GamerNode: Interviews - We speak with Jeff Anderson, CEO of Turbine Inc.

We speak with Jeff Anderson, CEO of Turbine Inc.

Recently, I had a chance to chat with my buddy Jeffrey Anderson, the CEO of Turbine Inc. The first portion of our discussion was just him sharing some info on the future for Lord of the Rings Online (which you can look for in another article in the next few days). After that, though, things got serious* as Jeffrey and I discussed Lord of the Rings Online, the current MMO market, Halo, and the art of bribery

*or not.

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Jeff: Hey, Brendon. If you have any questions or have anything you want to talk about go ahead.

Brendon: Actually, Jeff, I wanted to conduct an impromptu interview of sorts for the site. Ask a few questions, get some answers, etc. Mostly about the game [Lord of the Rings Online] so far and all that stuff I'm sure you've talked about a million times.

(Laughs) No problem. My wife has told me the only thing I like talking more about than Lord of the Rings is Lord of the Rings.

I know how that feels. When the game showed up here my girlfriend looked at the game and goes, "I won't see you for at least a week will I?"

(Laughs) That's awesome. That's awesome.

I've got a few models and such a guy from SideShow Collectibles has given me when we run into each other at Comic-Con and those fun places. I've been a fan for a long time, but things like that make you look like a huge fan even if you aren't.

(Laughs) Sweet. Well, you know it's hard not to be. You're talking about one of the best franchises with a great foundation. The imagery we all saw [when making the game] just makes it all the more exciting. I'm just glad now we have a shot to show that the world has much more to do.

One of the things I wanted to ask is along those lines. I mean, Turbine started out with games like Asheron's Call 1 and 2 which were unique IPs created basically for the game, and right after AC2 you guys went into Dungeons and Dragons Online and now Lord of the Rings. Do you think it's harder to develop a game where you've already got that huge fanbase established for the IP?

Hmmm... You know, I think they're harder in different ways. With a new IP, the worst thing you can say to a designer is, "Okay, what do you want to do?" It sounds like it's going to be exciting, but at the same time people don't realize how totally hard it's going to be to sit yourself down and create an entire working world quickly, so you've got that challenge.

Working with a big brand license, you obviously need to work closely with the licensor and they have expectations of things they want, or rules and guidelines of things that won't work. For us one of the biggest ones was that we couldn't have wizards running around in the game, besides Gandalf and a few others.

That was probably something that took a while to figure out as well, because spellcasters are always one of the staples of a fantasy-based MMORPG.

Yes, exactly right! So we had to say alright, how are we going to do magic in the game, or have stuff like magic that isn't quite magic. Or how are we going to deal healing in the game that's the same as healing but isn't technically healing?

You guys seemed to get around that one by using morale.

Yeah, and the reason behind that... At first you might think, "Yeah, that's kind of stupid geeky Turbine stuff," (laughs) but the real reason is that we couldn't have people casting magic healing all over the place. It just doesn't work that way. So we needed to come up with another way of expressing the same mechanic. It's kind of like Rocky in the ring, you know, in Rocky IV, and he sees Adrian in the corner and he's inspired and comes back to fight harder and win the day.

We saw morale as kind of a way to pay attention to how you're doing in the battle, and if your morale falls you're defeated and useless, you know. It's kind of a combination of a death mechanic and a yield mechanic. So I now can inspire you, which is our way around healing.

I'm not sure if it's smart to compare the game to the later Rocky movies (laughs)

Oh, okay. It's like the first Rocky, then (laughs). But I think mechanically that's what we have to do to deal with those kinds of problems with the license. I mean, if you don't have a license, you don't need to think twice about that kind of stuff, right? You live in your own world and make it then you're done with it.

Those are the types of challenges. On the one hand it's incredibly intimidating making a world from scratch, but the freedom of expression is complete, while with a license you need to be very thoughtful and work closely with them, but it really helps to constrain the issues down to a very finite set, and it gives you a lot of focus early on.

