Nicholas Yanes, Author at Gamesauce: Global Inspiration for Game Developers

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Development Exclusive Interviews

Ubisoft’s Dan Vargas on Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, Comic-Book-Based Videogames, and Seeing the Game Industry Mature

November 19, 2012 — by Nicholas Yanes

Dan Vargas is the current Art Director for Ubisoft’s Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth. In addition to his work on Battle for Earth, he has also designed some of the worlds in Assassin’s Creed III as a Senior Artist. In addition to Marvel’s Avengers, Vargas has years of experience working with other Marvel characters. Prior to working for Ubisoft, he was a Technical Artist at Next Level Games where he worked on games such as Captain America: Super Soldier (which was loosely based on the film, Captain America: The First Avenger) and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (which was inspired by the first Spider-Man film trilogy). Vargas was also an Artist for Electronic Arts’ Black Box and a Motion Capture Operator for Electronic Arts Canada. And for close to two years, he brought his years of experience to the classroom for the Vancouver Film as the Instructor of Visual Design Principles for the Game Design Program.

Gamesauce: Growing up, were there any videogames, movies, or comic books that inspired you to pursue art for a career?

Dan Vargas: In school, I had always been a doodler; whether it was textbooks, notebooks or napkins – in high school, a friend of mine showed me his newly-minted Uncanny X-Men #213. I was blown away. Shortly after that, I started collecting for myself and was really inspired by [Marc] Silvestri’s run on the X-Men. I then started to copy pages from comics. So while I still draw inspiration from movies and games, it was comics that led me to draw.

You’ve worked on multiple comic-book-based videogames. Are there any superhero characters that you’d like to center a game around?

If I had to make it around 1 hero… I would choose Daredevil, for a gritty mature, story-based adventure/action game, maybe around Gang Wars or a lead up to Shadowlands. Otherwise, I would love to do the New Mutants in some kind of co-op action or RPG. There are just a lot of cool things you could do with that combo of characters and they all have interesting stories with interesting themes.

We took a moment to look at your artwork on your blog. Given your experience working with superhero games, have you ever considered creating your own comic book?

I have seriously considered this, but I don’t feel I have all the skill needed to pull it off. I must say, having the opportunity to meet and talk with some of the artists from ‘Artist Alley’ at both SDCC and NYCC has been extremely humbling. There are some seriously skilled artists out there constantly working their craft! I do have a couple ideas percolating but for the amount of hours needed to pull off a book. I just wouldn’t be able to balance all the other things on my plate, but it could make for a nice sabbatical.

You’ve been working in the gaming industry for over a decade. What are some of the ways you feel it’s changed over this time?

On the whole, our industry and our products have gained a lot more visibility and respect, both commercially and culturally. While the industry has matured, it has also become a lot broader and complex. Education options are much greater, offering higher quality instruction. The products are reaching new levels of awesomeness. The tools are becoming a lot more user friendly and accessible. However, because technology is at the heart of our business, we are inherently subject to constant change; some of the development processes are and will always be evolving, seeking to be more efficient and produce higher fidelity.

Some of the development processes are and will always be evolving, seeking to be more efficient and produce higher fidelity.

At the same time, the business itself seems in flux, especially the last few years. Genres blending into ‘biz’ models cropping up to corner people’s preferences. Accessibility to ‘games’ as a whole seems to have dramatically increased with smart phones and tablets. The good side being that independents have a much greater chance of producing and selling something…even sustaining themselves over a period of several projects! And we seem to be getting more of a global exposure to games, bringing some interesting and new perspectives and designs. Just look at some of the more ‘bleeding edge’ games – many, if not most, are coming from indies!

Gaming media has grown as well. There are a lot more sites offering broader and more objective coverage to general media, game developer interests and specific game community sites. It does mean that consumers are more savvy but this, too, serves us towards making better games, in the end.

You taught for almost two years at the Vancouver Film School, the same institution you learned animation from. Based on your experience, what are some of the skills and professional behaviors you feel schools should teach those who want to go into the videogame industry?

Apart from the skills needed for specific positions (Artists, Programmers, Audio, Designers, Production), I think it is good to have exposure to other specialties, in the very least teaching the dependencies between each. I think game design is especially important because different game ‘genres’ greatly change the dynamics of all the different specialties.

