Good Morning fine people. Today, I want to point you in the direction of an excellent interview entitled, “Making MMOs on a Shoestring: The NetDevil Story with Scott Brown”.
I’ve met Brown, the president of NetDevil, on a few occasions (at past E3 conventions) and found him to be thoughtful and friendly. One of those guys who doesn’t have a huge ego, yet manages to get big things done regardless. What I enjoyed about this chat over at The MMO Gamer is the behind-the-scenes look at the formation of NetDevil and various tidbits on some of the company’s successes and failures such as; JUMPGATE, AUTO ASSAULT and the still-in-development LEGO UNIVERSE and JUMPGATE EVOLUTION.
Lastly, note that Brown states that another, unannounced game is also being crafted at the company. Interesting. Read’er.
“Q: You are one of the few people who has founded an MMO studio from the ground up, and maintained its success through the years while keeping your position as the head of the company-without being gobbled up and forced out by EA, or Sony, or Microsoft. I guess my first question is: How have you managed it?
Scott Brown: Well, ’shoestring’ is the answer. We had a web company before this, and we went through the learning curve of all the mistakes to make then, so we’ve always been careful.
We treat every cent as gold, grow only when we have to, buy a new chair only when we have to. You just have to live that way, it allows you to survive the tough times.”