design changed in the last few years, from your perspective, and where do you hope to take it?

I can't believe I'm about to say this -- I'll never work in this industry again -- but in the mainstream space I really haven't seen a whole lot of progress. It seems like we're getting more finely-tuned, prettier versions of games we've been playing for years.

Thank god for the indie space, there are people trying interesting things there. What I want to do, is I see a variety of places where we could make some strides that would help take games to the next level. The biggest one, for me, is more robust characters and character AI. We've gotten very good at combat AI, we've made great strides there, but I don't think we've done much in the world of non-combat AI and interacting with people -- human or otherwise. We haven't done a lot with conversation, and establishing emotional relationships with characters in games. So I'd very much like to play with that.

Also, while I've seen some efforts, especially from the guys at Arkane, to sort of extend the design philosophy of Origin and Looking Glass -- that whole "immersive simulation" and its philosophy of empowering players to tell their own stories. I'd like to go further with that. It's nice to see more people trying, but I think there's a ways we could go as well, in terms of empowering players to tell their own stories. Those are the directions I'm going to try to go in. We'll see if I can pull it off.


Any other notable examples of non-combat AI design that have influenced you?

I don't want to get into specific projects, either positively or negatively, because that gets me in trouble. But one thing I will say, is that every time I talk about non-combat AI, someone starts flaming me because everybody wants to do the right thing, but...it's hard to get publishers and game designers onboard.

I don't understand why. Apparently, and I can't say that I've seen this with mine own eyes, but apparently there are lots of folks in AI who agree with me and are actively working on cool things, but you don't actually see that getting into games. As I start working on System Shock 3, maybe I'll have to get some of those guys onboard and show off some of their work.


You're not moving to Boston (where OtherSide is based), are you?
Oh no, no no. You'd have to blast me out of Austin. I've had plenty of opportunities to leave, but that's my home. I've been lucky enough that various publishers and partners have indulged me, and allowed me to build studios there.

Paul Neurath, who founded OtherSide, has been very generous, and so I'll be buliding a studio in Austin. I'm trying to find people who get the concept of what I call "playstyle matters," where what you do actually creates a unique experience for every player. So I'll be looking for people who get that, and building a team in Austin, starting this summer.


What does your new studio look like, do you think?

Bear in mind this is my second day since making the announcement, so everything I say has to be taken with a grain of salt. But I'll tell ya, I've done the big team thing. We had 200 people at Junction Point, in the studio itself, and 800 people around the world working on the game.

So I've done the big-budget, huge team thing, and at this point what I'd like to do is smaller, lower-budget, almost like "games as a service" model games that require somewhere between 10-20 people to make. I don't want to get much bigger than that.

I think we can work with external partners to create a virtual, larger team that will allow us to compete with the larger teams and the larger budgets without actually having to build that. I don't want to get so far away from the game that I have to spend all my time running an enormous studio and dealing with publishers. I want to be in the thick of it, so smaller teams is part of the deal.


With a small team, are you interested in exploring new ways of developing games? Designing for Early Access or free-to-play, for example?

Again, it's early to say. I've been on record as saying I don't much care for the free-to-play model, so unless, as a strategic thing, OtherSide decides that's the way to go, I don't think that will happen. I probably won't be doing free-to-play. I'm kind of a premium game guy.

But I think you have to provide ongoing support and expansions, so I want to provide a complete experience right up front that's worth people's money, and then on an ongoing basis provide new content: new characters, new mechanics, new places to explore and adventures to go on. I think that's what you'll see coming from my studio as we work on System Shock 3.


As you depart from academia, what did you learn in your time as an educator and how did that shape your interest in game development?

Oh, one of the reasons I'm getting back into full-time game development is because I've learned from the students. They are going out into a completely different world. They're going out into a world where metrics, and analytics, are important parts of the design process.

The current DSGA class is working on a game called Roots of Sarkos (pictured) and you can actually go to itch.io and download a beta of that right now. When we released our first beta on itch, I went home and practically cried. Because the idea of releasing a game that isn't finished, that's totally alien to me!

