Interview with stratosgroup.com about Spiderweb, Computer Games and Jeff. Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 11:36:32 -0800 (Be sure to send a link when the interview is up, so we can link to it.) >First off, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, Jeff. My pleasure! >I know from your other interviews that you love to talk about yourself, so >why donât you? Tell us a little about yourself. I'm a 30 year old professional shareware developer. My company, Spiderweb SOftware, Inc. is based in Seattle, and we have 3 full-time employees, including me. We have 9 titles for Macintosh, Windows, or both. It's hard work, but it's a lot of fun, especially since designing computer games is really something I was born to do. >What is your favorite game ever, for any platform? (No fair picking one >of your own ;-) In terms of fun while I was playing it, level of absorbtion, and level of innovation and ingenuity, I'd have to give it to Ultima IV or V. Those games OWNED me when they were new. I can't put into words how big an effect they had on me when I first played them. Amazing stuff. >And your favorite from the past year or so? Probably Everquest. Wait. That was over a year ago. How about Planescape: Torment. That game is touched by genius. >What sort of things do you enjoy doing when youâre not hard at work on a >new game? I read newspapers addictively. New York Times. Movies. Plays. Fancy restaurants. Exercise. >If you werenât a successful shareware game developer, where would you be, >and what would you be doing? I would be working as a computer programmer, programming things. It's in my nature. >Now to pick your brain on what I feel are the ÎBig Threeâ current issues >in computer gaming. First off, a lot of fuss has been made in the past >several months concerning the effects of video game violence on children >and adolescents. Now when I think of violent video games, your games are >far from the first to come to mind, but whatâs your take on the issue? It's a load of bollocks. There are no reputable studies demonstrating a causal link between violent video games and violent behavior. There are studies that CLAIM to, but, as I see it, the methodology in all of them is seriously flawed. Consider, for example, the most recent one. They have people play Myst or Wolfenstein, and that test how long they press a button which blasts another person with a loud noise. The people who played the violent game gave longer blasts. But wait. How much of this is a function of adrenaline and excitement, and not violent content? Nobody would argue that playing a twitch game will get someone jumpy and excited. That's the whole point of an arcade game. But more violent? I have serious doubts. >Piracy has always been a big issue with PC games, and itâs not going away >anytime soon. Has piracy been a problem for Spiderweb, and if so, how do >you deal with it? I try to ignore it. It's like cockroaches. Once they're established, you just kind of have to make your peace with them. I just tell myself that people hwo pirate games are not people who are going to buy them. And I still make enough money to stay in business, so I don't kill myself over it. >Finally, a lot is being said of the supposedly imminent ÎDeath of PC >Gaming,â brought on in equal parts by the recent surge to equality with >PCs of console technology and the troubles of many PC game developers >(Looking Glass closed, Eidos is having troubles, etc.). I think itâll >take a lot more than that to knock the PC off as a major gaming platform. >What do your GIFTS (Giant, Intelligent, Talking Spiders; a race of >characters in Spiderwebâs games) think will happen? They think that more computer games should be fly-oriented, and deal with issues important to spiders and similar bug-like creatures. But especially spiders. >Where do you see the industry at 5 years down the road? The same old >games, only with technological improvements? Massive multiplayer worlds >ala EverQuest on steroids? Something completely different? Won't massively multiplayer games on steroids count as the same old game, but with technological improvements? :-) But wbat you said. I'm sure someone will come up with a cool. hit, ground-breaking game in the next few years. And another one. And everyone will clone it. I bet adventure games will come back and rpgs will fizzle out again. But PC games won't die. PCs are just too good, and too many people have them. >But enough general rambling; letâs talk about your company. As I >understand it, there are 3 full-time employees at Spiderweb, but youâre >the only one who works on the companyâs games. Exactly what are your >duties on-the-job? Watch over things. Take care of marketing and uploads. And write cool games. >·And the duties of the other employees? One is a business manager and web designer. The other takes care of order taking and processing, and also does some graphics stuff. >Take us through a typical day at work. Wake up late. Eat. Read paper. Stumble downstairs. Browse web. Work a few hours. Spend evening doing stuff. Start working again at midnight. Work a few hours. Play Everquest until I get tired. Repeat until dead. Of course, in a sense, I never stop working. Ten minutes rarely go by when I don't think some about designing games. >Youâve written quite the little bit of advice for aspiring shareware >developers. What inspired you to write this? >(http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/shareware.html) Thanks for linking to it. We're planning to add more material to it soon. I love shareware, and I want more people to know what a great area it is. It's hard work. Very demanding. But it's a lot of fun too. >On top of your advice, Spiderweb also provides order-taking and >fulfillment services to small developers. >(http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/misc/services.html) Between these two >pages, it becomes quite apparent that youâre gung-ho for shareware. >Youâre definitely talented enough to find a job with a larger, more >mainstream game development house, yet you remain in shareware, making >games largely by yourself. Why? I really like working at home. I really like being my own boss. And Seattle traffic is really, really bad. But I did do some contract design work on MechWarrior IV for a few months. It was a very pleasant sabbatical. >Are there any up-and-coming shareware developers youâd like to plug? Sadly, not off the top of my head. More tend to be giving up than getting started. >Spiderwebâs latest game, Avernum, is a remake (with considerable expansion >of dialogue and content) of the classic Exile: Escape from the Pit, the >game that brought the company into the limelight. What made you decide to >remake an old game rather than begin a new one? Why does Adope keep upgrading Photoshop instead of making an all-new program? Exile was a terrific game, but it was too crude. Nobody played it anymore. I hated all that first-rate design work going to waste, so I went back to it and gave it a treatment that it truly deserved. >Avernum 2 is currently in development. Will this be a remake of Exile 2: >Escape from the Pit, or will it be completely new? What changes, if any, >will be made to the Avernum engine? Remake of Exile II with plenty of new material. It'll use something very close to the Avernum engine. I agonized about how much to rewrite it, and I realized that I really like the Avernum engine, and I want to use it for at least another game. >You recently made a large jump from the classic 2-D, early-Ultima-esque >perspective to a 3D isometric view in Nethergate and Avernum. Do you have >any more major engine changes in mind for the future? While Avernum 2 is in developemtn, I am also working on a whole new science fiction rpg, with an all new real-time fully animated engine. Tentative name: Geneforge. >Any idea what youâll start work on after Avernum 2 is complete? Finish Geneforge. Depending on demand for it, maybe Avernum 3. >Finally, the most important question of all: do you enjoy goat hoarding as >much as we do? Mmmm. Goat cheese. mmmm. >What is missing from CRPGs today that they just dont have that "Fun Factor" anymore? Graphic intensity? I like CRPGs today. Baldur's Gate was a lot of fun. Everquest is viciously addictive. Planescape: Torment was truly fascinating. Many of them are bad, but many games in any genre are bad. >Thanks again for your time, Jeff. Have fun finishing up Avernum 2. Iâm >looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to selling it. Hee hee.