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Death by intelligence.
 

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Wideload's Soell Spills Stubbs' Guts

Wed, 10/19/2005 - 10:52 by narcogen

[image:8460 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Matt Soell, ex of Bungie Studios and now the Lead Writer for Stubbs the Zombie, the new Halo engine game for the Xbox by independent developer Wideload Games in Chicago, was kind enough to take time off during the final crunch time just before Stubbs started shipping to answer a few questions about the game and Wideload's development process.

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Rampancy Interviews Wideload's Matt Soell

Wed, 10/19/2005 - 10:48 by narcogen

Longtime Bungie fans will recognize the name Matt Soell. For many years Soell was the public face of Bungie, the guy who read (and posted) on the message boards, who wrote the original weekly updates, who gave cryptic hints about wall-hugging hippos in Halo, and whom many strongly suspect was the wit behind the Letters to the Webmaster feature.

Now, Soell is the writer responsible for fleshing out the story of Stubbs the Zombie, the new Xbox title by independent developer Wideload Games in Chicago, founded in Bungie Software's old stomping grounds by none other than Alexander "The Man" Seropian, Bungie co-founder, and including the magic number-- you guessed it, seven-- ex-Bungie employees.

Even while Wideload put the finishing touches on Stubbs for release this week, Soell took time out to answer a few questions for Rampancy.net.

Narcogen: When the founding of Wideload Games was first announced, the focus was placed as much on Wideload's business model, combining a small staff with independent contractors, as on the company's Bungie heritage and new intellectual property (Stubbs the Zombie). With that game nearing completion, how has Wideload's new business model worked for the company? What advantages does it have compared to the previous two situations, and what disadvantages?

Matt Soell: I think it's worked out pretty well. We're still around, we're actually shipping a game, we haven't had to sell our souls to anybody, we've got the same core staff of eleven people we started with, we all still like each other and so on. So yeah - you CAN make a game this way and have fun doing it.

Advantages and disadvantages are pretty much what we expected. You can get a lot done with a small creative team and a lot of contractors - and it's less expensive for sure. The disadvantages are that such an arrangement forces you to have your shit together early in the process and communicate really well with all your contractors. Sometimes that's tough. I'm not just talking about the logistics of synchronizing our Chicago schedule with an art house in Ireland or what have you, although that's part of it. When everyone's in the same room, or at least the same building, it's a lot easier to make sure everyone has the same basic understanding of what we're trying to achieve. It's not an insurmountable problem by any means, but it reared its head more than once during the development of Stubbs.

interview
stubbs
wideload

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