Another important aspect that I think would be useful is communication skill, not only developing individually, but especially in a larger group context. For this, I feel, an understanding of organizational culture could be greatly beneficial.

Specific to Artists, I believe it is still very important to have a good base in of the traditional arts. I feel it is essential to sustain hobbies that either tap-in to art culture or employ a specific skill; sculpting, needlepoint, film…anything really.

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth is based on the Secret Invasion storyline. What were some elements of the story that you wanted to keep in the videogame? Were there any aspects of the game that you just knew wouldn’t work in a videogame?

We stuck to the SI story line as much as possible; even taking directly from the comic for our campaign mode cut scenes! I think the most important premise was that 2 versions of every character could exist; of course some being Skrulls and others being the ‘real deal’. As for challenging elements to incorporate, well, we could potentially do anything in game to a certain fidelity as long as we stay within budget …but we had to focus on the elements that made the game fun and compromise appropriately to ensure we delivered on time. That being said, highly reactive environments and large scale destruction of Manhattan, Baxter Building, the Peak, Hellicarrier or the Avengers old base in the Savage land would have been COOL.

A big part of any videogame is the game play itself. How did the different game modes (Co-op, Versus, Arcade, etc.) influence how you designed characters and levels?

For this particular game, the various modes are played in the same context, so we didn’t need to alter the levels or characters to a work for a specific mode - keeping a consistency across the assets.

Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth is going to be available on Xbox 360 and Wii U. Given that these are such distinct platforms, how do you keep the different versions of this game consistent while taking advantage of each system’s unique attributes?

Fortunately, we have a team of dedicated and talented graphics programmers. They did a great job of helping us achieve parity in the overall look and feel. The biggest challenge was on the design side; re-mapping actions to two sets of controls while keeping the gameplay balanced was tricky and required a lot of play-testing to get it right.

The biggest challenge was on the design side; re-mapping actions to two sets of controls while keeping the gameplay balanced was tricky and required a lot of play-testing to get it right.

The majority of the characters that are in Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth have had dozens of different stylized outfits. How was each character’s look decided? On this note, were there any comic book artists that you wanted to pay tribute to in the game?

Almost too many; by focusing on the Secret Invasion series we did ourselves a favor, narrowing down the possibilities. Francis Leinil Yu penciled the whole series so it was quite natural to look at his art as a guide. As for me, I personally like Ramos, Madureira, Skottie Young, and Bachalo. Also the Udon Crew concept work for Street Fighter was inspirational. Of course, we had a fairly clear approval process with Marvel Games HQ and we were in constant communication with them which helped us ‘stay on target’.

How has your experience of working on Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth differed from working on previous games? How has becoming an Art Director changed your understanding of how games are made?

B4E is a lot of ‘firsts for me’: the first Kinect game I have worked on, it’s also the first fighting game that I have done, also the first exposure to Gamebryo. There is always something to figure out with new process or a different game genre; from tech restrictions to design parameters and asset creation. Also, since this was my first kick at the ‘art director can’, I was exposed to a lot more aspects of production that I would previously not concern myself with, let alone, be responsible for.

Stepping into the AD role was an eye opener. When you’ve been in development long enough, you inherently gain an understanding of the process. I have also had the good fortune to work with many talented artists, leads and ADs on previous projects, and I have been able to tap into their collective knowledge, so, I don’t know that I have changed my understanding, but I am certainly more keenly aware of the dependencies within the asset creation process, more mindful of game design implications and more conscious of overall player/user experience. Perhaps the only thing that has or will change will be my understanding of my role.

Without violating any confidentiality agreements, what are some projects you are working on that fans can look out forward?

Vargas: Hmm, well, er… the answer, sadly, will have to wait till we can roll out more info.

Development Exclusive Interviews Online

A Q&A with Assassin’s Creed III Creative Director Alex Hutchinson

November 2, 2012 — by Nicholas Yanes

Alex Hutchinson is a current Creative Director of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed III. Prior to this, Hutchinson was a Creative Director of the Electronic Arts’ game, Army of Two: The 40th Day, a Lead Designer for Spore, Sims 2, and was a Co-Lead Designer on The Urbz: Sims in the City. From 2001 to 2003, he was a Designer and Design Director at the Australian company, Torus Games, where he worked on games such as The Invincible Iron Man. In addition to making videogames, Hutchinson has also written for industry publications such as Edge, Games, PC Zone, PlayNation, The Official PS2 Magazine, and others. He has also spoken about games at industry conferences such as D.I.C.E. Summit, GDC, E3, and others. Finally, Hutchinson has a BA in Archaeology and Classics, and a Masters of English and Writing; both from the University of Melbourne.

