He is one of the gaming industry’s Living Legends: Warren Spector started his career 24 years ago as editor for board games publisher Steve Jackson Games. Warren Spector has created classics like Ultima Underworld, System Shock or Deus Ex. He worked for für Origin, Looking Glass and Eidos’s Ion Storm. In 2005, he founded Austin based Junction Point Studios. We talked to Warren before it became clear that Junction Point has been acquired by Disney Interactive Studios.


GG: Warren, you have left Ion Storm in 2004, just months before it was closed down by Eidos. Now rumour has it that you’re working on two games. Can you tell us more about them?

Warren Spector: Honestly, I can’t say too much right now. My partners would be upset with me, and I have done enough talking about games before they were ready to talk about. The experience at Ion Storm taught me a lot, so I will talk when I really have something to say.

GG: But there are many designers who have a worse reputation by far in that respect: Peter Molyneux, for example, or Dave Perry…

Warren Spector: Peter, Dave and me share some characteristics, I think. (laughs) But there is one thing I can say: When we will actually announce what we’re working on, people will find it very interesting. The thing I’m most excited about is that half the people in the world will say: ‘Have you lost your mind? What were you thinking?’ And the other half will be really, really excited.

GG: What about the rumours that it will be a cartoon game?

Warren Spector: Don’t believe everything that is said or written on the web. Anyway, I am looking forward to that reaction, it will be fun to explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it and how cool it is.

GG: So when could be the time to talk about your new project?

Warren Spector: I was hoping to do it at GDC 2007, but the timing didn’t work out right. The time might be right at Leipzig Games Convention in August, who knows? I hope the fans in Germany are still there — when I was at Origin, Looking Glass and Ion Storm, I could count on a third of my sales coming from the Germans. Whenever I talk to publishers I remind them not to look just at the US. Unlike most others developers, my games nearly always sell at least half of their figures in Europe.

GG: Will your new game be singleplayer only?

Warren Spector: It’s hard to make any game nowadays without a multiplayer component. But I am fundamentally a singleplayer guy, so it’s mostly singleplayer.

GG: Then you would agree that multiplayer as in Counterstrike or MMOs like World of WarCraft aren’t necessarily the future of the computer games industry?

Warren Spector: I have this argument with NC Soft’s Richard Garriott all the time — he is one of my mentors and a good friend of mine, so it’s all a good natured argument. Massively multiplayer games are a great business. But still, if the bestselling MMO is World of WarCraft with 8 million players, that doesn’t even get you into the territory of the potential of singleplayer games! I think MMOs and multiplayer have a long way to go before they are THE future, in capital letters.

GG: Especially if you consider WoW to be a ‘monthly series’ and compare it with big singleplayer series like Final Fantasy or GTA.

Warren Spector: Yes. Although, as a business person, I might rather have 8 million people giving me 15 dollars a month. But as someone who creates stories and wants people to learn about Life and themselves, I’d rather talk to 30, 40 millions of people. Not that I’ve ever even come close to that, but someday games will clearly appeal to the same audiences as television and movies. And the MMO space is much, much smaller than that, and it will remain that way.