King of the Castle

Well in the first three days we had 30,000 views, from just a single press release. But what I didn't do is spam people's email - I don't like that at all - this is a complete opt-in experience. It's word of mouth.

I think it's a lot of people in the industry, a lot of people who are fans of Dungeon Siege, Supreme Commander, Demigod - that community is taking a look, some in earnest and some with cynicism, wondering where we're going with this.

But I think everybody can just relax - it's going to be fun, and not anything for anyone to get worked up about, that's for sure. It's a passive form of brand-building.

Well, what we're looking at is a different approach to the business, and we don't have all the answers right now - those will come together over the next couple of months. We hope we can shift it a few degrees to the left or right, which may include publishing the title with funding from a different source, or it may mean signing up with publishers in the traditional model but breaking it out over territories.

We don't really know yet, but we're open to any kind of partnership which is mutually beneficial, with people who share our excitement for trying new ideas. So if somebody traditional says "Oh, we don't like that," then we're probably not going to do a deal with them, and that's probably okay.

I never asked people to vote on stuff, I said we'd be taking them on a great adventure, behind the scenes. But I want to hear from them, especially if they think I'm cracked out. The can send an email and share their ideas.

One email I got in the first 24 hours already had an impact in one of my design sessions - so they are doing it. But you can't listen to the voice of one single person - this person happened to make an impact - but if everybody says they want something and you read that email from a thousand independent minds, you're really going to give that a hard look. Maybe we do need that giant, hairy Cyclops that spits bodies...?

I am going to be listening, and they do affect me - I will be responding back to all the emails, and everybody who's ever written is going to get a response, even if it takes me two, three, six months to get a reply.

I'm very, very fast on email. Over the course of months and months there probably will be a backlog, but it's actually really fun to do. We will be taking a lot of suggestions, and people will hopefully get to see how it manifest itself - we're not signing our name on the bottom line to a democratised approach... that would be hard to do, and make anybody happy.

Well, Supreme Commander 2 is playing beautifully on console - the controls work well, the frame rate is high - so we want to keep moving in that direction and delivering console RTS titles, no doubt.