So the big thing I learned is that the business and the world of game development has changed so radically, even since I started teaching, that I needed to get back out and immerse myself in it, so I understood the world my students were about to enter. The thing I learned is that you learn as much from your students as they learn from you.


Are you worried? Are you scared, at all, of going back into full-time game development after some time away?

Not so much. First of all, I'm pretty confident I can learn. In order to survive in this business, you have to have a reasonably-sized ego, so I'm pretty certain I can learn what I need to learn.

I'm working with a very familiar franchise, so I understand the world -- of the game, at least. I'm going to have a lot of help, too. Paul Neurath spent a year and a half at Zynga, so he understands a lot about the world of game development now, and he's been a mentor of mine for many years, and I expect I'll be learning from him.

And you know fundamentally -- I should never say this out loud -- but the stakes of failure in the game business are not very great. It's not like world peace is threatened, or someone dies, if you fail. If this doesn't work out, I'll do another startup or something. But I'm pretty confident I can learn what I need to learn.

The big challenge is going to be building the team that gets the kinds of games I want to make. I'd rather not have to go back into teacher mode, and educate a team in the whole Origin/Looking Glass/Ion Storm/Junction Point philosophy. So finding people who already get it, that I think will be the biggest challenge, to be honest with you.

I'm looking forward to it. I wouldn't have jumped back into this full-time if I didn't think I could succeed. I'm not really worried, and I'm not really scared. I'm pretty confident we can pull this off.


Will you ever return to education?

I have no idea. It's very satisfying, changing the lives of young people just starting in their careers, and certainly it's exciting to be around people whose enthusiasm and energy are both so high.

And I'm not walking away from the Academy. I've told the folks at the University of Texas, I've told them I'm not leaving. I'm just changing my role. I'll be volunteering as long as they want me. I'm happy to come in and give as many lectures as they want me to do. I'm happy to serve as chairman or just a member of the board of advisors for the program. I'm still planning on staying involved, but just not as a full-time gig.

My full-time gig is going to be making games again.

 

[evdk]

I think you fuckers are happier being miserable.

Aren't you?

 

[Zombra]

Why am I only just now hearing about this?

 

[Roguey]

I can't believe I'm about to say this -- I'll never work in this industry again -- but in the mainstream space I really haven't seen a whole lot of progress. It seems like we're getting more finely-tuned, prettier versions of games we've been playing for years.

"I'll never work in this industry again"? He's been saying this since the mid-90s. As far as Spector's concerned, gaming peaked in the early 90s.

 

[V_K]

As far as Spector's concerned, gaming peaked in the early 90s.

Didn't it though?

 

[Roguey]

Didn't it though?

I disagree, can't stand to play most of the stuff from that era.

 

[Infinitron]

Roguey He did say that sort of stuff in the 90s, but I would think he considers his own game from 2000, Deus Ex, to be progress.

 

[Aenra]

I disagree, can't stand to play most of the stuff from that era

 

[Cortex_Reaver]

apperently epic mickey in early stages of production was completely different game. It was kind of mish mash between steampunk and gothic with disney characters grounded in reality and it wasn't just platformer either.

Then Disney found out and they said no for that and made normal game. Here is some concept art:

LMAO @ this. Cyborgs and genetic abominations? Epic Mickey WAS System Shock 3.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I can't believe I'm about to say this -- I'll never work in this industry again -- but in the mainstream space I really haven't seen a whole lot of progress. It seems like we're getting more finely-tuned, prettier versions of games we've been playing for years.

"I'll never work in this industry again"? He's been saying this since the mid-90s. As far as Spector's concerned, gaming peaked in the early 90s.

He meant that by saying essentially everyone has been churning out the same shit for years, he limits his job prospects, not making friends in the industry by saying their stuff is shit, etc. Hmm.

 

[Ash]

"It seems like we're getting more finely-tuned, prettier versions of games we've been playing for years."

If only that were true...I'd be far more content (though still not fully content of course). The reality is we're getting more finely-tuned, prettier versions of games we've been playing for years, but 99% of the time with much less interactive content, mass market design scared to challenge the player, and sly business practices to boot.

