Warren Spector reminds you of one of the junior high kids who used to spend his lunch hours hunched over the cafeteria tables furiously involved in a game of Dungeons and Dragons, percentile dice bouncing off onto the floor while their chili dogs sat neglected and cooling beside them. Granted, Spector was already in his teens when TSR's Gary Gygax (and wasn't that a name just made to be associated with Kobolds, Orcs, and Paladins?) made the popular role-playing game into a household word, but nevertheless, the description fits: Spector was indeed involved with Dungeons and Dragons, going as far as to move to the company's headquarters in rural Wisconsin to oversee various gaming operations there.
He's also been involved with Austin's Steve Jackson Games (SJC) as editor-in-chief and supervisor of the game division. During his tenure at SJG, Spector worked on such award-winning projects as the cartoon role-playing game Toon, as well as Car Wars, GURPS, and the eponymous Illuminati. (SJG historians may note that this was years before the United States Secret Service took a pointed -- and decidedly ludicrous -- interest in Mr. Jackson's activities.)
A longtime film buff -- he holds a bachelor's degree in film history and criticism from Northwestern University and attended graduate film school at UT where he met many of the early Chronicle staff -- Spector joined the local video/CD-ROM game design company Origin in 1989 as an associate producer, and has since risen through the ranks to his current station as senior producer. His corner office view, looking out over the Texas Hill Country with a clear view of Brad Pitt's new house, is the most beautiful I have ever seen, and he's the first senior producer of anything I've ever met who has a poster for Hong Kong director Ringo Lam's Full Contact in his office. You have no idea how much I respect him for this.
Like the new offices of Origin itself, Spector thrums with unbridled hyperkinetic activity, punctuating his remarks with multiple "wow!"s, "cool!"s, and the occasional melodramatic... pause. His longtime association with the gaming industry, and Origin in particular, made him the prime candidate for interrogation when I decided to find out what the company -- and the industry in general -- was up to since my last visit four years ago.
Things have changed, not the least of which is Origin's location. The last time I dropped in, the company was based on far north Research. They've recently moved to more, uh, palatial quarters down south, in a building that would make Blade Runner-era Ridley Scott soil himself with envy. And right now, a position at Origin -- be it programmer, designer, writer, janitor, anything -- is the most coveted job in town, and there's no question why: The place is on fire with ideas. Originality (no pun intended) practically oozes from the techie cubicles on the first couple of floors to founder Richard Garriott's office up top. Surely, this is the very definition of a cutting-edge company, and now that their involvement with the San Diego-based Electronic Arts, Inc., provides them with ample resources, Origin -- and senior producer Spector -- are quite literally ready to change the world.
No, really, we're serious...
The Austin Chronicle: It's hard to walk around Austin without bumping into someone who doesn't know you, or at least has heard of you. For those of us who may be out of the loop, how about explaining how you came to be involved in gaming?
Warren Spector: I started out as a total movie freak. That was all I was interested in. [The Austin Chronicle editor] Louis Black and I [both] used to go to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He would sit in the sixth row with Leonard Maltin and I would be in the fifth row, so I spent the early part of my, uh, youth not quite meeting Louis. I went to Northwestern and got my bachelor's degree in film history and crit. [Later coming to UT-Austin for graduate school.]
I've always been into science fiction and fantasy and fell into a gaming group here in town playing Dungeons and Dragons -- Bruce Sterling was our Game Master. I played with Bud Simons, a local writer, and a bunch of other folks -- some of the best gamers in the world. I did a lot of D&D, discovered the little meta-gaming pocket games like ogre and GEV designed by Steve Jackson, played some Car Wars and Illuminati and a bunch of Avalon Hill games and just got very seriously into gaming. It was all I did for a while when I wasn't watching movies.
AC: This was while you were going to UT?
WS: Right. While writing about movies for the Texan, I was teaching film courses at UT when they cut off my funding. One day I was sitting on the floor of my apartment wondering how the hell I was going to pay my rent next month when I got a call from Steve Jackson Games asking me to come be an assistant editor. Of course I said yes, and so about six months later I was the editor-in-chief.
After doing a bunch of design work and some editing and development (we did Toon while I was there, Gurps, Car Wars Deluxe Edition, Space Gamer), I was lured by the dark side and went to TSR [creators of Dungeons and Dragons] after they offered me what I thought at the time were huge amounts of money and fame and fortune. I left Austin for two years and went up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Career-wise it was great, but man, big mistake. I mean, never leave Austin, that's the only word of advice I have for anybody.
AC: How did you become involved with Origin?
WS: While I was up in Lake Geneva, I realized I was feeling very stagnant. First of all, I was in the middle of nowhere: Lake Geneva is the armpit of the world -- nothing for 40 miles around. The big decisions were: Should we use a 20-sided die or a percentile die? Burning questions of the day. I received a call from Dennis Lubay who was an artist at Origin (and who had worked for Steve Jackson Games as well) saying that they were looking for an associate producer. I thought, wow, hey, I can make computer games, which was something that was really catching on at the time. This looked like a good way to get back to Austin and a good way to get into an industry that was really just starting to grow. So I came back and I've been here for almost seven years now.
