Warren Spector Interview

Ultima and Deus Ex developer Warren Spector took the time to answer questions about his career, the games he’s worked on, and a variety of other topics over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

RPS: The Internet makes us think that history will write itself. That all this stuff goes online, and is stored on something like Archive.org, meaning that it’ll be there. But that’s not true – there’s so much stuff that isn’t recorded there, and so much stuff which never works its way online.

Spector: It’s kind of weird, but the first thing I talk to my guests in the class about. This is Monday night where I do the 3-hour interview – I always start out with biography. Because I’ve had 12 guests, and all but one of them said, (No one ever asked me that stuff before. No one’s ever been interested in who my parents were and what my education was and how that impacted me as a developer, and when I discovered games and how playing chess with my dad was the seminal moment or when I discovered D&D in 1974.) No one ever asks them about that. Because there’s very specific things. except, when I come over here, when you guys all ask smart questions. I swear to god, I’m not saying that. You get asked the same questions, over and over and over again, game after game after game. The only person who has been asked about his biography, is Richard Garriott. And I swear he’s changing the details of all of his stories every time he tells them, just to have fun.

RPS: He’s videogames’ Bob Dylan, I reckon. He’s successfully manufactured a myth.

Spector: Yes, it’s true! I’ve known that guy for 20 years, and I’ve heard him say that the Lord British name came from his D&D group. That at High School a bunch of upper classmen were giving nicknames to the new kids. I’ve heard him tell it was a summer computer camp where they knocked on his bunk door, and said, (You sound you’ve got a British accent!) I don’t know which is true anymore. He really is creating myths. It’s wild.

RPS: The thing for me, is that he’s one of the first guys who literally put his personality in the game – in a literal way, as he put his PERSONNA in the game. I suppose that’s why people ask him about it, as it’s there. Where the hell did that come from Richard? Actually. talking about that, what was it like being in a videogame? I was playing Martian Dreams on a random urge. and suddenly Dr Spektor walks in the door.

Spector: Ah, in Savage Empire I was the evil Dr Spektor and redeemed myself in Martian Dreams. I wrote the initial concept document [for Savage Empire] and handed it off to another team, who made me the villain, dammit. Then, in Martian Dreams, which was my game, I got to make myself the no-longer-evil-Dr-Spektor, the Avatar’s friend. I trademarked that. It’s weird – it’s very strange. I still get e-mails from people about that who are playing the game. When it came out – oh my God – we debuted it at CES. and I’m going to stereotype horribly here, but every Japanese person who came by had to take my picture with my arm around the monitor, because we had an image from the game up there. And. oh God. That’s my main memory. But there’s a couple of guys – Alec Jacobson is my nephew, who’s been in a bunch of my paper-game stuff and was in Deus Ex. Walter Simmons is one of my best friends. Gilda Ginsel, his wife, is a character in Reap The Whirlwind – a Marvel superhero adventure my wife and I wrote together years ago. I feel kind of guilty that all my friends and family are trademarks of TSR or Marvel I don’t know.