Aaron: [00:00:00] This week's episode is brought to you by
Amber Studio, your
creative development
Warren: partner. I want players saying stuff like, wasn't it cool when, when you freed that prisoner from the prison under UNATCO Ed, and another player says, what prison? That's the one for me, but think about it. Most other games, I'm overstating a little bit, but just to make the point.
Okay, no filters time. I hate games that are like, you're standing on the edge of a chasm, and you have to get to the other side, and you leap across the chasm and you barely catch on by your fingertips and you look up and there's a Tyrannosaurus Rex looking down, and you've got a gun in your hand and you shoot him in the mouth, and you climb up and then you're on the other side.
And another player says, yeah, that was cool. Like screw that. It's interactive in that you have to, you have to show some twitch skills, I guess. And you have to, you have to outsmart the designer. But what I want is I'm not jumping across that chasm. I'm going to [00:01:00] find another way. I mean, one of the rules in my games is there's always another way.
Alex: That was the Warren Spector talking about how he makes games, the things that he values in, in the games that he makes. Uh, I think he sums it up as player choice. I remember spending time at his studio junction point in Austin when I was at Disney and that he had player choice. Drawn on, uh, on the wall in that, in the Mickey Mouse, the Disney Mickey Mouse font.
Um, as he was, as he was making epic Mickey, I thought that was, I thought it was very cool. Like he definitely has a, um, like a playbook and he's very passionate about it. And, uh, one of the fathers of immersive sim games. Um, they're really great to reconnect. I haven't talked to Warren in a while. Really great to reconnect.
He is, he is just such a. Um, great person. Um, yeah, it's such a great game maker too. It's just a lot of classics. [00:02:00] I got to know him a little bit when we worked together. I didn't even know that he had worked at TSR. Uh, back in the day.
Aaron: Did you know he had a giant library
Alex: of car magazines? He had told me about his collection and I, I remember having a conversation with him about fire insurance or something like that.
Okay. Those, those. Oh, because of the magazines? Yes. Yeah. That's true. Okay. It's great to spend some time. Um, how are you doing? What's hap what's happening? I'm
Aaron: good. Well, I wanted to say, you said, I haven't, I haven't talked to Warren in a long time and neither have I. So I met Warren. During the Half Life 2 era, when he was making, when they were working on the, the Sonic, huh?
Alex: Early Junction Point, when they were working on, uh,
Aaron: yeah. And he doesn't remember me, and that's okay. Because like, I've, I've met him for like three minutes, and I'll tell you, I really flubbed that interview. I was doing really good. I met, you know, You, you were
Alex: interviewing for a,
Aaron: uh, Uh, a as an animator on one of their halflife, uh, okay.
Projects that they were doing. And I was super stoked. Uh, [00:03:00] and this is just after a claim had shut down. So I, and okay, and by the way, I didn't get this gig and that's actually how I ended up meeting you. Oh my goodness.
Warren: Yeah.
Aaron: Letter is butterfly effect. Thank goodness. .
Alex: So we, my life would be so different.
This podcast would not exist. So, uh, I would have, I would have asked
Aaron: somebody else like my doppelganger, like evil Aaron. So hold on. So I'm going to tell you about the interview because I'm going to tell you how I messed it up. And I saw it on his face. I, he, his face, he speaks with his face. He's one of those persons that you, that you look at him.
Very expressive. Yeah. You could tell when he's like happy or when he's not happy or when he's upset or whatever. I'm assuming. Cause like just even talking to him. And we're in the interview and I go through like, you know, you do this, the steps you go through, like you meet the engineer, you meet the, you know, the part of the producer and you're meeting all these people and like anywhere on the chain, if somebody doesn't like you, you, they'll probably just send you home.
So I get to Warren, the final [00:04:00] boss, you know, and Warren sits down with me and he's super friendly and we're, and we're, and I'm a plusing it. And the interview is about to end. Oh, no. And he's like. He's like, Hey, so what are you playing these days? And I had just gotten animal crossing and I've never played animal crossing before, you know, like really played it and had just got it for the Ds.
And I had just played it like the night or two before. And in the game there's this mechanic, right? And the mechanic is, you get turnips from, uh, nook and you use those turnips to like, you know, upgrade. You know, you get, and they, they actually have a value too. They have like a, they're like stock or whatever, they can like go up or down.
And he says to me, and I didn't, I hadn't gotten to that part of the game. So I didn't really know like. That mechanic. And he goes, Hey, so what are your turnips at? He, cause he was playing it too. And I was like, turnips? Like what the hell? Like I made a face like turnips and his face just dropped, [00:05:00] dude. And I'm like, Oh, yeah.
So. So, Warren, I didn't want to say anything, but I, yeah, yeah, anyways, it was my fault. I should have played a little bit more, shouldn't have brought up Animal Crossing, uh, but I think that's why, maybe that's why, because I mean, if I was interviewing someone and I'm like, Hey, what are you playing these days?
And it's like Counter Strike. And it's like, Oh yeah. Do you like counter terrorists or terrorists? And they're like, terrorists? You know, I'd be like, this person doesn't play games, get him out of my face, get him out of here, you jackal bean. Anyways, that happened. So I have met him once. And I had friends that worked there and yeah, that was in Austin, but great interview, by the way, regardless.
Like, I'm very like, I didn't know the TSR stuff either. I thought that was cool.
Alex: Yeah. Um, so stick around. We had a great conversation with Warren. Um, this weekend I went down to TwitchCon for the first time. I'd never been to TwitchCon before. Oh, hey. And yeah, and it's, um. Were people there? What do you mean where people are there?
It was packed. What do you mean?
Aaron: No, but where people like where it's a streaming thing, where there are people [00:06:00] streaming in, like where there's streams going everywhere.
Alex: Couple of unique things about, uh, TwitchCon. And, uh, just so folks know this, this is like Twitch's annual, uh, convention. Streamers, content creators go down there.
There's a lot of advertisers that go to this as well. The Twitch team is there. We're doing a game with Twitch called The Glitch, which just is coming out. Uh, and that we had a booth there. I don't know if I said, I said, Oh, we had a booth. I didn't know we had a, yeah, that's what the
Aaron: pictures are. Yeah. I remember that.
Okay.
Alex: Um, but, um, so it's, it's a, it's just a gathering of the community. It's a, it's. It was pretty awesome to be there in person with, um, you know, I, I know Twitch mostly for games, but Twitch is way more than just games. This is not an ad for Twitch. Yeah. People, people, people, people stream a lot of different stuff.
Like I was, I was on a panel. Yeah, that there's woodworking on Twitch. I was on a panel with, um, a woman who's a musician, uh, who performs on, on Twitch. Oh, that's cool. But [00:07:00] a lot of folks walking around with selfie sticks, live streaming as they kind of navigate their way around San Diego, which. You don't usually see that in the wild so much, but, uh,
Aaron: so yeah, that was fun.
Cool. I mean, I love San Diego. That's one of my favorite cities in the country.
Alex: Same, same. Yeah. All right. Well, um, thank you for joining us again this week. Hope you enjoy your conversation with more inspector. It's a good one. It's
Aaron: very good. You're going to, you know, by the way, if you want to know about game design, he said he has a lot of good nuggets in here.
I think there's at least 10 at least
Alex: there is. Yeah. All right. We'll count them up and we'll see you on the other side. Okay, listeners, today is a very special episode because we have someone very special to the industry, not just the industry, very special to me on the show, Mr. Warren Spector. Warren, I don't know if I ever told you this, um, and I don't know if you remember when before I came to Disney, you were already at [00:08:00] Disney and I came down to Austin, we had lunch together.
Um, and I very much remember, uh, that conversation that we had. Made a huge impact on me. A big part of the reason why I came and joined Disney. And I don't know if I ever told you that, but I wanted to say that to you. Cause it, it had, it's actually had a very profound impact on my life. I live in California now.
My kids are Californian. That wouldn't have happened. Um, so thank you. Should I say, I'm sorry. Yeah, no regrets, no regrets. I'm very happy with how things have gone, but. This is about you. Wait,
Aaron: hold on. Was that, was that Epic Mickey? Was Epic Mickey going on at that point?
Warren: That, that would have been when I was working on Epic Mickey.
Yeah. Yeah. That was the first thing I did
Alex: for Disney. It was, um, I think it was very shortly after Disney acquired Junction Point. I think that's when. Yeah, so I think the studio was probably still small, I'm guessing, at
Warren: that time. 2007, I think we were [00:09:00] 13 people.
