The Rogue to Success

Dinofarm's Keith Burgun on roguelikes, licences and the future of the industry

Feature by Dan Pearson Contributor

Published on March 22, 2011

GamesIndustry.bizDid you ever think about releasing an ad-supported, free app?

Keith Burgun

Well we tried an ad, once, and the amount of revenue which it pulled in... First of all, everyone was extremely upset about it, probably because it wasn't a free app, it was $4.99. We tried one very small ad, just on the death screen. Everybody hated it. It was there for about three weeks and it made us about 14 cents.

If we were a bigger game... maybe. I think it would require a totally different model than what we've been working towards.

GamesIndustry.bizIt's interesting that you talk about your continuing plans for the game. At GDC, Peter Vesterbacka was talking about the prevalence of throwaway on the App Store, saying that people should stick with games and flesh them out, instead of getting them out there as soon as possible and moving on. That seems to be an attitude you've shared for 100 Rogues, is it something you'd do again?

Keith Burgun

I think that games deserve to be treated like that no matter what the platform is. My games are like my babies - I want to take care of them as long as I possibly can - indefinitely. I mean 10, 20, 30, 50 years. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't. As long as we have the financial capability of doing so.

Sometimes it's simply impossible to do so. If that's the case then that's the case. As long as it's a possibility it should always be made a priority to take care of your games. I think that Vesterbacka was absolutely right - I think it's threatening, not only your own game, but I think in a way it actually threatens the whole industry.

Everybody knows about the crash that happened in 1982 or 83, and that was because of a similar problem. I don't really know if that can happen again today, but it seems like we're asking for it, a lot of the time.

GamesIndustry.bizAlong those lines, do you have any plans for porting 100 Rogues? I'm guessing that if you're not keen on an ad-supported model then that would rule out Android?

Keith Burgun

Well, we would love to port to Android. We've had so many calls to port to Android. Honestly, if I could go back to 2008 right now I would say, "you know what, let's wait for the Android app store and put it on there." Because I think that, although we've had a good critical reception on the iPhone, I guess there's an impression that we might even have had a better reception on Android.

My games are like my babies - I want to take care of them as long as I possibly can.

The people who own Android are a little bit different, I think. A little more techy, perhaps a little more familiar with Roguelikes as a genre. I just think that it might work out a little better. We kind of just can't afford to port the game. It was coded in objective C, in Apple's nice little walled garden, and to port it we'd have to re-code it from scratch. We just can't afford to do that, at this time. We'd love to, in the future.

Our next game is going to be an Android game, actually. We've already begun development. It's a little similar to 100 Rogues, but as I said, a lot smaller scope. Much more focused design.

GamesIndustry.bizEven for a big fan of roguelikes like myself, it's an interesting genre choice for an iPhone game. They're generally pretty tough, and perhaps not particularly suited to the five or ten minute play slots traditionally associated with iPhone gaming. What was behind that decision?

Keith Burgun

I don't think that roguelikes should be a niche genre, actually, and eventually I don't think that they will be. There's a series called Shiren the Wanderer - the DS version of that should have been one of the most popular games on the DS. Wonderful game.

When it shipped in the US it came with this hideous box-art, it had no PR whatsoever - they kind of bungled the release. Really that's an example of how you can absolutely make a roguelike game super-popular. I think someone's going to do that, eventually, and that's what our attempt with 100 Rogues was. Because, inherently I think that roguelikes meet all of the standards required of a popular genre.

They're a quick, pick-up-and-play arcade experience because it's just a one-shot, let's see how well I can do, Pac-Man and Galaga experience. They have the RPG elements which have now crept into every single genre in existence.

The reason they're niche is because the presentation has never been there. 90 per cent of roguelikes have been graphic-less, ASCII games which required you to memorise fifteen hot-keys to be able to play. Which is obviously not something most players are willing to do.