Austin GDC: Interview with Kwari Marketing Director Al King

On the second day of the Austin GDC, Kumar caught up to Al King, Marketing Director for Kwari, an online shooter allowing players to make money from their FPS skills which is currently being developed in the UK using BigWorld’s MMO engine. He was kind enough to grant us some of his time to talk about the game.

The MMO Gamer: What is your name, and what exactly do you do for Kwari?

Al King: My name is Al King, and I believe on my business card it says “Marketing Director.”

The MMO Gamer: Tell us a bit about the game, the essential concepts, the ideas behind it.

Al King: The idea behind the game–and I should mention the name Eddie Gill up front, he’s the guy that came up with the idea for Kwari, and he was quite dilligent with the amount of time he spent working on the idea, R&D and the design behind the game–it’s basically a first-person shooter in an online multiplayer environment. It isn’t a true MMO, even though we’re using Micro Forte’s BigWorld middleware to make the game, but it’s really an online multiplayer first-person shooter. The big ‘twist’, if you like, is that we’ve fused the engine with a technology that handles persistent online financial transactions. This means that people can register and set up an account with us, and then the technology handles the distribution of cash very rapidly between peer and house and peer to peer.

So essentially what you have is a first person shooter where players can make money off each other in real-time at pre-agreed stake levels. Once you’ve downloaded the client and registered with Kwari, you then have a very soiphisticated algorithm that matches players on a basis of skill - so that newbies won’t get hosed by experts and experts won’t get frustrated by having incompetent people to shoot at. The only decision you have to make is the stake level at which you want to play. These stake level range from one cent per hit all the way to one dollar per hit for the high rollers - we’re expecting most people to play in the lower ranges. And that basically means that when you get into the game and you run around in these 16 player maps, if it’s a one cent game, every hit you score on another player you will have one cent transferred from that player’s acount to yours in real time.

A typical game cycle will be 3 16-player maps which last about 6 minutes each, and then culminates in a 64 player map, which is a large circular environment and in the middle of that is a ‘vault’. As the 64 player game develops, the vault fills with cash - you’ll actually see dollar signs indicating when money is entering the vault - and then at some point in the game the doors to the vault open and the remaining players move onto the Killing Floor. When this happens, the game’s soundtrack changes to a loud crunching thrash metal soundtrack or some modern arena rock. The whole thing is like one huge exercise in crescendo. So you have all the remaining players move onto the killing floor, fight it out, and then the last one standing gets a cash bonus. So yeah, putting it all together, and we think it’s going to be a rather intense and new online shooting experience which will signal a new wave in professional gaming. It’s audacious, but we think we’ve got it pretty nailed down.

The MMO Gamer: The use of the word ‘bet’ raises a few alarms, though. Is there any random number generation, or is it about player skill?

Al King: It’s absolutely about player skill, and that’s a very important point for us in many ways. With all the changes in legislation as far as poker-related websites are concerned, it was very important to us that we got rid of any elements of chance or randomness and make it a skill-based game. We’ve already been classified as… well, we haven’t been classified as a skill-based activity because there is no such category in the UK where VAT (Value Added Tax, a form of tax applied to all purchased goods levied by most or all European governemnts) but we haven’t been classified as ‘gambling’ which does have it’s own form of status over there, and that’s a big achievement for us. We’ve also been classified by the banks for credit card use as ‘non-gambling’, so we’re fine in the UK and in the key European territories. When it comes to the USA we basically have to take our case on a state-by-state basis and say ‘Here’s what we are, here’s what we do, we’re being gracious, transparent and responsible about the whoe thing.’ Fundamentally we are skill-based, we’re not gambling, but we are subject to the same laws that cover gambling, and so we just need to be patient about the speed we can roll out in North America, but we’re hopeful that we can get running in some key states in the first half of ‘08.

The MMO Gamer: So you’ve covered gambling bases, but what is your pitch to legislators and politicians in the USA that may be concerned about the connotations of the ‘violence for money in an online environment’ premise?

