Next Gen Biz
"We're giving RTS games on the console a shot," Goodman continues, "We actually spent a whole year just trying to reconstruct how the controls would work on an RTS game, six to eight people in just a prototype mode where they just were working on actually making it a good experience on the console."
"Because we wanted to focus on just controls alone, we just took a straight port of Age of Empires and worked on that first. Now, the game we're doing for our console has a lot of different gameplay elements, too."
"When they got it to the point where we had Age of Empires up and running, and our people with gamepads could beat the people with mice, then we knew we really had totally reconstructed the control systems."
Goodman believes Ensemble has achieved the Holy Grail of RTS development: "Yeah, and we got there. Our gamepad people could beat our mouse people. The last thing we wanted was to start on a game before we solved that problem. That's the big problem. We put in so much time, and effort, and made a series of little breakthroughs, and got it."
Selling a Console RTS
"In my mind it's a great game. It's actually our most fun strategy game that we're working on right now. Those guys working on that game are having a blast. It's shorter, it's more fun, it's more visceral."
Goodman is genuinely enthusiastic about the project. "The game's really great." He hasn't exactly figured out how to sell the game, but his strategy is, "in six months or so, we'll probably just try to get it in the hands of gamers."
"Just take a grass-roots marketing approach," Goodman says. "Give it to gamers to play, and let them decide. Don't put it out on the market, and start marketing it immediately. Do a public beta and give lots of people the chance to play it. I think that's the best way. Because it is a new thing. I don't want to rely on marketing to sell something that's already fun. It'll sink or swim, on its own merit."