Yeah, it's definitely a double edged sword. You guys have that lifetime pass which is something relatively new for an MMO game, which you've told me before a bunch of people took advantage of...

It was huuuge. We actually had three times the number sign up for that than we thought.

Yeah. What I wanted to ask you was, with that, you were saying earlier about how there might be an expansion, so will you offer that choice to people who pre-order the future expansion(s) who may not have been around for the initial launch, but came in a year or two down the line?

Which offer are you talking about?

The lifetime subscription.

Well, that's a great question. And, um...hmm... Well, I'll tell you what. I'm probably going to get in trouble for saying this, but that's one of the benefits of being me (laugh). You know, we haven't really talked about this, but yeah, we're planning on making a similar offer available to players. It's going to be on a different pricing plan than the $199, just because that was for the founders, but we will be making the lifetime option available for new players.

It hasn't been announced or launched yet, but it will be coming out shortly.

Speaking of pre-orders and founders, I took part in the beta since it first came live, and I noticed there were so many more people the beta than I anticipated, so were you guys surprised by the amount of people showing interest and dedicated to the game that long before it came out?

Well, not only was it massive, but we had probably the largest pre-order campaign...

Yeah, the game was number one on Amazon months before it was released.

Yeah, right? I mean, it rocketed. So that's been awesome. I'd love to say we should take credit for that, but you know, it's a great plan. People love Tolkien, and what we did -- this is a credit to my guys -- they delivered on the expectation. And the expectation was high. When you read the reviews, everyone says -- you know it kind of hurts my feelings a bit, but it always starts out with, "So many things could have gone wrong with this game" (laughs). I mean, as a company is that really how you want the review to start? But I think, people going into it, they realized what a daunting task we had accomplished with this license.

The second most used line is -- and I like this -- something like "This game rocks, but it could have gone wrong" (laughs)

It certainly doesn't help that you guys picked something as popular as Lord of the Rings. First D&D and then Lord of the Rings, were you guys trying to challenge yourselves? (laughs)

You know, as they say, everything worth doing is hard. People want to get lucky in life, but I think it all comes about due to hard work. Everyone put a lot of time into making this great. What's that other saying... If you're not going to go big, go home, you know.

So how long exactly was the game being worked on before, you know, the beta and everything started?

Too long (laughs). Yeah, too long... Many years. Yeah, a lot of time. I think our official company word on that is over four years in development. It goes way back in some ways, though, right?

Yeah.

You can probably count it as far back as when we got the license acquisition from Vivendi.

I remember when I got told that was happening.

And we were really working on it with the developers even before that. There were a few things they wanted to do differently, put a little different spin on it, so there was a bit of a restart at certain areas. But those guys were great, too. There was nothing wrong with the direction they had, we just had a different vision we wanted to do, you know. 

I know having spoken to a few other publishers and developers there are a few companies who have their MMOs future planned out where they know, "At this point we're going to release an expansion, by this point we'll be working on the sequel, etc." so I was curious, do you guys have something internally where you have a rough guideline with where you want the game to end up or maybe peak, or are you just going along with it and seeing how long you can keep it going?

Which one, for Lord of the Rings?

Yeah.

Okay, I'm not going to be judgmental about other people's plans, but I don't think you ever launch a game and begin talking about when it's going to go away. Let me use that as a segue for my next personal issue.

(Laughs) Go right ahead.

(Laughs) Sorry. I also get asked the other question which is "Tell us what the end-game of Lord of the Rings Online is." And I do, right? I tell them you want raids, we got raids. You want pvp, we got pvp. You want collectible armor sets for high end content great, we got that too. You want housing, we're putting that in.

