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Thursday, 02 February 2012 01:44

Written by Max Parker (The Game Guy)

Curt Schilling is best known for throwing strikes in four World Series, winning three of them, and for creating a bloody sock that currently resides in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Today, his passion lies elsewhere, far away from a baseball diamond.  Curt has become a major player in the world of video games and it may come as surprise that his video games have nothing to do with sports.

Curt is the founder and chairman of the video game development company, 38 Studios, formerly known as Green Monster Games.  His new team is on the brink of their first major release in the action/RPG “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,” which hits stores on February 7 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

His transformation from throwing heaters from the mound to helping a massive team of game developers and artists create a completely original fantasy world is fascinating.  I caught up with Curt to talk about his new life away from sports.

I was able to get insight on his interest in gaming, building his company from the ground up, controversial online passes, and what he thought were the best baseball teams he played for.

 _____________________________________

Curt Schilling: Go Steelers!   

Max Parker: Yeah, sorry about Tim Tebow.   

CS: Yeah well they didn’t deserve to win the game.  They were too injured.

MP:  That’s true. It’s tough to win that many injuries on the starting roster.  So are you doing a lot of interviews in the week leading up to [Kingdom of Alamar: Reckoning’s] release?

CS: Actually this is the first back-to-back day, but this is way more fun that doing press row at the All-Star Game or the World Series.

MP: I was actually going to ask you, now that you’ve been able to experience both video game and sports media, which one is easier to deal with.

CS: You know, they’re a lot of the same and it’s amazing to me.  I’ve always been very open, very outspoken, very “transparent” is the word and the sports media and the gaming media have the exact same group of people. 

There is a laundry list of writers in sports that are bitter, and their approach is very easy to see upfront.  Likewise in the game world.  The ones I’ve always enjoyed, whether they wrote good stuff about me or not - that was not relevant because obviously I’d like good stuff written about me – but the ones that I liked were the guys that were fans of the game.  Those were the guys [that] even if they wrote bad stuff about me, they were writing from a place of passion.  When you’re interviewed by someone that’s like, this is a stepping stone to get into the economy section or section A of the paper, it’s different from when you’re interviewed by someone who’s a gamer that loves games and loves technology.

MP: Yeah, you’ll have passionate people and people who aren’t as passionate in their job in any field, I suppose.  I wanted to kick this off by getting a little bit of your background with the industry and how you grew up around video games.  You got to see gaming’s humble beginnings all the way to what your team is creating today.  What attracted you to the industry when it first became a hobby of yours and then a profession?

CS: I’ve been a gamer my whole life.  I started gaming in 1980 and I’ve been gaming ever since.  Gaming has always been a very core part of my life from high school to now.  Gaming has always been a staple for me.  It’s probably one of the reasons I’ve never been a lead story on ESPN for DWI or [any other] felony.  I was always a gamer.  It’s what I did.  It’s how I entertain myself.  Depending on who you talk to in my family, it’s a good thing since I handed it down to my kids which is kind of nice.

 In the business side, the genesis of this company is probably ten to fifteen years old.  When I was later in my career looking towards the end and wondering what I was going to do, I realized that I didn’t possess the retirement gene so I was looking for something to keep me occupied.  Then I started to think, “I have a passion for this.”

 In the late ‘90s when [Ultima Online] came out and then later with EverQuest, the base of this industry changed literally overnight.  It became intriguing to me.  My vision was to give something a whirl that I had never done before and try to be the best in the world at that.  […] This seemed like a natural progression.

MP: So, “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.”  Is this the game that you envisioned your company creating when you first founded Green Monster?

CS: Reckoning is a lucky break to be honest with you.  I would love to tell you, “Oh my god, I designed this from day 1.”  “Copernicus,” which is our MMO, was the reason this company was founded.  We’ve been building it for five years and we’re still building it.  “Reckoning” honestly fell in my lap.  

