by Cody "Micajah" Bye
Massively multiplayer online games have once again become the next big
thing in video game development. Since the success of World of Warcraft
and their record-shattering nine million users, every single person
with dreams of becoming a game developer wants to try their hand at an
online game. Over the next few years, I expect a vast number of online
development companies to spring up out of the ether to vie for that
coveted mark of "millions of users."
However, there are a few companies on the horizon that certainly have
the developers and the clout to bring users an amazing MMOG experience.
One of the biggest of the big companies is Red 5 Studios, a company
that has hired a vast selection of extremely talented individuals and
an institution that is founded by Mark Kern, the former team lead for
Blizzard's previously mentioned monolithic game, World of Warcraft.
Those are some mighty fine accolades for any development team.
At the Austin Game Developers Conference, Cody "Micajah" Bye sat down
with two of the Red 5's game designers, Scott Youngblood and Rob
Garrett, to talk with them about their recent goals, upcoming plans,
and where the game currently stands in development. Enjoy!
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Scott Youngblood,
game designer at Red 5 Studios. Unfortunately we don't have a picture of Rob. Sorry Rob.
Ten Ton Hammer:
What has Red 5 been working on for the last few months since your last
major announcement?
working on staffing up the company. We still have a lot of open
positions that we're looking to fill. We're fairly picky about who we
bring in, they need to be skilled and able to fit in with the culture
of our team. Other than that, we're still plugging away at our
unannounced MMOG.
Ten Ton Hammer: Rob, I don't think you've made a public appearance for the company yet. What's your background and how did you join Red 5?
about me just yet. I'm one of the game designers, and I joined the
company in May of 2006. We had less than 15 people back then. Now we're
up to 50 plus stateside and 15-20 in Shanghai We just announced our
grand opening a week or two ago.
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This is my first MMOG
that I've ever worked on. I've been playing them since text MUDs and
I've been gaming for over 25 years, so I'd say I've got a decent amount
of experience. This is pretty much the type of game that I've always
wanted to make. I previously worked at Activision and before that I was
at Big Huge Games. At Activision I worked on X-Men and at Big Huge I
was part of the Rise of Nations development team.
Ten Ton Hammer:
You mentioned an international focus, why are you guys going that route?
on two levels. Shanghai studios is actually our co-headquarters, and
those studios are actually really important to us. We've set up high
definition video conferencing with a direct line so we talk to them
every day. We rotate folks from the U.S. studios to the Shanghai
studios so we can get acclimated to the culture and meet the team. It's
very important to us.
This company was founded
on the idea that you need to have a multi-regional appeal and business
structure to succeed in the MMOG space. The Shanghai studio only
recently opened, but this was something that Mark Kern and Bill Petras
knew from the start that this was something that they'd have to do.
really look at them [the Shanghai studios] as a co-headquarters and we
take what they're doing over there very seriously. Their expertise and
familiarity with the region is very important to us.
Ten Ton Hammer:
From a design standpoint, how do you develop a game for an
international market?
anything to specific that differentiates from what we would do
normally. We're really interested in providing an experience that is
compelling to a normal person. We want to give people an MMOG that has
a wide breadth of accessibility. We're catering to the hardcore game.
There are things that are going to be very worthy for the hardcore
gamer to try and achieve, but we're also not ignoring the casual gamer.
What you put in is what you're going to get out of it.
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Garrett style="font-style: italic;">: This is also something that
Taewon Yun, one of our co-founders, has a lot of knowledge about,
considering that he was also the founder of Blizzard Korea. He was very
instrumental in getting World of Warcraft and the changes necessary to
bring it to the Asian markets. He understands a lot of that culture.
But it also really helps having that team in Shanghai; they're very
involved in this. That ended up working its way into the product and
having its appeal over there as well.
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Many of the founders
of Red 5 helped build World of Warcraft into what it is today.
Ten Ton Hammer:
How long have you actually been working on the game thus far?
Garrett: The
company's been around for about two years.
were concerning funding and talking about the Golden Ticket recruiting
program. That was really pretty cool. I've been around the industry
awhile and it seems like I'm getting recruited almost daily. But for
something as cool as the Golden Ticket to come around... The founders
of Red 5, before they created the company, had done things that no one
else in the industry had accomplished. When they created Red 5, I
figured that that might be the place I would go if I ever left Sony.
But I didn't have to make the first move.
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They found me, and they
found me in such a way that it made me go, "Whoa." It was such a cool
thing to receive one of those iPods. The amount of research and
personalization that they put into the message was huge.
Ten Ton Hammer:
It wasn't just some recruiter cold-calling you...
Here was Mark Kern speaking in my ear via the Red 5 iPod with this
personalized message. It was amazing.
