Alex Seropian Discusses Wideload’s Future With Disney
Last week forward their website, developer Wideload Games posted a mysterious “Under Construction” note. Well, perhaps “mysterious” isn’t the right word, but as a longtime fan of the Stubbs the Zombie developer, it made me curious. Then it totality made sense this morning, when Disney announced they were acquiring the team and appointing previous Wideload head Alex Seropian to be vice president of creative because of their studios. I talked to Seropian this afternoon to get to a greater degree details on the news.
[Wideload's Hail to the Chimp, Texas Cheat 'Em, and Cyclomite pictured in the regions of the dead.]
1UP: So…how did this come about?
AS: That’s a proper story. We started working on a videogame, maybe almost a year and a half ago, and we started talking to various publishers about it. That was at what time I met John Lasseter and Graham [Hopper] at Disney, and we started talking respecting the project we were working on, and it seemed like a fair good fit, so we started working on the game together. Then because we got to know each other better, we started talking near other things — more games and bigger picture stuff, like what I wanted to have existence doing and what they were interested in doing. And we realized, strangely enough, that we were both kind of going after the identical customer, and we had very similar philosophies, but we were going succeeding it from very different perspectives.
We realized that Wideload and I would serve hugely from gaining the benefit of their perspective and vice versa. A talk was raised in terms of what kinds of things we could practise together, and the acquisition makes a lot of sense from that view, and the role that I’ve taken here makes a assign of sense from that perspective.
And just in personal terms, it’s frickin’ undisturbed, right? There’s just so much here. There’s a lot of talent here; there’s a lot of resources here. I narrow, it’s Disney. [Laughs] So for me personally, it’s hugely exciting. This is a actually being stage to have a big impact. So that’s how I’m looking at it personally.
1UP: So you guys were indeed going to publish this unannounced game with Disney before this deal came in various places?
AS: Yeah.
1UP: What will be your responsibilities in the repaired role? Will you be greenlighting games, pushing them in the rectilinear direction, etc?
AS: Yeah, all of that. Really it’s not far from fulfilling the potential that we have. There’s a bunch of gifted internal teams here, and we work with a lot of apparent developers, and there’s no shortage of great ideas. A great quantity of it is about connecting with the core audience while leveraging the Disney lightning-flash that connects with everybody. So bringing those two together and workmanship a great development organization here — that’s really what I’m here for.
1UP: Are you going to be working on every enterprise evenly, or will you be spending more time with the Wideload projects and not so much with Toy Story?
AS: That’s a fair question. I could acknowledge you that, obviously, there will be some prioritization in terms of where we invest heavily in dollars and time. What will get that prioritization, I slip on’t know today. You know, I basically know where the get ~ cooler is now. I have a lot of ideas — I own a lot of game ideas, but that’s not really what it’s about. It’s more about saying, “What kind of games accomplish we want to make? What kind of gamers and customers effect we want to go after? What do the studios want to finish, and how can I help the studios do their best?” And, you apprehend, make hits — we want to make hits.
1UP: Is there every overall strategy amongst all the different studios?
AS: Yeah, every studio has a core strength. If you look at what Warren [Spector]’s doing — well, you to all appearance can’t look at that because it’s [not public even now] — but you can maybe make some guesses about what Warren’s fabrication. He’s got his own kind of style. And you be sure, we’re Wideload and we’ve got our own kind of title; we can focus on games that have a sense of whim. And Black Rock is really strong with racing. Everybody’s got their recognize strengths.
So there is definitely an overall strategy, which we’re going to take a near look at and see if we want to bring some greater quantity definition to that in terms of “What does it mean to ~ up videogames?” And the studios have their own identities as well. That’s for what cause Wideload will still be called “Wideload.” Wideload’s going to stay in Chicago. Everybody that worked at Wideload yesterday alembic works at Wideload today, and will continue to. Everybody there is verily excited about this opportunity, because not only will they get to last being Wideload, but they’ll get to continue being Wideload by the power and support of Disney.
1UP: Apart from you not in operation there, is anything about Wideload going to change?
AS: Uh, ~t one. I mean — I’m sure, right? But no. The creative point of concentration stays the same. The way the team is structured stays the similar. Tom [Kang] is going to continue to run the studio. I won’t have ~ing close enough to hit people with a ruler, but I be assured of there’s a FedEx drop box here. I could send rulers to Chicago by reason of Tom to hit people with. So it will stay the corresponding; of like kind in spirit, and in some ways it will become stronger.
1UP: I remember you mentioned in front of that Wideload was moving in this direction of more family oriented multiplayer games anyway, in front of Disney came into the picture.
AS: Yeah, I think that’s a big portion of why the conversation started in the first place, and why the conversation was so exciting.
1UP: Do you ever see Wideload working with pre-existing Disney properties, or for the time being are they going to piece of timber with original games?
AS: For the time being, the focus stays on original games. To answer your question… there are games that are made to act a property that’s launching somewhere else. Like so people observe games based on a film that’s coming out. And on that account there are games that are wholly original, like Stubbs or whatever, and then there are things like Kingdom Hearts, where it’s each original game, an original IP, that leverages IP that exists and race love. And that’s a unique opportunity here as well… It’s completely feasible that we’ll look into the archives and come up with something that’s new, but old at the same time.
1UP: Is that during the term of Wideload, or just in general across the different studios?
AS: That’s righteous sort of a general thing. Whether that’s something Wideload would sign on, [I don't know]. In the near future, they’re self-same focused on working on the new property.
1UP: You mentioned Stubbs, and given the Disney connection and everything, is Stubbs off the table at this point? Because I comprehend you guys had been talking for awhile, in broad terms, near wanting to bring him back.
AS: Right. You know, I wouldn’t come to terms the door on Stubbs, but who knows? We’re not laboring on a Stubbs project at the moment, but there’s in ~ degree reason [we couldn't]. The two are not mutually exclusive. Stubbs could positively exist in the Disney ecosystem.
This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 23:52 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