About three years ago, THQ was divesting themselves of third-party studios, and [CEO of 38 Studios] Jen McClain walked in and told me the news.  From a business perspective, I’m not sure if I could’ve made a bigger gamble, given that this company is founded and built upon its culture.  At the time we were a pre-revenue startup, slugging away on an MMO and we were about 80 people big and in one fell swoop we were talking about doubling the size of the company and doubling our burn rate each month. 

There was a very intense 72-hour conversation because [Big Huge Games] was set to close in 72 hours.  We scrambled and I flew down and met [with Big Huge Games] and I became convinced that [lead designer Ian Frazier] and the team down in Baltimore were likeminded, good people that I would hire and want in my company.  So we made a huge gamble at the time.  It’s funny because [38 Studios] is a Harvard business study and after the initial study we’ve been back two separate times in two separate years.  One of the conversation points of the class is, “Would you have done what we did?”  To a person they said, “absolutely not,” but we might not be here if that hadn’t happened.  They had been working on a single-player role playing game for a couple years.  They were coming off “Rise of Nations,” which is one of the greatest games ever made, and they were going into a new genre.

We were in two divergent paths.  They were out shopping an RPG that no one was biting on and no one had any interest in, and we were shopping an MMO that was way too early in the process for anyone to make any type of commitment to.  Everyone loved [Copernicus].  When we were talking to investors [and] companies, everyone loved [Copernicus].  But we were too far from the market to get any interest.  We had multiple conversations with EA about what we were doing and obviously they were knee-deep in [The Old Republic] and all that they were doing with BioWare.  When we went back to them, there was this beautiful niche that they had open and it gave us breathing room.  So the partnership began there. 

I think every great success story in life revolves around good people and some luck, and this was just a really lucky break that we caught I think on both ends and we’re a week away from realizing how lucky.

MP: Was it your idea to bring in the big names for "Reckoning" like Ken Rolston, R. A. Salvatore and Todd MacFarlane?

CS: They came in two different ways.  Todd and [R. A.] were the first two people I called when I thought about founding [Green Monster] because I wanted to start with what I call an unfair advantage.  I tell this story to everybody, but the day we founded the company when we made the press release for, at the time, Green Monster Games, I [set up a Google Alert] for Green Monster Games.  I get a hit and I go to this forum and there’s only one post in this entire forum about our announcement.  The post is, “Curt Schilling, Todd MacFarlane, and [R. A.] Salvatore. I can’t wait.  This is going to be like watching the Hindenburg 2.0.”  I [thought] OK, this is not very different from playing in Yankee Stadium.  But I wanted to kind of shock the house a little bit.

 Ken came on board [coming from Big Huge Games] in Baltimore.  He was another lucky break for us, in being able to get another world-changing mind on the team.  I didn’t know Ken very well from before this.  I’m a hardcore gamer, but I’m not a big researcher into “who” makes “what.”  I know Sid Meier because his name is on the box.  I’m sorry I missed that boat because Ken Rolston is one of god’s good people.  Being in his presence is one of the amusing and enjoyable experiences of my life.  [R. A. Salvatore and Todd MacFarlane] are the same way.  I think you would be blown away when being able to sit with these guys and talk to them about anything because they’re just unbelievably passionate, caring and committed people.  I think that’s one of the reasons why they are some of the best in the world in what they do.

MP:  It is a really talented team you have on the project.  I spent a lot of time with the demo and it looks like it’s going to be one the really special RPGs this year.  It looks great, from what I gathered from the demo.

 CS: Thanks. I appreciate that.

 MP: How involved were you in the creative process?

