Warren Spector on IGN Unfiltered

Warren Spector, the man behind the original Deus Ex, has recently made an appearance on IGN Unfiltered, a monthly interview show, where he talked about his illustrious career for over an hour. Without further ado, here’s the entire thing:

And if you don’t have the time to watch an hour long video, IGN offers a couple of transcribed snippets they thought deserved special attention. First, Warren Spector talks about Deus Ex’s legacy:

“I couldn’t care less about sales. I don’t care much about reviews, I don’t read reviews,” Spector said on the latest episode of our monthly interview show IGN Unfiltered. “Influence is very important to me. I’m now old enough that the word legacy means something to me… but leaving something behind is very important to me.”

As such, the stories he’s heard from players about their experiences playing Deus Ex is what he values most. “The most important thing is what I heard and still hear from players,” Spector said. “The whole idea of Deus Ex was to recreate the feeling of playing Dungeons & Dragons and telling stories with your friends—not being told a story, but telling stories with your friends and with a dungeon master.”

With Deus Ex, Spector believes he and his team were able to achieve that vision. “In Deus Ex, what we were trying to do was lay out the skeleton of a story—here’s why what you’re doing is important—and then let players own the minute to minute, and have every player finishing the game having had a unique experience,” he said. “I heard from a lot of players, and so I know we succeeded at that. Players had unique experiences and they did things that we didn’t know could be done in the game that we made.”

And then, he explains why he isn’t interested in the future of AAA gaming:

“I kinda don’t care about the future of AAA gaming,” Spector said on the latest episode of our monthly interview show IGN Unfiltered. “I think the costs are so high, the teams are so big, the risks are so great that we’re seeing an awful lot of same old, same old with prettier pictures. That’s a little reductionist, I know, but I don’t see a lot that interests me in the AAA space.”

Spector went on to note that at events like E3 and GDC, he instead spends the majority of his time checking out games from independent developers. IGN asked Spector if he’s seen Cuphead, given Spector’s longtime love of Disney cartoons and Cuphead’s 1930s Steamboat Willie-esque aesthetic, to which he replied, “Of course I’ve seen Cuphead! I can’t wait for Cuphead.” He added, “I think you’re seeing immense creativity on the indie side, and in that sense things are way better than they used to be.”

He also highlighted how the rise in independent development has lowered the barrier of entry for anyone who wants to make a game. “There didn’t used to be an indie scene and now there are so many ways to make a game, there are so many ways to reach an audience with that game, that anybody can make the game of their dreams,” Spector said. “I got the opportunity to make Deus Ex, which was my dream game, but that’s because I was the luckiest guy on the planet. Nowadays, one person in a garage can be [Minecraft creator Markus] Notch [Persson].”