Gamesauce: You have probably met hundreds, if not thousands of people who wanted to get into the videogame industry. How did you first begin your career in this field?

Alex Hutchinson: I began as a writer in Australia, contributing articles to websites, magazines, whoever would run them, trying to focus on games and game issues. I figured if I couldn’t make them, I could at least write about them and learn something in the process. Then I was lucky enough that ‘designer’ became a more common job, and I started applying anywhere and everywhere, and was lucky enough to be given a shot at a small company in Australia.

You earned two degrees from the University of Melbourne. Neither your BA nor MA are in subjects specifically associated with videogame development, such as computer programming or graphic design. How do you feel your education has helped you in your career? Would you recommend a college education for anyone who wants to get into the videogame industry?

Remember there was no such thing as a degree in videogame development when I went to university! That said, I think that traditional courses that focus on art theory and production are perfect for aspiring artists, and general computer science degrees are perfect for aspiring game programmers; you can learn the specific tools and skills later. Start with a strong, practical base in the discipline you want. Writing was a huge help for me, in terms of learning structure, format, and having to produce and finish work. And bizarrely the degree in classical studies finally became useful on Assassin’s Creed!

Assassin’s Creed 3‘s protagonist, the half-English and half-Native American, Connor Kenway, birth name Ratonhnhaké:ton, running through tree tops.

Before discussing Assassin’s Creed III, I want to ask you about some of your previous games. You were a Level Designer on The Invincible Iron Man. What are some comic book superheroes that you would love to design a game around?

I think the trick would be to find a character whose core fantasy and abilities mapped to game mechanics cleanly: there are so many good ones, but I’d like to get out of the more popular guys. Maybe a Lobo game. Or DC’s the Demon. Or Jonah Hex [in] a weird Western game.

It has been over four years since Spore was released. What are some of things you learned about both creating videogames and the business of videogames while working on Spore?

I learned that trying to be truly original is incredibly difficult!

It was a huge project, and very ambitious, and I learned nobody will attempt something like it again. We set out to make this huge toy that played with creation and creativity, and I think in terms of the creation tools and the sharing, we made an amazing game. We didn’t get to where we wanted on the game part, but I’m immensely proud of the game. I learned that if there’s a gameplay clarity problem in an early concept, then this will translate most probably to a gameplay mechanics problem you can’t iterate your way out of, so fix it on paper first. And I learned that trying to be truly original is incredibly difficult!

Gunfight — Conner Kenway in pursuit and picking up a gun while running.

Army of Two: The 40th Day was the first game you were the Creative Director on. Did that position change the way you approached game development or selecting who you worked with?

Yeah, that was my first shot at the job. It was a new challenge because you move from designing mechanics and working almost solely with mission designers, or story and systems designers, to working with whole other departments that aren’t necessarily your strong suit. So there were departments, like animation or engineering, where I felt comfortable talking to the leads and directors, as I’d been more closely associated with them before on gameplay teams or wherever, and then there were departments, like sound, where it really wasn’t my strong suit. I had to learn a lot more about how they worked and what was important to them, and how I could talk to them in a way that would help them improve the overall game experience.

In terms of approach, it also meant I had to give more room to leads even in areas where I’d been doing that job before. So the lead design position, which was my old job, I had to learn to leave it in their capable hands and not interfere!

You are now the Creative Director for Assassin’s Creed 3. What were some of the aspects of the previous installments that drew you to this franchise?

But in a nutshell: people and the opportunity to try and make something amazing are the only things that attract me to projects these days!

It’s an amazing franchise. I love the focus on history, I love the desire to create a consistent and cohesive universe, and I love the talented people who work on it. It was a joy to come onto the franchise, followed by several years of incredibly hard work, but I’m very satisfied with the game we made. But in a nutshell: people and the opportunity to try and make something amazing are the only things that attract me to projects these days!

Assassin’s Creed 3 is set in North America between 1753 and 1783. What were some of the archives, materials, and people consulted to bring such a high level of historical accuracy to this game? Was there one historical figure or moment from this time period you really wanted to include in the game?

