Console Indie: An Interview With Steve Taylor of NinjaBee
What does it take for an indie game developer to make downloadable games for the newest generation of consoles? I've heard a lot of indie and aspiring indie developers ask this question. Steve Taylor is the president of Wahoo Studios (AKA NinjaBee), which is on the cusp of releasing their third XBLA title for the XBox 360. So he ought to be the guy to ask!

Wahoo started out as a more traditional "gun-for-hire studio", but in late 2004 it set out on the path of the indie, releasing their self-funded (and award-winning) PC independent "tycoon" game, Outpost Kaloki, as a downloadable game. The next year, they followed up with Outpost Kaloki X, a new version for Live Arcade for the XBox 360. Kaloki X became a solid hit for the fledgeling Live Arcade service, and really interesting things started to happen.

In 2006, NinjaBee released Cloning Clyde, a hit side-view platformer for the XBox 360. As Wahoo Studios, they have also announced the impending release of Saga, a massively multiplayer real-time-strategy game. The soon-to-be-released XBox 360 title, Band of Bugs, is an IGF nominee.

This is one of the strangest interviews I've ever done, because I'm interviewing my own boss. He volunteered, and I was able to get a few questions from folks here to make sure I wasn't throwing too many softballs. This also gives me plausible deniability to try and avoid getting fired for asking some really ugly questions.

So, here we go!

--== Ancient Origins ==--

Rampant Coyote: Although you are a staunch supporter of the Xbox 360 and Microsoft’s leadership in downloadable console games, would you care to elaborate on the rumors that you are, in fact, a raving Nintendo Fanboi?

Steve Taylor: Haha, here's where you have an unfair advantage because you work with me during the day. I'm surprised you didn't ask me about the time I found the cardboard in my shirt collar! [Jay: Why ask? I already mentioned it in passing, though now everybody will know who it was!]

It's true, I'm a raving Nintendo Fanboi. Nintendo creates some unparalleled experiences. I've been hugely pro-Nintendo for a long time, and from a consumer point of view I don't feel like they've ever really let me down. I also had a great time working on N64 games as a developer. I look back fondly on that time in my life - working with the smart people at Nintendo was awesome.

One result of that was that I expected working on the Xbox 360 would kinda suck in comparison. Boy was I wrong. The system rocks, the dev setup rocks, and the Live Arcade team has been completely on the ball before anybody knew there was a ball to be on.

So I've learned to love cool things about Nintendo and love cool things about Microsoft at the same time.


Rampant Coyote: How’d you get involved in the videogame business?

Steve: I've been doing game projects ever since my brothers taught me to program when I was a kid, but I somehow got into writing educational software for a living. I left the educational software world in 1995, and worked on a game (Assassin) on my own that was released as Macintosh shareware. It was also released as a downloadable game for Outland, a way cool (but now long defunct) online game destination for the Macintosh. It wasn't until the end of 1995 that a friend (Kier) suggested I apply for a full-time game development job at Saffire. I was able to show the work I had done (Assassin and some tech demos) to Hal Rushton, who took a big chance and hired me.


Rampant Coyote: So what was the first game you ever worked on that actually made it onto store shelves?

Steve: Technically, a version of Assassin was released on a shareware collection CD in Japan, so that was on somebody's shelf somewhere. :)

My first traditional retail project was Legends '98 Football. I was a programmer on the PSX version, which got cancelled, but I think I had *some* positive impact on the PC version that finally shipped. Over the next half dozen years at Saffire I did some N64 games, a bit of management, a Dreamcast game, and I made what contributions I could to games on a bunch of different systems. I even worked on a tech demo for the Nuon for a few weeks.


Rampant Coyote: So what led you to strike out on your own and create Wahoo Studios?

Steve: In 2001 there was pain and sorrow and gnashing of teeth across the industry. Investors had been disappearing for a while, projects were scarce, companies were shutting down, and the games business felt like a wasteland. Naturally that seemed like a brilliant time to try to start a new company!

Basically, I had been planning to leave my previous employer for some time, and when a friend (remember "Kier" from earlier in this interview?) left for his own reasons, we had a few talks and decided it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take our own shot at doing things our way. We left together and started Wahoo Studios in a little basement office in Pleasant Grove, UT, with almost no cash and certainly no work lined up.


