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Interview: Bill Roper on signing with Namco, looking for office space, design documents, and making a new RPG.
Date: May 18, 2004
Source: Silven Crossroads (Site dead.)

Silven Crossroads Interview

Silven Crossroads: The selection of a publisher can be a daunting task for a new studio. When we last spoke back in October you indicated that you had held discussions with many different publishers. The announcement of the publishing agreement between Namco Hometek and Flagship Studios came as somewhat of a surprise to the gaming community. Can you speak a little to how that agreement came about?

Bill Roper: Namco was a great choice for us for a lot of reasons. They have qualities that mesh well with us and our mission. Namco is entering their 50th year in the gaming industry and had recently established a corporate edict that they wanted to branch out in a new direction, without sacrificing any of their currently established franchises.

They wanted to maintain their level of quality and recognition in their games and within the industry but they did not have a PC games division. Here we were, a new development studio in search of a publisher. (Ed. Note: a new studio founded by a group of talented individuals with proven success in PC games.) They have good strong franchises and good games, and because they did not yet have a PC games division, it afforded us the opportunity to set this up with both sides working together rather than dealing with a “we’ve always done it like this” attitude. It was very refreshing meeting with the President/CEO of Namco, who basically just asked how we could make this work – how do we just get to the point where we are making games. It felt like a winning situation for everyone.

SC: You’ve been working on the game and working on the logistics of getting your new studio up and running pretty much all at that same time. Are you starting to feel established yet? Do you have an office yet?

BR: We’ve been working to both ends to different degrees since we left Blizzard, but I feel we are approaching the end of our transition period. We just hired our tenth person last Friday. I believe we have found an office in San Francisco. The high vacancy rates have actually helped us to find a nice building at a reasonable cost. It is already wired and we are hoping to move in soon.

We are currently working out of one of the guy’s houses. He had some extra room so we’ve been working on the game there. We’re usually pretty spread out and a couple of the guys are working in other locations so we’ve been using MSN Messenger to communicate with each other, hash out ideas and such, as we work on the game.

SC: Have you encountered any real obstacles so far?

BR: Not really. We probably work a bit differently than other teams but I think that’s mostly because we have worked together for so long that we understand each other’s process pretty well. Usually we’ll get an idea in the morning, try to punch holes in it, work with it a bit and by the end of the day it is at least “tryable” in the game. We are all very passionate and very driven by what goes in the game. We have to play it to see how it works.

SC: Do you think your process as a team varies from the way other development team work?

BR: We usually will write a 1-2 page white paper and then everyone works on the ideas that are there. The team may change those ideas or modify them, or we may find we have something that works but it doesn’t make sense in the game. Again, we argue passionately about what goes into the game. It’s all about keeping our focus on the game.

Other teams will spend weeks or months on their design document. The disadvantage to that approach is that they then become hesitant to make changes after they have so much time invested in the original design.

SC: Your departure from Blizzard – were there mixed feelings?

BR: It was all very surreal. As I mentioned previously, our intent was not really to leave Blizzard, but to try to open the lines of communication with the officials at Vivendi concerning the games division. We felt the only way to get them to take us seriously and open the lines of communication was to tender our resignations. We submitted our letters on Thursday, we received word on Friday that Vivendi had indeed accepted them, that the head honchos would be coming down on Monday and we would be moving out of our offices that day.

It was rough because we have many, many friends at Blizzard and no one else knew (that our resignations had been accepted). We were all leaving, which meant we were leaving them with no project leads and we really did not have enough time to do much about it. They scheduled an all company meeting and everyone was expecting to get the news that the games division had been purchased. Instead, they heard from us, and all we could say was “We love you guys, but we’re out of here.” It was very difficult, and left us with a great deal of mixed feelings: some anger – how could they do this to us, how could that do it to Blizzard – but some excitement too about this new venture. It forced to be someplace we wanted to be anyway. And it afforded some opportunities to others at Blizzard, so sometimes you just have to grab the positive.

SC: You obviously know everyone at Blizzard, and some people there quite well. Have you been contacted by others from Blizzard to join your new venture?

BR: Yes, we’ve been contacted by a large number of people from Blizzard North and we took the four best. Ken just simply told us “You’re taking me along!”

SC: You’ve been here before, founding a studio, but is there anything different this time around?

BR: It’s been a big education process for us. We know a lot of people in the industry but not from this standpoint. As I said we met with many publishers and we grilled them! And we were also surprised at how many different funding sources are available for start-up companies. There has definitely been some maturity of the industry over the past few years, and despite the amount of consolidation that has occurred there are still a lot of small and split-out studios.

SC: I know you said you wouldn’t be talking about the game here at E3 but is there anything you can tell us?

BR: We are making an RPG (and the crowd goes wild!!!!!!) but we think it will be something that hasn’t been done before.

SC: Does it have a name yet?

BR: Not yet, well other than the development name. We have to call it something! This may sound a bit clichéd, but I feel very strongly that the game will let us know when it’s ready to be named.

SC: Anything else you might want to add?

BR: In keeping with our mission, which is to make great quality games, we want to have a feel for the game, what it is and how it works. And above all, the game has to be such that I want to play it now, and that I still want to play it five years from now. Because if that’s true for me, then it’s going to be true for you and the rest of the gaming community. At least that’s what we hope.