Al King: Well, I would think it would be the same as anybody who is participating. We need to make the point that this is a virtual environment, it’s a fantasy environment, and almost everyone we talk to and consumers I have met in my experience in games and in research I’ve done - even the younger ones, and bear in mind we’re going to be an 18+ game, so we’re not going to have anybody under the age of 18 playing - our experience is that people can clearly tell the difference between the real world and a fantasy environment, and this is a fantasy environment. The setting is the near future, in cities and environments that you can relate to in terms of architecture and infrastructure, but they’re not actual cities or recognisable places, everything is simulated, there’s nowhere like LA or Tokyo in there, for example, so I think that correlation of being in a virtual environment, a fantasy setting, and the fact that you need to be 18 or older to play it should mean that there’s no real risk of anyone thinking thatthis is profiting from death in any real way.

The MMO Gamer: So what kind of measures do you have in place to prevent players from cheating?

Al King: I’m glad you asked that, because the tech guys working on Kwari have spent hours and hours on this particular issue. Security is our number one priority - without it you couldn’t possibly go live with a game like ours. One of the sayings we have internally, a mantra if you will, is ‘money changes everything’, and one of the things it changes for example, is that certain elements of FPS’s will be absent from Kwari. The most obvious ones are the ability to play in teams, and the ability to have your character recognised in-game. We have absolute anonymity and that means that we have random character generation every time you go into the gaming world, so the way you look will differ from game in game. There’s also no way for your character to be recognisable in-game, and there’s no way for players to communicate with each other in-game. One of the concerns we have is that if you knew who you were losing your money to it could lead to personal vendettas, where someone might knock on your door and say ‘You fxed me for 15 bucks last night on Kwari’ and then smash your face in. We eliminate that stuff with anonymity. We’ve also made sure that we do everything physically possible to prevent hackers from hacking into the game or using aim bots. We’re also going to have Games Masters policing the game world, and we think we know the kind of behaviours that are symptomatic of people who might be tempted to hack Kwari or collude somehow, and we think we’ll be able to identify, investigate and shut them down pretty quickly. We think we’ve thought of everything - I’m sure a few more things will come up during the beta testing, and we’ll address those as and when they occur.

The MMO Gamer: So, apart from the money stakes and the anonymity - which is definitely a step away from online FPS’s - what other features does Kwari have that can differentiate it from the Battlefields and Counter Strikes, or the upcoming Unreal Tournament and Quake games?

Al King: There’s a few things. I’ve mentioned already the vault where the door opens and you have all that cash in there, and the killing floor and that. That’s one feature which we think really ups the adrenalin. Another one is the Pill, which we’re particularly proud of. In the first 16 player maps, which last around 6 minutes each, after about 4 minutes an item called ‘The Pill’ spawns. It looks like an atom with some electrons floating around it. Basically, if you grab the Pill and finish the match holding on to it, you get a cash bonus. There’s also a second cash bonus for whoever held the Pill the longest during the last two minutes of play. The Pill, of course, is a double-edged sword, because everyone wants it due to the cash bonus for having it when the game ends, which means whoever has it becomes a target for every other player in the game. It basically just notches up the frenetic nature of the game by a factor of ten, fifteen, twenty percent, who knows, but as soon as the pill spawns there’s a rush f adrenalin in the room where you’re playing, and hopefully people playing remotely from different locations around the world will feel that rush. We’ve got a killer music soundtrack that we’re licensing from Universal Music, and the music is attached to the pill, so if you’re holding it the music is really loud, almost like having a ghetto blaster right in your ear, but even if you’re remote from the pill you can hear the music in the distance, and there’s also like a little pill radar which shows you where pill is in the game world, and so, basically everyone goes for the pill and it all goes nuts. We think that’s going to be a powerful differentiator.

The other thing which is a little more obvious and perhaps gratuitous is that there’s a lot of female characters in the game, and they’re all very good-looking, attractive, busty female characters who have all been created by Paul Steeds, who’s ex-ID but has done a lot of great art direction for games like the Quake series, and he’s also the guy that’s won - I think the last three years in a row - Playboy’s ‘Virtual Babe of the Year’. Our female characters, well, you can see the comparisons with Lara Croft, but they have lovely bunches, so they’re kinda like a cross between Lara Croft and Barbie, so we’re hoping players will enjoy the in-game characters as well. They guys are also very large, very buff, handsome, like virtual athletes, so the ladies should be able to enjoy that as well. I think that and the Pill should help differentiate us from the pack.