As with the other Assassin’s Creed installments, AC3 strives to immerse the player into the narrative’s period. This image highlights a character called The Carpenter.

We have historical advisors on call with different specialties, from revolutionary historians to cultural advisors. We gather huge amounts of references from paintings and drawings and maps from the period; we read all kinds of books and websites to gather facts; we watch movies and read historical novels to find exciting fantasies. All that takes about six months [and] while we’re simultaneously trying to draw the big picture of the game we’re trying to make, we essentially force the core team through a crash course in whatever historical setting we chose. And we included as much historical detail as possible, from Ben Franklin and George Washington to Valley Forge and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Is anyone at Ubisoft hoping for a History professor or teacher to use Assassin’s Creed III in an American History course?

It would be very rewarding if a course used it as an example of the look and feel and everyday life of the period (minus the assassin, of course). We spent so much time and money trying to get it right, that I think it’s the closest interactive recreation of this period yet made.

GS: One aspect of the game that I am looking forward to is the naval portion of it. What were some of the challenges you encountered when creating a system to replicate 18th century naval combat?

The biggest one was just how slow it is in real life versus how slow we could make the ships turn before it stopped being fun in a game context. I think we nailed the overall feeling though, giving you the emotion of these epic vessels, without compromising on the reality too much. The water the guys created is also a technical marvel; we can literally scale up or down the Beaufort levels to simulate everything from calm seas to raging storms. It’s incredible.

Naval Combat — The naval combat aspect of AC3, new to the franchise, is possibly the most ambitious maritime combat to date in gaming.

There were some recent articles reporting that you were concerned about the future of AAA games. How would you like to see the gaming industry develop? Do you feel there is something missing that game developers should try to better include in their games?

No, I just think the industry is evolving, the same way it has for decades: popularity for certain experiences rise and fall, tastes change, the business model changes, the platforms change. I’ve been doing this long enough now to have seen several console transitions pass by, several predictions of the end of the industry fail to materialize, and several versions of ‘the future of the industry’ crash and burn. Quality is the only reliable indicator of the chance to succeed, and content is king as it always has been. AAA quality will be around forever, but the platforms will continue to change.

Video Coverage

Smart Bomb’s Clark Stacey on Children’s Games, Building a Franchise, and the business of Casual Game Development

November 1, 2012 — by Nicholas Yanes

SBI-exec-team — Smart Bomb Interactive Executives (from left to right): Jeff Amis, VP of Product Development; Kris Johnson, Studio Director & COO; and Clark Stacey, CEO

With a career starting in 1995, Stacey has pushed his company to develop innovative technologies and approaches to game design. As a student at the University of Utah in the early 90s majoring in English, Philosophy, and Classics, Stacey thought that his “career path lay through academia.” After becoming involved with the videogame industry in 1992, Stacey says “[I] switched my energies to games entirely in 1995; primarily because I saw in them an emerging medium for storytelling. I still see games that way.” This switch led to Stacey working at Beyond Games, where he was involved in the production of BattleWheels, Hot Wheels: Velocity X and more. Stacey then became the President and CEO of Colbalt Interactive in 1999. At Colbalt, he worked with Quaker Oats to create the game, “Cap’n Crunch’s Crunchling Adventure,” which was distributed in 7 million cereal boxes. Now, Clark Stacey is the CEO and President of Smart Bomb Interactive.

We were recently able to speak with him about his background, his experiences in the gaming industry, and his approach to creating gaming franchises.

Building Smart Bomb Interactive

“It was a process of ruthless self-assessment, and cutting away everything that didn’t fit with the new direction.”

Stacey eventually wanted to move towards console development in the early 2000s so much that he helped found Smart Bomb Interactive; producing popular games such as the Bee Movie Game, Snoopy vs. The Red Baron, and Pacman World Rally. However, a few short years later, it was decided to revamp the company’s strategies. When reflecting on this decision to change Smart Bomb’s direction, Stacey recounts that “the second genesis was in many ways more challenging than the first. We wanted to focus on free-to-play, creating our own IP,…it was a process of ruthless self-assessment, and cutting away everything that didn’t fit with the new direction.” Additionally, Smart Bomb Interactive not only developed Bombshell, a powerful engine and toolset for the creating interactive entertainment, it also produced the hugely popular and free-to-play Animal Jam.