Rampant Coyote: What else has Wahoo done prior to Outpost Kaloki?

Steve: Prior to Outpost Kaloki we did a whole lot of begging, some writing contracts, some low-budget PS1 and PS2 games, some level contract work, some programming contract work, some concept art contract work, a few useless demos, and countless concept pitches. We also got to work on a GameCube game for 3DO, which was a good experience in a lot of ways, but ended up finishing right when 3DO declared bankruptcy. That was not good.


--== Current Projects ==--

Rampant Coyote: Okay - since people keep asking: What’s the difference between Wahoo Studios and NinjaBee? Aren’t they the same company?

Steve: Wahoo Studios is a traditional contract development studio that does work for publishers and other people with money and a project. The NinjaBee name was created around the time we decided to release Outpost Kaloki, as a unique brand with which to label our self-directed Indie efforts. Wahoo and NinjaBee are very much the same people - we don't make a distinction between who works on which projects, but we use the NinjaBee label only for projects we design and create ourselves.


Rampant Coyote: What can you tell us about Band of Bugs?

Steve: Band of Bugs is NinjaBee's new Tactics game for Live Arcade. The game features some new ideas designed to focus and accelerate the flow of turn-based strategy games. We also worked hard to make the game interesting for traditional Tactics game players while still making it appealing and accessible to more casual users. The game was designed from the start for Live Arcade and incorporates a bunch of unique Live Arcade features, including all the standard stuff (Leaderboards, achievements, rich presence, online play, etc.) as well as some neat new things (like a level editor and the ability to play custom levels over Live).


Rampant Coyote: What can you tell us about Saga? (Yes, I know, I’m feigning ignorance here, as I was one of the guys who spent much of 2006 working on it. But I’m not allowed to say anything. Maybe you can!)

Steve: Saga is fortunately more public than Band of Bugs, so we can talk about it a bit more. It's a persistent-world RTS supporting lots of players (hey, it's an LMOG!) with a cool collectible unit system. Dragons, elves, magic, machines, orcs... Cool stuff! People interested in the game can visit www.playsaga.com for more info or to sign up for beta testing...


Rampant Coyote: Why wasn’t Cloning Clyde submitted for the IGF this year?

Steve: Well, technically Cloning Clyde didn't qualify! Clyde was the achievement of an Indie vision from start to finish, and a true labor of love, especially for John Nielson, but we did get some significant help from Microsoft for that one.

Band of Bugs (which does qualify, since we paid for everything) almost didn't get submitted to the IGF - we were so swamped we barely got the submission in by the deadline.


--== Indie Game Development ==--

Rampant Coyote: In a game like Outpost Kaloki, how much of the gameplay is the design of a single person, and how much is a group effort? Is it a case of one person coming up with a design doc, to which everyone else adds, or is it a case where everyone brainstorms together until they have a common vision?

Steve: I feel it's fairly important to let everyone contribute to the design - everyone needs to have a sense of ownership so they're excited and committed to the project. At the same time, we always have a "buck stops here" kind of person who can define and document the final official design. In the early versions of Outpost Kaloki, that was me. For the Xbox 360 version, Jeremy Throckmorton ended up taking on a lot of that responsibility. But everyone working on the project (including artists and testers and programmers and management) had some influence on how it was built and balanced.

Band of Bugs is a bit more structured - Jeremy has been the lead designer from the start on that, but again everyone has had a chance to give feedback and make contributions along the way.

I'm also a big believer in the value of goal-directed design. It's easier to define high-level goals for a project and throw all the big design decisions against those goals to see what makes sense. For example, the goal of making Band of Bugs a game that could be played in short sittings strongly influenced a bunch of smaller design decisions that came up, such as how to handle turn order in multiplayer games.


Rampant Coyote: You've done several games now without the help of a publisher. Is this something you're looking to change, or is the money simply not worth the risk of giving a publisher leverage over your project?

