The
name of our company is a summation of our corporate attitude: aim
for the top, but don't take yourself too seriously along the way.
In this case, "aiming for the top" meant putting together
a company and a game designed to go head-to-head in one of the most
competitive and resource-intensive segments of the PC marketplace:
real-time strategy games. To succeed, our first game needed all
the fun, depth, and polish of products that enjoyed bigger budgets
and more manpower due to their recognizable franchises. Since they
don't give out Game Developers Choice Awards for "Best Game
Made With Fewer Than 30 People," we had to find ways to work
both harder and smarter if we wanted to achieve our goals.
Big
Huge Games was formed in early 2000 by a core team who had worked
together for close to 10 years, creating best-sellers such as Colonization,
Civilization II, and Alpha Centauri. This history
of successful strategy games allowed us to go to publishers with
a convincing pitch for a next-generation RTS. Although we understood
the issues involved in creating turn-based games, almost all of
the areas where we failed to address risks adequately involved areas
where we had minimal experience, such as multiplayer matchmaking
and making linear single-player campaigns. In addition to these,
we also stumbled in some areas that were unique to our situation
and company culture.
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