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How a Quake 3 Mod Team Turned Into a Successful Studio
Paul Williams writes "Develop Magazine has an interesting profile up looking at UK studio Splash Damage, charting its humble beginnings as a Quake 3 mod team through to its status as one of Britain's leading studios — it's currently developing a new game for Bethesda. Most interesting is the assertion by studio founder Paul Wedgwood that UK studios should shake off their low-rent reputation and start modeling their businesses on the likes of Valve, id, and the other envied American independents: 'We'd been to the US and seen companies like Ritual, Gearbox and id, and to us it seemed like the game development industry was seen as better in the US. People sat in cool chairs in cool offices surrounded by action figures — it was nothing like the UK's approach, which was more like a workhouse.'"
"It was nothing like the UK's approach, which was more like a workhouse."
It's either the prison or the workhouse, consider yourself lucky. Now get back to work and don't you dare open your gob about having another bowl of porridge, laddie!
"If you don't beat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't beat yer meat!"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
It was plagued by bad launch decisions though -- no VOIP, in game advertising (which seems to be gone), somewhat outdated graphics, poor performance, etc. Not to mention that the trailers and advertising portrayed the game as a gritty futuristic shooter, whereas in reality it is actually a fairly humorous run-and-gun. (Like the original Enemy Territory)
These have mostly been remedied by patches though. Really it has become a great game -- it remains fairly balanced while still providing a lot of variety between teams. Plus there is nothing more satisfying then calling down a giant orange laser from space onto a group of enemies :3
I'll have to give it to Splash Damage...they did an amazing job with Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (ETQW). I was a little skeptical about how it might turn out, seeing as how Splash Damage started off as a mod 'company', but I've been thoroughly impressed with their results. Their QA is what I'd expect from id software or even Blizzard. I definitely look forward to future titles from them.
I'm guessing they didn't visit EA.
Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory surpassed Doom II as my all time favorite game. I still find it more enjoyable than even newer games, like Doom III and it's spinoffs. The fact that these guys started as amateurs is amazing.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
All three of those companies are based in Texas and connected somehow to the culture of Apogee, shareware, Doom, and id...okay, so their company isn't Texas game developer culture...what is? I don't think that's a representative sample of developers for comparison. There's a definite "frat boy" geek attitude that permeated id from Doom to Quake II...more rock star than anything else. Romero and Carmack both redefined what it meant to be in games and game development.
I'd rather work in a "work house" 40-50 hours a week, than work some place that tries to hard to be "fun" to compensate for the fact you're working 60+ hours every week, and 80+ during the all too often "crunch time".
Does that include Rockstar? ;)
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
EA learned precisely what the oil companies did after Katrina -- that bad PR means squat, and they are free to act as they choose.
They can still hire all the game developers they want. Yeah, yeah, whine all you want about the "quality" of the developers they hire. Quality isn't an immediate column in a spread sheet. No one who matters is going to say "Our games didn't sell because we hired the cheap developers," even if it's true. Especially if it's true.
The EA Widow took a mighty shot, and God bless her for it. But the lesson EA took away from it was that they were actually immune from those kinds of shots.
From the rumors I hear, things are worse than ever.