Alex: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they, they trusted
Warren: us with the keys to the kingdom with, uh, with, with Nikki.
It was pretty, it was in fact,
Alex: completely crazy. It was, some may say it was epic. Um, okay. Oh, this is, yeah, sorry. This is, we have to, we have, there's going to be a lot of that Warren, I think, cause we're, we're full of puns, but, um, uh, you got, now I, I did some research. I didn't know this. I didn't know you worked at both Steve Jackson games and TSR.
Is that right? Like back in the early days. Yeah. And I just, I just learned that that's, That stands for tactical studies rules. That's what TSR stands for.
Warren: Yeah. That's what, what Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson called it back in the day. But it was, nobody wanted to say that mouthful. So it just turned into TSR by the time I got there.
Alex: Yeah. Better, better branding. Um, We got [00:10:00] into games at Origin Systems in 89, working on, and listen to this folks, uh, what a string of franchises here, Ultima, Wing Commander, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, nice t shirt Warren, um, and you'll have to correct me if I get this wrong, that when, because System Shock was looking glass, right?
Yeah, but published by origin. Yes. And so were you, did you start on system shock at origin and then eventually you were part of looking glass?
Warren: Yeah. My relationship with, with looking glass was interesting. Um, well, I was at, at origin until, until thief, actually, uh, I was, uh, working with looking glass as an external studio and my official title was, was producer.
But, uh, I always, I always like to describe myself as a creative producer because I can't keep my fingers out of the [00:11:00] pie. And so I worked with the team on a pretty much daily basis, uh, but all credit to the, the System Shock team and the Underworld teams, uh, for, for doing that, that, uh, amazing work. Um, got to work with, uh, a great group, uh, on all of those projects.
And all of them were in fact led by a guy named Doug Church, uh, who is a secret master of gaming. No one knows him. I've been trying to make him famous for, you know, 30 years and he won't let me. Um, but he was, he was kind of the, the creative force. Uh, behind those games. And, uh, you know, even though I'm 10 years older than him, uh, we're still friends, but he was one of my mentors.
Uh, you know, I've, I've been lucky enough to have, have, uh, three people that I've just learned, uh, so much from. It was, uh, Steve Jackson, uh, from whom I got my undergraduate degree in game design. Uh, [00:12:00] Richard Garriott, uh, who was my, my grad school, uh, instructor and Doug, who, um, is just a brilliant guy who I wish more people knew about.
Cause you know, he, uh, he changed the world, at least the world of gaming, given his props.
Alex: That's awesome.
Warren: I started at origin. I had six years in tabletop games and, uh, I came in all full of piss and vinegar. And, you know, I'm going to teach these computer guys what interactivity is all about. And it took me about two weeks to realize I knew nothing for all the similarities.
Uh, they're, they're very different media, you know, and I, I spent, um, weeks with Richard at his amazing house full of secret passages and, you know, beds that rotated behind the walls and dungeons and all this crazy stuff. Um, You know, working on Ultima six with him and, you know, he showed [00:13:00] me, he, he had this black book where he wrote down every character and every spell and every item and every quest.
Uh, and I got to help him fill that, that black book on Ultima six and just those weeks of, you know, eating too much, uh, Chinese food, uh, I, I learned a lot. He may not have realized he was teaching me, but, uh, you know, thank you sensei for that education.
Alex: What was it like being at, um, like a, a pen and paper game company like, uh, you know, like TSR and Steve Jackson?
Yeah, that's true. Like, I'd never been around that, you know?
Warren: You know, it was, it was kind of the same thing in a lot of ways. It was ridiculous amounts of work. Um, it was, it was fun a lot of the time. But you know, Steve Jackson games was so, so small. We were probably a dozen people total. We were working in a, a regular family home.
We had a metal warehouse [00:14:00] attached to it, where we kept all the games. We had to do all of our own boxing and shrink wrapping and typesetting, which of course dates all of this. We, we had a
Alex: typesetter. Meaning you couldn't lay anything out on a computer. You actually had to physically move stuff around for the printer.
Warren: First person to have a computer at Steve Jackson games. It was a 35 pound K pro four portable and everybody was super jealous. Hey, CPM, we had one color. It was green. Everybody was really jealous of me. It was, it was pretty funny. Uh, but no, we weren't in typewriters and a self correcting Selectric was the height of technology.
And we use razor blades and exacto knives to cut little strips of glued paper and put them on boards and stuff. And, uh, man, you had to go to a printer and oh my God, it was crazy.
Alex: I kind of, you know, we, we, we [00:15:00] made packaging back in the early bungee days. I do miss that, you know, the physicality of, you know, it's, it's like, you know, you, when you make a game now it's software, you, you, it's, it's pretty complicated.
It's, you can't hold it in your hand, you know, but like the, the box, like I, I would always do, you know, work with the designers on the boxes and stuff. When you finally hold that printed out thing, it's, that's, uh.
Warren: No, there's nothing like it when you finish a game. There's this feeling of, of relief and exhilaration.
And then when you go to a software store, wait, what's a software store? No, when you, when you go to a software store and there it is on an end cap and there are, you know, 30 copies of your game, there's, there's no better feeling. Well, don't tell my wife. I said that, but there are, there are a few feelings better than, than seeing.
I just got that. You, you sweated over this thing for years. Yeah. Uh, and, and there it is. And you don't get that feeling [00:16:00] anymore.
Aaron: Hey, how did y'all do the art at the pen and paper place? Did you have, did you just contract artists and did you use like a, a, like how did you, what was the process for that?
Like you doing the photograph?
Warren: We used contractors. Um. Dennis Lupe was, uh, was one of our top artists. He did all the cover art for the, the Ultima games. In fact, uh, as well as, uh, cardboard heroes. No, nobody remembers cardboard heroes, but we made little, little 2d cardboard, uh, colored, uh, miniatures, you know, so you didn't have to buy all of the, the lead.
You could just buy our little cardboard thing.
Alex: Did they have like stats printed on the back?
Warren: No, no, no. It was all, it was all for, for miniatures gaming or, uh, or a tabletop RPGs. You, it was your character. And we, we did dozens and dozens and dozens of those. Uh, but Dennis was a [00:17:00] super talented artist. Uh, he was probably origins number one artist, and I bet he doesn't remember this, but I was up at TSR.
And, uh, I was doing rules development and I was managing the game division and I was sitting in my office one day thinking, you know, I've, I've got 20 sided dice, virtually 20 sided dice in one hand and percentile dice in the other and thinking if this is the biggest decision I have to make in my professional life, I need, I need a new profession and out of the blue, I got a call from Dennis Lou Bay, who I had worked with at Steve Jackson games saying, you know, Hey, origins looking for, uh, as an associate producer, are you interested?
And, um, needless to say, I said, yes. So I, I, I owe Dennis a debt of gratitude. I'll never be able to repay, but he was a super talented
Alex: guy. That was, that was your first like video game job, right? Yeah,
Warren: I mean I was obsessively playing computer games [00:18:00] back then. I was more a computer game guy than a, you know, a video game guy.
Um, and I, I got to, I was playing them at home. Ultima IV was a revelation to me. Um, but here, here's the Warren has no filters part of the discussion. Um, we were working with SSI. Uh, on the gold box, uh, TSR, TSR licensed stuff. And I remember testing those things and thinking, these, uh, these guys are super talented, and they were, but they were, they were simulating all the wrong things.
You know, they thought role playing was about rolling dice and character stats and, you know, strength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, all that stuff. And that's, you know, I call that R O L L playing, not R O L E playing. And, uh, so I was, I was a little dissatisfied with, with those games and I'd gotten to know Richard Garriott pretty well from [00:19:00] being on panels with him at science fiction and gaming conventions.
And every time I would sit with him on a panel, I'd just sit there and listen to him and go. Oh, my God, this guy gets it like he's saying all the right things. And, and he made Ultima four and, you know, which, which showed me that a game could be a video game could be about more than just breaking down a door and killing a dragon and stealing the treasure and then breaking down the next door and killing an orc and then stealing his treasure.
You know, Ultima four was about, about you, the player. And I've basically, and that, that's what role playing is all about. It's about you adopting a role. And I've spent the last, you know, 40 years.
Alex: Congratulations on that. Warren, few people that have survived this industry that long.
Warren: It's 41 years. This month is September of 1983 is when I started. [00:20:00] Yeah, there are so many people, probably you two guys actually, who like talk about, oh, it's so hard getting old. I don't have the energy. You're not allowed to say that.
