Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Growth and change, at least in the video game industry, always seem to be indicative of exciting new developments for a studio, especially if that studio is just getting its feet. Like a newborn baby, these studios have to grow and mature in order to get their legs underneath them and stand, walk, and then run full speed ahead. These last few weeks have marked a number of interesting shifts of talent, including several new hires at 38 Studios and Red 5’s founder and CEO changing his job title to Chief Creative Officer.

Red 5 Logo

While I recently published an interview with one of 38 Studios’ new hires, I also had the very fortunate and distinct opportunity to chat with Mark Kern, the previously mentioned founder of Red 5. Many of you (especially World of Warcraft and/or Blizzard fans) may recognize the name due to his previous work on WoW, but for those of you that don’t, let’s just say that he’s one of the individuals responsible for the exceptional successes that Blizzard has produced over the past decade.

After exchanging pleasantries, we got down to business. Mark was eager to explain some of the reasoning behind his shift from CEO to CCO, which was more of an attempt to refocus than any sort of actual job change. Like any growing company, Mark found that his time was being spent more on the business side of things rather than the creative aspect of the game in question.  

“It was apparent that it was something that needed to be addressed,” Mark said. “We needed to have my focus back on the game, and a lot of this operational stuff – to be frank – really didn’t appeal to me. That’s not really why I entered the industry; it’s not why I’m here.”

“So we basically decided to split up the roles,” he continued. “We just needed to have someone focused on the creative strategy of our products. I have to tell you that this is my second week on the job, and I’m already a lot more excited. I enjoy the business side of things, and I’ve made a lot of great relationship in the industry, but my passion is really with the game.”

Of course, one of Mark’s major goals when he served as the CEO of Red 5 was to bring in an excellent assortment of individuals to work on his upcoming product. By using the Golden Ticket promotion, which is briefly discussed in this old interview with Red 5’s Scott Youngblood, Mark gathered a whole crew of very talented, very enthusiastic individuals to join his team. But now that Mark was switching positions, does that mean his team is in place?

“In the early stages of the company, we were trying to recruit a really excellent team,” he explained. “We went all across the games industry and other industries to find people that were really passionate about gaming and who really had great skills that they could bring to the table. I really enjoyed that aspect of it, and you’re right – and very astute to note – that that phase is pretty much complete and that we have the team in place that we need.”

With a team in place and a new Chief Creative Officer to work out the concept of the project, it sounds like Red 5 is really ready to make some serious waves in the MMOG market. But, up to this point, we’ve heard almost nothing about the upcoming game except for the small hints and information that Kern revealed to us earlier this year. At this point, I wondered aloud to Mark if they were getting ready to make a larger announcement.

“It does mean we’re close [to making an announcement],” Mark said. “We’re still in discussions about the timeframe of the announcement and the nature of the announcement, but the team is chomping at the bit to tell the world about what we’ve been working on. When that moment comes, we’ll make sure Ten Ton Hammer is on the list.”

“But for now, we’re in active discussions about the announcement and you can expect more about it in the near future,” he concluded.

Mark Kern, Chief Creative Officer

So what is this game really going to be about? Although Red 5 has yet to come out and announce their project, they have made several statements along the lines of their title being the “next big thing” and similar sort of comments. The phrase may sound a bit ambitious, Mark was eager to point out the true meaning of their “next big thing” focus and where players will experience a gaming difference.

“Whenever people ask me about “the next big thing”, I like to really describe how you need to separate your business goal from your creative goal,” Mark said. “The creative goal needs to make business sense, but from a creative standpoint, we also want to take the genre farther and give users fresh new experiences. That’s our goal. We really feel like we’re standing on the shoulders of giants in that we can see from our experiences with WoW and the other games that we’ve worked on, and we can gaze just a little bit farther on the horizon than what we could in our previous games. We want to give players an awesome online experience that’s just a little different than any experience they’ve had before.”

Even with the focus on the “next big thing” being readily apparent in Mark’s words, the press release that was issued announcing Mark’s move also made mention of “future games” at Red 5 Studios. I asked Mark about these “future games” and if they were actively working on anything else besides the undisclosed MMOG project.

“That’s a future-looking statement,” Mark explained. “We’re very focused on making one game and making one game really, really awesome.”

In our previous interview with Mark, he hinted at the fact that Red 5 may be working on a game that has more sports elements in it than gamers are typically used to in their MMOGs, along with having some very solid PvP experiences. For some users, PvP is definitely a draw, but it seems almost contradictory to the inclusion of story and immersion in a MMOG. When I mentioned this to Mark, he was very adamant in explaining that competition and immersion aren’t mutually exclusive, and that his game was planning to achieve both.

“I do think there’s still room for story and immersion even in a competitive environment, and we hope that people can almost live a sort of “virtual life” in the game,” he continued. “Creating an original IP is also very important to us, and we have people at our company that are world builders. Story builders. Although we may not have a lot of overt elements like that in the game, it carries through with the look and feel of your characters as well as your excitement at getting into the game. That’s really want we’re talking about the story and immersion. We want to create a boisterous, incredible environment for players to get into in our game. It’s really the difference between a “B” game and a “AAA” game.”

“We’re also very focused on driving competition between players even when it isn’t PvP oriented,” Mark answered. “We definitely see that as a huge factor in Asia and that it drives a lot of gaming that we see over there, and we really hope to bring more of that over to the Western market.”

Finally, we asked Mark why we hadn’t heard more from Red 5 in the previous months. Although his answer was very short, it made it very apparent where Red 5 is focusing their development energies.

“We want to let the game speak for us,” Kern said. “That’s something that is very important to us. You’re only as good as your last game, and we have a lot to prove with this one.”