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Chris England is 24 years old. He works in finance. But he's also dedicated $50,000 of his own cash to development of Xenonauts, a strategy game that aims to recapture the excitement of the Gollop brothers' masterpiece: X-Com: UFO Defense.
But England doesn't run a traditional studio — he manages his core team of freelance programmers, artists, modelers, and animators remotely from his London flat, which isn't unlike how we do things here at Bitmob. ("The glamorous life of a video-game designer, eh?" says England.)
England's never meet his team members face-to-face, nor has he even held so much as Skype call (due to his computer's aging hardware and lack of a microphone) with anyone. But he's confident that this Internet-facilitated managerial model could be the golden ticket into the industry.
And in that spirit, I "sat down" with England via email to discuss how this series of tubes made Xenonauts' development possible, the troubles with mysteriously disappearing team members, and avoiding the "arrogant and semi-illiterate Internet kiddies" of the mod scene.
Bitmob: What was your motivation to found Goldhawk Interactive?
Chris England: The biggest reason is that I'm not enjoying my job very much! I've always wanted to be self-employed, and I've been looking for a good opportunity for a while. I like games. I did a bit of work in the mod scene, and that eventually led to me talking to a few people and budgeting out the project from start to finish.
Once we'd done that, I realized I had enough in the bank to fund it, so we went from there. Admittedly, we went down a very different path than the initial one, but no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Bitmob: What is your previous experience in games development?
CE: I spent six months co-leading a Crysis mod called Dilogus: Winds of War, which was an utter failure. I heartily recommend the mod scene for people looking to get into game development, though; I could write an essay on what it taught me. [Ed: See our coverage of England's comments: "Mod politics are vicious."]
I was pretty convinced we had a great group compared to most mod teams; I figured we could step up to being indies pretty easily. Out of about 10 members, one of us cut it at the low-budget indie level: He's an artist who makes a living from his work and even lectures on art, so he was always brilliant. Nobody else even came close; numerous people flaked out and couldn't hit deadlines. The move from mod to indie is unbelievable.
Early footage of Xenonauts's current alpha state.
Bitmob: How large is the Goldhawk team?
CE: Goldhawk's about 10 to 12 core members working on freelance contracts with half a dozen second-tier freelancers we use regularly. There's probably been close to a hundred people involved in some capacity on the game, though; almost too many to count. Not all their work was brilliant; we've frequently had to redo stuff to get it right.
If I'd had that core team right from the start, we could have gotten the game done in a third of the time, but it's never as easy as that. You struggle for legitimacy early on; you're essentially asking people to work for a pittance to realize your vision of a game, and they've got to decide whether you're one of the guys who is full of shit. The more advanced the project gets the easier it gets. But sadly, you've got to start somewhere.
Bitmob: How did you discover your current team members?
CE: I recruit very aggressively. We post up job offers in the relevant areas – i.e., when we're looking for concept artists, we post on a specific forum for concept artists.
I also spend a lot of time leafing through people's portfolios, looking for talented artists, modelers, animators, etc. If I find someone good and think their style would fit with the game, I check to see if he’s already employed — if so, I usually drop him. If not, I'll get in touch with him. I explain the project, attach some images, explain the role I'd like him to fill, and mention basic pay details.
I guess about half the people respond — half of those with a polite no and the rest with some interest. I'd say about 20 percent of the people eventually join the team and do a test for us, and half of those cut the mustard well enough that they stick around and become a core member. So we get about 10 percent of the people I get in touch with. I don't think that's bad, given that I'm very particular about who I contact. I've learned the virtue of quality control over the last 18 months.
Bitmob: What are their experiences in games development?
CE: Everyone in the team is either a university student in their particular field, an industry professional in a related field (e.g., a graphic artist working as a concept artist), or actually a professional in the gaming industry.
Our lead coder has three triple-A titles under his belt, including Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, and that's immensely helpful; essentially, I act as art director and personally manage all the work at each stage. I can't read code at all, though, so it's important that the coder is able to keep that under control and then talk to me in plain English about the game systems so that we can discuss whether they are working as intended.
Despite all that, I'm not actually that bothered by the level of experience of the people on the team; I'm much more interested in their attitude. Everyone is really keen to help out, and money is a secondary issue even if they're putting in extra hours.
One of the modelers I got in touch with was keen to join. But because he worked in 3DMax rather than Maya, I had to turn him down. The next day, he got back in touch and said he'd spent all night learning Maya and figuring out a workflow to convert his final files in native Maya ones. Sure enough, he had.
Our weapon artist saw some of our vehicle concepts, painted over them, and then sent them to me looking much better than before. He then told me that he'd like to be our vehicle artist, too. Our 3D-tile artist figured out an entire isometric rendering pipeline so he could join the team. If you run a project, that's the sort of person you'd kill to have working alongside you.
Bitmob: How has the Internet facilitated the development of Xenonauts?
CE: That's simple enough — Xenonauts would never have happened without it. The Internet allows you to get in touch with a near-limitless amount of talented people. Without that, the critical mass of the team would never have formed.
In "real life," I don't personally know anyone that works in the games industry — I don't move in those circles. I work in the finance sector. All my networking and recruitment is done online. Without the Internet and the growth of digital distribution systems like Steam, there's no way we would have gotten off the ground.
Bitmob: What would you consider the biggest hurdles to overcome in primarily using the Internet for games development?
CE: Well, the whole “bringing people together” thing can be a double-edged sword. In "real life," people generally don't just disappear. It happens with frightening regularity online. It can be very frustrating when people aren't replying to your emails, and you're relying on them to do something — you just don't know what's happening. Sometimes you get miscommunications via email that wouldn't occur in a face-to-face arena, too. I'd say the Internet has been a massive boon, but you do need to be careful particularly where money is concerned.
Bitmob: Did you incur a shake-up like this during Xenonaunts's development?
CE: Not particularly…it's more a factor of the natural wastage I mentioned in the recruitment process. People will sometimes seem really keen to help, agree to terms to start work, and then just stop replying to emails.
Other times, they'll do a couple of models or whatever and then vanish with a flimsy reason for doing so: "I've got family problems. I'll be back in a month or two" (read: no he won't). It's a lot worse in the mod scene where team members will literally just vanish off the face of the earth occasionally, but it's not usually anything coordinated. It's just people no longer wanting to take part and not being man enough to actually tell everyone that.
Bitmob: You're quite young; has the Internet made development easier for you in that regard?
CE: I'd say so. The Internet is the great equalizer; it strips away a lot of the immediate preconceptions people might have about you and lets them concentrate on your message. It can be easier to get the point across that way.
The Internet also makes it much easier to be objective about the people you're working with; they get judged on their work and contribution alone, so I don't care if someone is 15 or 25 provided that they are doing their job well and acting in a professional way. I guess it strips away some of the prejudices that hold young people back in the business world, and that can only be a good thing.
That being said, I'm 24 in a couple of weeks, and I've worked in consulting for almost three years now. I know a thing or two about business, and I really don't think I'd have trouble running a physical studio, either. I think the Internet levels the playing field, but at the end of the day you've still got to be able to do your job.
Bitmob: Where do you see Goldhawk if Xenonauts is a success? Would you move more toward traditional development with a physical location or stick to the online management model?
CE: I don't really know. It depends on how much of a success, and it's also somewhat dependent on what the team wanted to do. Eventually I'd like a physical studio; I'm not sure whether we'd move to it immediately. Maybe a hybrid model might work? As I say, though, it depends on how much of a success Xenonauts is.
Check out Xenonauts.com for more information.
