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Schilling, Salvatore, McFarlane Form Game Studio
simoniker writes "Baseball legend and avid MMO fan Curt Schilling is forming a new Boston-based video game company, Green Monster Games, with Spawn creator Todd McFarlane and noted sci-fi/fantasy author R.A. Salvatore. They're going to create what is described as 'industry-changing games'. Schilling, who is the pitcher for the World Series-winning Boston Red Sox, is already known for his online game interest (he is a long-time EverQuest/EverQuest II player), so is evidently extending this to form a video game developer."
McFarlane is reknowned for pushing the limits of art in all he does. When he first hit the comic scene on a grand scale doing Amazing Spiderman, he quite literally redefined the artist's role. Before him, only Art Adams had pushed the limits so much in the late 80's. Once McFarlane got too big for his britches, he left to do his own Spiderman series and finally off to Image to do Spawn. Once at Image, he did draw and write Spawn for a time until he became more interested in the business side of things, working towards a toy company (the premier action figure company in my opinion) with toys that were incredibly detailed on a level nearly unsurpassed. They are now the standard other figures are judged by today. He then moved into the realm of animation, with his hit Spawn cartoon and even doing some videos for the likes of Pearl Jam. His talent and business selse could really push the boundaries of in game art. However, as much as he would like to be, he is not the greatest write, but enter RA Salvatore and we have a very well respected Fantasy writer. The two merging their right brain talents really offers this start up most companies lacked. Artistic direction. The key will be in whom they hire and the types of games they are interested in developing.
I don't know much about the baseball legend, but having his name and money behind the project can't be a bad thing. Let's hope that this is not vaporware in the making, but that they do come out with at least one really hot and solid game, soon!
I had the opportunity to live with Salvatore's younger son last year. . . and while I didn't care for the kid, I've got to say that his dad is incredibly awesome. He nabbed us some free swag from Sony and promised to tweak any EQ chars we created - his kid's chars were evidence of this. So while I don't know a lot about the others, I can say that Salvatore's got some serious gamer cred. . . say what you will about his novels, the guy is good. We'll ignore Demonstone for now, Mr. S. :)
[Terribly witty statement]
In addition to Schilling's love of Everquest, he also started his own company to produce supplements/scenarios/modules for various tactical board games like Advanced Squad Leader. I wouldn't be surprised if one of this new company's first games is some sort of tactical combat ala Myth or a more traditional RTS game. Given Salvatore's involvement, it'd likely be some sort of Fantasy based venture.
If these guys can pull it off, great. We can always use another good, solid development house kicking games out. Unfortunately, there's still a world of difference between being an avid gamer and being a game developer, and a similar degree of difference between being an artist on paper and being an artist in three dimensions.
Does anyone else think a combination of baseball, MMOs, comics, and sci-fi/fantasy sounds exactly like the formula for every major publisher's current product lineup? That's not to say they might not make some very good games in these genres, but they're probably going to make games in roughly the same mold as, well, games.
When Henry Kissinger and Rikki Lake team up with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to make video games, we'll talk "industry-changing".
If two medical doctors can get together and form a successful company like Bioware then a baseball player, comic book legend and fantasy author should be able to do something other than sound like a bad geek-joke punchline. Best of luck to them as long as they can push out something good.