Features

Interview with Black Isle Studios' Feargus Urquhart

What's the key to Black Isle's success?

We try to look at what we need to do in each project and think realistically about what experience we have and the capabilities that we possess that apply to it. We are good at making RPGs—we might make horrible RTSs. So, we have consciously made the decision to continue working on projects that we know how to make. Pretty much everyone in the division touches almost every project, and it means everyone is learning a little bit more every production cycle. Each person can then take that experience on to the next projects to make them look, play, and run that much better.

	Bioware's Baldur's Gate 2, published by Black Isle Studios.

Plus, we look at what we do as a business. Unfortunately there is no paycheck fairy that puts stacks of hundred dollar bills under everyone's pillows every two weeks. The reality is that everything costs money, and we need to be conscious of what we are spending our money (resources) doing. If too many people work on a project then we've spent too much money and then Interplay won't profit from the project. If Interplay doesn't profit then they will probably constrain the next project, which could make it harder for us to do our best.

How do you create an atmosphere that's conducive to game development?

To answer somewhat tritely it is showing up every day and treating people like adults. People need to know what they are expected to do, that the person in charge has made sure that what they are doing will actually get used, and that they will only be treated like children if they've proven that they need to be.

As for the environment, we pretty much let people do what they want, when they want. Unless people are screaming at the top of their lungs when playing Quake in the middle of the day, we don't care. However, if they are playing Quake in the middle of the day and their last four tasks weren't done on time, that's a different conversation. That's not to say that people can come and go completely at will. We do need to have a certain number of hours during the day that the entire team is there—depending on the stage the project is in, we enforce this to greater or lesser degrees.

We also try to have people feel like they can talk with their producer and I about the problems they are having without it being an inquisition. There is a big difference between someone not getting something done because it was harder than they thought and taking three-hour lunches every day of the week they were supposed to be working on it.

Plus every one gets free Cokes. So it actually might be just that simple.

How long does it take for an idea/game design to get to production? At what point do you know that idea/game design is worth doing?

Hmm. That's a hard question in that I'm not sure when we have ever decided on a specific game design right at the start, or had a design that we were waiting to implement. The way we tend to do it is that we come up with a general idea for a project that we think will fit into the division that uses our technology and talents well, and has a good chance of selling around 300K units worldwide. As an example, I told one of teams in late 1996 that it would be a good idea for us to make a game using Bioware's Infinity Engine, the Planescape license, to have the game based in Sigil (an area in the Planescape world) and to have the player go to at least two other "dimensions". The product that came out of that was Torment. Torment was totally different than the game that I expected, but it fulfilled what I had suggested to them and it was commercially successful.

	Black Isle's Planescape: Torment.

As for making sure it is worth doing. I guess we try to make sure that the "high concept" for the game is something that we want to make and will sell. We then develop that idea into a game design.

What are your criteria for trying to determine in the idea stage whether or not a concept will sell well? Who contributes to that assessment?

We often look at the idea and see if it is something that we can sell to both our fans and to the press. If we can think of things that will get either group interested in the first thirty seconds of us talking about it then it's probably an idea that we should explore further. Secondarily we look at whether this is something that could possibly catch on with a wider market than just the core fans of Black Isle. With either angle, we try to think very realistically about the product and how many units it is going to sell. This determination comes from what our past products have sold and what features the new product has that could expand or contract that amount. We also take into account that if we just make the same game that we made before, we are probably looking at 25 to 35 percent less sales for the new product.

Once the producers in the division and I are comfortable with what product we want to make, I then talk it over with the rest of the company and see if it something that they are willing to get behind, or if they will need to be cajoled into backing. Depending on how that all goes, we then either go back to the drawing board, move forward, or see if we can modify the general concept of the game to make it more palatable for the other departments. If they are looking for major modifications, I often think that it is a better plan for us to come up with a completely new idea that is interesting to both development and the rest of the company.

Has Interplay's ongoing financial troubles had an effect on the quality of the games produced in Black Isle?

I think it just makes us realistic about what kind of games we can make and how to make them. Plus, we try not to go too far out on a limb with our games. We might get to make the horror-western RPG that I've always wanted to make sometime in the future, but for right now we have to bet on projects that we feel have a good chance of being successful. Now that is not to say that I personally don't like making D&D games, I actually really enjoy it.

How can you prevent not going "too far out on a limb" or games that have a "good chance of being successful" from being perceived as by players as more-of-the-same? How do you balance your creative drive with convincing higher-ups that a given idea will sell well?

