I had a chance to talk to R. A. Salvatore this weekend, and he was rather excited about taking storytelling online at Green Monster Games. I had forgotten that he was involved. It was one of those press release things that I see and forget in the stream of PR. The main thing I noticed about Green Monster was their recruiting Grouchy Gnome. Is it odd that I mentally skipped the announcements about Todd McFarlane and R. A. Salvatore but seized upon Ryan Shwayder? I never even played EQ, I just like his blog.
Since he brought up the subject, I asked when Green Monster Games expected to have something to announce. Two or three years, they are laying the groundwork now. You have no idea how happy that makes me. We see a lot of games announcing before they have enough funding to get them to release. We see companies writing half their code before they work out their major design documents, then try to shoehorn things together as they can. Here we have a company that is privately financed, can take the time to be satisfied before releasing, and is getting its big pieces in place before developing or announcing everything.
That is what I liked about the Earth Eternal announcement: they have the money and are not talking about vapor four years away (H/T Raph). Let’s have a cheer for companies that are not seeking useless attention!
: Zubon
Ryan is striking the right note with me. His upturn in posts since joining GG are all pretty forward thinking. Shilling is doing a big PR dance on FoH. Can’t fault him for that, but between Salvatore who gave me hours of good storied fun and Ryan’s experience, it also makes me hopeful. The more these guys strike a chord with veteran gamers, I think the more patience and expectation (i.e. advocacy) they’re going to get. Still need to execute, but it’s an interesting team.
Since day one of the initial GMG release, I have been pumped about this company. Schilling has endless bucks and is just a gaming junkie like us, so his focus is going to be on a good product first and turnign a profit second.
RA Salvatore and Mcfarlane are two of the greatest fantasy storytellers/ image people of all time, and to get them involved in our online worlds is a coup of the highest magnatute.
To then mindcontrol Ryan and Steve and all of the following that they have, along with their rather large soapboxes among the interweb gaming intellectuals, they just have made every right move possible in a a short amount of time. (How else could you get them to leave great jobs in sunny Cali, to take a job with an untested company in coler-than-shit, Massachusetts in mid-winter…. had to be Mind Control….)
Having a great team and lots of money is all it takes to take this industry to the next level, and GMG is poised to really do it.
I wonder if they really will do it… development inexperience, probably a huge clash of egos, lack of adequate talent pool, and a host of other factors are stacked against them. The only solid benefit they have is Schilling’s funding… but after pouring millions into a project and not seeing any results, how long will it be before he begins to think about pulling the plug?