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Big In Japan: D3 Publisher Takes On The U.S.
 
 
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Features
  Big In Japan: D3 Publisher Takes On The U.S.
by Brandon Sheffield
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November 9, 2007 Article Start Previous Page 6 of 7 Next
 

You're working on the serious side as well, though. Dark Sector is pretty serious stuff. Do you feel like you can balance well the difference between the fun, light, pick-up-and-play games and also the more immersive type, like Dark Sector?

YT: Yeah. We have kids' games too, and some casual games too. We are dealing with many kinds of game. I'm not just talking about genre, but kinds of games. More like a different species. For the original IP area, my image is that we make high-end games, really competitive games, and fun games, going forward. So I'd like to provide different kinds of experiences to the gamers, and then we have kids' games.

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Are you at all concerned about brand image at all for that, or is that not a concern?

YT: As long as people love our stuff. EDF, as you said, graphically, probably less. A lot less. But we are providing a key element, which is fun, that the other huge, 20 million dollar titles don't have. So I'm proud of that. I'd like to be known as a fun game company. Games, going back 20 years ago, were fun. Nothing but fun, with simple graphics. EDF made me realize that.

Yeah, because old games like on the NES were like, "Kick the guys!" You just go through and kick all the guys in the level, and that's what you do. And EDF is like, "Okay, blow up a bunch of stuff!" And that's it.

YT: It's like a simple game mechanic can work. It doesn't become repetitive, but a lot of serious games get into that, and people get tired of it. I'm having fun providing those games.

I think it's funny that some people don't realize that. Games can be art, and they can be very deep and important. But at the same time, games can be so simple and fun. The main mechanic in EDF is that you shoot things and you blow them up, and the reason why it's fun is because you're doing that, but the reason you keep playing is because you get more weapons so that you can blow stuff up in different ways.

YT: So many weapons! (laughs)

It's so simple. That's two things you do -- blow stuff up, and get more weapons to blow stuff up more. It's so simple, and I don't know how people could miss that. It seems like an obvious, easy emotional response, just to do this one fun thing.

YT: I'm sure the franchise will do well. But our job is also selling Dark Sector and also other IP coming out in the future.

I think Dark Sector was a good choice, because obviously developer Digital Extremes was a company that split off from Epic, which is a good sign. They have a lot vested in this.

YT: And also they have technologies and creativity. It's such a great company.

At the same time, they've undergone so many changes within that one game. Does that concern you at all?

YT: I don't see so many changes. I only saw one change take place before we came in. I'm sure you're talking about the sci-fi theme, and now we're talking about the near future. It's more down-to-earth. That's the game I invested in -- not [the older] one. When we signed the deal, that was the game. To me, it was always the same game, and I came to realize in the middle of the development that people expected sci-fi. Okay! Sorry. (laughs)

Dark Sector image
D3 Publisher and Digital Extremes' Dark Sector

Okay. I think it's going to be a much better game, the one that's coming out.

YT: I think this game will be loved by people, and we'll take any and all support we can possibly get. The game is coming out of January next year, and I think we picked the right timing for an original IP. A very serious original IP -- the first one from our company.

Dark Sector doesn't look like a game that someone just randomly made. It looks very deliberate and looks like a very big-budget, high-end game. I hope that it does what it wants to do. I think it will.

YT: One thing I can say is that we are in a unique position. We are well-funded, and we are still small as a publisher. I always say we are like a car publisher in third gear right now in North America, but how many third-gear publishers can fund a game like that? We are funding more games like that coming out in the following year and the year after that. I'm enjoying being in this position.

It seems like it's a good place to be in, because no one expects you to be able to fund something that's really big-budget and totally out there.

YT: And also we are here to establish new franchises on next-gen. We're not talking about franchises made on PlayStation 2 or PlayStation 1. That's what's unique about our company. We provide next-gen games. To me, the games that have come out on Xbox 360 so far are probably not next-gen enough, and I want to position Dark Sector to be one of the first truly next-gen games utilizing the technologies. They're doing very well.

 
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