Okay. I was making dance before you people existed.
Alex: Hey, I'm old.
Warren: I'm old. He's had
Alex: work.
That's the part I wasn't exactly sure on is that transition origin to Lookingglass, but at some point you're actually running a Lookingglass studio in Austin, right?
Warren: Yeah. Um, I was, Origin was acquired by Electronic Arts at one point and again, in the spirit of no filters, they gave us enough rope to hang ourselves.
We did a really good job of that. , same . Yeah. Yeah. [00:21:00] Hey, and you know, I, I was, I, I'm gonna apply the only filter I'm gonna apply today and just say I was not happy working for electronic arts. Uh, there were, there were things going on. In the way they, they treated us that I was not happy about. And so, uh, it's so sad.
I, I was in the middle of my seven week sabbatical. EA did that right. They gave you seven weeks off, uh, after you'd been there for seven years, I guess. And I was midway through it and Paul Nurath, who had founded Lookingglass, called me up and said, Hey, we've worked together for the last seven years. Why don't you just come work for me?
And I, I said, um, I'd love to. I mean, that would be great, but I'm not leaving Austin, Texas. And foolishly, he said, well, just build an Austin studio. And I did that and, uh, ran that for about, Two years, I guess, [00:22:00] and then looking glass ran out of money. Uh, and so I, I talked to Paul and I said, look, just shut, shut this studio down.
You're not going to shut the, the, the mothership down in Boston. Just shut down Austin. I'll find another deal. I was confident I could get another gig at that point. It's interesting. I was, um, I had, I had an idea that I had started working on it at Electronic Arts called Shooter, uh, the ironically titled Shooter, uh, which basically, if you look at the design doc for that, it's, it's kind of deus ex y.
Um, and so I, I'd wanted to make that game since about 1995 and I, I started pitching that around and I actually had a contract from Westwood to make the Command and Conquer role playing game based on that concept.
Alex: Huh?
Warren: Yeah.
Aaron: And I, I was. [00:23:00] Like, like first person for you? Yeah. Like a soldier, like a spy, like a super agent, super soldier or something?
Warren: But yeah, based on, on, you know, my, my troubleshooter concept, um, I, I had the spreadsheets and the contract in front of me and, um, I was, I was going to sign. It was a, it was a good deal. I had, you know, some folks who were waiting patiently for me to be in a position to pay them. And, uh, I, I got a call out of the blue again.
I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I keep getting phone calls. Um, I, I, uh, got a call from John Romero, um, to whom I also have a debt. I'll never be able to repay. And he said, you know, come work for Ion Storm. Uh, and I said, I can't, I've got a contract here. I mean, I've, I've negotiated everything. I'm ready to go.
And he said, don't sign that. And he drove down the next day in his huge Humvee, [00:24:00] you know, and, um, and came and, and, and here's what he did. He said, make the game of your dreams the way you want to make it no creative interference. The biggest budget you've ever had, the biggest marketing budget you've ever had go.
And it's like, huh? It does
Alex: sound like a pretty good deal, huh? And,
Warren: and, uh, you know, so good, goodbye command and conquer. Hello, Deus Ex. And, you know, John, to his credit, um, he, he lived up to every promise. Uh, he, I had no creative interference. I had the biggest, biggest budget I'd ever had.
Alex: Uh, we had John on the show, uh, at the beginning of the year.
I had never, I had never sat down and had a conversation with him before. Um, he very much surpassed my expectations. Super chill, really [00:25:00] thoughtful. Seems like a really nice person. Really nice person. Yeah, very nice. Um, I'm curious, had you met him before that phone call? No. Or was that your, that was your introduction to him, was just kind of, he sought you out and okay.
Warren: Yeah, the, the funny thing is, I mean, he knows more about video games than any human on the planet. I mean, he's, he's a wonderful guy. He's still a friend of mine too. And um, he's, he's a great guy. Um, boy, is he a Doom player too. But, uh, No, he, he's, um, he's, he's really, really knowledgeable and thoughtful. As he said, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to plug his book.
He, uh, he wrote a, uh, a, uh, an autobiography and it's terrific. Yeah. I, you know, yeah. Doom guy. Yeah. Uh, it was, it is, everybody should read it. It's his life is amazing. And um, There are portions of it that are [00:26:00] a master class in, in level design. Uh, so, uh, he asked me if I would blurb it and ordinarily it's like, Oh, what if I don't like the book?
Oh no. I, I, John, I love John. Um, but it was a great book. So I, I blurbed it happily. Yeah.
Alex: Read it. He talks very openly about the whole Ion Storm journey, which. I had a lot of challenges.
Warren: Um, spoiler. We spent more building out the office than I had ever spent on a game. I mean, but he's, he talks very
Alex: flatteringly about, uh, about you and you know, I, I, What was it like being at Ion Storm where, you know, there's, there's sort of like these two teams.
There's this Austin team or like Mike Wilson's over there. It's very loud, very flashy, very public. There's a lot of ups and downs happening over there. And it's from an outside, it sort of seemed like you were in Austin, kind of like [00:27:00] keeping your head down a little bit, just making, you know, folks on the game.
And then. Deus Ex comes out and it's like the gold star, you know, where the rest of the ship was having challenges. Like if that must've been, what was that? Ag, that had to be interesting.
Warren: Interesting. Yeah, I, I, I spent a lot of time. It was Mr. Rogers. He used to sing one of these things is not like the others.
Right. I used to sing that to myself a lot. Um, And, and I'll tell you one thing, uh, I've got so many IonStorm stories, you wouldn't believe it. Um, but, uh, there was one point where, uh, a newspaper, an alternate newspaper in Dallas ran, uh, a story about IonStorm where they, they got hold of, uh, all of our emails.
And yeah, they published everybody's salaries and, you know, they, they got mine [00:28:00] wrong because they got it out of a correspondence about my negotiations for a salary, but that kind of, uh, public exposure was bad. Pretty interesting. But no, I mean, there were there were two different places. I mean, I'm, I'm kind of a pretentious guy.
And, um, I take, I take games probably more seriously than I should. And so I build a team of people who took games seriously too, and wanted to do something that no one had ever done before. And, um, You know, up in, in, uh, in Dallas, they had a different, different idea. Like they, they built a team of, of, um, you know, death matchers, um, And like I'd go up there and, uh, I'd, I'd arrive at 11 o'clock in the morning and the office would be empty.
I mean, just completely empty. And at two o'clock people would start rolling in and [00:29:00] then the, the death matching would start. And there'd be a lot of suck it down and, uh, you know, yelling and screaming and I'd eventually fall asleep under a desk. And then at two in the morning we do work and stuff. It was, it was a strange place.
Uh, Harvey Harvey mentioned that we had Harvey on too. And he
Aaron: said that y'all were on a boat one time. And there was like a huge party going on. Oh, yeah. We're like in the deck, like playing a board game. Yeah. And there's like
Warren: people like jumping on. We were goobers. Uh, no doubt about that. And happily I still am, man.
I mean, any chance I get to play tabletop board games, I'm, I'm there. I'm there.
Alex: Do you, do you get, actually, that's a, just an aside question. Do you, like what, Are you playing anything lately? Like, um, tabletop that would be good.
Warren: I, I had, uh, my design team fly in here. We're completely remote. So I, every once in a while we, we get together in person and I had my design team here, uh, just two weeks ago.
[00:30:00] And, um, they're all board gamers too. I mean, other side is like all board game geeks and, you know, we played, uh, the thing, which is a fun game. We played Cascadia. We played a game called Downforce Me, which I wanted to love, but okay. , I wanted to love. Okay. Um, you know, heat is a great racing game, even if you're not into racing games.
Uh, there's a new version of Can't Stop, uh, from Sid Saxon, the Greatest American you can see Aaron is looking
Alex: these up right now. His face is all illuminated with his browser because he's looking up these notes. Thing is the one.
Aaron: The thing sounds interesting. Like, is that like,
Alex: like the, like kind of like the, the movie, the thing, is that the setting?
Yeah, it's
Warren: kind of like a werewolf where one, one, one player is the thing and you don't know who it is. You have to kind of figure, try and figure it [00:31:00] out and stuff, but it's in a board game format with, you know, dice and stuff.
Alex: Oh, that's cool. I want to check that out. I just watched that
Aaron: Well, I was like, Oh, is it going to be like werewolf or something where
Warren: it's very much like that, but translated to a board game.