So we got...you want endgame, we got endgame. But my problem with the question, is that why the heck are you asking me about the endgame for an online product? I've been working on Asheron's Call for nearly a decade now, and we've put out 80 updates for the product. It's a constant opportunity to provide episodic content for our players. I don't subscribe to the approach which is, "Hey you know what, we'll put out a game, two years later we'll throw out an expansion pack, and by the way we've just announced we're going to do a new RTS game or whatever it is that we're going to do, so all we'll do in the meantime is pocket your money." We believe that it's almost an obligation of its own to be putting constant content out for the product.

These players are looking for updates to the game because that's what they're subscribing for. Why do you want to go through the same quests for the same race for four or five years? Our approach is -- you know what, I don't understand what the other company's model is where they feel like they can just pocket people's money and be okay with that and not give a lot back to the community, but we're about giving back to the players. They're the people who are looking for and paying for new stuff. The notion of -- and this is just a personal pet peeve -- of going "You know Blizzard's endgame..." Well, what are you talking about? Why is there an end game for an online product? I wish someone could explain that one to me.

I'd love to go on a panel with one of them or something and have that explained, you know what exactly their plan means.

For us, we're totally focused. D&D [Online] today -- whether it's your thing or not your thing Brendon (laughs)--is 60% larger than when we launched it a year ago. Asheron's Call is hugely larger than when we launched it. And you look at what we're doing right now, just the update we're putting out for Evendim is six million square meters of space, or about 1/10 the size of the existing product. Between the Summer Solstice we're putting out, the huge monster play update we're putting out at the end of the summer, the housing and new region we're putting out in October -- it's just, you know, huge. I think...I think that's how it should be in this business. I don't understand why people feel like it's okay to sit back and play other products, you know, and not get updates. Regular significant updates from the publishers.

I think that was the way it used to be, and if other publishers want to just sit back and collect the annuity -- and that's how they refer to their players, as annuities. We don't get annuities, we get players, right?

Well, anyway, that's my pet peeve (laughs).

Is that everything? (laughs)

For now!

Do you think then with the success Lord of the Rings has been seeing so far it might be making a few future MMO publishers look at that type of model rather than sticking with the "Game comes out, two years later expansion, two years later expansion" circle?

Okay, this is just my point of view on the whole thing. They should be, but ultimately the fans will decide. If the players don't want constantly updating games with significant new content, then they'll go play World of Warcraft, right? (laughs) If you like being ignored by the developer, well go play it, you know? If you want to get big updates every month or two with new quests, adventures, and regions, well then go play Lord of the Rings.

It's not that I have a problem with it [World of Warcraft], I mean I'm a big capitalist. I think it's great. If Blizzard can get away with pocketing people's $15 a month without monthly updates... God, I would just love it as a businessman. But as a game player, I just can't stand it, so we don't do it.

I wanted to ask you one more thing just about the MMO market...

Well go ahead, but you know I have strong opinions...

(Laughs) Yeah. Anyway, everyone's talking about Lord of the Rings vs. World of Warcraft and Burning Crusade, but with all the new games coming up like Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Burning Sea, and more -- some of which look huge -- out of those do you view any as your main competitor, or as one you need to keep an eye on?

Gosh man, I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball like that. All I know is that historically lots of games launch and look good, and lots of games don't work. So, you know. I wish them all the best, because this market needs more great products.

Definitely.

I'm all about other people having great products. I really do think a few will stand out, and there's a lot of opportunity out there, so I wish them all the best.

Alright, we've been focusing on online games and Lord of the Rings, but I know a few of our readers have asked me to get some other information out of you...

(Laughs) Uh oh.

First off, people want to know: are you a console gamer? If so, which of the three next-gen systems do you enjoy the most?

I am a big console gamer, actually. You know it's funny, I don't know how you are, but with my products I'm very streaky. I'll play a lot of console for a time, then I'll go back to only PC for a while, so I kind of flip between them.

It's hard to do that when you have games you have to play.

I don't have to play games, I want to play games!

You haven't had to play or watch someone play Winx Club.