The MMO Gamer: So if you’re not going with a subscription model, where is your revenue going to come from?

Al King: I guess it would be what you’d call it a microtransaction model. We make our money exclusively from the sale of ammunition. So you’ll download the client free of charge onto your machine, and then you can run around and check out the maps holding your weapon, but you won’t have any ammo. So if there are other players in there, which there probably will be, you’ll die very quickly and you’ll go ‘How do I get ammo?’. Well, we make our money solely from the sale of ammunition, and we’ll sell you ammunition. We’ll sell you 5,000 rounds for five bucks, which is kind of peanuts, but that’s where we make our money.

The MMO Gamer: So, those 5,000 rounds work for any weapon you use?

Al King: Yeah, it does. The only difference is, when you’re in the game environment, if you use any upgraded weapons - say a rocket launcher or flamethrower - you’ll burn ammo at a faster rate, but you’ll also do more damage, so your taget’s healthbar will go down proportionally more if they’re hit by the flamethrower than by the default gun. That also means that players who are losing health will have the opportunity to replenish their health by buying healthpacks - we haven’t set the price yet, 1, 5, maybe 10 cents, still very lowly rates - and that will boost your health back to 100%. And all the money the players spend on powerups and upgrades is the money that goes into the hourly, daily, weekly and monthly jackpots. So as soon as we have a decent concurrent userbase, say two or three thousand concurrent users, those jackpots will be totalling up fairly quickly and aggressively. We’re hopeful that within the first year of going live we’ll have our first million-dollar jackpot, and from a marketing and PR pont of view, and certainly from a professional gamer point of view, we’re hopefully going to be the first company to say that we’ve made someone a millionaire just by being a hardcore gamer.

The MMO Gamer: Speaking of Marketing and PR, do you have plans to include in-game advertising on billboards, or having broadcasts of stellar matches between top-ranked players and things like that?

Al King: Yeah, we’ve got ideas on both of those already. Although we could shoot both of those into our current launch strategy, what we’ve decided to do is launch Kwari effectively in the European marketplace by the end of this year or the beginning of the next, and then roll out in the States early in 08 and then Asia in the second half of 08. But once we have a succesful launch in Europe, we’ve already been approached by a number of in-game advertising companies who have very compelling models and make it very easy to incorporate their tech into the game. Our developer Micro Forte have already confirmed that it would be very easy to implement, so hopefully we’re going to have in-game advertising in future versions of Kwari.

And yes, once we’ve launched, the marketing strategy changes from generating awareness and interest and getting users, and then defaults to not only 24/7 world-class CRM and customer satisfaction and Games Mastering, but then I think Live events in which we have jackpots which are generated by players competing in specific events on big screens in a classic e-sports environment absolutely makes sense. I can picture it in my head, but I haven’t quite figured out the logistics of this, but I’d love to have something as compelling and as fun as a rock festival, but featuring Kwari. Maybe a bit of both - maybe we have bands that are featured in the Kwari soundtrack on the bill, but between band sets we have Kwari being played live on screen, and maybe a big thermometer going up, getting closer and closer to whatever the appropriate amount is, maybe it’s a 10,000 dollar jackpot of the day. And at some point, some kid hits the jackpot and *bam* we give him 10,000 dollars up on stage.

The MMO Gamer: From what you’re told us so far, the game seems to be ready to go ‘out of the box’, so to speak. What kinds of plans do you have for updates, patches, and expansions?

Al King: When we go live, I believe we’ll be launching with 7 or 8 of the 12 levels we have planned for the game, and then hopefuly we’ll be adding one level per month over the next 4 or 5 months to deliver the complete Kwari experience as it’s currently conceived. And then our game designer, Eddie Gill, already has a number of ideas half-sketched in his head of what we’re going to do next with Kwari. (This is the point where you mention the other game genres you might be developing based on the same model. Do you want me to include that, or should I keep that under wraps for now?).