AC: In terms of its gaming abilities, where was Origin at this point? Surely it wasn't the behemoth it is now.
WS: One of the things that happened in about the first six months I was here was that Chris Roberts -- the mastermind behind the Wing Commander series -- had this vision of cinematic games. All of a sudden the game stuff and the movie stuff and the management stuff that I had dealt with before all fell into place together. All that going to movies while my mother wanted me to be studying to be a doctor sort of paid off. That's how I got here.
One of the things that's really exciting about this business is that every day when I come into the office I see something that no one in the world has ever seen before, and that's so cool. Part of what makes that possible is this box here on my desk [the computer], which changes every day. Every six months there's a quantum leap in technology. What we have to do is figure out where this is going to be in, not six months -- because our time lines are typically 18-24 months -- but we have to be looking two years ahead and saying "Where's the technology going to be? Are there going to be headsets and forced-feedback joysticks, or what?"
AC: So what does a senior producer do at Origin?
WS: I have a game that I shipped in January called Wings of Glory which I conceived. I decided what it was going to be, assembled a team that was capable of turning the concept into a wonderful game -- a director, programmers, artists, designers, writers -- and then I provided the funding (through Origin, of course). We worked to develop the plan, the script, and the technical design specs; I did some of the management of the scheduling and the day-to-day resources. Mostly, that kind of thing. There is a creative element to it, but there's also a large budget oversight aspect to it, as well.
AC: With the cinematic games that Origin has become known for, do you see a lot of parallels between working at Origin and working in Hollywood?
WS: Absolutely. Games at this point cost in the millions -- at least here -- and involve a minimum of 15 and often 30-50 people. There's a huge amount of coordination that has to go on. It's very, very demanding. Very stressful. The way Richard Garriott and Chris Roberts work is very much as producer-directors. They focus on one project and it becomes very much their project. I see them as I see the Steven Spielbergs and James Camerons of the world.
AC: Is that how you see yourself?
WS: No, not really. I don't even want to do that. I want to be the Roger Corman, or maybe the David O. Selznick. I like creating an environment where creative people can do cool stuff while I get to have my hands in a lot of pies. For those guys, they spent megabucks on one project and it's a kick-ass, state-of-the-art, amazing, blow-people-away, get-on-Entertainment Tonight, CNN, Newsweek magazine kind of thing. I'd rather be the guy who lets Martin Scorsese do Boxcar Bertha, you know? Or lets Allan Arkush and Joe Dante do Hollywood Boulevard, or Paul Bartel do Death Race 2000....
I try to find people who find what I think games should be, who have the same kind of sense of what kind of interactivity you can bring to the table. And then I let them go as far as they're capable of going. It's a very different model than the other producers here, and luckily one that Origin has supported me in. Rich and Chris have both been in the business longer than I have, by many years, but I've released a lot more games.
AC: Do all the game ideas come from in-house?
WS: No. I do a lot of out-of-house development, which is something the other producers don't do too much of. I think it's wonderful, because I like working with lots of different people.
I've worked over the last five years with an outfit called Looking Glass Technologies in Cambridge. They've done Underworld, Ultima Underworld, Underworld II, and System Shock for me, and those have been amazing games. They've changed the face of gaming, literally changed the world. It's so cool to be involved with that stuff. I got lucky, really, because I ran into them when they were just starting up and I've watched them grow from a company of four people -- guys in a garage -- and now they have, like, 75 people, and I've been a part of that.
AC: How has Origin changed since the buyout by Electronic Arts (EA)? Surely, everyone must have been concerned that EA would come in and move people around, ruin the synergy, and so on, right?
WS: They're more hands-off than I expected, and I have to admit I was really nervous at first. I thought they were just going to come in and take over and tell us how to do our business. The fact is, though, they bought Origin because we do a particular kind of thing that no one else is capable of doing. Even with my Roger Corman approach to things, I'm still doing stuff on a much larger scale than most people in this industry. Every project we do does something that no one else has done. And EA respects that. Obviously, there are downsides to being involved with this huge mega-corporation and everything, but the fact is they have very deep pockets, and they're not afraid to open those pockets when you show you've got something that warrants the money.
AC: After becoming one of the most successful gaming companies in history, what's in the future for Origin? Online games? Virtual reality?
WS: Obviously, you're going to see some more of the same from us. We're a company that specializes in doing PC-CD projects. We're known for story games and you're not going to see that going away any time soon. Origin understands how to tell interactive stories, probably, better than anyone else in the business. We have a reputation for high-end graphics and cinematic stuff -- that's not going to go away. We are coming up with better ways to integrate essentially non-interactive video footage with fully interactive game stuff, but obviously, we're not going to run away from Wing Commander. That's a formula that Chris Roberts and Origin created and it's a wonderful format. It's like, John Ford made westerns, Chris Roberts makes Wing Commanders.
