Interview: Requiem: Bloodymare with Gravity Interactive’s Mario Fernandez Jr. and Joon Yoon

By Steven Crews | March 26, 2008 | | Filed under: Interviews

The MMO Gamer: Why was the decision made to buck the conventions of traditional fantasy or sci-fi, and going instead with a horror-themed title?

Mario Fernandez Jr.: We wanted to target a different market. There’s a lot of fantasy MMOs out there. Our world was technologically advanced, but, through so much war and cataclysm it’s changed dramatically. It’s almost back to the medieval period.

It’s a post-apocalyptic world. You still see remnants of the science, you have the DNA system, the fact that your character is a bio-engineered super-soldier, something unique to this world.

A lot of the monsters have a bio-mechanical feel, they’ll have machine parts, gruesome things like monsters attached to other monsters, blood, gore, and a lot of different things.

The MMO Gamer: Having just seen the demo, I would obviously say that your target audience is more towards the adult end of the spectrum, competing against say, Hellgate, or Conan.

How large do you think that market is? And how big of a niche do you think that Requiem will be able to carve out of it?

Mario Fernandez Jr.: I don’t have a general idea of how big the market is, but we know it is a niche that is currently being served more than in the past. It’s a niche that we can make our mark in.

We definitely have aspects in our game, the DNA system, the possession beast system, as well as the nightmare mode, which will define us as different from the other companies coming up.

The MMO Gamer: Taking a look at the other titles you have on offer, this is something of a departure from them, to say the least. Why did you decide to go in this new direction with blood, gore, and nudity, as opposed to the more cute, anime style of your other titles?

Mario Fernandez Jr.: I think we’re trying to diversify ourselves as a company. With Ragnarok, and ROSE, we have our kids and family-oriented market pretty much set with them, and we wanted to do something different. Tackle a demographic we hadn’t targeted.

So, we went with the blood, the gore, the adult content of Requiem.

The MMO Gamer: This is a title which originated in Korea, correct?

Mario Fernandez Jr.: Yes.

The MMO Gamer: What do you think its chances of success are in the North American market? There aren’t many traditional Korean import MMOs that have cracked the top ten, aside from Lineage.

Many other companies have attempted to import East Asian titles into America market without a great amount of success. Do you think you can reverse the trend with Requiem?

[This was the first question Joon Yoon fielded, so I requested that he introduce himself]

Joon Yoon: My name is Joon Yoon, I’m the marketing and PR coordinator at Gravity Interactive.

Basically, I think with a lot of those games there were a lot of issues in terms of localization. This time around we’re taking that very seriously, putting a lot of effort into making sure that the game, in terms of how it looks, how it reads, and how it feels in general is very Western so that we target North American gamers.

We’re going through several review processes to make sure that, as you can see, the look of the game is pretty Western already. We’ve made it, and we’re polishing it, so that gamers will be more in touch with it here, rather than something that just came straight from Korea.

When it comes to localization, it’s not just about translating the text directly from Korean to English. It’s more about making sure it fits the gamer language here, in America.

The MMO Gamer: The “Westernization,” let’s call it, of East Asian MMOs has always been the greatest stumbling block for companies trying to import companies into the North American market.

The poor implementation of such has, over the years, given imported titles the tarnished reputation of being, quote-unquote, “Asian Grindfests.”

What do you do to overcome that?

Joon Yoon: I think it depends on how you look at it. Vice versa, Western games have a very difficult time going into Asia. WoW is pretty much the only one that broke that barrier.

Here, we think the reason why is putting priorities into localizing the title. I think that’s the most important part of the development process of an Asian game coming here, that’s where most of the problem is, and that’s why we made that one of our top priorities, to make sure that the game is properly localized.

The MMO Gamer: The game is free to play, correct?

Mario Fernandez Jr.: Yes. The game is free to play, and it will have a tiered payment system, but we will always maintain a free to play aspect of the game.

Joon Yoon: The details haven’t been fleshed out yet. We’ll probably make an announcement soon. That’s also kind of what the closed beta is for, to kind of get feedback from the community, as well as seeing where the interest is.

The MMO Gamer: Was there anything we didn’t discuss during this interview you’d like to tell our readers before we go?

Mario Fernandez Jr.: You definitely have to try out this game. If you’re looking for an adult title with very, very unique skills and systems, the DNA system, the beast possession, and Nightmare mode will definitely get your attention.

The MMO Gamer: Thank you very much for joining us, and we look forward to speaking with you more in the future.

Mario Fernandez Jr.: Most definitely.

Joon Yoon: Thank you.

Requiem: Bloodymare is currently undergoing closed beta. You may find more information about the game at its official website: http://www.playrequiem.com