Pre-GDC Austin Interview with Gordon Walton

Gordon Walton is a name that’s been around the gaming industry for a long time. A popular figure at the GDC Austin, Gordon has worked for many of the industry’s top developer. We recently got the chance to speak with Gordon prior to this year’s GDC and get his views on MMOGs, social gaming, and how he feels the GDC Austin helps developers.

Ten Ton Hammer: You represent a fairly large development house. How did you end up on the advisory board?

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 200px; height: 120px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74333"
title="Title of Your Image"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/74333" alt="" width="200" height="120"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 120px;" />

Gordon Walton: We’re just legacy. Rich [Vogel] and I were involved in the original Austin Game Conference before it changed management. We’re just legacy, so they just keep us around to keep us happy I think.

When it first started, Rich and I got involved and the first couple of years we did all the content work. So most of that was our fault, but now we have a much bigger board. It’s awesome. Now we have so much help and people spread out the work.  Now I think we’re getting much better content because we have more eyes on it.

Ten Ton Hammer: What do you think is a hot topic for online gaming this year and online in general?

Gordon Walton: I think the big thing now is that the show continues. It started out more as an MMO show. Kind of an MMO only and what we’ve tried to do over the years is evolve it more to encompass more online and social gaming and as you look at our theme for the year and the kind of people that we’re bringing in. That’s what we’re pushing for is to really make this about the connected gaming, not just pigeon hole into the MMO, which is an important part of the field, but it’s not the only thing going on.

Ten Ton Hammer: Do you think it’s important for the MMOs to at least be introduced and familiar with the social stuff because so much of that social networking is being introduced into MMOs these days?

Gordon Walton: I think you’re looking at it completely backwards. All they did was rip off all the good stuff from MMOs. (Laughs)

Ten Ton Hammer: It’s funny that you should mention that because we recently had an article about how Facebook and Twitter took all the good ideas from MMOs and message boards.

Gordon Walton: Oh of course. There were no starver communities in the MMO communities and all the things that went with that were ruperly valuable if you had a game as an organizing metaphor or not.

That really is what MMO audiences really are. They’re communities that happen to have an organizing metaphor in the center of it. We all play this game together. That’s our point of commonality.

Ten Ton Hammer: Your sister company, Bioware Edmonton, is kind of focusing on this massively single player aspect of gaming. Integrating these social network sites back into single player games rather than into multiplayer MMOs. Do you think AGDC has a place for those sorts of titles too or is it just online networking and MMOs?

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 200px; height: 124px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74334"
title="Title of Your Image"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/74334" alt="" width="200" height="124"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 124px;" />

Gordon Walton: I think that any game that has an online component or community, clearly there’s value at AGDC for them. Bioware has grown a huge community for years. They’ve always and a strong community outside of their single player games that is totally attached to them. Communities were a real big purpose of Bioware way before Rich and I got involved with them.

Ten Ton Hammer: For your particular studio, how does AGDC help in the development of your game? What did you learn and what could you learn from a game like AGDC? You’ve been in the business a while, so is there still stuff for you to learn every year?

Gordon Walton: You betcha. Every year there’s always a series of sessions I have to attend because I’m going to learn something in them and that’s why I go to the conference whether I’m involved with it or not. There’s always stuff to learn and that’s what the conference is about, sharing best practices so that the whole industry can move forward. What it does for us is help our people learn more and get better. I can’t point and say our title got better because so and so went to this session, but we like our people to get the most experience vicariously that they can so that they don’t have to do it the hard way on our title. 

Ten Ton Hammer: There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes at conferences like this. Is that one of the better reasons for a company to go to this convention too, just because of all the networking that’s involved and maybe you can get a sneak peak at the latest middleware sort of thing like the Hero’s Journey Engine, the Big World Engine, and that type of thing?  

Gordon Walton: I think networking is very valuable in an industry like ours whether you’re an individual person or you own or run a business. It doesn’t really matter what your role is, networking is always really valuable. That’s how you’re able to learn stuff and advance your own career and the interest of your business.

As far as the vendors go, all the vendors that have anything to do with online show up at this show because it’s the best showplace for getting in front of people who are interested in this area. Every year I see technology that I didn’t know was coming that is available for us to purchase or license. I think all that’s good.

