Erlend Grefsrud, Co-Founder of Bifrost Entertainment, chatted with Cat about the semi-mystical founding of Bifrost, why he thinks the Xbox One is “ill-conceived”, why you have to be crazy to start a game company in Norway, and games art.
Read Part One here: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
CAT: Why are you indie, and what does being an independent developer mean to you?
Erlend: I make games because I have to. It's how I think and dream. Some people think in stories or melodies or images, I think in terms of systems of mechanics and dynamics and risk and reward and difficulty curves and telegraphing and signalling and oh man. I'm a game design junkie, and making games is how I get my fix.
Being independent is the best way to make the games I want to make and play. I really wanted to get into the AAA industry back in ye olden days, but the way it's developing puts me off. I have no interest in being a little cog in a machine that churns out a slightly improved version of last year's big hit. I know just saying that is a big cliche nowadays, but I genuinely think this is true. I know what goes on inside big studios, and it's not pretty.
Besides, I want to have a hand in every part of development. I'm one of those pesky Jacks of all Trades, and I like to be involved in design, art, programming, sound, writing, whatever needs doing and shapes the game. That will never happen unless I'm way high up in the studio hierarchy, and them I'm probably managing or making executive decisions rather than noodling around in the gameplay code trying to make sure the jumps feel really good or that the UI is as clear and expressive as it can be.
I don't really dream of leading a horde of game developers to glory. I dream of making games that make people think and feel, and I think the best way to do that is to do it by myself and with people who I trust and admire, and who wants the same thing as me. That's rare inside a big company.
CAT: What are the challenges unique to developing in Norway? How international is the game development scene these days?
Erlend: First and foremost, the cost level is completely insane. Norway is a proper bubble, where "normal" rules don't apply. The tax levels are not exactly business-friendly, employment laws are watertight, and average salaries are probably the highest in Europe.
A game studio in Norway is instantly way less competitive than one based practically anywhere else. Now, that's not a bad thing -- Norway is a great place to be an employee, and then there's the wealth equality, high quality of life and tremendous social services. I decided I didn't want to be a regular salary worker, and that's my own responsibility.
I don't really want Norway to change to make it easier for me to make games, although I have a sneaking suspicion things will change fast enough even without my complaining.
Outside of that, Norway would be a great place to work. Tons of talent, tons of passion, everything you need to make great games -- but games are terribly risky, and it's hard to justify spending twice as much as everyone else does, especially when talking to publishers and venture capitalists.
http://s2.n4g.com/media/11/...
[i[Image from Myriad
CAT: In the Mini Q&A, you mentioned the ability to “help define an emerging art form”. Can you expand on that?
Erlend: Games aren't done yet. Of course, it’s silly to say that anything is “done”, but let’s say many forms are more staid than games are.
Literature has been around for so long we find stuff carved into rocks that we can't read and only assume has some kind of meaning. Cinema builds on the ancient traditions of drama, painting, sculpture and, of course, photography, so that's got loads of baggage too. Same goes for music -- I can't really invent a new form of musical notation, whip up some instruments and change the way people listen to music.
But games are fresh. Games are a bit like comic books, a synthesis of different forms that has fantastic expressive potential. I think I like comic books even more than film and literature, simply because it's so rich with potential, there's so much that hasn't been done yet, and there are no set boundaries or clever books telling you how to make a million bucks by following a simple formula.
Digital games have been readily available for consumers for less than half a century. Until fairly recently, it was basically technical wizardry, where you needed super-talented engineers and artists willing to give everything to push the envelope just a little. That meant developers and financiers alike got pretty risk-averse, and quickly settled into fairly well-established boundaries.
Now, there's a lot of interesting work being done inside of those boundaries, but I think it's even more exciting to break them down, to look at what HASN'T been done, to discover a way to use the form that no-one's thought about yet. That's possible, I think, in music, comics and games -- and not many other places.
CAT: What are your thoughts on the ongoing games-as art discussion?
Erlend: Games are art, and I am artist. Period. The never-ending debate about what is and isn't art is mostly just a territorial squabble among critics, academics and especially the Terribly Rich, for whom the world of Fine Art is a great way to invest money and reap massive, unwarranted gains through clever PR and marketing, without paying capital gains tax on the when they finally sell the piece after leaving it to valuate for a couple of years.
The art world is a pretty murky place. I don't aspire to hobnob with Sothesby auctoneers or deliver corporate art to bank lobbies. I'm sure there's more than enough other artists who dream of doing that.
http://s2.n4g.com/media/11/...
[i[Image from Myriad
CAT: You also mentioned wanting to create games where players have influence and are not limited to a pre-authored path. What are your favorite applications of this in existing games?
Erlend: Wow, hard question. Paradoxically, I'm really fond of ultra-hardcore, really linear action games like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Bayonetta, that kind of stuff. But the reason I like them is because there's so much scope for doing your own thing inside of them. Those are the kind of games where playing well looks and feels really cool, where being good at the game means a hell of a lot, and I really like that. I like to master games.
