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Pogledaj cijelu verziju : Intervju s Bradom Wardellom, direktorom Stardocka (Engleski)



IgGy
15-10-2009, 10:18
Napravili smo kratki, ali slatki intervju s Bradom Wardellom, direktorom Stardocka, tvrtka koja je, ako niste znali, zaslužna za njihov vrlo pohvalni servis za digitalnu distribuciju, Impulse, te igre Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations, Demigod itd.
Ovaj je intervju na engleskom jeziku, no pretpostavljamo kako vam ne bi trebalo predstavljati neke probleme:

PC Play:SStardock's new game is a Turn-Based Strategy, Elemental: War of Magic. From what we've seen it's some kind of a cel-shaded combination of Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic. Some would call that title a "niche" one, while others would tear their hair off just to see if there's any new info about it. Who's right?

Brad Wardell:SNeither. J The art style in Elemental isn't cel-shaded. It's more of an illustrative style. Some of the early screenshots looked cel-shaded because the lighting wasn't in but as we've developed it, it's come a long way.
It's hard to say these days what is actually „niche“.

PC Play:SWhile we're at it, could you tell us something about Elementa: War of Magic in a few words? What it is about and how's the production coming up?

Brad Wardell:SSure! Elemental is a fantasy turn-based strategy game in which players start games on randomly generated worlds, build cities, research spells and technology, fight wars, sign treaties and just generally try to conquer the world.

PC Play:SMost of our readers would really like to ask you this: when could we expect a sequel to Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilization? If you can't anwer on that one, could you at least tell us are those sequels in production?

Brad Wardell:SSins of a Solar Empire has been incredibly popular. Developer Ironclad Games has lots of plans for it in the future but I can't really talk about them right now. Galactic Civilizations III will happen at some point but we're all on Elemental right now along with building up to develop an RPG in the future.

PC Play:SHow is Demigod performing in stores, both retail and digital? Did it reach expectations or even did better than you originally expected?

Brad Wardell:SDemigod has done pretty well. I didn't really have expectations for it because we'd never done a multiplayer-centric strategy game before. It's done better than Galactic Civilizations but not as strongly as Sins of a Solar Empire.

PC Play:SWhat do you think how big is the market for digital distribution (of games) currently and how will it expand in the future? When could we expect it could reach the size of a current retail market? How is Impulse performing between some of its competition like Steam and Direct2Drive?

Brad Wardell:SI think it'll be awhile before digital distribution catches up to retail. Its advantages will grow over time because of the unlimited shelf-space benefit of digital distribution.
Impulse's growth has been far beyond what we had anticipated. I would say we're a distant second now behind Steam but probably in front of Direct2Drive in terms of daily units moved of software.

PC Play:SWhat do you think about Microsoft's Games for Windows initiative? Could Microsoft do more for PC gaming? If it can, what do you think why isn't Microsoft doing more?

Brad Wardell:SI like the concept of it but I don't want any third-party service to have control over what I produce. If an update to Windows or a video driver comes out, I want to get my update to my game out as fast as I can, I don't want to have to put my game through some sort of certification process in order to get the update out.

PC Play:SOnLive - what do you think of it?

Brad Wardell:SI think someone got venture capital. J

PC Play:SDo you think DirectX 10 was a failure? Will DirectX 11 do more for, for example, your guys at programming department?

Brad Wardell:SFrom a technical perspective, DirectX 10 was great. DirectX 11 looks even better. But we still develop in a world where Pixel Shader 2 has to be supported (DirectX 9) because of video cards. I look forward to being able to make DirectX 11+ games but that's some years from now.

PC Play:SOur readers have an impression Stardock and Valve did much more representing the voice of PC gaming than PC Gaming Alliance, which should do exactly that, non-stop, just like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo do for their platforms. Do you, as a PC gamer feel threatened by consoles and their huge marketing machines, while PC gaming has, well, nothing except its users?

Brad Wardell:SNot at all. As a gamer, I don't care about the platform, I care about the game. I very much like the PC Gaming Alliance and anything that can reduce the support costs of making PC games is a great thing.
But as a practical matter, there are certain types of games that work better on the PC than on the console and vice versa and no amount of marketing can change that.

PC Play:SSome say next generation consoles will finally completely wipe-out PC gaming, at least its mainstream influence. That means no more blockbuster exclusives, less ports from consoles and more flash games from BigFish. What's your take on that?

Brad Wardell:SNonsense. Unless those next-generation consoles can teleport themselves between my computer desk and my living room that won't be happening.

PC Play:SWhat's the future for Stardock and PC gaming in general?

Brad Wardell: Right now we're in rapid expansion mode. The growth of Impulse did really catch us by surprise and the success of GalCiv, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Demigod have let us begin moving towards producing increasingly larger budget PC-only games.