Um, so. Yeah. That, that was a ton of fun. Uh, King Domino is another one. Very lightweight, but good to play with your family. Um, Lorcana is fun. The Disney Magic Gathering Light.
Alex: Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean we could talk all day about board games. You have a few recommendations there. We'll get a few of those in the show notes.
I've
Warren: got,
Alex: I've got a
Warren: room
Alex: and
Warren: I'm sitting in my library, which. This is like insane. I recognize that, but I have 17, 000 books and I have a, I have a building that is books. One room that is library shelves full of board games. Another room that's, [00:32:00] uh, every American car magazine from 1957 until today. Uh, and yeah, I mean, I, I got, I got some board games where if you're ever in Austin, Texas, we're, we're playing some board games.
Aaron: All right. You're a car guy. So wait, so hold on. The car thing is, is, is what's with the car stuff?
Warren: Yeah. I've been, I've been a car guy since I was 12. Uh, and, uh, you know, I mean, red car magazines, cause that was all you can do when you're 12. Uh, when I got to college, I was, uh, I was the president of the car club at Northwestern university, Northwestern university, touring sports, nuts.
And I, I did some rallying and, and some autocrossing and realized after a while that I was, uh, a mediocre driver. Um, and so, you were doing,
Alex: you were doing motocross? Autocross.
Warren: Autocross. Autocross is a
Alex: motorcycle,
Aaron: right? Autocross.
Alex: Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah. What is autocross?
Warren: Autocross is, uh, basically you set up a [00:33:00] bunch of orange traffic cones in a parking lot and you go, uh, typically cars go a minute apart and you're trying to get the fastest time in your class.
And there was one time I, I spun out on a, on an oil slick and went across the finish line backwards. There was another time I cooked it in a 90 degree corner and, and, uh, destroyed my rear suspension. There was another time I picked up a cone and it wrapped around my drive shaft and that the car was not happy about that.
And then I. I, I bought A-A-B-M-W-M three, which is still the best car I'll ever owned, probably. And I was gonna go autocross it and my wife said, can you afford to fix it? , uh, then you can't afford to autocross it anymore. . So that, that was the end. But I, again, I I was just getting Your wife is the
Alex: voice of reason.
Um, in all things. [00:34:00] Yes, in all things. I do want to talk a little bit about your background. I said, we're still like halfway through the intro. Maybe we can just sprint through the highlights and we'll get to them in detail in a minute, but, but yes, Ion Storm, Deus Ex, which I would describe as maybe the quintessential immersive sim.
I, I guess, I would, I would say, I don't know, did you invent Immersive Sim, is that fair to say? Or in and around its invention? No. Well, yes. I mean, if you,
Warren: if you force me to pin that down, I would say that Richard Garriott and the Ultima series were the kind of glimmers of, you could see where it could go.
And then, um, um, Paul Nurath. Who I've, I've worked with since 1989 and I'm working with again now. Um, he started a company called blue sky. [00:35:00] And so Paul was there on underworld, which is kind of the right, the immersive Sam. Uh, so it was Paul, me, Doug, uh, Doug church, uh, and a really super talented team. Uh, that, so underworld was kind of the, the next step and then system shock was a big step, uh, and then thief, uh, and then deus ex, um, and then, and then arcane started doing it better than I could, which I hate them for, but, uh, no, so I, I, I was there at the very beginning.
I'll, I'll say that, but I, I hate the word
Alex: creator, but underworld. It like so influential on like everything that came after, not just that series of games that you're talking about, but also just the whole first person shooter genre. It just said the idea of having this first person texture map perspective.
Um,
Warren: yeah, you know, it shipped before Castle [00:36:00] Wolfenstein, right?
Alex: Yeah, exactly. You know, Right in that Doomguy book, he talks about that too, you know. And that's, uh, it's a really interesting bit of archaeology of our industry of, of like what begat what, you know, who's watching what.
Warren: It was just the time. I don't think it was begatting.
It was just the, the tech was ready. You know, there was something in the air. Uh, it wasn't that, you know, CarMax saw Underworld and said, Oh, I got to do that. I don't think there was that kind of influence. How much, how much sooner did it ship before the other one? Oh, like two weeks. It was, it was irrelevant.
You made me say that out loud. Thanks a
Alex: lot. I thought, um, Doug was sending code over to CarMax. Oh, I'm sure
Warren: he was without telling me. Yeah. I mean, there were a bunch of people working on the 3d, 3d tech, the AI [00:37:00] thing now. Everybody's sharing knowledge. Well, that's, that's actually something that doesn't happen as much as it used to.
I, my, my publishing and funding partners hate it when I say this, but I've got a brain trust. I've got half a dozen people who I just trust implicitly and I always let them play my games early and I don't care if they're NDA and I don't care if they're officially consultants. I know I'm going to get.
Good feedback, and they're going to tell me when I'm full of it and tell me when something sucks. I mean, on Deus Ex, uh, I'm, I'm not going to name their names, by the way, so don't ask me, but you would recognize all the names of the people in my brain trust, and I had a couple of them play Deus Ex at one point, and they, they, um, they said, wow, this skill system sucks.
And it was a skill system that I had come up with that I thought was really simple and elegant and sophisticated. And I said, it really sucks. [00:38:00] So I, I actually, I talked to Harvey about it. And he probably doesn't even remember this. I'll have to ask him next time I see him, but he came to me basically the next day with a new skill system.
And I looked at, I went, uh, yeah, I mean, it was so much better than what I'd come up with, but you learn that kind of stuff. It's like, I, I trust those half a dozen people so much more than I do a thousand people in some official. You know, the external testing thing, like I could care less, I'm never going to get working again, but I could care less about external testing.
Alex: Warren, I think your, I think your career trajectory is safe. You can say whatever you want. So
Warren: I spent a lot of time saying, what are you going to do? Say you'll never work in games again.
Aaron: You can always sell the car magazines too. I'm sure someone will buy
Warren: them. Oh man, I could make a fortune on [00:39:00] it.
Alex: Okay, well, so I was, um, some of, some of, uh, the details of, uh, your, like, upbringing I knew about, like, I, you grew up in Manhattan.
I, I think I, I think I knew, maybe I didn't remember that you went to college in Chicago. And of course, I, I knew that you had a studio that was acquired by Disney, those, those little milestones. Um, I had the same ones. I grew up in New York. I, uh, went to college in Chicago. I had a studio acquired by Disney.
We're the same person. No. Um, You are a way better, uh, a game maker than I, um, but, um, please tell me, tell me about, tell me about growing up in New York. I grew up in Westchester, so not exactly the same.
Warren: I don't know why I, I, no, I went to, uh, to high school in Riverdale. We used to sneak off [00:40:00] campus to, to go get hot dogs or hamburgers with some, Oh man, don't get me started on Nathan's hot dogs either.
You know, I ask people all the time. Uh, what's your last meal? Like you're on death row last meal. It's two Nathan's hot dogs. Nathan's French fries. And a Coke. That's, that's my last meal. What's on the
Aaron: hot dogs? Is it just ketchup or what do you do? Oh God, no. Ketchup.
Alex: Ketchup. We're done
Warren: here. It's
Alex: good talking to you.
I'll see you later. No, it's just. We're closing this down, Aaron.
Warren: Nothing but mustard.
Alex: Were you a sauerkraut guy or no? No, no, I'm not a sauerkraut. I'm a puret. To this day, I am. Um, but did you ever go to the arcade at Nathan's? And Yonkers, you know, they had like, um, coin up arcade there. That was, so a lot of my weekends were, were down at the, uh, the Nathan's on central Avenue and Yonkers.
That's [00:41:00] probably not that far from Riverdale. I'm guessing. Uh, not far at all, but, uh, all right. So you, you, you, you grew up in, uh, in the city and then what got you to Chicago?
Warren: Like when I was in high school, I, I w I've been a movie guy all my life too. And there, there was one year when I was a junior, I went to a movie seven days a week, I would get off the subway and go to a movie theater.
And I planned out like, which, if I go to the four o'clock show of this movie, I can make it to the six o'clock show at this other theater. And I mean, I would go to bed at six o'clock and wake up at 11 to watch movies anyway. So, uh, I wanted to write about movies cause I figured out when I was in high school that I wasn't.
a very good filmmaker either. Um, I made a bunch of movies that no one's ever going to see. And, and so I looked around and Northwestern had, uh, at the time the, the best undergraduate journalism department in the [00:42:00] country. And, um, so I, I said, I need to improve my writing skills. I'm going there. And so that's, that's what it was.
