Andy Muir/Harbinger interview at GameSpyDaily
Andy Muir/Harbinger interview at GameSpyDaily
Interview - posted by Saint_Proverbius on Fri 14 February 2003, 21:52:41
Tags: HarbingerGameSpy Daily has posted an interesting interview with Andy Muir about the development cycle and game of Harbinger. Here's the part on Silverback being an indy developer:
GameSpy: Let's talk about the joys and perils of being an indy developer. One of the pluses is creative freedom but a real detractor is getting attention from mainstream publishers. You've already crossed the publishing hurdle portion of your indy struggle - tell us about that process and what you think is the next major hurdle for Harbinger that's directly related to being an indy.
Andy: Being independent was cool because we got to make exactly the game we wanted to make. The publisher hunt was frustratingly stupid. We have a real contempt for middlemen in pretty much any industry and when you meet with publishers, these are exactly the kind of people you meet with. We landed with Jeff Brunner, our agent at RED, who did a killer job taking this off our shoulders, but the real pain was the time that was sunk into the effort. Every minute sitting on a plane or talking to some tool in a suit was time not improving the game and I resented every second of it.
The good news is that we landed with DreamCatcher, and they let us finish the game the way it was meant to be with very little friction. The things they did push us on, in the end, improved the game tremendously. Our product manager at DreamCatcher, Brian Gladman, really kicked in to help us out with some things that would've driven us crazy (crazier) if he hadn't taken them off our plate. When we signed with them for Harbinger, I never expected it to work out this well.
I agree with the praise of Dreamcatcher and Brian Gladman. They're the kind of publishers and people the industry really needs. They're hungry, dedicated, and still promote genres the rest of the industry gives up for dead.
Spotted this at VoodooExtreme.
GameSpy: Let's talk about the joys and perils of being an indy developer. One of the pluses is creative freedom but a real detractor is getting attention from mainstream publishers. You've already crossed the publishing hurdle portion of your indy struggle - tell us about that process and what you think is the next major hurdle for Harbinger that's directly related to being an indy.
Andy: Being independent was cool because we got to make exactly the game we wanted to make. The publisher hunt was frustratingly stupid. We have a real contempt for middlemen in pretty much any industry and when you meet with publishers, these are exactly the kind of people you meet with. We landed with Jeff Brunner, our agent at RED, who did a killer job taking this off our shoulders, but the real pain was the time that was sunk into the effort. Every minute sitting on a plane or talking to some tool in a suit was time not improving the game and I resented every second of it.
The good news is that we landed with DreamCatcher, and they let us finish the game the way it was meant to be with very little friction. The things they did push us on, in the end, improved the game tremendously. Our product manager at DreamCatcher, Brian Gladman, really kicked in to help us out with some things that would've driven us crazy (crazier) if he hadn't taken them off our plate. When we signed with them for Harbinger, I never expected it to work out this well.
I agree with the praise of Dreamcatcher and Brian Gladman. They're the kind of publishers and people the industry really needs. They're hungry, dedicated, and still promote genres the rest of the industry gives up for dead.
Spotted this at VoodooExtreme.
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