In a lot of ways those are both the same question. In order for us not go too far out on a limb we have to retain brands and technology that allow us to make new games that have some connection to what people already know and are familiar with. I guess the trick is that we try to take things that people already like and add a different kind of story or a different kind of play style to keep them interested. A good example here would be the differences between the Baldur's Gate series, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment. All of the products use the same engine (the Bioware Infinity Engine), but all of them are seen as very distinctly different products. The way we think about them is along a line from adventure to hack-and-slash. Torment is almost an adventure game, Icewind Dale is almost a true hack-and-slash like Diablo, and Baldur's Gate is somewhere right in the middle.

	Black Isle's Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

As for the executives, if we do what I said above then this is usually what they want to hear and are often very quick to approve the new products that we suggest. And I actually don't look at market considerations as cramping our creative freedom or style. What people buy is what they will buy. We can sometimes change that with the birth of a new genre, but in general we want people to buy our games and they are only going to buy them if they can wrap their brain around what it is they are buying. Or, in the case of a new genre, they've been told how completely wonderful it is by friends, family and the press. If we understand those things and take them into account when creating our ideas, then getting ideas approved by the higher-ups becomes much easier.

Many people in the industry see Interplay as a "training ground" or an good place to start (not finish). Do you feel this is true? Do you think the accolades and Black Isle's track record is enough to make good people want to stay.

I think five or six years ago the mentality at Interplay was to pay as little for talent as possible and hope that they stay because they like the environment. That has changed a lot over the last few years, and Interplay offers the benefits and has the products that I think anyone in the game industry would be happy with.

As for whether the Black Isle track record is enough to make good people stay. I think that no matter how much pride someone has in what they are working on, if they feel they are being taken advantage of, they are not going to stay in that place for very long. So, in Black Isle we offer what we can afford to pay people and still breakeven on our projects.

If Black Isle were a separate company from Interplay, how would the way you make games change?

They probably wouldn't change much at all. We get to make the games that we think we should make. I purposefully did not say that we always get to make the game we want to make. Again, we have to be realistic about what consumers want, and make games that will appeal to enough of them.

How do you think developers who are completely independent from their publishers allocate their financial resources differently from publishers' in-house studios?

It really depends on the financial stability and experience of the developer. If a developer has the money to fund all of their products, and they are hitting all of their milestones (really hitting them, not through smoke and mirrors) then it is probably very similar to a development group that is owned or operates under a publisher. If they don't, then they are probably focusing much more on what will get them their next check, rather than what is best for the product. Outside developers also have more of an incentive to have people working on their next game idea before their current game has finished. This is because they often need the revenue from the next product to keep the money flowing after the last milestone on their current product has been paid. For better or worse, the paychecks of in house game developers keep coming after they've finished their current game.

Another difference is that as outside game developers get larger they have to start hiring more administrative staff than an in-house development group. For Black Isle, we can rely on the legal, HR, creative service, operations, audio, QA, and IS departments to take care of a lot of things that an out of house developer would have to hire staff for. When you get down to the development teams, I think the only difference that I have really seen is the use of producers. In-house game developers generally always have a producer in charge of the product, while out of house game developers generally don't. Neither of those are absolutes because I know of in-house developers that don't use producers, and external developers that do. But it is a general trend that I have seen.

The last difference that I often see in some external developers is that they are often forced, particularly on their first few products, to deal with obsolete equipment and software for longer periods of time. Since publishers, usually, have a steadier source of income then they are able to have a steadier flow of equipment and software.

Most of Black Isle's games have been critical successes, but never generated the same type of success in sales. Why do you think that is? Do you think we'll see any of Black Isle's future titles break 1 million copies sold worldwide?

Our goal in Black Isle is to steadily move towards about a million units in worldwide sales per product. Some of our products have chance to sell that much and some won't. And in some cases we will take the shot with a certain title to push it towards that goal, where with others we will be happy with 300K or 400K of worldwide sales. If we could hit a home run with a product, it would certainly give Black Isle and Interplay some financial breathing room.

Many game companies are starting to narrow their focus to concentrate on a particular "brand", what is your opinion on this? Will Black Isle continue to create original content or will it narrow its focus to sequels to games like Fallout and Baldur's Gate?

You are definitely right that most publishers are moving towards the brand or sequel mentality. I think for right now Black Isle is going to be doing mostly the same thing. However, we are also looking at ways to use our brands in more ways than just sequels. Two examples of this are TORN, and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. TORN is an original title, however it is using the strengths of the Black Isle brand (arguably a brand in of itself) and the RPG system developed for the Fallout series. The ties to already established brands gives people more faith in the success of the product and certainly make it easier to interest the press. As for Dark Alliance, we are taking a PC brand to the console, but not as a port. The hope is that we can make the Baldur's Gate brand something that can cross platforms.

	TORN is an original title, however it is using the strengths of the Black Isle brand.

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