Ten Ton Hammer: AGDC and the San Francisco GDC are pretty different, but at the same time the AGDC is obviously growing, do you expect we’ll start to see some bigger announcements coming out of this show in years to come? Are you planning any big announcements this year or is that something that’s going to be relegated to the bigger GDC?

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 200px; height: 125px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/45776"
title="Title of Your Image"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/45776" alt="" width="200" height="125"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 125px;" />

Gordon Walton: Most of the announcements around developer shows have to do with developer stuff. It really has to do with product. Every now and then somebody will announce a product at the shows, which is good and in theme with the focus of the show. But I can’t think of very many products that were announced at GDC that were like game products. They may be coming out and maybe show something that they haven’t shown before, but I can’t think of any announcements. I expect that some people will announce MMOs or other online activity games at this show. I expect that will happen to some degree, but again, this is more of an industry focus show than a consumer focus show.

Ten Ton Hammer: The push for quality MMO gaming seems to be really high with consumers. What do you think is really keeping MMOs from taking off and exploding with popularity? WoW (World of Warcraft) has several million players in North America, but we know there are more MMO gamers out there than what’s in WoW. WoW seems to me that it must have a pretty high burn rate of people that it churns through, so where are all these MMO players going after they get done with WoW and how do other companies grab them up? 

Gordon Walton: There is a class of people that define themselves as MMO players, but most people are just players. They try a new experience and the endorphins stop coming and they stop doing it. They’re just looking for another experience that’s going to bring the endorphins to them. I think the universe of people that define themselves as MMO players are playing an MMO somewhere, but there’s a whole bunch of people who are just looking a great experience and when it doesn’t feel great anymore they’re going to move on.

Ten Ton Hammer: You don’t think any of the other MMOs out there really hit on that lasting endorphin release like WoW has?

Gordon Walton: Oh no, if you look at them I think there’s still a ton of MMOs that are perfectly viable and have an audience. And if you actually start looking more at the MMOs that aren’t boxed released and you start looking at the online only stuff, there’s a huge younger audience that are playing MMO-like games. There are more people playing those than there are playing WoW by at least a factor of four or five in the US. The players are out there. I think it’s somewhat arrogant on some level for us to think that eventually they’ll graduate up to the kind of games that we’re use to looking at and focusing on. Maybe WoW just isn’t the right thing for them.

Ten Ton Hammer: Fallen Earth has had a fairly high preorder sale making number two on the Steam preorder list. Do you think people from a business sense are looking to break into that online market place? Some of the indie games are getting decently good sales numbers like Fallen Earth who doesn’t necessarily have a big publisher like an EA (Electronic Arts) or Activision/Blizzard, but they still seem able to sell a decent amount of copies from what we can tell. Do you think that more people are going to be jumping into the business of online gaming now that they have proven time and time again that at least in box sales people can push boxes?

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 200px; height: 125px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/67280"
title="Title of Your Image"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/67280" alt="" width="200" height="125"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 125px;" />

Gordon Walton: Again I think it’s about the experience. If your game is compelling, there’s not really a problem with finding customers. If the experience is kind of ‘me too’ it’s a lot harder. It’s not impossible for anyone to go out and do well making entertainment software. You just have to make something that’s going to fit with an audience you can actually reach. In the case of Steam, you’re saying “oh, this is a hardcore gaming audience. If I make something that floats these guy’s boats, of course they’ll show up”. It really depends on who you’re after and what’s new and compelling about the experience you’re offering and then if it’s accessible enough to play.

Ten Ton Hammer: Out of all the panels at the show, which are you personally most interested in? Is there one that is really drawing your eye?

Gordon Walton: Everything about web delivery interests me. I think about install base. Who has the biggest install base? It’s called the browser and it has more people that know how to operate it than any other type, so when I think the future, I’m thinking about how I reach the most people, how I can find audiences that already exist that I can tap into, I’m always thinking about the web first and foremost.  So as a personal interest that’s what draws me. Now on the professional side I am interested in what’s going on around the world overseas in various markets because all that stuff is very pertinent and topical to what I’m doing now to predict the game that I’m on. My interests go beyond the game that I’m on. I’m interested in the overall industry and where we’re going and how we’re going to grow it and get to what it could be versus what it is today.