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 Features
Tour of Chicago Pt. 4: Day 1 Studios
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 Going Live and Online
Thorley thinks that online services give the opportunity for developers to talk directly to the customer. He also thinks it will give lots of opportunity for unique gameplay down the road. “I sure wish the pipe got a little fatter,” he says about Xbox Live, “but I think they’ve done a great job. And I think they’ve set themselves up with the word-of-mouth influencers to be perceived as the leading platform, certainly if you’re a multiplayer player.”
"For a long time, [Sony] pretty much ignored that part of the market,” Thorley added, further predicting that Sony's service will be as well-received as Xbox Live, given time. “Obviously Microsoft has a big head start – but what you also have to recognize is they will be able to learn from Microsoft’s challenges as well. They may have an accelerated learning curve, so to speak.”
“And they’ve got studios like ours supporting it, so I think it will be good.” Thorley cites other independent developers who are supporting the PS3 Online. “You look at Insomniac, and the games they’ve announced. They’re going at that big time, so that’s exciting.”
Independent, Intellectual
Many independent developers express despair at their current state. Conversely, Thorley says, “We’ve having a lot of fun. We’re happy with the publishers we chose.” One criteria used by Day 1 was how well a potential publisher would market and launch a game. “That was a critical element in our decision to work with the publishers that we do.”
“If you look at LucasArts’ growth,” Thorley adds, “They’ve got goals of being in the top five. The number of SKUs they released is incredibly small. But the most important thing we looked at: they had the number one [new] intellectual property released with Mercenaries. So that’s key…”
Another criteria Day 1 has when looking for a publishing partner is whether or not it can retain ownership of its intellectual property. “The ownership is really tough,” Thorley admits.
“With the kind of money we want from these publishers, it’s really challenging to go in there and demand [the IP] – unless you’ve got a bunch of your own money invested in it. Even then, they’re reluctant to invest the kind of money it takes to launch a title without some sort of control over it.”
The types of deals that Day 1 structures allows the studio to use the IP if the publisher chooses not to pursue it. “The most important thing,” Thorley says, “Is for us to get to invent cool new stuff to keep the consumer interested and excited about playing games. If we have to give up a little bit on the back the end to get the funding to do interesting stuff, then that’s kind of the price you pay.”
Conclusion
The foundation of Day 1 Studios is how they think about the game -- which is very much an engineer approach. “Our whole goal is that publishers can look at this and understand why they should take the risk with our studio, as opposed to other studios,” Thorley says.
“It’s fun coming to work every day. It’s not without its struggles, but it’s fun,” Thorley concludes. “This day and age, it’s probably more stress than I’d like it to be: because it’s incredibly competitive."
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