I knew I wanted to write about, about film and I spent two years studying journalism, basically had a nervous breakdown cause I was miserable and, uh, changed my major to radio, TV, film, and was
Alex: off to the races. Right on. Did you, did you, you didn't stick around Chicago though? Would you, were you looking for better climbs or was that just work?
When you got out of, got out of school.
Warren: I, I worked in a bookstore for about six months and knew I wanted to go to grad school. Um, and I was either going to go to Temple cause they had a great documentary program, or I was going to go to the University of Texas in Austin because my girlfriend went down here and I, I followed the girl.
That was it. Okay.
Aaron: Yeah. Are you gaming during this time? Like, so you're in, you're, you're in college or at the bookstore, are you doing pen and [00:43:00] paper stuff or are you playing any computer games? A little
Warren: bit of Avalon Hill and SPI, you know, the, the tiny cardboard. peace game era, did a little bit of that, but it was really, um, when I got to, to, uh, Texas, I fell in with a group of film people who were connected with a science fiction community, which was connected with a game community.
And so it was this kind of cascading effect. Uh, and in In, uh, okay, here's where my age comes into play. In 78, I played D& D for the first time. Uh, my dungeon master was Bruce Sterling, who was, uh, one of the fathers of cyberpunk fiction. And great DM, I mean, great DM. Um, and, and I played with him and that was, that was a night that changed my life.
I mean, uh, I, I was never the same after that. And, you know, once I got into game development professionally, [00:44:00] I was, uh, I I've been trying to recreate that feeling ever since. And, you know, getting a little closer each time, I hope. But so I really started gaming hardcore, uh, when I got, uh, to grad school. And what year was that?
I started in 78. Yeah. So that's like right
Aaron: after star Wars. That's like a really good pop culture, like year, like star Wars had been out for a year.
Warren: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I saw star Wars when it debuted, I saw a preview of it in Chicago and, uh, mind blown needless to say from the the opening shot. Come on.
Alex: Um, Wait, so what was the first, like, computer game that, was it Ultima that kind of came on your radar or was it something else?
Warren: No, I mean, I, I played a bunch of, uh, of video games too. Uh, the Ultima games really kind of started it. But, you know, realistically, I was, I, [00:45:00] I played the Infocom stuff. True confessions, I, I never finished an Infocom game, okay? Same, same. I admired and respected them. And now, now I am friends with the people who made them, which is really freaking cool.
Um, no, I did that. And the Scott Adams adventures, uh, did, did a bunch of that. You know, they were the first, uh, text adventures that had pictures. Oh boy. Oh yeah. And, you know, back then there was, there was a Star Trek game. You could play on mainframes. There were, you know, Lunar Lander. I mean, I'm, I'm really old.
And, and so, you know, I played pong on a sit down table in a bar. Um, but that was it. I mean, that was, that was all there was to play. It wasn't till I, I got to, um. to Texas that all of a sudden, you know, you could, I had an Atari 400, [00:46:00] uh, you know, which I hot rodded. I, I put a keyboard on it to replace the membrane keyboard and I upped it to 48K of RAM.
What
Alex: are you going to do with 48k ram? I mean, that's, you
Warren: know, that's, but that's always the way in the game business. Right. I mean, I remember the origin, the first time we saw a CD and we, we held it up like, like apes being shown the monolith in 2001, you know, it's like, Oh, and someone said, We're never going to fill one of these
Alex: one video.
Now, one video can fill one of those random question. You, you, you've watched a lot of film. I grew up very enthusiastic. I'm sure you're still very, what's your favorite movie?
Warren: Uh, On the Town, uh, 1940, late 40s musical with, [00:47:00] um, uh, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra and Jules Munchen. Nice.
Alex: Quick answer, too. On the Town.
And Eddie
Warren: Garrett and Vera Ellen, um, and, uh, Anne, Anne Miller. If, if you don't like musicals, you're gonna hate it. Okay. I love musicals. Well, okay, so here's the thing you have to know. This is gonna excite everybody who's listening to this, I'm sure . Um, it was, it was originally a Broadway show, and it was, it was written, the music was written by.
Um, uh, Leonard Bernstein and it was really kind of out there. So when MGM made the movie, they cut a bunch of the songs and signed a kind of tone down the weirdness of others and replace them with new songs. And it doesn't matter because the new songs are great. And the tone down weirdness is great. The movie is great.
Um, so I highly recommend it and if you want to double, it's about three sailors on leave in New York. Okay. [00:48:00] And what could go wrong there? Well, and it's, it's all like hopeful and positive and fun. And then a few years later, MGM made a movie called it's always fair weather, which is three soldiers on leave.
back from the war and it's grim beyond belief and you watch those two movies back to back. It's great. That's, that's the thing you got to get on the town and
Alex: it's always fair. There's the Saturday afternoon. Um, I used to, um, encourage folks who would ask me like, What's a good thing to, to do to prepare myself to get into video games.
I used to encourage, uh, folks to, to go play D and D or do play, do some role playing. Um, and I'm curious to hear what you think, um, Like coming up, you know, you, you started playing [00:49:00] D& D, you said 78, which when did D& D the first edition of D& D was like 70?
Warren: 74. 74. Yeah.
Alex: So, but you were kind of like in, in, in that early, you, you worked in that part of the business.
What's, what do you think of, like, what do you think of first? How do you make a game? How does Warren make a game? And, and how does, how has your sort of like your journey, like starting through like film and role playing and writing and, and like, how, how is that? Maybe giving you a unique process. That's different from
Warren: my process is total chaos.
Um, now there are a bunch of different ways to start a game. Uh, you can start with, uh, a role. Um, you can start with, uh, an experience you want to provide for players. Uh, you can start with a relationship you want to have with players. Uh, you can start with a world you want to explore. Uh, you can start with a mechanic that you think would be interesting.[00:50:00]
Um, I've done all of those. Um, on, on Deus Ex, I wanted to empower players to tell stories, uh, their unique stories with me. I mean, like, I, I, I wasn't kidding earlier when I said I've been trying to recreate the D& D experience for, for 40, well, for 35 years in digital games. Um, and the, the things about D& D that, that are most compelling are, um, The dialogue between players and the dungeon master, the dungeon master provides.
I mean, this is so cliche, but it's true. The dungeon master provides the skeleton and the, the party, you know, the players put the meat on the bones, right? And that, that exchange of ideas is really powerful and you know, the, the DM, this is how much power players have. The DM might construct, um, Uh, scenario that's all combating and the players come in and say, [00:51:00] yeah, we don't feel like fighting and the dungeon master adjusts on the fly to what the players want to do.
And that's, that's what I always try to do. That's what every game I've worked on has been about. It's about that, that dialogue. I think about my games as I'm having a conversation with players. They don't even realize it. But I'm laying out, um, situations that players can interact with however they want and, and, and having unique experiences.
Like, you can buy a D& D module and play it with your friends, and I can play that same module with my friends, and we will have radically different experiences. And, and that's what I want to do in a game. That's the most important thing to me. After that, it's finding something people already care about.
I'm not a big believer in convincing people to be interested in something. So, um, you know, on Deus Ex, it was before [00:52:00] Y2K, Everybody's into conspiracy theories, uh, bioengineering was just becoming a thing. Pandemics were just becoming a thing. Terrorism was just becoming a thing. Engaging players and, and forcing them very subtly to think about those things was what I wanted to do.
And, well, I always tell my teams, if two players describe the same experience of an encounter, of a mission, or of a game, we've failed. I want players saying stuff like, wasn't it cool when, when you freed that prisoner from the prison under Unko Edgar and another player says, what? Prison . That's, that's the win for me.
And, but think about it. Most other games I'm overstating a little bit, but just to make the point. I am, I. Okay, no filters time. I hate games that are like you're standing on the edge of a chasm and you have to get to the [00:53:00] other side and you leap across the chasm and you barely catch on by your fingertips and you look up and there's a Tyrannosaurus Rex looking down and you've got a gun in your hand and you shoot him in the mouth and you climb up and then you're on the other side and another player says, yeah, that was cool.
Like, screw that. It's interactive in that you have to. You have to show some Twitch skills, I guess, and you have to, you have to outsmart the designer. But what I want is I'm not jumping across that chasm. I'm going to find another way. I mean, one of the rules in my games is there's always another way. Um, I got a lot of rules by the way.
Well, and my teams, they, they have to buy into those rules or we're going to be a bad fit. And it's time for them to vote with their feet. If people who don't buy into my mission have to go. And, and I have a mission. I, I wrote a 12 page version of it that no one on the planet has ever read. And so I did an eight page version and a four page, [00:54:00] by the way, developers don't read.
