Brian Fargo Interview

Brian Fargo might just have the best job in the games industry, as based on what we’ve seen lately, it consists entirely of providing interviews for various publications. Among those today is GamesIndustry.biz, who have released a lengthy article-style interview that covers the Kickstarter campaigns that inXile has spearheaded over the last year, as well as their relationship with publishers and other developers, such as Obsidian Entertainment.

There have been some discoveries along the way for Fargo. “The great thing is our relationship with Obsidian has really grown,” he said. “We’re constantly helping each other without regard for the quid pro quo. We’ve found that with technology sharing and business sharing, over time something good will come out of it.”

This sort of cooperation between game companies may be unusual, but Fargo believes it’s beneficial – so he encourages it. When Fargo hears about a new RPG being Kickstarted that he thinks fans might like, he tweets it out. “There’s this general feeling among most of the developers that are doing this now that 1 + 1 = 3, helping each other will tend to work out somehow,” Fargo said. “And you can’t imagine that happening on the publishing side.”

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But Fargo is philosophical. “It’s not like the publishers are worried too much by this; our numbers are not too interesting to them,” Fargo noted. “I read the other day that Tomb Raider sold [over three] million copies and they’re disappointed. If we sold 2 million copies, that means I build new roleplaying games for the next two decades, guaranteed. That’s what that would mean to us.”

The intense focus of publishers on AAA titles amuses Fargo when he considers the origins of the biggest sellers. “All of those franchises started off small,” Fargo said. “I think the only franchise that I’ve seen that was truly built to be a billion-dollar franchise was Skylanders. Outside of that, Tomb Raider, GTA, Madden Football, they didn’t start that way.”