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A Human Work: Denis Dyack On What Games Need
 
 
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Features
  A Human Work: Denis Dyack On What Games Need
by Brandon Sheffield
4 comments
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March 10, 2008 Article Start Previous Page 4 of 4
 

The tough thing is, how do you get enough money to keep going for that long? How do you get people to trust you to do that? Like, publishers and whatever, if you still have to deal with publishers.

DD: You do. And it's never easy. And it's kinda, every day that you survive is a day that you've made progress. So it's always that kind of -- you know, when I look back over the course of Too Human, and I look back today, we're in the tweaking and balancing stages, like I said, I'm really happy with the way it is. You look back over the development, which has been insane -- really, really crazy... It's, nothing is for sure, ever.

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There are some pretty dark days in the history of Too Human. And, I use Nietzsche a lot in Too Human, and "That which does not kills us only makes you stronger," is at the end. We all aspire to that.

You just hope that you can, and you move forward. And there's a point in time where you have to say, always, "What's worth more? Am I just gonna ship this?" Like, you'll never finish anything. Nothing is ever "finished," it's just "shipped." But there's a point in time that's, "Do I give in on this major issue that I really feel needs to be done?"

And a lot of groups say they will. And that's how we get B product. And the groups that don't, they'll keep going. And sometimes it still doesn't work out; sometimes you can work on something, and you know what, it should have been killed. But you never know that until you're done.

And what I think -- it's really interesting, that I didn't know that, that all the major hits had been significantly delayed... Hopefully that will bode well for Too Human. In the end, we could only make the type of games that we're proud of making, and we just, from Silicon Knights' perspective, we will not give in to anything else. We just won't let it happen.

I can't, I just can't say it enough: you cannot give in to that, because as soon as you do, you're just giving up on the people who you're working for.

What would happen -- I mean I'm sure you don't want to think about it, but you probably have -- what would happen if it winds up not being commercially successful.

DD: Bad things. You know, I've got a sort of samurai mentality on some level. Just sort of the Bushido code. One of the main tenants is: Prepare yourself for death. And if you don't fear death, then you don't have to worry about it, you don't concentrate on it.

So I think with this industry, that's pretty important. You know, if I worried about dying every day, I'd be all-consumed. Because there are so many things, and so many problems that could occur. And I don't want to concentrate on that goal. I don't want to be distracted by some negative possibility when I can focus on the positive. So, yeah, it would be really, really bad, and in some sense... Would it kill us? I don't know. We'd probably recover.

But Silicon Knights, our track record, if you look at our past products -- we go way back, and a lot of people don't know some of them, but -- we have no skeletons in our closet. I wish everyone knew all about the stuff that we've done in the past, but you look at Legacy of Kain, you look at Eternal Darkness, you look at Metal Gear.

All different experiences, but those are all things that we stand behind totally. And Too Human is going to be another one. We wouldn't let it out until then. It's real tough, though. It's real tough. It's not an easy process.

 
Article Start Previous Page 4 of 4
 
Comments

Anonymous
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I'm not sure if you guys want to take advice to Denis, there's a reason why games in his studio always taken 4+ years to make, there's horrendous mismanagement there. Take it from a girl that's been there...

Steffen Gutzeit
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Well, maybe.
However it seems he and his company is doing pretty well so far. What else can someone want? How you reach it is not so important like that you reach it.
Despite I believe many organizations have some kind of mismanagement.

Anyway, this article was nice to read, but I doubt that complex stories are really necessary or needed for games. I myself play games more for fun and not for epic plots where I have to remember who the bad guy was I why I am actually killing these people now walking through the jungle. Experiencing a storyline which forms your environment and your character is very good but as I said I don't think it should be to complex for a leisure time activity (PC-Game).

Raymond Grier
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In many respects i think he's right. making a game is analogous to making a movie (even if it doesn't have a long complicated script/story) therefore it's reasonable to have the same kind and degree of management structure found in movie-making. Next time you watch a mere half hour tv show, remember to watch the credits and contemplate how much effort went into planning and design of that half hour before they even started to film...alot of gamesare more complex in scope than a half hour tv show.

Mickey Mullasan
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Anonymous: Some of the best games came out of a horrible trainwreck of a development process. And some of the worst sequels have come out of a squeaky clean streamlined managed project. That is the creative process. If it was easy everyone would be making awesome.

We will never reach the sun if we don't first fall screaming in agony with firey wings to the hell's depth below.


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