Finding Success & Animal Jam

Animal-Jam-Management-Team — “The appeal of Animal Jam is amalgamated from the talents that make it, from the art team that has defined its unique look, to the community team that talks to our players, and the project directors who steer the whole ship.”

When asked about Animal Jam’s creation and popularity, Stacey went into great depths about how:

“We started with an idea of the core fantasy we wanted to provide — become your favorite animals and explore a new world through their eyes. Animal Jam has had a few extraordinary advantages in its evolution, but the principle ones are time and talent. Our investors gave us the time to engage with our audience and find the right dials to adjust to make the world commercially successful. But the appeal of Animal Jamis amalgamated from the talents that make it, from the art team that has defined its unique look, to the community team that talks to our players, and the project directors who steer the whole ship.”

Animal Jam’s popularity is in part due to it being collaborative project between Smart Bomb and National Geographic. When asked about this partnership, Stacey said “National Geographic has a mission to inspire people to care about the planet. Their interest in Animal Jam is as a tool to accomplish that mission.”

“Games are a storytelling medium, and without characters, you don’t have a story.”

A significant sign of Animal Jam’s popularity is not that it is just associated with National Geographic, but that fans have made the effort to add to this world on their own. “We have these great characters we’ve created — the Alphas, but until now the player has had very little interaction with them. And what we found was that the kids stepped in to the vacuum of our narrative and started supplying back story themselves. We’ve seen tons of blogs and artwork and YouTube videos creating what amounts to Animal Jam fan fiction around the Alphas.” This incredible display by its fan base supports Stacey’s belief that “Games are a storytelling medium, and without characters, you don’t have a story.”

Animal-Jam-Banner — “Children haven’t changed, but the ways they spend their time have…At times they seem incredibly sophisticated and technically savvy, but we have to remember they still need a safe place to play.”

Animal Jam’s success is also proof that Stacey understands his games’ main audience: children. As Stacey said:

“Children haven’t changed, but the ways they spend their time have. Now they spend more time per day in front of an interactive screen than a non-interactive one, and that imparts a tremendous responsibility to those of us providing the interactivity. But socially and developmentally, kids are still kids. At times they seem incredibly sophisticated and technically savvy, but we have to remember they still need a safe place to play.”

Advice For New Developers

Thinking of what he had learned through his experiences, Stacey reflected on the times when an entire team had to be laid off. “It is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, perhaps because the second hardest thing is to put that team together in the first place,” says Stacey. “I’ve learned that complete transparency with the team is vital in good times and bad. People have a right to know how the company they are striving for is doing. They need to know how their contributions are contributing to our success, and if there’s bad news, it should never come as a surprise out of the blue.”

Stacey also believes that start-ups need a community manager from the beginning; stating, “Hire a great community manager while you’re still in development, hook them in to the development process, and listen to them. Your community team isn’t something you add at launch to take support calls - it is the voice of your audience…” while you’re starting off.

The Future Smart Bomb Interactive

In specific regards to Animal Jam’s future, Stacey stated that “Over the course of the next few months, the Alpha characters will come to play a much larger role both in Animal Jam and in the media channels that surround and support it.” Also, fans of Smart Bomb Interactive can look forward to the release of Sky Legends. This browser-based, free-to-play game centers on flight combat with a wide arrange of customizable elements and nearly endless re-playability. And with Smart Bomb’s track record, it is most likely going to be another hit game.

News Video Coverage

Sana Choudary discusses Get-in-the-Game Competition Winner RunWilder

September 19, 2012 — by Nicholas Yanes

As developers jump ship from jobs as game designers, producers, and developers at large game and film companies to start their own gaming startups, the competition for funding, partnerships and publishing deals are fierce. Accelerators, such as YetiZen’s Get-In-The-Game Competition are one way for developers to get their foot in the door.

With over 350 applicants for every round, only the top 1 percent is accepted

Having five minutes to pitch their concept (followed by four minutes of Q&A), this year’s winning startup was determined by a team of four judges. Joining Sana Choudary, YetiZen’s CEO, at the judging table was Michael Chang, the current Senior Director of Corporate Development at Electronic Arts; Suleman Ali, the cofounder of TinyCo; and Harry Liu, the current head of three incredibly successful games at Kabam – The Godfather: Five Families, EdgeWorld, and Final Eden.

The five competitors were Press Start Studios, Stomp, Popover, RunWilder, and Strange Loop. Each of five finalist startups were judged on the innovation, the clarity of their business model, their businesses exit plans, and the potential for success (such as current revenues, installs, or industry acclaim).