On the other hand, I do like carving my own path in something like Fallout or The Elder Scrolls, and I'm currently binging on rogue-likes, and really relishing how unpredictable they are and how damn good fun it is to fail at them.
In these cases, I'm not so much interested in, you know, picking conversation options or deciding what quest I'm gonna do next, I'm more interested in how my journey is, well, pretty much my own. Much of that is illusion of course, but I like being fooled well.
As for Personal All-Time Favourite -- I don't really do that, what I like changes a lot from year to year, as I learn new things about the different ways games work and can work. But I guess the most inspiring example is Katamari Damacy. It gives you a little sandbox, it gives you a few rules and a goal, and then you're just left to have fun. I love that, especially when it's as charming, generous, inventive and playful as Katamari Damacy was.
CAT: What is your vision for this moving forward? Are you going to be creating a Witcher-style rpg? :)
Erlend: Well, it's funny that you say so, because I'm planning to do something more narrative next time, primarily because I'm really critical of storytelling and games and frankly think most developers are doing a terrible job at conceiving, writing and executing their stories.
Now, it's easy to criticize and tell people what they should and shouldn't do, so I feel it's only fair and honest that I try my hand at it. I've got quite a few ideas of ways to tell stories in games that have, as far as I know, never been tried before and if things work out the way I hope, that'll be my Next Big Thing.
I won't say much, except that it will most likely be parser-driven, like the very first text adventure games that came out in the late 70s and early 80s.
Day 26 | Bifrost Entertainment
"30XX is one of the best roguelikes out there, combining the tight platforming action of the Mega Man X series with the challenge and randomization that roguelike fans crave. Batterystaple Games has done lots of refinement through updates since 30XX first appeared on Steam Early access a few years ago. The latest such update adds a new character for free, one who combines the best attributes of the two existing characters. Also, the Steam version is on sale, making it a great time to travel to the distant year of 30XX!" says Co-Optimus.
"Hammerwatch II's journey to Xbox has been long and perilous. After first launching on Steam in the fall of 2023, the game finally turned up on PlayStation 5 last December. Since then, Xbox gamers who enjoyed the original Hammerwatch and the sublime Heroes of Hammerwatch have been anxiously awaiting their turn at the long-promised sequel. At last, the wait is nearly over because Hammerwatch II will hit Xbox and PlayStation 4 on April 23," says Co-Optimus.
Joe 'Three Sheets' Neate (Executive Producer): "As I’m sure you can imagine, when it comes to Sea of Thieves my days are full of numbers. Development costs, active servers, days until the next update… Sometimes, though, a truly extraordinary number stands out – a number like 40 million, which I’m incredibly pleased to say is the number of pirates who’ve now set sail in Sea of Thieves!"
Garrr... more people to walk the plank and send to Davey Jones locker.
would have been funny to release this on talk like a pirate day.
40 million have set sail...that's great. How many are sailing now? Monthly active users....when it actually matters. How many people purchased the game is another important number.
You don't get numbers like that from MS mouth pieces, they just like to say stuff like "this game was looked at 129 million time, the biggest amount of people browsing a game of this genre on xbox gamepass ever in the last 3 weeks compared to before gamepass was out (small print only 2 million bothered playing longer than 20 seconds and only 100 people are playing it concurrently)
It's all smoke and mirrors
There are usually around 10,000 concurrent users on Steam not counting Xbox or PS but really it doesn't matter as long as there are enough people on the servers to play which there always were and will be for a long time now with the PS players coming on board. Same goes for how many people bought it and how many are on GP, we aren't the accountants of these console companies so why would we care?
Reporting on MAU stats is very misleading. Other companies publish units sold, MS cannot or will not due to Game Pass. We all know that their prior startegies have not panned out so now they have to actually sell games on other consoles. In any case, SoT is doing impressive preorders on PS5 and will very likely motivate Satya to release more games other than the four indicated games on their competitor's consoles. Take note Phil is radio silent....
40 Mil across Stream, Windows 10, and Xbox. Healthy numbers for sure, but when PC is the biggest platform, I expected more. It’ll be interesting to see how it does on PlayStation. Very well could be double that player count in 6 months with PS too. It’s crazy for developers to skip the most popular platform, not sure why they’d want to, but they must have had their rea$ons.
Great interview, it's cool to see different games all over the world.
Being in the games industry must really be a tough place. I can only imagine how many people went into it hoping to create and tell stories of their own only to spend their entire career helping other people tell their stories by doing fraction of a tiny piece of work that the player probably wont even notice.
Its great that the new indie boom can help so many aspiring devs to tell their stories even if it may be in a smaller scale.
Also really exciting to be reminded of how young and fresh the games industry and art form is. The best is still ahead of us :D
Games are art, that is a fact
No doubt the game absolutely looks sick and lookss like a piece of moving art!
The art design is indeed very interesting...
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