38 Studios Interview
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The MMO Gamer: Impressive that you managed to juggle EQ with a professional sports career.
I knew guys who couldn't even handle working at the grocery store and playing EQ at the same time.
Curt Schilling: Well, my wife would argue that I didn't juggle it well.
It's funny because there were times and people find this hard to believe but you have times when you're sitting at the keyboard playing, and you're thinking about work, right?
People can't believe that I would be at work thinking about playing games.
There would be times when I was sitting in the dugout, where I'd be looking at the clock thinking, (If the ninth inning is over by 11, I'll be able to get back and raid by 12:30!)
But I'm a gamer, that's how we think.
And then I'd meet people across the country that I'd played with, because I'd travel all the time, I'd give them tickets to games, say hello, put names to faces.
My celebrity really became a non-issue, which was a big, huge issue for me. In the game space, me playing baseball doesn't buy me any credibility and it shouldn't.
Gamers don't give a shit that I won three World Series. They care if we make a great game or not.
The more they understand my credibility as a gamer, and my beliefs as a visionary for the company, hopefully the more they'll understand what we're doing.
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The MMO Gamer: Interesting. I'd have thought someone with that kind of capital invested would be looking over everyone's shoulder saying, (Shouldn't have done that! Shouldn't have done that, either!)
Curt Schilling: That is the absolute quickest way to blow your money.
If I was a great game designer, maybe that would be the thing for me to do. I'm not. If I was a great artist, and I had a vision like Todd McFarlane, it would be the thing for me to do. If I was an engineer, and I knew how to build a platform, it would be the thing for me to do.
I don't do any of those things. And I would be stupid to pass off like I could. My goal is to not be the dumbest guy in the room in all respects, to know what they're doing, what the money is going to and what they spend their time on doing, but more importantly to empower these people.
We're not making my game, we're making our game.
And our game is being made by the people who drove EQ 1, 2, WoW, DAoC. all of them, since Ultima Online. Our UI designer was the lead UI designer for World of Warcraft. Our lead platform engineer on the game side built the platform for Blizzard.
Who am I to tell them how to do things?
You get all of these brilliant people in the same room, and if I don't have an ego, none of them are allowed to have one. Todd doesn't, R.A. Salvatore doesn't. They come in and they're part of a team.
If Todd, and R.A, and I are all part of this team, there's no single member of it who can stand up and say, (Do it my way.)
