38 Studios co-founders R.A. Salvatore (left), Todd McFarlane (center) and Curt Schilling.
Tuesday will be an Opening Day of another sort for Curt Schilling.
Opening Day is a special moment in the life of any baseball player. It was no different for former Phillies, Diamondbacks and Red Sox ace Curt Schilling. One of the most dominant postseason pitchers in major league history, Schilling compiled an 11-2 playoff record during a career that spanned nearly a decade. But Opening Day was always special.
Tuesday will be an Opening Day of another sort for Schilling, who's love of video games led him to found 38 Studios with acclaimed comic book artist Todd McFarlane and best-selling author R.A. Salvatore. 38 Studios' debut project, "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning," a massive action role-playing game, finally arrives in stores this week after more than half a decade in development.
Last week, Schilling spoke to the Gazette's Jeff Rider about "Reckoning," 38 Studios and his love of gaming:
Jeff Rider: At what point after your playing career wrapped up did you decide to get into videogame development?
Curt Schilling: I actually opened the company about a year, year-and-a-half before I retired. The company opening in 2006 was a process that probably started in 1998, 1999. I've been a gamer my whole life, so when I started looking at my post-baseball career, this was something I had always wanted to do.
JR: You've assembled quite the all-star team to join you at 38 Studios in Todd MacFarlane and R.A. Salvatore. Was that something you decided early on, that if you were going to enter this field, you were going to do it with some of the biggest names out there?
CS: It is a fantasy baseball team kinda thing. But it's not always about getting the best names. Yes, these two guys are worldwide leaders in their fields, which is awesome, but there had to be some substance behind it. I had known Todd for quite a few years and I got to know R.A. before we asked them to come in, but, you know, who they are and what they do and the kind of people that they are kind of validates why they are as good as they are at what they do.
I played a sport where, every year there was a lot of teams on paper that should win the World Series. And in this industry, I'm sure there are a lot of teams, on paper, that should be doing far better than they are. My goal has always been to have the expectations be exceeded by the production. You've got to get special people to do that.
JR: As a baseball player, and particularly as a pitcher, scouting your opponents is key to success. Did you take a similar approach to game development, playing other games to see what worked and what didn't?
CS: That's actually a really good question because that's exactly what I did. In late 1999, going into 2000, 2001, I was a big "EverQuest" player. Sony found out that I was a big "EverQuest" player and I developed a really good relationship with Sony Online Entertainment, and that was my first real insight and look into the industry. I took that approach with everything, I visited companies and talked with people extensively for years before I did this, and at every turn I was taking notes, the same way I did in baseball. I wanted to have a firm understanding of what this industry was about, what the playing field looked like, what the competitors looked like from the ground up. That was my approach.
So when I started the company, I had some of these basic fundamental understandings of what I believed was good and bad in the industry, and I think what people's perceptions of what was good and bad in the industry both were.
JR: Creatively, how much input did you have in the early stages of "Reckoning's" development?
CS: Initially a lot. There was probably a core group of 7 or 8 guys that were tasked with [developing the basic ideas] and we probably drew up and fleshed the outline for about a year before we had a chance to get in front of R.A. and Todd and pitch them and kind of have them take it and bring it to life.
JR: At any point in the process of developing "Reckoning" were you worried about the decision to take on the role-playing genre, especially for your first product?
CS: Every single day, every single day. I've had a lot of times over the last five years where I looked back and said, 'My goodness, why didn't I just do a 2D side-scrolling web-based game.' But those aren't the games I play. And if I was going to put my time and money and effort into a company to make entertainment, it was going to be entertainment I wanted to enjoy. So an MMO in a fantasy setting was kind of a natural first step. Plans changed once BHG [Big Huge Games] came online, but the thought has always been, I want to be a company full of gamers who makes games they want to play.
JR: You've been extremely visible during the development process and have really worked hard to promote the game leading up to its release. It's clear you're passionate about the game -- do you think the passion you shown toward the game will influence people to try it for themselves?
CS: At the end of the day, maybe it will sell a few games, but our games are going to have to sell themselves. Our games will always have to sell themselves, and I think that's one of the strong points for us -- that passion that is hopefully being conveyed by me is rampant throughout the entire team. It's a special thing that we have, and it has to come out in our products, you have to feel it in our products.
Obviously I can help create awareness, but gamers aren't stupid. And I think they are offended by being talked down to and they're a smarter bunch than they were maybe 20, 30 years ago. You take that into account. At the end of the day, that's who we are. Yes we're a company making video games, but in a lot of ways we're the exact same people that post on those forums. I did it when I played baseball, interacted with fans the same way because I was a fan long before I was a player in the big leagues and I was a gamer before I owned a gaming company. I know what gamers like me want, and one of those things is open, honest and accountable people.
