Jason D. Anderson Interview

Gamasutra managed to get a hold of Jason D. Anderson and sit him down for an interview about his new position at inXile and why he decided to leave Project V13 at Interplay.

By joining up with inXile, you’re in a way returning to working with Brian Fargo, who founded Interplay. Did you actually work with him much during the Fallout days?

JA: He was actually more a step away from me. When the Fallout team had interactions with Brian, it was usually through Tim [Cain]. I never really had personal interaction with him.

Presumably you are working more directly with him now, given the setup.

JA: Definitely. When I came on, I spoke with Brian a number of times. It was a very hard decision to leave Project V13. I loved the project, and we spent so much time on it, and it was not an easy decision to make. But in talking with Brian, it made it a lot easier. We really clicked, and saw eye to eye on what we wanted to see happen to RPGs.

In what sense do you see eye to eye?

JA: Well, RPGs have been kind of in a lull as of late. But there have been a handful of good ones out there — especially with Bethesda successfully rebooting the Fallout franchise, and generally showing that RPGs are viable forms of entertainment.

I want to get back to RPGs that are very story-driven and character-driven. Personally, I’ve never gotten out of [single-player] RPGs. There was the short stint working on the MMO for the past year, but that was pretty much it. I’ve always been about RPGs and RPG design. Even before Interplay I was a big RPG player.
(…)
Did you leave that project because of internal factors, or simply because inXile seemed better for you?

JA: The future of the — well, I don’t know if I want to go there. [inXile] was a more stable opportunity. I wasn’t even in the process of looking when this opportunity arose. It was a perfect fit.