Ritual Interview March 21, 2006 John JCal Callaham

Introduction

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.FiringSquad: Ritual has worked mostly on games based on properties created by others. Of the games of this type which does Ritual believe turned out the best?

Levelord: - That is a tough question because most of our experiences have been very good. Being a small company, we have indeed worked on many other properties. My favorite was Black Hawk Down: Team Sabre. It was a fun game to make, and working with Novalogic was an absolute joy. Many thanks to Joel Taubel and Lee Milligan for those memories!

FiringSquad: SiN is still a game that 8 years after its release has a ton of fans. Why do you think this title has held up so well among players?

Levelord: - Not sure I understand the question; it seems so obvious to me ;) …because it was a very fun game! The original SiN had its shortcomings, and releasing at the same time as the original Half-Life was not good happenstance. However, after the patch, SiN proved to be a fun little piece of entertainment. Many gamers saw that and these same people have been waiting for us to make the next installment to the property.

FiringSquad: Despite more and more games being released via Internet download it's still something of a risk for SiN Episodes to be released in this matter. Do you feel that this will be the preferred way to release PC games in the next few years?

Steve Hessel: - I believe we are going to see more and more high-quality game content being released digitally via services like Steam and the Xbox Live Marketplace. That is not to say that the traditional retail channel is going away, digital distribution is merely another avenue for developers to get their games out there.

Levelord: - I agree, Steve. Digital distribution is by no means a replacement for retail delivery, it is simply another mechanism for getting games to gamers. So much is purchased online now, it is difficult to remember the reluctance many of us felt when we first started clicking that “Add To Cart” button. With questions like this asked by many interviewers, though, there apparently still remains an uncertainty among the gaming customer base.

I buy everything online now, from movies and music, to food and furniture. I also still go to the retail store for these very same items. Similarly, it is likely that many gamers will prefer the simple browse-select-click convenience of online game purchasing over that of going to the store. Going to the store, though, and perusing the aisles for the what-should-I-treat-myself-to also has its appeal. Both models have their benefits, and both will be used.

FiringSquad: Is it easier or harder to develop an episodic game with shorter gameplay time for each episode compared to a full first person shooter with many more hours of gameplay?

Levelord: - First, let’s make sure that we all understand that at the end of the third episode of SiN Episodes, the gamers will have all the same gameplay value (more, we expect) that they would if they had purchased a non-episodic game in one lump package. They will have the same bang-for-the-buck and it will be delivered to them within the same timeframe.

As a developer, making a game under the episodic model has been MUCH easier. This paradigm forces us to encapsulate our efforts into more manageable pieces, and to compartmentalize our development cycles. I’m sure it is easy for your readers to grasp that focusing on one episode for 6-8 months, then wrapping it up before proceeding to the next, is much better than trying to do three episodes at once during an 18-24 month timeframe. There is a synergetic benefit in there.

SIDEBAR: SiN was later adapted into a best selling anime DVD by ADV Films

Ritual Interview (con'd)

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Steve Hessel: - Episode 2 development has already begun and thanks to the experience we got from working on Emergence we can hit the ground running now and dive right in. We’re currently looking at getting the second episode out there late this year.

Levelord: - HA HA HA! …look everyone! …John asked the “When?” question! …silly John ;) Okay, seriously, we are looking at 6-8 month development cycles per episode.

Although we can’t give away any hints yet, I would like to comment on the “What’s next?” part of the question. Not with any actual hints on content or features, but with a mention of a key component of our development plans for future episodes. I recently saw a biography special on television about Charles Dickens. His first major success was “The Pickwick Papers” which he wrote and published serially (‘episodic’).

Serial publishing was new when “The Pickwick Parers” first appeared. Dickens discovered the model had more than one benefit over the traditional full-length book archetype, too. First, it had the advantage of being less expensive to his audience. They could purchase his work in more affordable pieces rather than an entire book, which was often prohibitively expansive for many readers. Second, on a time basis, the temporal pacing of distribution was more fitting for his readers. Rather than trying to find the time to read an entire book, which could be overwhelming to a busy person, Dickens’ audience engaged his work in serial pieces. Finally, Dickens had the intelligence to write the work as it was being distributed. Contemporaries of Dickens, who also published serially, waited until the entire work was complete before publishing it as a series. Dickens was able to listen to his audience and guide his work with their feedback.

This last benefit is a key feature for Ritual’s episodic model and the important correlation between “The Pickwick Papers” and SiN Episodes. Although many aspects and features for future episodes are already in the works, we are also anticipating much feedback (Dickens didn’t have the internet, Ritual does;) from the gaming community and we have full intention to use this to guide future episodes.

FiringSquad: We know that the original version of SiN will be released alongside the first SiN Episodes chapter but can you comment on whether Wages of SiN will be released as well?

Steve Hessel: - We don’t have any news yet regarding a Steam version of Wages of SiN, but it’s obviously something we’re interested in doing.

FiringSquad: Are there any plans to bring SiN Episodes to next generation consoles?

Steve Hessel: - We’re in talks with Microsoft about getting SiN Episodes on Xbox Live Marketplace, which is a really great outlet for the game. We’ll have more on that at a later time.

Steve Nix: - There are a lot of gamers who prefer to play on the consoles and we need to make sure we are not ignoring those customers. We are extremely focused on a successful launch of the first episode for the PC and working on our PC based partnerships with Microsoft under the Games for Windows program and Logitech on the G15 keyboard side. The PC is a large and viable market and we are first and foremost concerned about a super high quality experience for those customers on day one. Once we’ve nailed that with Emergence, we will be devoting more time to our specific plans for the next gen consoles.

FiringSquad: At GDC Ritual will host a panel where they will introduce a new DirectX 10 graphics engine. What can you tell us about the new engine at this time and is it being used for any upcoming games?

Steve Nix - We have continued working on our UBER Engine technology at Ritual and we are honored to be working directly with Microsoft as one of the first developers of DX10 graphics. The main thing we are focused on right now is letting people know about the power of DX10 and that is the purpose of the GDC panel. We are not ready to talk about any specific applications of the new technology just yet.

FiringSquad: Finally is there anything else you wish to say about SiN Episodes and Ritual's current and future plans?

Levelord: - Well, we’re very excited! We have a good game ready for release, and for some of us this is the fulfillment of almost ten years of aspiration. We’re also very pumped about initiating the new development and distribution model called “episodic”, as well as joining the digital distribution model, both of which we see as profoundly beneficial for both the developer and the gamer. We are stoked that SiN Episodes is being developed with Valve’s Source and being released via their Steam. What a cool piece of history this is!

FiringSquad would like to thank Levelord, Steve Nix, and Steve Hessel for taking part in this interview. We look forward to checking out SiN Episodes: Emergence once it’s released later this year.