JR: The recent announcement of free downloadable content for "Reckoning" available at launch was met with a rather negative response from a certain segment of gamers. Were you surprised at all by that reaction?
Opening Day is a special moment in the life of any baseball player. It was no different for former Phillies, Diamondbacks and Red Sox ace Curt Schilling. One of the most dominant postseason pitchers in major league history, Schilling compiled an 11-2 playoff record during a career that spanned nearly a decade. But Opening Day was always special.
Tuesday will be an Opening Day of another sort for Schilling, who's love of video games led him to found 38 Studios with acclaimed comic book artist Todd McFarlane and best-selling author R.A. Salvatore. 38 Studios' debut project, "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning," a massive action role-playing game, finally arrives in stores this week after more than half a decade in development.
Last week, Schilling spoke to the Gazette's Jeff Rider about "Reckoning," 38 Studios and his love of gaming:
Jeff Rider: At what point after your playing career wrapped up did you decide to get into videogame development?
Curt Schilling: I actually opened the company about a year, year-and-a-half before I retired. The company opening in 2006 was a process that probably started in 1998, 1999. I've been a gamer my whole life, so when I started looking at my post-baseball career, this was something I had always wanted to do.
JR: You've assembled quite the all-star team to join you at 38 Studios in Todd MacFarlane and R.A. Salvatore. Was that something you decided early on, that if you were going to enter this field, you were going to do it with some of the biggest names out there?
CS: It is a fantasy baseball team kinda thing. But it's not always about getting the best names. Yes, these two guys are worldwide leaders in their fields, which is awesome, but there had to be some substance behind it. I had known Todd for quite a few years and I got to know R.A. before we asked them to come in, but, you know, who they are and what they do and the kind of people that they are kind of validates why they are as good as they are at what they do.
I played a sport where, every year there was a lot of teams on paper that should win the World Series. And in this industry, I'm sure there are a lot of teams, on paper, that should be doing far better than they are. My goal has always been to have the expectations be exceeded by the production. You've got to get special people to do that.
JR: As a baseball player, and particularly as a pitcher, scouting your opponents is key to success. Did you take a similar approach to game development, playing other games to see what worked and what didn't?
CS: That's actually a really good question because that's exactly what I did. In late 1999, going into 2000, 2001, I was a big "EverQuest" player. Sony found out that I was a big "EverQuest" player and I developed a really good relationship with Sony Online Entertainment, and that was my first real insight and look into the industry. I took that approach with everything, I visited companies and talked with people extensively for years before I did this, and at every turn I was taking notes, the same way I did in baseball. I wanted to have a firm understanding of what this industry was about, what the playing field looked like, what the competitors looked like from the ground up. That was my approach.
So when I started the company, I had some of these basic fundamental understandings of what I believed was good and bad in the industry, and I think what people's perceptions of what was good and bad in the industry both were.
JR: Creatively, how much input did you have in the early stages of "Reckoning's" development?
CS: Initially a lot. There was probably a core group of 7 or 8 guys that were tasked with [developing the basic ideas] and we probably drew up and fleshed the outline for about a year before we had a chance to get in front of R.A. and Todd and pitch them and kind of have them take it and bring it to life.
JR: At any point in the process of developing "Reckoning" were you worried about the decision to take on the role-playing genre, especially for your first product?
CS: Every single day, every single day. I've had a lot of times over the last five years where I looked back and said, 'My goodness, why didn't I just do a 2D side-scrolling web-based game.' But those aren't the games I play. And if I was going to put my time and money and effort into a company to make entertainment, it was going to be entertainment I wanted to enjoy. So an MMO in a fantasy setting was kind of a natural first step. Plans changed once BHG [Big Huge Games] came online, but the thought has always been, I want to be a company full of gamers who makes games they want to play.
JR: You've been extremely visible during the development process and have really worked hard to promote the game leading up to its release. It's clear you're passionate about the game -- do you think the passion you shown toward the game will influence people to try it for themselves?
CS: At the end of the day, maybe it will sell a few games, but our games are going to have to sell themselves. Our games will always have to sell themselves, and I think that's one of the strong points for us -- that passion that is hopefully being conveyed by me is rampant throughout the entire team. It's a special thing that we have, and it has to come out in our products, you have to feel it in our products.
Obviously I can help create awareness, but gamers aren't stupid. And I think they are offended by being talked down to and they're a smarter bunch than they were maybe 20, 30 years ago. You take that into account. At the end of the day, that's who we are. Yes we're a company making video games, but in a lot of ways we're the exact same people that post on those forums. I did it when I played baseball, interacted with fans the same way because I was a fan long before I was a player in the big leagues and I was a gamer before I owned a gaming company. I know what gamers like me want, and one of those things is open, honest and accountable people.
