Tim Willits: John Goodman.
SPOnG: Yeah, I noticed! That was really cool!
Tim Willits: In the beginning of the game, I purposely made it a little bit confusing. You’re given nothing about the plot really, and so you’re wondering what to do and end up just trying to survive. As you play through, you start to learn more about your past and background. Some of the people who have played the full two hour demo have reached the old scientist and met with the resistance, who fill you in on some more details.
Instead of doing all the story in the beginning and have a setup like, ‘story then shoot shoot shoot,’ I really wanted to dole it out as you play. And there’s a lot of history and backstory that people may miss if they don’t talk to people. Sure, you get some people who just ignore everyone in town and go to whoever they need to talk to, but I’m happy with how we’ve laid it all out.
SPOnG: The impression I had when playing was that... you met up with Dan who rescues you, and then he makes you his bitch. You do some stuff for him, go over to Wellspring as a free man and become the Mayor or Sheriff’s bitch instead. Do you stop being everyone’s bitch at one point?
Tim Willits: Er... no, you bitch all the way through (laughs)! No I mean, eventually you meet the resistance, and I always joke that they say ‘hey, you need to do this’ and I’m like ‘... what are YOU guys doing? You’re hanging out here, down in your secret base and stuff and I’m risking my neck!’ But eventually you find out why you specifically are important, and what information you have that plays into the fight against the authority.
But you know, it’s a video game. You do spend a lot of time running around doing stuff. That’s the nature of what we make.
Tim Willits: Yeah, it would be funny if one day you had a button that makes you say ‘Why don’t YOU do that? I’ll just stand here and idle pose for a while.’
SPOnG: You’ve said in past interviews that it’s really hard for new IPs to thrive, and this is a very hit-driven market. Can you elaborate a bit more on what you meant by that?
Tim Willits: Yes. Luckily for us we have Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein to stand on the shoulders of, so people will pay attention. It is extremely difficult launching a new IP. In stories that list the top 10 most anticipated games of the year, RAGE is the only original IP. I would not want to be a junior startup trying to do this - especially on the ‘mega path’ that we’ve taken to promote it.
We worked real hard to make sure that the game has the exposure that it needs within every show, that we talked to everybody... we made an entire iPhone app just to launch the marketing campaign. We did a three-part comic book series, we did a novel, we’ve done commercials with loads of celebrities... we’ve worked our tails off and it’s still an uphill battle. If you’re not id Software, or someone really prominent, it’ll be hard. It’ll be really hard.
But, thank God we have a good game! Like I said before, I think people will be really excited about the game and it’ll change their perception of id. But yeah, getting people to pay attention... it’s not easy.
Tim Willits: Yeah, I mean we did the whole Facebook thing, where we offered the iPhone app for free if we hit 100,000 Likes. That was a big success for us. But you need a publisher that will back you up and will trust you. Thank God that we’re working with Zenimax and Bethesda. They have faith in us and they trust us, because these kinds of things are big gambles. You need to make sure you have a game that can deliver. But yes, thinking outside the box is important for developers, as is experimenting with social media and just trying as much stuff as you can.
SPOnG: Since the creation of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein and Doom, the gaming industry has changed an awful lot. What’s the big change that you’ve seen over the years in regards to development?
Tim Willits: Shipping games. The release of the first Quake game went like this - and I’m serious, this is true - John [Carmack] said, “Hey Tim, can you play through it one more time?” I played for a few hours, said “Yep, I think it’s good.” Send game. “Alright, let’s go.” And then we went home. That’s it.
These days, we’d be a year away from release and we’d have to plan everything. Schedule global shipments, sort out localisations, work out the strategy guides, pass Microsoft and Sony for certification... man, it’s a lot more work! Just the organisation and breaking through all the clutter and noise has dramatically changed how we work today.
The teams are bigger, the budgets are bigger. And there are so many more fans out there, but reaching them takes an organised, strategic approach. The fans are much smarter when it comes to games, which works out well for us because... yes, it’s a new IP, but there are a lot of hits that are cookie-cutter games.
Players today are very intelligent, connected and aware, and I think they’ll appreciate the fact that we’re trying to do something different, it’s an original IP, we have a mix of things in the game which doesn’t make it just another corridor shooter. So I have a high degree of confidence in RAGE, given the fact that gamers are really tuned today.
Tim Willits: Yeah, with community managers, Tweeters and Facebook... of course, it also means I have to be more careful! If I say one stupid thing in the bathroom, and Joe Schmoe tweets it - I could spend a month recovering from that (laughs)! We’re a very connected world now, which is also a very exciting prospect too.
SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time.
Tim Willits: Cool! Thank you.
RAGE will be landing on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC on the 4th October.