And I finally got it down to, I said, screw it. It's two words. PlayStyle matters. Your experience is driven. It's driven by how you painted that
Alex: on the wall of your studio. I remember very much remember reading that and that's what that means. Okay.
Warren: It's about empowering players to tell their stories in, in collaboration with me.
My job is only to, um, to provide context and significance. To what they're doing. They, the players have to own, I did this and I did that. And then this happened, they own that. But I say, you have to rescue your brother from terrorists who are holding him hostage behind this door. And I don't care how you get through the door.
It's like, why do games care how you get through a door? You know, what's interesting is what's on the other side of the door.
Alex: Right. Yeah. So when you, when you approach like design, this, maybe this is getting a little in the weeds, but it like, do you like. Think about, okay, here's the scenario and [00:55:00] let's think about this, like, I don't know, five ways that a player can get through this.
Or do you think, Hey, here's, we're going to make this toolbox. There's a bunch of systems and let's just. Make sure that scenarios we design work with each of the elements of the toolbox.
Warren: Yeah, it's, I, I'm not a big fan of scripting. Um, uh, I'm a systems guy. I mean, like, I mean, I believe in systemic design.
Let's put it that way. I'm right. I'm the least technical human on the planet, but, um, no. So it's all about creating systems, small systems that, that interlock. It's like, um, One example I use a lot is in, in a lot of games. You have a flask full of oil and it has one use. It could be the oil can be set on fire or, um, the oil makes the floor slippery or, you know, one of those things.
And in my mind, oil has a bunch of properties. Like, you've got a [00:56:00] flask, a clay flask full of oil. You throw it on the ground, the clay flask breaks, makes noise, attracting attention. But also, the oil spreads on the ground. And that can make the world slippery, so characters that are coming might slip on the oil.
Or you can set the oil on fire and it will create a smoke screen. And if something walks into it, it'll damage it, but it also provides cover. So you can get away from the bad guys. Um, it also creates heat, which might burn a piece of paper. Um, so you build in the properties of the objects and the stems that affect those properties, and you've got a system that players can exploit.
I'm going to overstate to make my point, however they want. That's where you start. But here's the, here's the truth that dare not be spoken. You have to make sure that every problem, we don't create puzzles. You're not allowed to say the word puzzle. We create problems and challenges and you have to make sure that every problem and challenge is solvable.
[00:57:00] Right? So typically what I learned Garriott actually come up with two ways to To solve each problem just to make sure you can get past it. Right. And it's another another Richard store. Ultima six. Um, we, we did that. You know, there would be a couple of solutions to every every puzzle at the time. And.
There was one time I was watching a tester, uh, play a particular part of the game and there was a portcullis that was down, uh, and there was a lever on the other side and you had to flip the lever to raise the portcullis so you could keep making progress. And you needed the telekinesis spell to do that.
Okay. And he didn't have the telekinesis spell. So I'm thinking, He's screwed. He's going to have to stay over there and get the telekinesis spell. But instead what he did was he took Sherry, the mouse who was in his party, who was mouse sized, had [00:58:00] her go under the portcullis, flip the lever and open the portcullis so he could go through that was not planned.
Okay. Okay. That was the first time I, it's like I fell on the floor and just, I said, I'm going to do that on purpose for the rest of my life.
Alex: Yeah, that's awesome. That's the immersive, that's the immersive part of the, of the sim. That's awesome. Yeah.
Aaron: Yeah, BG3 has a lot of that now. It's crazy. There's people on YouTube that show, like, their experiences and their, And they're so crazy how they're so weird and random and yeah, it's exciting.
Warren: Well, that's, that's the interesting thing is, um, you know, the arcane games before arcane was foolishly shut down here. Um, and the junction point games and the ion storm games, uh, and now the other side games. Um, we're ideally suited to like streaming [00:59:00] most, most games. You, you watch a stream and it's like, Ooh, look at the skill of that person doing what every other person is going to do.
Um, and in our games, it's like, look at that crazy thing. No one ever thought to do before. So we're like perfect for streamers. Yes. Like, I can't wait for my new game to end up in the hands of students. It's, it's the most ambitious, crazy thing I've ever worked on. And it's either going to rule the world or
Alex: so I, I, all I know is, um, I know you're working with Paul again.
Um, and other side entertainment. Uh, and I think I looked on the website is the game called Argos.
Warren: That's
Alex: my dog's name, by the way, is what's, yeah. Um, and is that Argos, uh, from, uh, would that be Greek mythology?
Warren: Yeah, certainly Jason and the Argonauts and the Golden Police. That was certainly an early [01:00:00] inspiration.
Uh, I don't know how much of that is going to end up in the actual game, but there, there might be some sub currents under undercurrents that make it true, but it is, it is not a retelling of the Jason and the Argonauts. Got it.
Alex: Got it. Um, but are you talking about it or is it still kind of under wraps?
Okay.
Warren: As you might expect. I like talking and it is killing me. It is killing me not to be able to talk about Argonauts. It's ambitious, it's ambitious and super risky and no one's ever seen a game like it.
Alex: Well, that's, um, that I would, I would expect nothing less. Um, but I'm assuming you're in Austin. Uh, so it sounds like your team is working remote, but I'm imagining you're working with a lot of folks.
Yeah,
Warren: I've got people in Colorado and Los Angeles and Seattle and Atlanta and North Carolina. Right on. Yeah.
Alex: We're, we're all
Warren: over the
Alex: place. I'm never going back to an office. Is, um, is there a ship date or that night? [01:01:00] Not yet. No. Well, that's good. You never ask
Aaron: that. Yeah. You don't need a ship date. What about like a reveal trailer?
Uh,
Warren: unclear at this time. Unclear at this time.
Alex: Uh, Are you using, um, a game engine, your own engine?
Warren: Yes, we are.
Alex: You are using a game engine. Okay.
Warren: Nice try though.
Alex: What's the name of the main character? No. Okay. Um, maybe, um, so one thing that I had forgotten about was when you started Junction Point, I think, and I was reading about this, uh, last week too, that you were, were you working on a Half Life, um, game?
Yeah,
Warren: um, yeah, uh, at Junction Point. Um, what I, what I wanted to do was, uh, kind of change the business model a little bit, uh, or change the way [01:02:00] we approached, uh, what you would call transmedia. Now, uh, I had an idea for episodic content and, uh, that everybody told me I was five years too early and they were right.
But, um, now, I mean, long tail all the way episodic, all that kind of stuff. And so I wanted to use a TV model, but I wanted to partner with people in Hollywood, uh, not licensed their stuff and not have our stuff licensed by them, but collaborate with them, um, on, uh, On new projects developed together. I'll get to your question in a minute.
I promise. Um, and, and so I, I worked up, uh, the beginnings of a couple of things and I, I got to work with John Wu, uh, co developing, um, uh, a ninja game, modern day ninja game. And I was talking to a bunch of other people. Like, I can't really name, um, And it was looking pretty good, but, uh, the, the money dried up to be [01:03:00] frank.
And, uh, one of the things we were working on an epic fantasy role playing game that was, I'd still like to do. It was, it was pretty cool. Um, but, uh, uh, It just didn't work out. And so I'm sitting there going, okay, I can fund this place for like a month. And then what am I going to do? Um, and, uh, you know, Gabe Newell came around and saved me.
I mean, he, he called up and said, why don't you do a, an episode, a Half Life 2 episode. And, um, you know, we were, we were working on, it was Ravenholm, and we came up with a new tool that would have been really bad ass, um, and we worked on it for about a year. And we had just figured out how to use their tech.
I mean, we just figured it out when they decided they didn't want to do the game. I don't know. You'd have to ask them why. Um, and [01:04:00] honestly, I, I didn't mind too much. Because, um, the, the tech was a little hard to work with and, and valve has a particular, or had at least a particular way of working, which didn't exactly line up with the way I like to work.
And so there was kind of a mismatch there. Um, but Gabe, Gabe kept the studio alive for about a year. Right on. And in that time, I was able to get some consulting work, contracting work with Disney and, um, you know, the, the rest is history.
Alex: How did the conversation with Disney turn into, like, getting bought by Disney?
Warren: Well, you know, I, I had, I had this epic fantasy role playing game with dragons and, you know, uh, environmental challenges and a new kind of magic system. And, uh, I had a. Um, the, the modern day ninja game that I was working on with John and another, another project, which, um, called [01:05:00] necessary evil, which was massively multiplayer, deus sexy, urban, you know, what happens when a, when an augmented agent musters out, you know, what do they, what do they do?