Scalable gaming startups

An important aspect that all the judges were looking for is what Choudary describes as “scalable gaming startups rather than lifestyle gaming businesses.”

The reason for this is that, as Choudary illuminates, a “lifestyle gaming business would be a team that wants to keep making games perpetually. They just love making games, they want to keep making games forever and ever as a cash flow and revenue business, without any interest in ever exiting for a higher than revenue multiple through being bought out by another larger company or in some cases an IPO. Lifestyle gaming businesses are not the ones investors or YetiZen Accelerator works with as there is no opportunity a return on the investment.”

Though all of the competitors presented carefully planned and executed startups, RunWilder was the winner of the third Get-in-the-Game Competition.

Characters Born on Mobile

With the conceptual foundation of RunWilder’s company being “Characters Born on Mobile,” it was committed to establishing a franchise that would not only do well on casual gaming platforms, but could also easily expand to other forms of media. Additionally, due to RunWilder already having found success with a beer-drinking and burger-eating character named Ozgood, Choudary observed that RunWilder had established “a character-driven IP, a lovable gaming character that you interact with as he goes about his world. Ozgood easily lends himself to many fascinating and interesting story narratives and is different from anything else we’ve seen out there.”

“Ozgood easily lends himself to many fascinating and interesting story narratives and is different from anything else we’ve seen out there.”

Choudary notes that despite the judges not seeing all of RunWilder’s ideas as potentially viable, it was obvious that the “the team itself was very committed and sharp” and had definitely thought about “building a social mobile brand rather than just a stand-alone game.”

In addition to having solid business plans for their games, they had a clearly distinct visual style that could easily draw and keep an audience’s attention. As Choudary stated, “when you look at [RunWilder’s] artwork and design, they actually have [a] very high level of motion graphics integration that intertwines illusion and reality seamlessly, so when you give Ozgood beer and he starts going crazy, he looks very lifelike and hilarious at the same time.”

RunWilder’s victory in this year’s competition is a significant step forward, but it is important to highlight that in the competitive field of casual gaming, there is always more work to do. As Choudary made clear, “RunWilder was chosen as they have the most unique IP from all the finalists and applicants. The animations and story line are unparalleled to those of avatar-based startup IPs we have seen.”

“The animations and story line are unparalleled to those of avatar-based startup IPs we have seen.”

Winning Is Just The Beginning

However, this opportunity does not mean they’ve won the lottery, they still have a little bit of a way to go. As Choudary explains, Runwilder has entered “YetiZen’s due diligence process and are being assessed for their business and strategy viability. If they pass our due diligence phase they will be admitted into the March 2013 round. Do wish them luck!”

For RunWilder, this “due diligence process” means that they will be more closely examined on multiple areas such as team, overall execution and progress post to gauge the company’s future prospects. If YetiZen’s previous success stories are any indication, it seems that they have a great future ahead of them if they pass YetiZen’s due diligence and are accepted in the March 2013 round.

About Yetizen’s Get-in-the-Game Competition

The Get-in-the-Game Competition is a life-changing opportunity for gaming entrepreneurs because it gives up-and-coming game creators the chance to present their ideas to notable game industry CEOs and investors to help fundraising and business development efforts.

Get-in-the-Game Competition give up-and-coming game creators the chance to present to notable game industry CEOs and investors.

The only games-focused accelerator in existence, YetiZen focuses on helping post-product and traction gaming startups strengthen their marketing, distribution, monetization and overall company strategy while connecting them with the largest network early stage investors, Venture Capitalists and strategic investors and acquirers committed to games.

Designed around a four-pillar system, this system has already produced a significant number of successful startups—examples include Bleacher League, a play by play sports betting app that has an exclusive partnership with Comcast Sports; Spyra Games, a mobile gaming studio that achieved top 10 in US strategy games; and Frenzoo, creator specializing in creating 3D lifestyle and fashion games for women whose last game Style Me girl had 1M downloads in 10 days after launch and reached #1 RPG in the US and over 20 countries on iOS, as well as #1 overall game on Kindle Fire.

This year, Casual Connect Seattle had the opportunity to host YetiZen’s third Get-in-the-Game Competition, and Casual Connect followed up about this year’s competition with YetiZen’s CEO, Sana Choudary.