 

[Roguey]

He meant that by saying essentially everyone has been churning out the same shit for years, he limits his job prospects, not making friends in the industry by saying their stuff is shit, etc. Hmm.

Didn't stop him from making the Epic Mickeys.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Let me guess, you played them and are not shitposting.

 

[LESS T_T]

Venture Beat interview: http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/24/w...f-system-shock-can-deliver-emergent-gameplay/

The interview goes more in depth on his emergent gameplay/immersive sim philosophy.

GamesBeat: Do you feel like there’s something unfinished in the System Shock series?

Spector: I wouldn’t say unfinished exactly. I haven’t played the games in many years, but my memory is that we left a lot of questions unanswered. We’ll see if I do this, but it’s so early—I’ve come up with a scheme whereby we can go answer those questions. Let’s put it that way. We’ll let players answer those questions. For the old fans, it’ll appeal to them because they’re going to be experiencing things that they’ve been through in a new way. And it’ll all be new to new players.

GamesBeat: Who do you feel the System Shock fans were? What drew them to it way back when?

Spector: System Shock, the original, is a pretty hardcore gamer’s game. Everything we did was for hardcore gamers back then. I look back on the UI now—in fact, I tried to play the game about a year and a half ago. The UI is like, what were we thinking? It’s a good idea to use every key on the keyboard, right? My god.

What they got out of it, though, was the then-state of the art in what we call immersive simulations. The idea, at Origin and then later at Looking Glass and Ion Storm and Junction Point, was allowing players to solve problems the way they wanted to solve them, and in that way create unique experiences for themselves. The idea of sharing authorship with your players is what games can do that no other medium can. Making a game where every player experiences the same thing sounds—what’s worse than boring? We allowed them to express themselves and show off their creativity.

GamesBeat: Is that what you call emergent gameplay now?

Spector: Emergent gameplay was certainly a part of it. We were doing the best we could to allow that to happen. But after System Shock you get to Thief and Deus Ex and games like that. We get more and more clever. We have better tools. Now we can take emergent gameplay to a whole new level.

GamesBeat: Not everyone gets a chance to work on so many games. But also, you’ve worked on a number of games with a consistent point of view like that. How did you get to that?

Spector: Here’s the pathetic thing about myself. It’s not a deep, dark secret, but the pathetic thing about my career is I’ve spent the entire, what is it, 32 or 33 years doing nothing but trying to re-create the feeling I had in 1978 when I first played Dungeons & Dragons. It wasn’t someone telling me a story. I was working with my friends to tell our story. When I started making games–

GamesBeat: That was with Bruce Sterling?

Spector: Yeah, Bruce was my dungeon master. Obviously he was a terrific storyteller, but he also knew that we were storytellers too. That’s been my mission. One thing I tell my students all the time is that you need a mission. You need to know what you stand for. What are the things you won’t compromise on? Everything I’ve worked on, it’s all about the same thing, all the way up to Epic Mickey. A lot of people didn’t see it there, but they’re all about players showing off how clever and creative they are and telling their stories.

That’s all I’ve ever done. That’s all I’m interested in doing as a game developer. I just want to do it a little better every time.

GamesBeat: How do you feel about some of the other extremes that could be taken along that spectrum, like open worlds as opposed to very directed stories?

Spector: There are other media that tell linear stories better than we do. So why do it? Movies tell linear stories better than games. There’s a kind of moral imperative to do what make a medium unique. What makes us unique is that we can have a dialogue with our players. We can empower them in ways that no other medium can. I have to do that. If publishers and partners don’t want that, I can retire. It’s what I think is important.

GamesBeat: So you’re a crusader with this idea.

Spector: Oh, yeah. I’m a total nutty advocate for a particular kind of game. The funny thing is, back in the day when we were working on games like Underworld and System Shock, we’d sit around saying, “Why doesn’t everybody make games like this?” Now there are a lot of places doing it. Arkane, with Dishonored, is doing the same sort of thing. A lot of people point to the Bethesda games and the Rockstar games and the Irrational games. But we’re all just sort of cousins. We’re all doing player empowerment in different ways.