Steve: Honestly, we intend to continue doing a mix of traditional contract work for publishers (as Wahoo Studios) and self-directed stuff (as NinjaBee). Working with a publisher has its downsides (including smaller royalties, less control, loss of IP, etc.) but also has tremendous upsides (more money, increased stability, additional resources such as research people and a marketing staff being contributed to the project, etc.) that we continue to appreciate. How will this balance change in the future? I'm not sure. So far, we swing both ways. ;)


Rampant Coyote: So here’s the biggie – let’s say I’m an indie game developer (I know, it’s a HUGE stretch…) How would I go about getting my game published and distributed through Live Arcade?

Steve: Yowza. This is a question I love to think about and talk about, but it would take me days and many pages to explore it fully. Let me try to brutally summarize:

1. Make an awesome game demo
2. Get an NDA with Microsoft
3. Show them the demo, and pitch the game
4. Make sure your design has great graphics, live arcade focused
gameplay, awesome multiplayer, and cool downloadable content
5. Convince them that:
5a: The game will rock and will take advantage of the Xbox and of Live
in brilliant ways
5b: That your team has the ability to pull it off
5c: That you're in it for the long haul - you're not just one guy in his
basement, you're a team of dedicated individuals with a history of
completing projects and the commitment and resources to finish this one.
6. Make a deal with Microsoft for distribution
7. Work hard and endure delays and hurdles and finish the game and hand
it off to certification
8. Hope the game passes certification! Spend a number of sleepless
nights worrying about this.
9. Relax and Enjoy. Or, start on the next one. :)

Note that you need the resources (talent, money, etc.) to make the game! It's a lot more expensive than you think. Consider testing, certification, localization, development hardware, etc...

For some more great insight, read this interview with Ross Erickson:
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/07/25/joystiq-interviews-xblas-ross-erickson/

[Jay: Note - by way of current events, Erickson just left XBLA this week to join Sierra. But the information is still valuable.]


Rampant Coyote: Outpost Kaloki was released to several portals for its PC release, but was only popular on a few of them. Yet it was a significant hit on the 360. Why is that? Aren’t “Tycoon” games traditionally PC-centric? How would you recommend indies approach deals with portals?


Steve: Hey! You're trying to sneak two questions into one bullet point!

How did a game from a traditionally PC genre do well on a console and not well on the PC? For starters, we put a LOT of effort into making the experience console-centric. In fact the original design for Outpost Kaloki was for console play, and it's really the PC version that was "adapted". For another thing, with the Xbox game we were a bigger fish in a much smaller pond. Finally, one key reason the game didn't do well on traditional portals is that it's not a puzzle game. It's not super casual. For a console game, it's relatively casual, but for a PC game released on sites like BigFishGames, it's a bit complicated!

How should indies approach deals with portals?
1. Don't make an "agent" deal with a portal - don't let them sell your game to other portals and give you a cut of the deal. You end up with almost no return while your game is spread all over by some portal 3 levels down the chain.

2. Get the low lying fruit (like high-traffic free-game download sites) yourself with your own version, and THEN make the deals with the portals. Otherwise, you'll finally get around to putting your game on a download site and find it's already there, but with somebody else
getting the money!

3. Don't listen to me - go read indiegamer.com and gamedev.net and other indie developer sites - those guys actually know what they're doing with PC indie games.


Rampant Coyote: After the initial success of Xbox Live Arcade, specifically with games like Geometry Wars and Outpost Kaloki, it sounded like everyone and his dog (including most major publishers) were proclaiming that they had plans for dozens of Live Arcade projectst. Greg Canessa claimed that they were swamped by large and small publishers wanting in on Arcade. For a while, looked like the indies might get squeezed out. However, it sounds like over the last year the biggest problem was that there weren’t enough XBLA games (from the consumer standpoint) hitting the pipeline. Do you have any insight as to what's been up with that?

Steve: I am not privy to Microsoft's release schedule or relationships with other developers, so I can't really say for sure what the situation is.

One possible issue is that making a game for Live Arcade is a lot harder than it seems. Sure, it's "small" stuff, but it's still console development, and the quality bar is still high, and the certification process is still tough, etc...

Regarding Indies getting pushed out: It sure seems like that's not going to happen! I've talked to 2 or 3 key people on the Live Arcade team who are quite committed to supporting indie efforts on Live Arcade. They can't approve every game they see, but there seem to be some great indie games coming down the pipe, and I think that will certainly continue, thanks to the approach Microsoft is taking. This is all my personal observation, of course, and I can't speak for their official policies in these areas.