And, uh, I, my, I had an agent, it's like Seamus Blackley, the father of the Xbox, who was my agent at the time. And he said, we should talk to Disney and they're not going to be interested in my stuff. I mean, come on. And, but he insisted. And, and so we, we talked to Disney and they were not remotely interested in, In what I was pitching, but to make a long story short, they, they started texting each other at the table asking, should we talk to Warren about our Mickey Mouse project?
And they, they, they, apparently they all agreed and they asked me if I was interested. And it was another one of those like Deus Ex moments where the, you know, I'm a [01:06:00] Disney fan from the time I was like two. And, uh, Mickey mouse, the most recognizable icon on planet earth, who says no to that. Right. So, um, uh, I, I said, yeah.
And they, they showed me a, they had a pitch deck that a bunch of interns had made up and they said, it was so cute. They said, you don't have to use any of this. It's, it's just, we have an idea. Our interns came up with this, don't, and I just, I just looked at him and said, this is fantastic. I mean, this is like the way I describe it.
I've said this a thousand times and I'm sorry to repeat myself, but they gave me an acorn and I was going to grow it into an oak tree, you know? And, and so I went away and I went back to my studio and I, I told my team, my small team, we're not doing an epic fantasy role playing game or a modern day ninja game or a massively multiplayer deus exe, you know, augmented agent thing.
We're [01:07:00] making a Mickey Mouse game. And I had my, my lead writer quit. And my, my best level designer quit and it was the best thing in the world. I mean, vote with your feet. If you can't buy into the mission, go away. Um, and I mean that, um, but anyway, so we did six months of development and, um, I, I presented it to Disney and they said, we love this.
The way you get to make this game is if we acquire your studio and I'm going, uh, Okay, it's like three years earlier than I, I mean, an acquisition was our exit strategy. It's not like we're going to go public. Um, and they made me an offer that was ridiculously low. It's like, I, I said, no. And, and the, the biz dev guy I was talking to said, no.
No one says no to Disney.
Alex: I know. What do you mean? No. Yeah.
Warren: Yeah. You can do [01:08:00] it. There you go. Um, so we separated and, and I spent a year working on other stuff. We had enough money in the bank from kill fees and, and saved up from the half life stuff. So a year later, I got a call from them saying, we've spent a year trying to find someone to execute on, on your concept.
On your design, I mean, I've got a 270 page design document here, which resembles the game virtually not at all, but that's kind of the way it goes. That's
Alex: every design document.
Warren: They liked it, um, and, um, they said, but we still have to acquire your studio. And they made me a better offer. It still wasn't, I mean, it was percentage of what I, I projected we would be worth, but, you know, I said to myself, how many times is Disney going to come back?
And I really wanted to make the game. I was really psyched about the game. And so I said, yeah, and they acquired the studio and, [01:09:00] you know, then they, they stopped listening to me when I said stuff and it was great.
Alex: Yeah. It's a similar. Similar experience. Um, but Disney is such a fricking fascinating company.
Just all, all the areas I was just, I was completely, I was blown away by, I don't know if you had this experience. I was blown away by two things, uh, being at Disney. One, I would put in the very positive camp and the other I would put in, I would say just the other category. The thing that like really blew me away was just every, every other part of Disney, like, look.
You're in the games, their games business. And you're looking out at like Pixar or, you know, TV animation or the parks. Each one of those groups is like the best that's ever existed. You know, imagine, imagine you're in, it's like, these guys are the masters. And I coming from a, you know, uh, my other, only other big company experience was Microsoft, which they would [01:10:00] think you would look around at Microsoft and, you know, everybody was excellent, but it was like.
They weren't doing entertainment or creative or anything like that. So it was, it was not really the same kind of thing where you're at Disney and you could look around and get just completely blown away and inspired by you're surrounded by these amazing things. Um, so that was like the, for, for me, like, I found that very inspiring.
On the other hand, like I was completely surprised at every sort of like milestone meeting that we were in, like the top of, of conversation was pretty much the PNL. Like it wasn't the, Hey, we just played, everybody played the build. Right. Like, what do we think? Like the exec meetings were not really that the exec meetings were, you know, finance person, like, what do we think?
I don't know if you, if that, if you had a different impression, but that was sort of like the two things that stuck out as surprises to me,
Warren: like somewhat different. Um, I, I describe my [01:11:00] Disney experience as the best experience of my professional life. And the worst experience of my profession and, and nothing in the middle.
Um, and that's true. Um, all the people who made it the worst are now gone and, you know, which is satisfying in a way, but if I'd been able to hold on another six months, I would probably still be there. Um, but, uh, I, I ran into, um, marketing issues, uh, more than financial issues. They were really supportive from a finance standpoint.
They let me get away with murder, frankly. Um, and I'm grateful for that. Uh, but I, I guess they saw the potential of the game and, you know, I would pitch Bob Iger and stags and all those guys and, uh, John Lasseter, you know, they, They, they actually did focus on, on the game more than the money. Um, [01:12:00] but the marketing guys, I mean, all the focus testing and, Oh my God, that Donald duck doesn't test well.
It's like, well, it's our job to change that. Isn't it? You know, or only kids seven or younger care. Hey, go to, go to Europe and check it out there. It's, you know, the ducks are really popular, but so I ran into marketing issues all the time. But, uh, You know, because Mickey was such an important part of the company, uh, I think they focused more on the game than they probably did on, on other titles.
Uh, so I didn't actually have money issues as much as other things. You just got to remaster it too. Yes. I can't wait, man. It's, I mean, like there, I keep telling my teams, you know, Pete. I'm going to get in trouble for saying this too. I do not believe in crunch anymore. I want someone to define crunch for me because you can't solve a problem.
You can't define, but, um, you [01:13:00] know, people, people forget a lot of pain when 20 years later, they can look back on, on what they've done with pride. The fact that people are still System Shock came back last year, after 30 years. The fact that people are still playing Deus Ex 24 years after it shipped. The fact that people I still get fan mail about Epic Mickey, 14 years after it shipped, and it's coming back.
That That's cooler than making a lot of money, you know, that's, I am proud of that. And I want, I want my team like on Argos 20 years from now, I want them looking back and saying, I can't fucking believe we did that. You know, that's the, I want them to have that feeling and, you know, we may fail most of the time you fail, but you got to try for that.
And so I mean, and, and, uh, Just to be [01:14:00] clear, the guys at Purple Lamp and THQ Nordic did a great job. Uh, the Epic Mickey Rebrushed is a really good piece of work. And if it, if it wasn't, I, I promise you, I would not say that. No, I mean, I'm not just, I'm not just promoting a product. Uh, you know, I, I got to work with them on that and play some builds and lecture them about Epic Mickey and Mickey Mouse and game design and all that stuff.
Um, And they, they did a great job, but the, here's the killer. They, they ditched everything we did. Every asset, every line of code, every sound, they redid everything from.
Alex: That's insane. They're insane.
Warren: Yeah. They built what they built the whole game using our assets and our code and all that stuff, and then threw it away.
When they knew how to make the [01:15:00] game, they threw it away and started from scratch. Unbelievable. Is it a Switch exclusive
Aaron: or is it
Warren: going to be? Oh, no, no. It's every platform. It's every platform. Yeah. They redid
Alex: it like in Unreal or something, huh?
Warren: I think they used their own tech. You know, I should know that.
I don't believe that. That's amazing. No, but it was the Wii exclusive before. And now. Everybody, every platform is going to be able to play it. And that's, you know, that's super cool. Hi, I'm totally psyched.
Alex: No, you're absolutely right. And the people I have some, I don't know if you were kind of going here with like the word crunch or whatever, but I, there's so many different ways to, I, I'm not a fan at all about like big companies exploiting people, you know, to fulfill on the commitments erroneously, but there's something to be said for commitment and hard work and yeah, it's, it's, You know, if he, if you work a weekend to get something done because you're, you're, you have drive, uh, and you believe that you're, and it's you making that, [01:16:00] I think that's okay.
You know, I don't know.
Warren: No, I, I agree. And I am not a fan of crunch as I define it anyway. Um, but you know, I went on LinkedIn and boy, did I get in trouble for it. Um, I went on and said, Hey, can somebody define this for me? We all talk about it, uh, and we complain about it, but I bet no two of you reading this is going to give me the same definition.
