Face to Face with Jack Emmert and John Layman of Cryptic Studios

As Layman, with numerous Marvel and video game writing credits, joins the Marvel Universe team

By Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle

July 5th, 2007 - An accomplished comic book and video game writer, John Layman is part of a wave of quality creative talent Cryptic is currently bringing aboard to work on the studio's two in-development titles (Marvel Universe and an as-of-yet unannounced project).

John's artistic credits make him a natural fit for Cryptic's third comic-book based MMORPG. Writing mainly for Marvel in recent years, his works include a solo Gambit series, House of M: Fantastic Four, Sentinel Squad O*N*E*, and Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness. He's penned storylines and dialogue for a number of video games as well, including Metroid Hunter for the Nintendo DS and Scarface: The World is Yours for multiple platforms. John is also well known as an animal rights advocate and award-winning blogger (The Mighty Layman).

I sat down for a brief interview with Jack Emmert, Cryptic's Chief Creative Officer (and likewise a former Marvel writer), and John Layman during my recent tour of Cryptic Studios. "It's only my fifth day," John said, smiling. "So don't expect me to contribute too much." As Marvel Universe is still very much behind the in-development veil with, as Jack Emmert said, "no timeline" and "no visuals" for the public as-of-yet, there's very little that John could have said about his new line of work, regardless. Still, we had a nice chat about Cryptic Studios past and present, the state of the MMO industry, and what it takes to work with a stellar IP like Marvel and a first-tier publisher like Microsoft.

We spoke first about the recent change of address for Cryptic Studios, a move made necessary to show how far Cryptic Studios had come, Jack Emmert described the company's  first location, an 800 square foot office space in an industrial park. Among their neighbors at that time: an illegal Latino rave every Saturday night and a known meth lab. "We knew the police were about to raid when the water was turned off." John offered, "To prevent them from flushing the evidence?" Jack nodded.

Nowadays the water stays on, as Cryptic has moved into a spacious site formerly occupied by Netflix's first distribution center. The red and white envelopes and sorting machines have given way to designer cubicles with frosted glass whiteboards and sliding doors. It's certainly not the dreary batcave I've seen during site tours at other studios. The workspace is light and airy, though you will find the occasional opened umbrella suspended from a cubicle corner to help control glare. The walls and cubicles are lined with collections of Marvel source material and figurines, collections both public and private.

Along with new facilities, new projects, and a new publisher came a budget to hire a sizable team, and PR Specialist Vic Wachter expects the Crytic Studios team to grow from around 100 to nearly 300 when development goes into full swing. While new funding sources are always a boon to quality developers, not everything is rosey in the post-WoW subscription gaming boom. Jack lamented the "stupid money" entering the market – that is, millions of dollars thrown at unproven development studios with half-baked game concepts by venture capitalists who, in-turn, expect astronomical, World of Warcraft-like subscription numbers.  The result, according to Jack, is that these studios are either forced to cancel or release poor quality games, and the ensuing panic scares off investors who might potentially set their sites on published developers with solid MMO development concepts. Still, developers like Cryptic Studios and Turbine Entertainment, who have successful MMORPGs to their credit, benefit from the windfall and continue producing well-received titles, helping to keep the bar set high for what constitutes quality in the massively online category.

While we were on the subject of quality, I asked whether we should consider Marvel Universe the natural successor to Cryptic's flagship titles: City of Heroes and City of Villains. Jack grappled with the question for a moment before arriving at a definitive no, intimating that he loves Cryptic's flagship franchise at least as much as its fans (as does the rest of the Cryptic Studios staff, if you've read our interview with Matt Miller and crew earlier this week) and has no plans to shift staff or resources away from the live games. "It's only a successor in that we're going to use what we've learned," he stated,

Attempting to tiptoe through the secrecy surrounding Marvel Universe, I asked the gentlemen if the Marvel license was proving more difficult to manage than they had expected. Elsewhere in the category, the Star Wars IP, thought by many to be a game developer's golden ticket, had its share of problems as realized in Star Wars Galaxies, precipitated by rumblings of an time-consuming and creatively stifling approval process with LucasArts. Though Lord of the Rings Online had evened the record by adopting a storyline and design both the Tolkien estate and a large swath of MMO gamers could love, certainly there would be challenges to operating under the auspices of a license for the first time in Cryptic Studios history.

But no whiff of a game-breaking crisis brewing here. The usually evocative Jack Emmert mildly shrugged his shoulders, commenting that there had been no problems yet. John Layman finished the thought by outlining Cryptic's strategy: "If you stay respect the property, the fans, and stay true to the characters, you'll have a much easier time getting through the approval process." If that holds true, Cryptic Studios, who built a respectable property in the City of Heroes / City of Villains franchise by allowing fans to live out their comic book character fantasy in a compelling, comfortably dystopian world, should have no trouble.

Our thanks to Jack Emmert and John Layman for their time during my recent visit to Cryptic Studios, and we're looking forward to hearing much more about Marvel Universe perhaps as early as at ComicCon in San Diego later this month. Feel free to discuss this article in the Ten Ton Hammer City of Heroes / City of Villains discussion forum.