JR: The recent announcement of free downloadable content for "Reckoning" available at launch was met with a rather negative response from a certain segment of gamers. Were you surprised at all by that reaction?
CS: I played 10 years in Philly and five years in Boston, so I've taken my share of flak. I don't want to say I was surprised; I was caught off-guard by the volume of passion. Because at the end of the day, it's free content for the gamers in the world who commit to us. It's different for us, right? I mean, we're a new company with a new IP, so we're asking more from players than other companies are. We're asking for a lot of trust, because in the economy that we live in, players and gamers and everybody have to be a little bit more wary how they spend their entertainment dollar.
With the strength of the game releases over the last 8 months and going forward the next 8 months, people are going to be picky and choosy.
I was surprised that the opinion was the opposite of the intent. The intent was to reward players for making a commitment to us before they really knew what we were about. But it didn't come off that way. There's nothing I can do or say to change their opinions. Perception is reality in gamers minds, and there's nothing I can do to change that. But hopefully players will see that it isn't some nefarious scheme to get them to give us more money.
JR: "Reckoning" is entering an already crowded genre at a time when many gamers are still digging through "Skyrim." Are you concerned at all about releasing an RPG now given the current landscape of the genre?
CS: In all honesty, you have to release at some point. I mean, we were inititially slated to launch late last year, in September. And once we saw the competitive window, we decided ... EA recommended and again, it was another call that they made that I think initially I was opposing that turned out to be right, and they've done that time and time again, and that was another one. This is a great window because I think that whole 'window' thing is horribly overplayed in some instances. Because again, being a gamer my whole life, short of MMOs I don't remember the last game I played months and months and months on end. I mean, my window of time is not that big.
At the end of the day, you have to release sometime. I guess I would tell you, you didn't not go see a great science fiction movie because you saw "Star Wars." Great games are going to sell themselves. That's why I think the post-launch life of this game is going to be as strong, if not stronger, than the launch day, launch week energy because I believe once players start playing the game and once the depth is out there for people to talk about, this game is going to go ballistic.
JR: I've heard some criticism directed toward the perceived lack of originality in "Reckoning," that it borrows a bit too heavily from other games out there. Is that a fair assessment?
CS: There are touches of all your favorite RPGs in there, but we actually put whole, full-fledged effort into fleshing those things out. Look at our combat system; yeah it's a little bit like "God of War", sure, but once you realize the depth of the combat system, which takes time, you realize that there's a lot of passion and love in there.
JR: Now that the job of creating "Reckoning" is complete, what part of the process are you most proud of?
CS: The cohesion of the team. The Baltimore team ... this game has been in the works for almost seven years. That studio went through immense amounts of adversity from a lot of different things. There were days where I'm sure it looked dire down there, but through all of it they stuck together, the true loyal people down there stuck together and the game is a testament to that. That makes me proud beyond words that they did that. And this is the end result.
Luckily they looked at none of my feature requests. I think initially I had some commentary on it and I sent some quote-unquote recomendations down there, but I got rebuttals and replies that made far more sense then my feature requests. This game, when we came in we added the lore to it and the story and some of the gameplay, but this was the Baltimore studios baby.
JR: You've mentioned your love of MMO's like "EverQuest." Is that an arena you could see 38 Studios entering in the future?
CS: The Providence studio, we've been working on an MMO in the Amalur universe for over five years now. That was the original product this company was going to launch with. Yes, there's an MMO due out after Reckoning at some point based on the same Amalur universe and there will be ties between the products.
JR: What about projects outside the Amalur universe? Have you begun to think about what the next big project might be for 38 Studios?
CS: We're a company of almost 400 people, so if I want to keep all of these pepole employed, and because that's the intent -- I didn't hire two studios full of people to kick them out the door and move on -- you can imagine to keep paying people we're going to have to be doing multiple things. We're focused on Reckoning and Amalur right now, which is where we have to be, but we've always been looking outside that IP and what we can do.
JR: Any chance we see 38 Studios tackle a baseball game?
CS: I would say the chances are probably slim to none. I tell everybody I played the game for a living, so there's a lot less interest on my part. Plus it's one of the sports that you could never make the game as hard as the real life thing. So no, not really.
JR: And one last baseball question. You become eligible for the baseball Hall of Fame next year. Have you thought about what that honor might mean to you?
CS: Honestly, I talked to Tom Verducci at SI [Sports Illustrated] yesterday and told him the same thing. Until people ask me about it, I don't give it one thought. I'm proud of the career I was privildged to be a part of, I'm proud of what I did on the field. And if that gets me elected to the Hall of Fame, that would be fantastic. If it doesn't, my life is absolutely consumed with my wife and my four kids and my company and my faith. So if it happens, awesome, but it's not something I thing a minute thinking about elsewise.
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