Making MMOs on a Shoestring: The NetDevil Story with Scott Brown

By Steven Crews | April 6, 2009 | | Filed under: Events, Features, Interviews | Tags: Jumpgate Evolution, NetDevil, Scott Brown

The MMO Gamer: How did you manage that? It sounds like you were in pretty dire straits.

Scott Brown: Well we got lucky, again. Lego came along and they liked our pitch and our passion and stuff. We got a deal with them which is probably the deal of a lifetime, frankly.

And then we started this little side project, because I love physics and destruction and everything.

With AutoAssault we had done so much and we wanted to do more, and so we did a project with Ageia, the now-defunct Ageia that did the physics processors, and we made a game called Warmonger, which was really more of a demo than a game.

It was basically like, “What if you took Unreal and Ageia and made everything destructible. What would that look like?” We started those things and it was enough to save the company.

The JumpGate project grew after we signed Codemasters, and the Lego project continued to grow as it became bigger and bigger what the vision of that would be.

And, we’ve started another game internally that we haven’t even announced yet, so that’s how we got to where we are now.

The MMO Gamer: So, now you’ve kind of come full circle: from the no-name company working out of your basement to the big guys working on a world-famous license with $50 million to blow.

It’s an interesting journey.

Scott Brown: Well, we don’t have the $50 million yet, [laughs] but it’s been good.

The one big lesson we learned was, “There’s no shortcut to quality, and only quality games sell.” Maybe you can find some exceptions to that, but my opinion is great games sell, and that’s it. There’s nothing else, there’s no secret or whatever.

Greatness comes from iteration, it comes from doing it over and over and over, and testing it, and getting a reaction and making it better, and testing it and getting a reaction and making it better. That’s it. That’s how great stuff comes about.

We study all the companies, we look at Blizzard and Valve, and those guys do just an amazing job of just doing great game after great game.

Or look at Pixar, how they make movies. Every one of their movies is a hit. They all tell you the same story. It may have different words, but what they do is the same thing. And so, it’s time. You just have to spend the time, and make it good.

I think that’s what we’ve learned, and I think it shows in JumpGate, and when we can start to show some of our other stuff like Lego I think people will see it there, too.

The MMO Gamer: I hate to close things out on such a cliché question, but let’s say someone out there is reading this right now and is thinking about starting up their own MMO company, with a server hanging above the sink in the laundry room.

Is that even still possible in this day and age? And if it is, what would you say to them?

Scott Brown: It’s always possible, and don’t let anyone tell you it’s not.

I was just at DICE, the game show in Las Vegas, and these guys built, I think it’s called “World of Goo,” two guys, no office, no internet. They met in coffee shops to code that thing, and it swept the awards. It won so many awards at that show it was amazing. Two guys.

There’s always opportunity. Look at Club Penguin. Three guys. Club Penguin sold for $750 million or $700 million to Disney.

Look at RuneScape, a super deep MMO. Are the graphics incredible? No, but it runs on anything, it’s a Java client. You can find example, after example, after example.

I would say, for everyone who says, “Oh, that window is closed,” the trick is don’t try to build WoW with three people. I think that’s the worst mistake you can make. Pick a goal that’s achievable.

JumpGate is not the WoW killer. It’s a space simulator, built for people who like space simulators. Don’t try to make it into something it’s not.

That’s the mistake we ran into with AutoAssault. It was like, “Well, if we don’t have housing we can’t succeed,” and, “If we don’t have characters we can’t succeed,” and, “If we don’t have these features that you have to have to succeed, that everyone says we do…”

Fewer good features are better than more crappy features. Pick something you can pull off.

The MMO Gamer: Words to live by.

Scott Brown: Yeah.

The MMO Gamer: Alright, well, thank you very much for joining us.

Scott Brown: Of course.

The MMO Gamer: We appreciate it, and we hope we can do it again some time.

Scott Brown: Any time.

For additional information about JumpGate Evolution, visit the game’s official site at: http://www.jumpgateevolution.com/

For information regarding NetDevil’s other titles, or the company itself, visit: http://www.netdevil.com/