Dungeon Siege III Interview
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GB: Was the Dungeon Siege IP specifically what you were looking for initially? Or were you originally hammering out ideas to see what would be the best fit for a partnership? David: We did not talk about Dungeon Siege originally. Obsidian had I don't know how much they want to me say, but they had a very, very cool original design, and I was personally pretty excited about it. And that's what we were talking about at first, and then it just kind of naturally evolved into an opportunity that came about within Square between Square and GPG to acquire the Dungeon Siege IP, and it seemed almost like a natural fit to say, (You know what? The original idea is fantastic, but I think we can mitigate risk and have a lot of success if we instead build Dungeon Siege III."
And to Obsidian's point of view, I think they were very excited about either/or. And because either/or fit their proprietary engine and what it was really designed to do, which was to build an action RPG with a dungeon-crawling emphasis.
GB: If Dungeon Siege III is a commercial success, would you consider pursuing that other title that you mentioned or would you jump to a Dungeon Siege IV?
David: Everything's on the table right now. We've worked really closely with Obsidian Entertainment. We've had a great working relationship with them. Not only from North America, but Europe as well, as Square Japan is also interfacing to a certain extent with Obsidian. So we all have a great respect for each other, and we would love to continue business here in the west, and we would like to continue business with people that we worked with initially.
I told the executives here at Obsidian that when Square looks to employ a studio to develop a title for us, we don't necessarily want to do what's commonly referred to as a one-off. We would like to have a long-term relationship if the synergy between the companies is conducive to a long-term relationship. To be honest, working for or with a Japanese publisher can be different as opposed to working for or with an American or EU publisher. There are some cultural differences, but at the same time, I think Obsidian and Square have both had no issues in that regard.
So to answer your question, we definitely would like to continue a relationship with the studios that we're currently working with, and whether it's revisiting that original idea, or continuing what we've already started, or going in a new direction, right now it's all open for discussion.
GB: How did the original collaboration with Gas Powered Games come about? Did Square approach Gas Powered Games and express interest in the Dungeon Siege license, or was it something that GPG was shopping around and Square jumped on it?
David: Actually, myself, and I guess Square as a whole - we approached Gas Powered Games initially, though we didn't approach them initially for Dungeon Siege. We just approached them because we wanted to meet them, and we wanted to talk about what we might be able to do together, and to see if it made sense for Square from a western perspective. They seemed like very well-respected developers, they had done some great titles, and we were pretty excited to interact with Gas Powered, and we actually started the relationship not with Dungeon Siege, but with Supreme Commander 2. And subsequently we also purchased that IP as well, so we own that.
We felt that Gas Powered's core strength was real-time strategy games. And that's one of the things that people ask me sometimes, (Well, why did you take Dungeon Siege away from Gas Powered?) And it's like, (Well, we really didn't take it away from Gas Powered; we mutually agreed with Gas Powered that their core strength is RTS and that they should continue building on that. And we've had a great experience with Supreme Commander 2 and with the DLC expansion that was released for it, and we're still in communication with them and we're still looking at options with them as well. But we felt that, (Hey, Obsidian would be great with an action RPG,) and here we are.
GB: With the influence that Square Enix has, have you ever tried to get your hands on any other classic RPG franchises, such as The Bard's Tale, Might and Magic, Ultima, and Wizardry? I'm not sure where some of those IPs are at, but has Square Enix ever considered seeing where they're at and potentially rebooting any of those as you're doing with Dungeon Siege?
David: We definitely do consider it, but we're not just looking for RPGs or action RPGs, and that's why we did a game like Supreme Commander 2 so we could do something different. When we first announced it, a lot of people were like, (What? Square Enix is working with Gas Powered on an RTS?) Ah yes, we have some experience with RTS. We've done some of the past Front Missions, but at the end of the day, we are open in terms of genres, and we feel that we definitely specialize in the RPG area, and we feel that we do it very well. But it's not necessarily the only thing that we're looking for by any means.
We're definitely open to all sorts of ideas, all sorts of genres, and all things are being considered for the future of Square Enix. But to drill down and specifically answer your question about those IPs, it's definitely something that I'd like to take a look at and learn more about and see if there are opportunities. I agree with you. I think that Dungeon Siege - a phenomenal IP, great fan base from the past, it's a perfect time to introduce it to consumers on the consoles that maybe haven't experienced it before. And I personally was kind of shocked to find out that there are little to no other games out there like it. Why? I don't get it.
