Warren Spector Interview

The guys at MemoryLeak managed to catch up with industry veteran Warren Spector for an interview about his video game development career, how production and design have changed over the past few decades, how he focuses on creating systems and situations that reward logical thinking, and more. A sampling:

You cut your teeth in this industry at Origin Systems making smaller games with shorter development cycles. Most recently you worked at Junction Point, a AAA studio which housed over 150 people. The difference between those two environments, in terms of scale, is pretty dramatic. How does that change in scale impact your duties as a game director? How does it impact your enjoyment of the development process?

Well, in point of fact, I’ve always worked with what would be considered large teams for their time. All teams were smaller 25 years ago, but Origin teams were bigger than most. Still, that having been said, my role has changed over the years. Junction Point had 200 people at its peak and we had even more people working out of the office on our behalf.

Inevitably, my role has become more removed from the day-to-day work of the people in the trenches. Nowadays, I work mostly with studio-level leads, leaving them to work with discipline leads who, in turn, work with the people doing what I call (real work.)

The key is that I’m always intimately involved in starting a project and shutting it down in the concept phase, when you’re determining what game to make, and in the endgame phases, when you’re making the game fun. And I always get one more vote than everyone else on the team combined. In that way, I’ve been able to maintain some control over the finished project while empowering every team member to make the game their own.

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The games you’ve worked on are often praised for their ability to blend a linear narrative with open-ended, systemic gameplay. What is the key to combining narrative and systems design in a way that’s harmonious? Why does it often feel like these things exist in opposition?

Well, it’s just a whole lot of work to balance narrative and gameplay! I think we’re seeing more developers mainstream and indie trying to solve that problem, which is nice. I wish I had a better answer to your question because it would mean I’ve identified a better solution to the narrative/gameplay problem. But all I know how to do is make games where the developers own the narrative arc and the players own the minute-to-minute experience. That’s all I do. It works pretty well but I’m hoping there’s someone out there who can figure out something better.