There’s also another feature - which we know we won’t have ready for launch, but we want to implement it asap - called the ‘Cash Bomb’. It might look a bit like the Pill, we’re not sure yet, but we do know that it will hang around in the game world and maybe move around like a little sentient robot and players will shoot it. The reason why is that after a number of shots, it will explode and all the cash in it will go to the player who scored the shot - it might be $10, $100, or $1000, maybe more. The cash bomb will be completely funded by the shots the players fire into it. So you might be running around the map looking for someone to shoot, and you run across the Bomb, and you reckon ‘It’s only going to cost me a few cents’, so you fire a few rounds into it. And most of the time, nothing will happen, but every now and again someone will get lucky and the bomb will explode, and whoever got it will see coins and bills all floating towards them and their in-game account will go up by a nice chunk.

The MMO Gamer: That sounds like something players might dig. What else might players find in-game in terms of power-ups and the like?

Al King: There’s a damage-boost powerup that makes your weapon glow red with lightning and increases your damage, there’s a defensive power-up called the Guardian Shield that makes you invulnerable for a short period of time. There’s also something called the Suicide Belt, which causes you to explode when another player shoots you, dealing splash damage to anyone caught in the blast. There’s health packs, like I already mentioned. And there’s a lot of jump pads, which look pretty cool. Jump pads have arrows on them indicating the direction and trajectory, so you’ll know roughly which way you’ll be jumping and how far. Finally, there’s a super-speed power-up that makes you run really fast, and what we’ve noticed in gameplay is that people tend to hover near the speed burst power-up just before the pill spawns, then they pick up the speed burst, run for the Pill, pick it up, and run off before anyone can get them. It’s a really good combination, but of course, everyone figures that out soon enough, and that means hat the area where the speed burst spawns tends to get very busy, which is good for carnage!

The MMO Gamer: Finally - and possibly most importantly for our readers - when is beta, and when are you launching?

Al King: We’re currently in closed beta, and that’s probably going to go on until the end of September. Depending on production milestones - meaning that this is all subject to change - I believe open beta is going to begin in October, and run until the middle of November. After that, we’ll close the beta again to incorporate all the feedback we receive and prepare for launch. We’re overwhelmed, our open beta registration has been open for 3 days, and we’ve already received 4000 thousand registrations for it, so *fingers crossed* it’s looking pretty good.

The MMO Gamer: With your current plans for launch, are you accepting only European applications, or can players from outside Europe register too?

Al King: Unfortunately, yes, the beta is going to be Europe-only. We’re planning on having a North American prior to launching there, and we welcome all readers of MMOGamer to keep an eye out for Kwari and register for it when the time comes.

The MMO Gamer: BigWorld is known as an MMOG middleware, how did a FPS developer come to choose them for their game?

Al King: We (Kwari) investigated several different technologies during our research phase, and we selected BigWorld technology because of its cutting edge design and features. Our requirement was for state-of-the-art gaming technologies with unparalleled security and anti-cheat features. In principal, Kwari is a massive multiplayer game, but instead of the players being located in the same map, they are located in multiple parallel 3D environments in a global financial world. Our developed technology consists of specially customized client and server built on BigWorld technology integrated with a suite of data capture, security, and game management tools that were developed by Laverock von Schoultz for Kwari.

The MMO Gamer: How much of BigWorld’s technology are you using, considering their technology is aimed at virtual worlds and MMOGs?

Al King: Almost all of it!

The MMO Gamer: How much help are you getting from BigWorld to adapt their MMOG engine to your game?

Al King: BigWorld is providing all of the video gaming technologies and its associate company Micro Forte is developing the game to Kwari’s design and specifications (with the exception of the game audio; this is being developed by Kwari’s Chris Gill in its Headingley studio.)

The MMO Gamer: Where can aspiring European testers go to register for the beta?

Al King: http://www.kwari.com

The MMO Gamer: Great, thank you very much for your time, and we wish you a great success!

Al King: It was my pleasure, thank you.