 CS: From a story perspective early on, I was very involved in the early creative piece to it.  So think about this: I’m creating this very cool fantasy story and I get [R. A. Salvatore] on my team.  I’m pretty much done giving fantasy direction at that point, you know? [R. A.] has made a life out of it.  I think if you had me 100% involved on day 1 of this company, it quickly dropped to some smaller percentage [after] week 1.  [After] month 1, even smaller.  It’s just gotten smaller from a creative perspective because here [are] a couple things that I do know: I do know good games.  Whether I play them or not, and I like them I know good games.  I know when someone executes on good game design.  I don’t know how to make good games.  [R. A.] for the most part doesn’t either, Todd [MacFarlane] doesn’t either, but we know – from my perspective – how to coach and teach a team mentality.  [R. A.] knows how to tell people [how to] make a story better, and Todd [MacFarlane] knows how to [teach] people how to animate things better.  You bring Ken [Rolston] into the mix, and Ken can take all of our craziness and turn it into something that is immensely fun to play.

 That’s pretty much how we’ve done this.  We have incredibly talented people like Ian Frazier and Jason Roberts and Joe Quadara, when you hand them the tools they need to build a house and you give them some extra, they can build a really special house.  For “Reckoning,” obviously it’s a very personal thing to me, but they have exceeded even my expectations, which I didn’t think was possible when we started this.

MP: Would you say that you have more of an emotional investment in the MMO “Copernicus” or “Reckoning” at this point?

 CS: Oh god no. Neither.  I have immense emotional investment in the people.  In one of the worst economies in our lifetime, I’ve managed to create a company that’s employing 400 people.  By relationship there are about a couple thousand people whose sustenance is reliant upon this company.  That is where my passion and everything that is valuable to me [lies].

 This is no different from baseball.  If you build up the most talented roster you can and you put those people in the best position to succeed, amazing things happen.  That’s what we’ve done.  That’s the thing that is the most powerful for me to [see] happen.

 MP:  That’s good to hear.  Recently there’s been a lot of conversation about “Reckoning’s” online pass blocking out certain quests [if not entered].  Can you comment on the decision to include the online pass?

 CS:  The decision to include free day-1 content was an easy one.  The day-1 DLC is free content for buying the game new.  It doesn’t matter what your purchase price is [or] what sale you get.  If you buy the game new you get free content.  This is not content we held out at launch.  This was content that we were on the fence to [finish] and we didn’t want to jeopardize the launch of the product.  We had to go an extra mile, EA had to go an extra mile to get this content ready for launch.  Had we had to decide at the time we were calling it, we would have cut it.

 I look at it at the exact opposite [of how it’s perceived], and it’s all about perspective.  How players feel and think is 100% their choice and if they disagree with it, I totally understand that.  But this is a way for us as a new company with a new IP in the most competitive market in the world right now to say “thank you.”  That’s how we view it.  If you view it as something else […] I understand it.  When you say “online pass,” it comes with a different notation to it.  It has a stigma attached to it.  I understand that because I’m a gamer.  That’s not what it is.  You don’t have to pay a penny for this.  If you buy the game used, yes you do.

 We’re a new company and we’re a startup.  As hard as it is for some people to believe, we have to make money to survive.  I don’t feel that we did anything schemey or nefarious.  We gave the players who are the bleeding edge, forum posting, [and] cutting edge thought-leaders in the game’s industry – because they’re the people that talk to everybody.  If the game sucks, they’re going to tell people not to buy it.  So we wanted to reward them for making a commitment to us before they had to.

 MP:  So this was a 38 Studios decision?  Not an EA decision?

 CS: No, it was a team decision.  We’re partners with EA.  […] The elephant in the room is “game sales,” used and new and all that other stuff.  I think the industry is still in flux about how those things are happening.  Again, this was a partnership decision, so it doesn’t fall on [EA].  [EA] has been very good with us.  They never told us we had to do anything.  We made our move and launch date decisions.  We made our day-1 DLC decisions.  We made those all together.  I absolutely would not say that this is EA’s fault or this is 38’s fault or this was either’s decision.  This was a partnership decision we made.

 MP: Is it an interest of yours to stay in the realm of high fantasy like “Reckoning” and Copernicus, or do you have any interest in shifting gears to a sports game since you have that in your background?

