Dragon Commander Interview

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has quizzed Larian Studios’ Swen Vincke on their upcoming Dragon Commander, the decision to self-publish and the state of the industry in general. It’s quite the interesting piece so it’s really recommended to read it in its entirety, but here’s a generous sampling to whet your appetite:

RPS: So what sort of stage are you guys at with Dragon Commander now?

Vincke: Well. it looks horrible right now. We are doing a lot of work on the internals, so there is not a lot to look at. But everything should get integrated next few months and we’ll start showing the game again. There’s a whole bunch of stuff in there which is very unlike what we did in other games, but give us one month more to get to that.

RPS: Yes, the game does seem quite different to your previous offerings, can you explain why you went that route?

Vincke: I have this little notebook here full of game ideas that I’d like to do, and I’ve tried pitching them to publishers, several times, and I’ve never managed to get funding. Since we’ve said that we will now go completely independent it was time to take a look in the little notebook and see what we’re going to make. Out of that came Dragon Commander. It’s a blend of genres that I’ve always liked to play my gaming education was in the Amiga times, and the C64 before that and I remember playing this Cinemaware game, Defender Of The Crown, which was something I liked, and it was a genre that faded away. But if you put modern production values on that, and add all the innovations of the intervening years on that, then you have something appealing. And in any case I would like to play it, so we said (okay let’s bet on that). It’s risky! I pitched it to the usual suspects and they all looked at me. suspiciously, let’s put it that way.

RPS: Are the big publishers stifling creativity? Should they take more risks?

Vincke: Ah, well. There’s a few things I can say to that. Individually, when you talk to people who work at big publishers, they are almost all people who want to do innovative, creative work. They want to take risk, but as a group they never will, because they have to be afraid of a flop title. They put their ideas in a green-light room and discuss it, and they might get individually excited by an idea, but then they discuss the downs of it, and it’s killed right there. I’ve seen it happen a couple of times. I’ve been to these meetings and pitched ideas that these companies liked, but then someone from sales says (is there something comparable on the market? How will it sell?) and then someone else asks (how are we going to market it? Who else has marketed a game like this?) and then you hear a couple of examples of new things failing, and the idea is killed on the spot.

The larger publishers think at very large scales. They want a £20m project, they don’t think that they can perhaps still spend a couple of million and get results from that. They are just not set up to think that way. The smaller publishers are set up for small projects, but then you get the downsides of them getting involved, especially if you are trying to innovate. To innovate you will require iteration, and iteration and development directors of small publishers do not work well together.