(Laughs) Um, do I have a preference... You know what, I don't really have a preference for platform, I have a preference for product. What I want to do is play great games, and unfortunately or fortunately, there's some great games on the Wii you can't get anywhere else so I like those games; there's some great games on the 360 so I play those games. I'm a products man, I'm not really a platform snob.

Have you been playing the Halo 3 beta at all?

Yes and no. I've been kind of really busy lately...

Really? With what? (laughs)

Yeah, I know, I know, I know. But yeah, I was a big Halo and Halo 2 fan. I thought those were great products. I have a lot of personal views on that I'll tell you later (laughs).

So yeah, I checked it out, and you know, it's definitely something that I'm interested in. I like first-person shooters. In fact, here's something even stranger: I find the older I get, the more I enjoy them. That just seems completely counterintuitive, right?

I have a few older friends who absolutely hate FPS games now and love strategy or RPG type games, but I also have a few that love FPS titles still. I definitely do think you're in the minority, though.

You know, when I was younger -- it wasn't that long ago (laughs)--but when I was younger, I played a lot of strategy, RTS, simulation stuff. And way, way, way back it was all RPGs. Now...I don't know, maybe it's because I just don't find that stuff as interesting these days, but I do think a lot of the innovation is taking place in the FPS market. I like the online play, too.

There's one answer a lot of fans want to know, I'm sure, and that is: what class did you love the most before Lord of the Rings went live?

Early on? Early on I clearly played the hunter the most. Of course, it was also wicked broken (laughs). It made it great for testing though, because I was running around the world one-shotting tons of things. It certainly made it easy to play (laughs). I think it's been evened out quite a bit since then. But it was funny, right, because I would go through and -- I was the first exploiter in the game. I would report the bugs, of course, but not until I used them to get through content areas before everyone else (laughs).

This is actually pathetic, but part of what I did -- I played a lot, and when you play through the same quest 100 times it can get repetitive, no matter how good the quests are -- what I did was I would find bugs and I would report them, but I wouldn't report them right away, because I would use them to get through all the stuff I didn't want to do (laugh). After getting past it, I'd tell them, "Oh yeah, you should fix this now."

So I made sure I got through a lot of the world before reporting them, since I played it so many times (laughs).

You didn't save one or two of those bugs to keep for later, did you?

No, no, no. Later on I just started using admin commands a lot. I cheated that way -- it was more efficient (laughs). It was funny though because I would play different classes, and different classes were either underpowered or overpowered, so I'd just be changing classes all the time and trying to find my min/max favorite with the fixes . I think people caught on to the fact -- or maybe they just figured it out -- that some developers and I were just exploiting the hunter class before the game went up for beta, so they started working on that one. Then, of course, I shifted over to the champion...

I'm sure that will make gamers happy. "Jeff says it's okay to exploit the game!"

Well I'm not telling people to still do it! (laughs)

Hey, someone needed to test it, right? Let's wrap this up, Jeff, with a very open-ended question. Are you guys working on other stuff now or are you focusing exclusively on Lord of the Rings?

Well, we're a gaming company so we're always working on something else, but at this point most of our efforts are spent on Lord of the Rings.

Alright, Jeff, thanks for taking the time--

Hey wait a minute, I want to know why it got an 8.8 first! Why not a 9!?

(Laughs) Well, I'm hoping to switch to a stricter scoring system closer to a "5 is average" model, so things I write are starting to shift towards that mentality. Even now, an 8.8 is high on the scale.

So will you change it to a 9 for me? (laughs)

We'll see. If I log into my account and see my characters are upgraded or something, we'll see.

I have people who can do that for you! You'll log in tomorrow and find you have a ton of gold (laughs).

"How is my guy level 100?"

(Laughs) Come on, how many gold pieces will it take?

Let's wait until we stop recording and go off the record to discuss that business, Jeff (laughs).

Thanks again, Jeff. Great talking with you. Hope I didn't take up too much of your work day.

No problem, Brendon. Keep in touch.

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