We're also going to be making something of a transition into game platforms, games for the Sony PlayStation, the Sega Saturn. There's talk now about 3-DO's new machine, the M2, coming out, which looks really exciting -- the Nintendo Ultra 64. There's all sorts of stuff happening right now. It's a real exciting time to be in this business because after a period of relative stability, all of a sudden there's this flurry of activity going on. Apple's coming out with this thing called a Pippin; I mean, what the hell is that? There are all these platforms now, and we have to kind of place our bets and hope we make the right ones, which is something EA has been remarkably successful with. We're looking to them for intelligence, and guidance, and information.
Multi-player online games, though, that's the Grail. Wow. We've got one project going now that Richard Garriott's doing -- the working title is Multima -- it's a big, big-scale, multi-player game where you'll be able to interact with 500 of your close, personal friends. That's gonna be cool. You'll be able to build things and create things in that world -- and destroy things, of course -- and talk to other people and so on. That's the first step in that direction. Wing Commander Armada, which is out now, is a multi-player game you can do over a modem or networks, and, believe me, we're going to be doing a lot more than that. Before long, anyone with Internet access is going to be able to log on and play one of our games with many other people.
AC: Which, I think, might pose a problem for you: how are you going to make money from something that's essentially on the Internet? Will it be free?
WS: [Laughing.] Nothing's free in this world.
You'll have to go through your Internet provider, certainly, and you'll have to pay those charges. One of the interesting things is that we're trying to figure out a business model regarding how we make money doing multi-player games that are playable over the Internet. If I had answers right now, I'd give them to you but, at this stage, we're not sure.
AC: So we can expect to see Origin getting heavily into virtual reality and the like?
WS: We've been doing it for years. People may not realize it, but I've produced five, first-person-perspective, point-of-view games, several of which support all the available headsets out there. I want to do a game someday where you can't even tell it's a game, you know?
AC: Sort of like the Holodeck on Star Trek, right?
WS: Exactly like that. We've taken some first steps toward that, actually. Underworld I was the first real-time point-of-view game in the world. No one else had done that before we did it. System Shock -- no one had ever done anything like that before. Cybermage, which is coming out, has a unique, first-person-perspective feel. I'm going to keep throwing out all these first-person-perspective grenades until one of them hits, you know?
AC: One of the most amazing things about visiting Origin is the amount of energy you feel here. It hits you like a blast wave the minute you open the door, like some weird electronic pulse. Obviously, people are psyched to be working here....
WS: There's no way not to be psyched around here. I'm accused of being the "glass is half empty" guy. I'm the cynic. If you think this is enthusiastic, just walk around and talk to the people who are making these games. It's incredible. The energy in this place, the enthusiasm, it's like no other place I've ever worked.
The reason for that is because we've got some of the most amazingly talented, creative, and smart people in the universe. This is not a place where schedules and budgets come first. This is a place where quality comes first. We keep on working until it's right, and where else can you do that? We're making stuff that's gonna put Hollywood out of business in 10 years.
AC: Geez. Is Hollywood aware of that?
WS: I think the fact that MGM Interactive now exists, and Warner Bros. Interactive now exists, and Disney Interactive, and Paramount Interactive, and BioCom Interactive... you're getting the idea? Yeah, I think they've figured it out.
Realistically, I don't think they're going to be replaced. I mean, my god, I hope it doesn't happen -- I'm still a movie fan. What we do is fundamentally different, and -- I can't believe I'm saying this -- it's fundamentally cooler, you know? It's all well and good to watch Chow Yun-Fat as he's blasting away, flying down that bannister in Hard-Boiled, but I can be that guy. I can watch him... or, I can be him. I mean... wow! You know?
We're going to accomplish three things. We're going to have a 3D rendering engine that is powerful enough that it will make you feel like you're there. We'll come up with a way to feel like you're interacting with people, as opposed to cardboard cut-outs or Orcs or Elves. Interacting with them in some way other than killing them, which is really lame when you come right down to it. All we can do is allow you to kill people. I hate that. And then we're going to do a game that's set in the real world. The big problem is: The closer you get to reality, the higher people's expectations get. There aren't real Orcs and Elves so no one can say how they're supposed to be. Once you've set something in the real world, you've raised people's expectations and all they're gonna say is, "That's not the way real people are. That's not the way the real world works." We're not quite there, but some day. Some day.
It's like being D.W. Griffith, being back in 1910, and seeing all these possibilities and knowing that you're not quite ready to make Gone With the Wind, or Waterworld for that matter, but you can see it out there. And here I'm surrounded by people who are capable of making it happen. That's remarkable. n