Rampant Coyote: Hey, I’ve got this idea for a game, do you want to buy it from me and make it? I’ll only charge you 50% of the profits…!

Steve: Haha, My Favorite Question Ever! Can I *please* pay you cash up front for your awesome idea? We are all stupid and completely bereft of good ideas, and yours is surely going to Change The World!


Rampant Coyote: Once upon a time your advice for other indies on how to properly get involved in the downloadable games market was “Don’t.” Has your advice changed at all?

Steve: Hmm... I still think it's important to read articles (like this one: http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/3/10029 or this one: http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2006/07/yes-virginia-there-is-money-in-indie.html) and face up to the fact that most Indie games lose money! But I believe in the increasing power of Indie game makers, and in the *potential* for talented, persistent people to put in some serious time and start making a profit after releasing several titles.

But you know who's a bad person to ask? ME! What do I know about making a hit PC indie game? The biggest return we got on the (significant) investment we made in Outpost Kaloki PC was that it opened the door for us to make Live Arcade games right when that door had a chance of being opened. As far as I'm concerned, if you count success in dollars, we're not a successful indie PC developer at all! From an indie point of view, we're a bunch of n00bs that suddenly had a lucky opportunity to apply their console expertise to an indie situation, so they grabbed on with both hands, both feet, and a few teeth just in case. And it paid off.


--== +1 Questions of Smiting ==--

Rampant Coyote: If you were offered the chance to do an online version of any board game, what would it be?

Steve: Well, my instant answer is Settlers of Catan, which I was playing way before it became everybody's favorite board game!. But hey, that's already been done. I'd strongly consider games like Robo Rally, Empire Builder (or EuroRails), and Cosmic Encounter. [Jay: Cosmic Encounter = Best boardgame EVAR! Though Cataan comes really close.]


Rampant Coyote: Let’s say you could go back in time and correct one mistake you’ve made in your business. Aside from hiring me, what would you change?

Steve: Maybe waiting so long to hire you? :) Seriously, though, that's a hard question. We started the company, which was pretty exciting. Then everything TOTALLY SUCKED for a really long time. And then some awesome opportunities came along and we worked hard to make them happen, and now we're pretty happy. How could we change anything in the last five years and still come out in the same place?


Rampant Coyote: What are you playing in your “spare time”? And I caught you playing NetHack the other day, so no using the “I’m too busy to play games” dodge!

Steve: Haha... Justin (the team lead on Saga) caught me playing NetHack in the middle of a Saga meeting. Of course, Justin is a NetHack addict as well, so I think he was more envious than annoyed. :)

Besides NetHack, I'm still occasionally playing Civ IV, which is a (most of the time) brilliant game. And I play every Live Arcade game when it comes out. I play Wii Sports and Zelda Twilight Princess when I have a chance. I'm looking forward to playing Supreme Commander.

As far as indie PC games go, the last thing I played with any decent level of attention was Virtual Villagers. That was a great game.

I really do have a hard time finding time to play games during the week. I started writing the answers to this interview at 2am on my birthday and finished about a week and a half later, so I think I should be able to claim I'm a little bit swamped. :)

Rampant Coyote: I just ask for insanely long interviews, I think. Okay - last official question: What is your high score in Ms. Pac Man?

Steve: We have a speed-up chip in our Ms. Pac Man standup, so it's not really a fair score. I'm at just over 200,000, but I'm pretty sure Justin's at 300,000+...


Rampant Coyote: Okay, I'm tapped out. Finally. Anything else you'd like to add?

Steve: Nope! Thanks very much for the chance to talk about NinjaBee and Band of Bugs and indie stuff in general!


(Vaguely) related signs of my impending mental collapse:
* Interview with Georgina Bensley, Creator of Cute Knight
* Interview With Amanda Fitch, Indie RPG and Casual Game Designer
* Scorpia's New Tale: An Interview With One of Gaming's Most Popular Columnists
* Indie Interview: Mike Rubin on 3D Interactive Fiction
* Avoiding Target Fixation: How NinjaBee Did It Right
* Jay Sells Out! Or Maybe The Opposite...
* How Do You Create "Fun?"

.

Labels: Biz, Indie Evangelism, Interviews

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:00 AM (Permalink)