That's right. And I was right there. There is no agreement on what it is. And initially I thought, well, that's a problem because I, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm also kind of, I, I'm never going to work again. I'm also kind of a fan of unions. I'm a, I'm an old union guy. You know, like I, I, I like the idea that, that we can.
Um, come up with, uh, to overstate universal solutions to big problems. But as I read
Alex: your system, okay, [01:17:00]
Warren: yeah, yeah, but as I read through the responses, I started rethinking that and saying, you know, maybe it's okay that other side has its own definition and, you know, we want to, we want to avoid this, this thing that, that we call crunch and, you know, Microsoft has another definition and, you know, going in what that definition is.
And as a, as a, you know, an individual contributor or as a manager, you can, you can decide if you want to go work for someone who has a particular definition. So I'm now in the opinion that, that, and, and the LinkedIn thread convinced me that we don't need the kind of definition that I was asking for. Uh, it'd still be nice,
Alex: but yeah.
Warren: Um, so at your studio, like,
Alex: do you, do you, how do you. deal with like meeting deadlines or do you not quite have deadlines yet because it's still early? Like, you know, we have, you
Warren: know, people, people work hard and sometimes we, [01:18:00] uh, we, we sort of reduce the, the deliverables and, you know, we, we just, You know, you, uh, I'm choosing my words carefully.
Can you tell, um,
Alex: cause some of your team might be listening and you want to make sure you don't demotivate anybody.
Warren: No, you have to still be being appropriate. I have, I have a part of my process is I create what I call the priorities and quality bar list. And, uh, I do that for every project and I do it. I give my teams the opportunity to do it.
and get me to change my mind, but basically, I think every game has to have at least one thing that no one in the world has ever seen or done before. And, um, that's priority one. We are not going to compromise on that. We're not going to scope it. We're not going to cut it. We're going to do whatever it takes to deliver on it.
Um, and the team is going to work with me. To figure out what deliver on that means. I, I just did air quotes for those [01:19:00] of you who are not seeing. That's right. Um, and then level two is we're going to beat the state of the art. And if we have to scope, we can look at this and do it. Okay. Whatever. And then, uh, level three is you don't have to reinvent every wheel.
We're just going to match the state of the art. There's prior art on this. We're just going to do what, you know, the, not literally imitate, but we're going to match people's expectations, uh, at the level three and level four is boy, it would be nice. And then you, you approach it like, uh, a journalist approaches a newspaper article where you cut from the bottom.
That's, that's what they call it. Cut from the bottom. If you cut the last paragraph or the last 10 paragraphs of a newspaper article, the article still makes sense. Yeah. And so you, you build that prioritization. The team knows what the, that prioritization is and you, you start cutting from the bottom, you know, and the game still works.
That's
Alex: good advice. I think that's so important. [01:20:00] That's great advice. It's like, you know, like it games, making games is hard. It's complicated. There's so many things that go into it and you need that kind of, that compass, that decision making rubric that just helps you prioritize and like decide to focus on the things that really matter, that's super smart.
Exactly. Warren, thank you for hanging out with us. It was so great to, to have you, uh, on and to hear more about your story and share it with our listeners. Great to chat with you. It was great fun. Thanks for having me. I forgot how much I like Warren. He's great to spend time with. You always get something out of it.
Um, I just want to say, he's a very friendly guy. He is. Um, but my, I, I'm just going to make a comment, uh, about your new setup here, Aaron, you are. You're like a good six inches closer to the computer. I don't know if you know. I'm sorry.
Aaron: It's okay. I got rid of my Mac. I, it's just so the audience knows. You're louder.
I'm louder. I'm always loud. As I get older. You know how like people's ears grow and their nose grows? I get louder. [01:21:00] As I get older. No, but I, I got rid of that other setup because I wasn't using that computer anymore. And I turned it into a minifigure painting station. And it's, it's like therapy. I go there every night.
I get to paint at least 10 minutes, 30 minutes. Sometimes, you know, and it's like, and this is how I know it's really good. I'll make myself like a mixed drink, you know, like a tequila with, with like something just like a little night. You
Alex: want to know, you want to know what my mixed drinks are these days?
What are they? It's, it's a, it's a glass of LaCroix, plain, pure LaCroix with a splash of kombucha. Ooh, kombucha has alcohol, by the way.
Aaron: Like 0.
Alex: 0001.
Aaron: It does though, it does, you can't say it doesn't, it's, it's alcoholic. So I'll do a little tequila, just a little bit. I don't drink tequila usually. And I'll make it, it's a whole LaCroix, but very rare.
And I won't even touch the drink. I'll like make it and set it down and I'll just start painting and like, and you [01:22:00] know, and I'm like, Whoa, I haven't even taken a sip. This is good stuff. That's how you know, it's relaxing. You know what I mean?
Warren: Good.
Aaron: Good. Anyways. But yeah, that's the, that's the reason for the setup.
That's the reason. And I, you know, I was even thinking about this whenever we met Warren. I'm like, my big old face is on the screen. And I don't know, it looks weird. And I have to get, I'll get a new setup. I'll get it nice. I bet your camera has a zoom
Alex: setting. It should just dial that
Aaron: back. No, this is an old Logitech that I found in, uh, In one of my old boxes.
In a box of old corporate equipment? No, I don't do that. No, I don't do that. We've had this discussion, Alex. We have had this discussion. Man, I can't believe they're redoing Epic Mickey 2. Every asset. That's amazing. That is, that's a crazy, uh, remaster that Yeah, I'm gonna get it. I think my kids would really like it.
And I was telling them about Warren and, um, a lot of the, uh, game design things that he said, like [01:23:00] player choice and how that's really, uh, it's perfect for streaming. That's such a good, very good, like way to look at it, you know?
Alex: Yeah.
Aaron: It's a very, yeah. And he described
Alex: himself as a very much a systems designer of like, like, you know, and I think that comes from, you know, pen and paper role playing is that those were systems, you know, systems of rules and, and tables, uh, that are designed to empower the creativity of the players.
So it sort of translates into his philosophy on game design, um, which I love. Yeah. It's awesome.
Aaron: Yeah. And you know, have you ever, there's a video out there of the guy that plays the Punisher. He's also in the walking dead. He's also the, the brother of the guy in that, uh, in, uh, the bear, that actor, you know?
Okay, really? So he has a part? Yeah. He played the, he played Punisher? I didn't know that. He did like in the show, right? So he, in the, the Netflix show, he, that guy has a podcast and he had on this [01:24:00] actress from True Blood and she's a, she actually is like a professional, uh, d and d, um, like dm, you know, and she'll like stream him I think sometimes.
Anyway, she was on his pod, she was on his podcast. And she teaches him how to play D& D in like three or four minutes. And it is the most amazing D& D tutorial I've ever seen in my life. You should look it up. We should link it. It's really, really good because it, it like, when people don't understand D& D, like she, she, I think that is probably encapsulates the best.
Hey, this is what D and D is. And it's like very well, it's very simple and it's very clear. And, uh, you learn how to play D and D in those three minutes. It's amazing. Yeah. Send me the link. I'd
Alex: love
Aaron: it. Yeah. And do you, do you have any books? Do you collect any of those books? Are you into those D and D books?
I do have
Alex: a [01:25:00] few. I think I have, um, the, uh, Was it the, just like the starter books, fifth edition? Yeah. I think I have V. Is that the, is that the one that, that, that's kind of the classic? But I haven't cracked those books in a while. I
Aaron: like collecting them. I'm a sucker for them. You know how you always call me a hoarder?
I'm a sucker for those. I don't know why. Like I like having them, you know, like you look at them, they're just filled with stuff. Yeah, they look awesome. Yeah, it's like the idea of it too is so neat and comforting, you know, it gets your imagination gone, doesn't it? Yeah, we should do that when we're when we do our next onsite.
We should have a night where we play D& D Well, maybe we
Alex: can get a like a pro DM to come.
Aaron: Yeah, and maybe we could get custom cool dice that you give us
Alex: I think we gotta we gotta end this before I go on a furt debt further Um Thanks for joining us again this week. Hope [01:26:00] you enjoyed our conversation with Warren Spector. I did so good and we shall see you next time. See you next time everyone
Aaron: Thank you for listening to the fourth curtain podcast The fourth curtain is a production of fourth curtain media with community management by doug zartman Lovingly edited and mastered by brian hensley at noise floor sound solutions in chicago To get a peek at upcoming episodes or to sending questions to the show, visit our site at theforthcurtain.
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