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Interview of the Week: Guild Software

by Erin on January 6th, 2006

Ingrid and I are hoping to make the Interview of the Week feature a recurring set of posts for Play-Girlz, and are delighted that developer Guild Software was kind enough to volunteer some of their time to answer our probing (yet delightful) questions.

As the makers of Vendetta Online, a space age MMORPG, Guild Software is dedicated to pushing the limits of the online gaming world and helping to redefine the way people think about interactive gaming.

Thanks to all the people at Guild Software, particularly Managing Director John Bergman, for taking part.

PG: What is your company’s mission statement and how does that apply to female gamers?

Guild: We’re interested in the creation of self-managing persistent online universes. Bringing people together in interesting new ways to explore and build these new worlds. I feel that this applies equally to both male and female genders. Our long-range impetus is towards letting people evolve their own social and gameplay frameworks, which we hope will entertain and interest everyone. That may sound somewhat vague, but it could be boiled down into “the MMO that runs and builds itself”.

Persistent, self-balancing multiplayer environments, where anything is possible.

PG: Do you feel there has been a push recently, in your company and in others, to involve and/or motivate women to become more active in the gaming industry and community?

Guild: For the industry as a whole, I would say: On the surface, yes. I think publishers became very excited by the potential of a female-demographic game, after the massive success of The Sims was attributed partially to that demographic. However, from what I’ve seen, it takes some time for the industry as a whole to make any sort of change in direction, or truly begin to understand a new facet of their market (for instance, the level of publisher-fear attached to MMOs in the late 90s). Anyway, the failings of the game publishing industry have been well described elsewhere, but I would expect a five year wait before mainstream games start to truly become more gender-balanced in their marketing and design.

For our own company, well, I’ve outlined our overriding interest in the previous question, and that I believe it’s a pretty gender-neutral goal. We have not actively attempted to seek the female demographic, but reading demographics isn’t personally how I try to design games. I mostly try to picture what *I* would want to play, and then make that, and hope that They Will Come. “They” being everyone, male and female, anyone who likes the same sort of game as I do. I believe that some famous designers (not to compare myself to them at all), like Sid Meier and Shigeru Miyamoto also follow this basic strategy. It simplifies things and lets the designer focus more purely on their creative gameplay goals, rather than getting bogged down in what some particular group might like or dislike. As the game industry evolves towards having more female designers, I think we’ll start to see more offerings with widespread multi-gender appeal, and better marketing.

PG: Industry analysts have suggested that the developers able to meet the needs and desires of the female demographic will be the one to survive in an increasingly competitive business environment. Do you agree with this statement?

Guild: Yes and no. Those industry analysts are making projections based on the existing industry, which is.. what analysts do, but I don’t think this example is as meaningful as one would hope. Their projections are most likely based on a monolithic publisher-driven system, largely console, that somewhat “manufactures” the bulk of current games. The Internet, however, is changing things. It makes it possible for a small developer to make a niche-appeal product and achieve some modest amount of success. The small-scale MMO world, such as ourselves and A Tale In The Desert and other games with little or no publisher support, are examples of this type of more-diverse game development. I think this kind of “boutique” development will increase over the next decade, potentially leading to a different game/market landscape where a very large number of games sell relatively small numbers in a wide variety of niches.. as opposed to the current small number of publisher-released titles that must appeal as widely as possible or face financial ruin. If a more diverse development landscape were to prove true, female gamers would be well attended, as more games would emerge to fit any “niche”
available, and player->developer feedback would be much better than it is right now. The feedback would make for games better tailored to their niche, making everyone happier. We’ve seen this sort of cycle happen with our own game.

It will always be valuable to appeal to a diverse demographic, regardless of scale. For companies who spent millions on development and need to ship a million units of a game to break even, well, I think they’ll need to appeal to as many people as possible. It’s in that realm that such industry-analyst predictions hold true. Regardless, there is no doubt that the female gamer demographic is becoming a major economic force. I’m pretty sure everyone knows that, the question is what publishers will choose to do.

PG: How do you envision the Lara Croft of the year 2010?

Guild: I’m not sure, I honestly never played any of the Tomb Raider games (I’ve seen bits of them). But I would hope for something more story and character driven than what I’ve seen recently. I like action games and such, but I’ve had my fill of jumping puzzles. Physically, I imagine the Lara Croft image will probably have been toned town a bit by then, as the industry shifts their marketing to appeal to a more diverse base.

PG: How many of your employees were directly trained for game development?

Guild: None. We have four employees. Only two of us finished highschool (I didn’t), and only one of us actually has a college degree. But, we each started moving towards this on our own. One of our coders, Andy, started programming at age 5. I’ve been making software with him, games and demos and the like, since he was 13 and I was 14. By the time I met him he was already a master of C programming and was then moving into assembly language. To a greater or lesser extent, all of us are like that, multi-talented geeks who love videogames.

PG: For all the people out there wanting to get into game development, how do you suggest getting their foot in the door?

Guild: I’m frequently asked this question, and I’m never quite sure how to answer. For one thing, I’ve never worked at another game development house, so my answer many not be very representative of the industry. My own entry into game development was a long, odd series of events (make demos with friends, start company, make game, run out of money, spend a lot of time poor, eventually start to see income).

The biggest thing I would recommend, though, is being able to learn on your own. Education, through any medium (college, whathaveyou) is a great thing. But the ability to self-educate in an industry that changes as much as this one.. that’s pretty crucial. Also, do it because you love it, because chances are, the hours will be long and the pay may not be high. Learn as much as you can about *everything*, all the areas that go into a game. It’ll make it much easier to interact with coworkers and make you more effective at getting things done, because you’ll have some basis in how their world works (be it programming, graphics, whatever). I believe this is especially important for designers. The better you understand what goes into actually *making* a game, the better your design concepts will go from the realm of the possibility into the realm of the probability.

PG: Do you have any games/products currently in development that you’d like to mention?

Guild: We’re continuing to work on our existing product, Vendetta Online ( http://www.vendetta-online.com ), a space-based MMORPG. The beauty of an MMO is that you can keep expanding on it after release, adding new gameplay and fixing the things you didn’t do right the first time. For a tiny indie team like us that’s a major boon. We’re aiming for a major new version in a few months, with a new user interface, player controlled capital ships and a whole load of new universe interaction and NPCs. We’re pretty excited. The greatest part of making a game is rolling out new features and watching other people have fun playing with it.

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POSTED IN: Interviews, MMORPG