According to Choudary, YetiZen has always enjoyed Casual Connect for the content as well as the opportunity to connect with the best developers in the industry. YetiZen had been looking for an opportunity to work with the Casual Gaming Association and observed that a competition at Casual Connect Seattle would be a great opportunity for YetiZen to streamline its efforts to look for the best gaming startups at Casual Connect. In addition to wanting to gain a better understanding of causal gamers, YetiZen also used this opportunity to have their Get-in-the-Game event at this year’s convention in Seattle.

Video Coverage

Spiderweb Software’s Jeff Vogel on getting started in the biz, getting on Steam and using storytelling in videogames

September 10, 2012 — by Nicholas Yanes

The mid-1990s was a period of significant changes for the videogame industry. Arcades were beginning to decline as home console systems became more popular, the Nintendo NES would be discontinued in 1995, and computer games were increasing in popularity. Specifically, 1994 saw id Software’s Doom II: Hell on Earth and Bullfrog Production’s Theme Park become best-selling games at the time. 1994 was also the year Jeff Vogel founded Spiderweb Software while working towards a Masters in Applied Mathematics.

We recently had the opportunity to talk with Vogel about his love for the industry, what inspired him to create this company, his thoughts about making casual games, and what type of games he sees himself making in the future. (Sadly, no Spider-Man jokes came up. We are deeply sorry about this.)

Getting Started & Escaping Grad School

In 1994, Vogel was low on cash and dealing with the mental stress inflicted upon students by grad school, and decided to create a videogame to relieve stress and maybe earn some cash. It was a decision that would lead to the creation of Spiderweb Software. “I wrote my first game as a way of maintaining my sanity during grad school, and I released it in the hope of earning pizza money,” Vogel said when asked about the creation of Spiderweb Software, “I really didn’t have any plans. I still don’t. I just write games, release them, and hope they sell.”

“I have the rare gift of being able to do for a living what I dreamed of doing when I was a child.”

His first game was 1995’s Exile I: Escape from the Pit. It sold so well that he dropped out of grad school and committed to teaching himself programming. His decision to pursue a career in the videogame industry is not one that he takes for granted. “I was fascinated by video games from when I first played them over thirty years ago,” this lifelong fan said, before immediately acknowledging how fortunate he is to have made a career in this industry, “I have the rare gift of being able to do for a living what I dreamed of doing when I was a child.”

Learning About the Industry

After Exile I, Vogel went on to finish two more installments of the Exile series, and create the Avernum series, Blades of Exile, Blades of Avernum, the Geneforge series, and Nethergate.

Even after this success, Vogel’s humble. He still sees himself as the head of a “little indie company” and “probably the wrong person to ask about anything real industry people do.”

When asked what game design component he thinks is often neglected during development, he professionally responded “Not sure, really. I think games tend to be very well-designed, overall. But there are a million things that can go wrong implementing even the best design.”

“There are a million things that can go wrong implementing even the best design.”

Another element of Vogel’s success stems from the value he gives his audience. While he remains the driving force behind the games he develops, he always takes into consideration what potential customers might want. “Because there are a million choices to make in writing a game, and the answers are rarely obvious,” Vogel said. “When given two roughly equivalent paths to take, knowing who you are writing the game for can provide guidance.”

Current and Future Projects

One of his most recent games is Avadon: The Black Fortress, which Vogel describes as an “indie fantasy RPG.” Though he acknowledges its low budget origins, he knows that writing and careful craftsmanship helped make it an indie hit. “We worked very hard on its storyline and gave it a lot of polish, with the hope of getting it onto Steam. We succeeded [and] I learned that a little polish goes along way.”

When asked what he thinks helped Avadon stand out from the crowd, Vogel places a particular amount of importance on the game’s storyline. “It’s actually detailed, epic, and heavily integrated into the game. We cared about it, and it shows.” And it’s this emphasis on narrative that seems to be Vogel’s and Spiderweb Software’s most important attribute. “If you’re going to have a story, you might as well make the extra effort to make it good. It takes about the same amount of time and work, and can only increase your fans’ fascination with your product.”

As for what future projects Spiderweb is producing, Vogel would only humorously state “I don’t have new ideas anymore. I’m too old. I plan a long, joyous run of more-of-the-same.” We doubt that this is true, but even if it is, we know that we can still look forward to some great games.

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