Petroglyph Studios CEO Chuck Kroegel on Their Upcoming Action-Strategy MMO, Mytheon

By Steven Crews | April 28, 2009 | | Filed under: Events, Features, Interviews | Tags: Action-Strategy MMO, Chuck Kroegel, Events, Features, GDC09, Interviews, Mytheon, Petroglyph, True Games

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The MMO Gamer: If I may play devil’s advocate here for a moment, why bring strategy games into the MMO space? What do you get from a persistent universe that you couldn’t get out of something like Battle.net?

Chuck Kroegel: Well, mostly cooperative play is what you would get from a game like this. As I said, it’s not a pure RTS. It has aspects of the RTS game, and it has aspects of a role-playing game.

I think you’re right, if you just took an RTS game in its purest sense and moved it to the MMO space it wouldn’t quite work. You would be better off with Battle.net. We are doing something that is a bit different than that.

And what we bring is first and foremost cooperative play. You get some of that in RTS games nowadays when you’re playing online, but not really in the same way that the MMO platform can bring to the genre.

We think that we are modifying the genre- almost into like a new genre-that fits the MMO platform and the kind of things that people are looking for.

Especially when it comes to cooperative game play, where you play with your buddies against the big evil one, and obviously you also can have PvP where you play against other players and you rank up and so forth, in that way.

We felt that the problem with RTS games in traditional space, like Battle.net, was that it was almost too competitive for the average guy.

You really got the very dedicated, ardent core gamers on Battle.net playing away at RTS games, but the common average dude, he would try to log in and get slaughtered and embarrassed and quit playing.

In reality even though we all like a challenge, none of us really plays a game to lose. We really have other things in life that we can deal with that punishment, but for our entertainment we would like to succeed.

The MMO Gamer: So what you’re saying is the game may not appeal to Koreans? [laughing]

Chuck Kroegel: Well I think there is a way to appeal to both. You can appeal to hardcore gamers, although the reverse might be true. Your game might be so brutal that the common guy may not be interested, but that the hardcore guy, he may be interested in playing with other people, rather than be lonely, and be the butcher, and he could play with other people so, they can watch him butcher others.

He could actually discover the notion of socialization and be admired by others who are fighting alongside with him, rather than tearing them apart.

I think the whole notion of PvP and co-operative play and socialization is the way that real time games should go. RTS, we should go in that direction at least to provide that experience which very little that is provided right now in the MMO space .

The MMO Gamer: So the game is going to be free play with micro-transactions, and that is a combination that has never quite caught on in the West with adult audiences.

Every year when I come to these conventions many people I speak to, such as yourself, say that this is going to be the year that micro-transactions are going to break through into the mainstream, but they never do.

Are things going to be different this time around? Will Mytheon succeed where others have failed?

Chuck Kroegel: Well, I think we’re being very smart in how we’re producing Mytheon so that our costs are reasonable. We’re leveraging off of current technology. We’re dealing with smart people.

I don’t think we have any unreasonable expectations to the point where we’re sort of perched on this cliff where unless we get this humongous response at the very beginning we’re going to fall off. We’re going to be poised to address our market and be able to grow the business and scale up as the needs arises. There’s that aspect.

There are lots of things coming together that would lead you to believe that this year could be the year that the micro-transactions here in the West will take off. There are indications that certain other products are actually doing a pretty good job of the micro-transactions.

The whole notion of pay as you go, and the notion of micro-transactions has been for around a very long time. It’s a matter of getting people in tune to the notion of it. We think the way to do that is to provide high production values that they are used to in an off the shelf product, and great gameplay that attracts them.

I think as companies go out there and provide this kind of experience the people will come. I think there are plenty of examples out there where we are seeing here in the West that people are responding to publishers and companies that are providing a service, not just a game, a service. So we’re looking to provide a service for our audience with this kind of game.

The MMO Gamer: You’ve been in the gaming industry for a very long time now…

Chuck Kroegel: Yes, over 25 years.

The MMO Gamer: …And I like to end my interviews on a philosophical note, as opposed to ” When is your coming out, and how many exclusives are you going to give me?”

So, why have you stayed in the industry for those 25 years? Why did you get into it in the first place? What makes you get up every morning, go to work, and do what it is you do?

Chuck Kroegel: Because I love games. It’s really hard to explain why I love games, but I do. Of all kinds; I have a tremendous board game collection. I have miniatures of all kinds of all time periods. Science fiction. World War 2, American Civil War, you name it.

I have all kinds of computer and console games. I love games of all kinds and of all media. I’m just a gamer at heart ever since I can remember. It’s in my blood.

How I got into the business is that I started playing this war game on the TRS-80. That was in the day when you had this little tape that actually read the code into the computer. A cassette tape, mind you. And the terrain was all letters: R was a river. H was a hill. And your little units moved across the alphabet, so to speak, on this terrain.

It was way back in those days, it was like in 1980, I got in and started playing that war game and then started writing to the programmer who made the game and had it published. Then we eventually started doing games together.

Our publisher, SSI at the time, we worked with them for a while and then they invited me to be their manager of research and development. So I switched careers at the time from what I was doing to managing games. That was in like 1983 was when I started and that was the beginner of my new career in games. So why am I in it? Because I just love games and I love to evangelize a strategy game. My forte is strategy games. It always has been. It’s really hard. How do you justify or explain your passion? Games are my passion. The business side of things is a means to an end. You need to have a business in order to make the game so that you can continue to make games for a living. It’s almost like a necessary evil. It’s also a handy way to distribute your product to people out there so you can share it. That’s my answer to the question.

The MMO Gamer: Thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it and hope we can do it again sometime.

Chuck Kroegel: Thank you.

If this interview has whet your appetite, head over to http://www.petroglyphgames.com to learn more about the studio and its upcoming projects.