 CS:  That’s a great question without a definitive answer.  I don’t know.  Amalur is massive and the two projects we’re working on are massive.  My biggest thing right now is that I make games I want to play.  We want to make games we want to play.  That’s not platform-dependant.  That’s not genre-dependant.  That’s just us doing what it is we want to do.  If you think about it, we’re a privately owned company.  We get to pick our path as long as we can be successful [and] as long as “Reckoning” is successful, we can kind of pick our path.  The other thing is we’re going to be making games [that] gamers want to play.

 So to answer your question – and it’s not an easy one – I don’t really see us going to sports path because I never had a lot of interest.  I play “Madden” [and] I love “Madden.”  That and “NHL 12.”  Those are the two the most dedicated sports games I play.  If I play a sports baseball game, it’s a simulation.  I’m not into the arcady sports games.

MP:  So like “MLB: The Show?”  Do you play that?

 CS:  No.  I don’t play that.  I’ve always told people, “When you can make a sports game that’s as hard as the real job, I’ll play it.”

 MP: That makes sense.  So, being a gamer as both a hobby and professionally, is there anything on the video game horizon that really interests you whether it’s tech or another game?

 CS: Well obviously I’m keeping an ear out for the next console life.  The rumors are rampant with the Xbox 720.  Here’s another parallel to my former life.  The word “potential” for other players was used often.  [People] talked about, “oh, this guy has a chance to be a hall-of-famer.”  When the rubber meets the road and guys get to the big leagues you tend to just be able to figure everything out.

 Being a game company, our goal is to never rely on technology for us to be able to deliver a great game.  So that’s probably less important to us than it might be to other people.  […] 3D is a great example.  The buzzword was 3D a year and a half ago.  It was the next thing.  That and cloud computing.  Those were the things […] that technology companies jumped on.  Entertainment companies I think make colossal mistakes trying to be early adopters.  We all realize that those things take months to flesh out, if not years.  If we want to give you the best experience on the platform you’re playing [whether it’s on] an iPad, to an Xbox, to a PC, it’s easier for us to sit back and watch those things mature before we decide to spend millions and millions of dollars and man-hours towards a project.

 MP: What platform do you like to game on for recreation.

 CS:  I’m a PC gamer and my platform of choice if I’m a console guy [is] the Xbox.  Quite honestly, this is the first game [I’ve] ever played on my PC with an Xbox controller.  I’ve never done it before.

 MP: Yeah. Most use a mouse and keyboard, but I feel that the controller is better for control.

 CS: You’ve played the demo, right?

 MP: Yes.  I played it for 360.

 CS: The combat is very controller intuitive.

 MP: Yes it is.  I know you’re a big fan of MMOs.  Have you gotten into “The Old Republic” at all?

 CS: Oh, I’m living it right now.

 MP: It’s great.

 CS: I have a level-capped character and a couple other ones on the way.

 MP: Oh wow.  So you make the time to put into “The Old Republic?”

 CS: I have to.  It’s the same reason I went back and played a lot of RPGs as “Reckoning” was [coming] along; to continue to be grounded.  You get skewed, [and] you get biased.  I can remember our first gameplay footage that we were taking out of “Reckoning” and I was blown away because it’s awe-inspiring to someone like me who’s not in the industry.  If you tend to drink kool-aid enough, it can be a dangerous thing.  I always want to have a feel and have a pulse of what’s happening in the space that we’re playing in.

 MP: That’s definitely a quality you need.  You pitched in four World Series.  What was the best team that you were a part of?

 CS: The best team I was ever apart of would probably be a tie between the 2001 [Arizona] Diamondbacks and the 2004 [Boston] Red Sox.

 MP: Were they the most fun?

CS:  Most fun?  I never didn’t have fun, but those two seasons were special.  They were different.  […] It’s the same thing that happened here at this company.  The four World Series that I played in, on day one of Spring Training I knew we were different.  The first week of this company and as it’s gone on, everything here is different and you can feel it and see it.  It’s prevalent in everything that we do.  That’s a pretty powerful and cool thing.
 

Kingdoms of Alamur: Reckoning releases February 7 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC and retails for $59.99

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