Interviews// WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2008: Keith Kirby

SPOnG: You mentioned that you’re developing across a whole range of platforms. I noticed you’re bringing a more hardcore experience to the PS3 and 360 versions while giving something more accessible on the Wii and DS. What about platforms such as the PSP?

Keith Kirby: I can’t talk about our platform-specific features, but I can say that the PSP version will be targeted towards people that own the console, which we feel are hardcore fans. So, the same type of people who’ll buy a PS2 are also going to buy a PSP so those two versions are going to be relatively similar. Which is great because to get such a large, deep experience in the PSP is kinda rare and we offer it now – last year’s edition was a very comprehensive version of the Smackdown series and that’s what we’re going to be doing this year too.


SPOnG: In the latest edition, there’s been a lot more input from the wrestlers. What kind of input did you get, did you get any advice and heavy involvement at all?

Keith Kirby: Absolutely. I don’t know if you’ve had the opportunity to go to the THQ Superstar Challenge that earlier this year… we have an event every year – in America it starts around the same time as Wrestlemania, here in Europe I can’t remember what time it is but it’s coming up I think – this event is where WWE Superstars get the chance to play against each other on our game. The winner for the last few years has been Shelton Benjamin, but this year Elijah Burke took the title.

During that event we get to see who the best players are, so we learned who’s advice to trust – but a lot of the guys play backstage. In fact, there’s actually a ban on video game playing backstage now because the guys play it so much. They still play, but they don’t play where Vince (McMahon - Chairman of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Board of Directors) can see them, and they love the game. They love to get in there and play Smackdown vs RAW.

Because of that, they have all sorts of opinions. I wish I could give you an example, but Ken Kennedy, he has like a thousand different suggestions – but we’re constantly getting feedback from the superstars to make the game seem more believable to play. Besides that we also get advice on how to make a game work true to the characters, so the superstars are writing some of their own lines. For example, the Undertaker wrote some lines this year, the writers from the show actually helped create some dialogue and event scripts for the game too. We’re getting a lot of support from the WWE this year, and that’s helping to make the game better and cooler.

Also, Shane McMahon (son of Vince, wrestler and WWE executive) is another person who can’t stop thinking of suggestions and input to help make the game better. He really cares about the product and gives us all sorts of good advice.


SPOnG: Oh cool - was there any piece of advice in particular that hit home with you guys?

Keith Kirby: It’s specific stuff about how to make it – how to make the scenes and story have more impact, how to do certain moves in a different way. We motion capture a lot of the stuff that we do in a game. The superstars actually come out and do the motion capture – we got guys who are fighting in the league right now who are doing motion capture for us, and so they’re constantly figuring out ways of how to make the game better.

The number of staff at the WWE that just support us in general have doubled this year, and it looks like we’re going to need even more help and support from them with all the great ideas everyone is throwing around for future games. Things are going really well with the WWE, our relationship has never been stronger.


SPOnG: You also say you listened to the fanbase for this iteration – what were the most important things you learned from consumer feedback?

Keith Kirby: What we do, believe it or not - and I wish I didn’t have to do this - but we go onto bulletin boards and fan forums online and read every line written by every fan about their experiences of the game.


SPOnG: That’s pretty hardcore.

Keith Kirby: It is (Laughs). We actually have a team of people that research this stuff that go onto domestic and international bulletin boards and check out what people say about the product. Though you have to kinda know what you’re looking for - a lot of the feedback on BBSes and forums aren’t really worth reading, like “John Cena sucks” or something stupid like that. But, sometimes you start seeing patterns of people’s feedbacks – like complaining about load times, an out of date roster or how they feel the animations of the characters are all choppy or even how old some of the move-sets are.

We hear it all and trust me, we read it all and we take it all to heart. We really value our customer’s opinion because we’re making this for them. You know, they’re the true players. We do our best to try and filter all of that feedback that we gather and collate that into information that we can act on, and then we act on it. It becomes this list that has all the features that we want to add in the game, and a list of things we want to improve on as well. The list of improvements, nine times out of ten, have come from things we have gotten from our customers – either by online research we’ve done, or focus tests and data mining exercises that we’ve done with the customers.

We really care about what the fans want – we’re in a unique position in where we release the game every year. Instead of making a game that takes three years to develop, we’re making one every twelve months. And that gives us an advantage to adapt and act on what the gamers have said about the game – we can take a legitimate complaint as recent as say, three months ago, and put it in the game right away. That allows us to perfect a game exactly to how the customer wants it.