| CaliGirl: Can you first tell us a little about
yourself?
David Whatley: My name is David Whatley. I am the President & CEO of
Simutronics Corporation and one of the original founders.
CaliGirl:
What are the current major projects at Simutronics?
David Whatley: We are currently well underway on our Hero's Journey
project. This is clearly the most ambitious project we've ever undertaken and our
goal is to create nothing less than the Magnum Opus of massively multiplayer online
Fantasy Roleplaying Games. As you might expect from a company that only does online games,
all of our existing titles still represent major projects as we never really stop ongoing
development. For example, GemStone III and DragonRealms each have a team over 150
World Builders (game designers, programmers, etc.) each!
CaliGirl:
Has your company decided to focus on a specific field? Will they be looking into Strategy,
Simulations, Puzzle and related games? or will it mainly keep focused on RPG games?
David Whatley: At our core, we are create Fantasy Roleplaying adventures
and all of our work is massively multiplayer. This is all we have done, and remember our
company is right around 12 years old now. We do have teams working on other genres,
including more mass-market titles. But it is safe to say that we a big fans of
high-fantasy epic adventures, and this will always represent our defining product line.
CaliGirl:
What do you feel sets your online RPG games from other RPG Games?
David Whatley: Online provides a social context for what you are doing.
A classic RPG game (that is not online) goes to great lengths to get you
involved in some sort of story line, but the success of this effort can really vary.
Online you make your own stories; in fact they evolve as a natural course of human
interaction and socialization. Our jobs are simply to encourage and focus this
natural phenomenon and keep things always fresh, exciting and interesting. In there
lies the strength of our company and our product line.
CaliGirl:
What challenges do you see lying in the future for Simutronics?
David Whatley: Hero's Journey represents the culmination of my entire
professional life. To create the definitive statement in epic fantasy, I am pushing for
the most sophisticated and innovative Internet environment building techniques that have
ever been attempted. Basically, we are going to take the extremely powerful and enabling
tools we have always given our online World Building staff and apply this to a graphical
game system. Up until now the technology to do this has not been there, but I feel as
though it is now possible to really realize this goal. This is, without a doubt, the
greatest and most exciting challenge we have taken on.
CaliGirl:
Did you see any cool games around the E3? Do you have any favorites yet?
David Whatley: Our office is drooling over Team Fortress 2. Those guys
really understand their medium. I should also say much of the product line from
Activision, such as Battle Zone 2, Quake III and so on are very hot. It is
surprising how many titles were the same ones I saw last year. Or maybe its not so
surprising!
CaliGirl:
Do you feel the development of games may change from the recent shooting in the Colorado
High School?
David Whatley: Games are primitive simulations of life's challenges. To
the degree they can train someone to be a "good shot" (which is debatable unless
guns have mouse ports), they can also teach valuable survival skills like "a moving
target is harder to hit." (one that any Quake death-matcher uses as his mantra). As
horrible as the school shootings are (or any shooting for that matter), I cannot possibly
see how this relates to games. However, I remain astonished at how a parent can become so
disassociated with their own child as to not know they are hoarding a frightening arsenal.
Parents should know what their kids are doing. They should get involved, even in things
that do not interest them. Love is stronger than hate, but it is a lot harder to
cultivate. The important thing is to find real solutions, not seek out simpleton answers
to complex problems. That serves only to obscure the real issues and delay solving the
problem.
CaliGirl:
Is there any other information you would like to add to this interview?
David Whatley: Hero's Journey showed so well at E3 that it amazed us. We
had scheduled many showings of the product, but by the second day we had all available
time slots filled. By the third day the word had gotten out and we had people
doubling up and then tripling up to see this thing. The room we had was full, and every
minute of every day was filled with demos. We were turning people away and scheduling
follow-up visits after E3. I'm very proud of our team, the accomplishment they have made
on our technology demo and just how well the product was received at this early stage.
This gives me confidence that we have a superior concept and that by-and-large everyone
wants someone to build one of these things who really "gets it."
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CaliGirl |
