A Gazillion Little Pieces

From Diablo to Marvel Universe, Gazillion's David Brevik has some stories to tell

Feature by Matthew Handrahan Editor-in-Chief

Published on Oct. 10, 2011

GamesIndustry.bizOne of the motifs of your talk was "What would Nintendo do?" - a question that developers should ask themselves when making creative decisions to help them choose the right path. You're currently working on an MMO [Marvel universe], which is a space that's still being figured out to a large degree, so I have to ask: what do you think Nintendo would do with an MMO?

David Brevik

I think MMOs in general are in a rut; it's still mainly WoW clones... A lot of people have done these games, but it's been that same kind of gameplay, and that doesn't mean that's what it has to be. Look at Ultima Online: it's an MMO, but the experience of Ultima Online was very different from World of Warcraft, yet everybody's gone in that one direction.

In reality, a massively multiplayer online game is a platform. It's the ability to get people together in the same game to play at the same time; it doesn't have to be limited to this one kind of game. If I was Nintendo, or Gazillion, I wouldn't necessarily make that same game.

GamesIndustry.bizGazillion is going free-to-play with Marvel Universe. It's fair to assume that Nintendo wouldn't do that.

David Brevik

Sure. I agree. In the last few years they haven't really used the internet in the same way that other platforms have. I won't say that they do everything right, but the idea there is that, a lot of the time, their products really are core to that technology. They keep that in mind.

If I've got a device that, when I wiggle it, I get feedback, well then my gameplay is going to evolve around wiggling that device, right? So if I've got a keyboard and a mouse my gameplay has to evolve around that. What are the strengths of that? I use keyboard to chat, I use mouse to click; well, Diablo is click the crap out of that mouse.

Being able to access the same game from anywhere is really compelling... The console companies understand this, and they're going to have to change
David Brevik, Gazillion Entertainment

Now, it's a little bit more abstract when it comes to business. In Asia, the free-to-play business model has proven very, very, very successful for a number of years now, and it's really catching on...because it turns out that if you give the game away for free you actually make more money. Businesses really like it because they're all about the greed, and from a developer standpoint it's exciting because my game gets in front of more people.

Really, I do this to entertain people, and my audience just grew. It's not necessarily what Nintendo would do, but for me, as a game developer, it's kind of a dream come true.

GamesIndustry.bizYou referenced the Wii earlier, which kind of slipped in just before the explosion of some of the key changes mentioned in your talk - specifically social networks, smartphones and tablets. We live in a more multi-device world than we did when the Wii launched, and that's reflected in the strategies of companies like EA, like Microsoft. Have we moved away entirely from that sort of niche console, where it's this box that does only what it does?

David Brevik

I think so, but it's not just that, though. I think combining those things together is really the next step. Being able to access the same game from anywhere is really compelling. I can be on a car journey and, say, check on auctions, or interact in some way because I've taken this trip a zillion times. It's that new horizon... The console companies understand this, and they're going to have to change. They know that.

GamesIndustry.bizBack to free-to-play, we talked to Sony Online Entertainment's John Smedley recently, and he predicted that The Old Republic will be the last major MMO to launch with a subscription model.

David Brevik

I agree. I have a lot of friends in the industry and... I mean, the budget for The Old Republic is outrageous, but it's the last, large scale subscription game I can think of.

GamesIndustry.bizCould it easily change to free-to-play if the subscriptions don't justify the budget?

David Brevik

No. Part of the problem with it is that you aren't going to get the results. This is kind of going back to my talk: if your gameplay is integrated with the very concepts that you're trying and integrated with the platform you're going to get a better experience. Converting something to free-to-play works to some degree, but to have the most success you have to have that as an integral part of the game itself.