What I really like doing is—there are a lot of games, open world games in particular, that are an inch deep in terms of their simulation and their player empowerment, but they’re miles wide. What I try to do is make a game that’s hopefully more than an inch wide, but inches wide and miles deep. There are a lot of people making games that are sort of like what I like to do, but nobody’s doing it quite the way I like to do it. That’s a reason to keep making games.

GamesBeat: It’s also not just creating more lanes for the player to go down, right?

Spector: No.

GamesBeat: In Medal of Honor, you always had a way to outflank the Nazis, but that was just giving you a few lanes to move down.

Spector: Yeah, it’s more than that. The key for me in the games I’ve worked on is, can the player surprise the people who made the game? That’s the key. It’s not about branching choices at all. It’s about players solving problems in ways that the designers don’t think are possible. When I hear people describe their experience and they talk about something that I would never have guessed, that’s when I know I’ve won.

GamesBeat: So you wouldn’t be in agreement with people like Amy Hennig, whose games are a good example of a certain kind of linear storytelling? The Uncharted series is very well done, but I guess you’d categorize it as something outside of what you’re interested in.

Spector: As a developer I’m not particularly interested in doing that. I’m not interested in directing movies like David Cage or the Telltale guys do. As a player I love those games. Because I advocate for something, people think I’m trying to tell them what they should like or what they should make. That’s not it at all.

One thing that’s amazing now is the variety of games that are available to players. As a developer I have this thing I want to do. I want all of my games to express that fundamental philosophy. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for—Amy is a friend of mine. We joke about this all the time.

GamesBeat: What happens to your point of view when we move on to different platforms, like VR?

Spector: We’re well positioned to take advantage of VR. Not in the sense of long-form first-person perspective games with a headset on your head, but–maybe someday we’ll be able to do that, we’ll want to do that, but for now I think the idea of immersion in another world is what Otherside does and what Junction Point did and what Looking Glass did. We’re well positioned to take advantage of what VR offers. As a developer it’s going to be a lot of fun to play with that.

GamesBeat: What a developer should do, then, is take advantage of the unique things that VR makes possible?

Spector: Well, that’s true of any medium. If you look at the history of movies, they started out imitating stage plays until they figured out what made them unique. Then movies became an art form of their own. If you look at any medium, they all go through that process of imitating what came before. Then they discover their uniqueness and exploit that. We’re at the point now in games where we have an idea of what makes us unique. That’s why I no longer cringe when I say, “We’re an art form, get over it.”

Games deserve as much critical consideration, actual critical analysis, as any art form out there. I hope we start getting more of that critical review soon.

GamesBeat: Becoming an academic for a while, do you think you learned anything in that process that makes you a better game developer?

Spector: I certainly learned that the world of gaming has changed, even in the last three years. I’ve never made a mobile game. I’ve never done a free-to-play game. I’ve never done a game as a service. I’ve never done a game that took advantage of data metrics in its design process. I’m not sure I actually want to do any of those things, but I know I have to learn about them. I have to immerse myself in that. The students have taught me, because that’s the world they live in. I certainly learned that there’s stuff I need to learn, which is exciting.

GamesBeat: Is there anything there you think you’ll apply to System Shock?

Spector: Too early to tell. Talk to me again in a couple of months.

GamesBeat: You said you’re trying to do a triple-A game without a triple-A budget.

Spector: Maybe that’s an overstatement. But if anybody wants to invest I’ll happily talk to them.

 

[Zombra]

Wow. Preach it, Warren.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Interesting interview.

Spector: Here’s the pathetic thing about myself. It’s not a deep, dark secret, but the pathetic thing about my career is I’ve spent the entire, what is it, 32 or 33 years doing nothing but trying to re-create the feeling I had in 1978 when I first played Dungeons & Dragons. It wasn’t someone telling me a story. I was working with my friends to tell our story.

I don't really see that games made a progress in this aspect in the last 30 years.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

In my opinion, where player agency and player-authoring are concerned, nothing significant since LGS closed its doors.