Interview with Brian Weissman of Grinding Gear Games

Hey everyone, I'm new to the forums but have been dabbling in the beta and playing "over the shoulder" with some friends for a while.

I run a small gaming blog and we got the chance to interview GGG about their company, POE in general, and a few specific questions you may or may not already know the answers to.

You can read the whole interview with co-founder Brian Weissman on my site, Top Tier Tactics, but I'll also paste the first half below so you can see the general direction of it. I hope you enjoy it; Brian did a great job supplying insightful answers.

T3 INTERVIEW

Grinding Gear Games is a small company with a big mission: to put out an action-RPG that will stand out against a field of new and existing titles, the likes of which includes Diablo 3. Their entry, Path of Exile (currently in semi-open beta), seeks to recapture some of the atmosphere and tension of earlier genre titles while adding some of their own, unique twists.

We had a chance to ask Brian Weissman, co-founder of Grinding Gear Games, about his company, his ambitions, and the challenges POE faces in the PC gaming market.



T3: Can you tell us about the history of Grinding Gear Games? How big is the team, who is the founder(s), etc?

Brian: The company was founded back in 2007, by four main partners. The co-founders are Chris Wilson, Jonathan Rogers, Erik Olofsson, and me, Brian Weissman. Jonathan and Chris are native New Zealanders, Erik moved from Sweden to help start the company, and I reside in Seattle, Washington. The team is comprised of around 18 workers, with a few external contractors. Our studio in Titirangi has gotten pretty crowded!

T3: Has GGG developed titles prior to POE? What projects, if any, are on the horizon?

Brian: Path of Exile is our first project, and it’s the reason the company was formed. The game not only takes up the full time attention of our entire team, but it’s what we plan to work on for the forseeable future. We honestly hope to make expansions and additions to the game for a decade or more. We’ve really only just gotten started with the storyline in the first three acts.

T3: You are releasing POE into a marketplace that will probably include Guild Wars 2, Torchlight 2, and of course Diablo 3. How are you looking to differentiate yourself from these high-profile titles?

Brian: Definitely a good question. Well, for starters, we’ve gone in a distinctly different art direction from both Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3. Both of those games have a more pastel, more stylized art aesthetic, especially Torchlight. We’ve gone with a more “gritty”, realistic palette of colors, and overall our game is just darker and grimier. We definitely have lots of beautiful areas of course, but only when it’s appropriate.

Another huge distinction between POE and those other titles is that our game is 100% free to play and download. There is literally *no* barrier to entry for POE, outside of a computer made in the last four years and an internet connection. We don’t have to convince someone to put up $15 on Steam or whatever to give our game a try.

Guild Wars 2 is, in nearly every sense of the word, a classic MMO. Because of that, we feel it’s much more competition to a game like World of Warcraft than a game like Path of Exile.

In the end, we are big fans of Blizzard, ArenaNet and Runic, and we’re confident that there is room in the market for all four of our titles. Gamers, by and large, enjoy playing multiple games at once, so we believe Path of Exile will be something that people will be playing for many years to come, alongside anything released now or down the road.

T3: Are you seeking a retail release for POE? If so, is a publisher set? If the game is direct download, will it see distribution on Steam, GOG, or any other similar service?

Brian: Path of Exile will enter its Open Beta phase in a few months, and when it does, that will mark the near “official” release of the game. We’ll continue to make many improvements to the game with regular patches, but at that point we’ll no longer be wiping characters, and the economy will be under way. Our game will be completely 100% free to download and play, and someone who buys nothing from our microtransaction shop will still have access to the entire game’s content, and will never be at a power disadvantage to paying customers.

Because we’re free to play and download, we’re forgoing the use of Steam and GoG, at least upon release.

T3: Diablo 1 had a very organic (but narrow) progression experience, whereas Diablo 2 lends itself to more choice, but min/maxing easily. What kind of system is POE aiming for?

Read more: http://www.toptiertactics.com/2012/04/path-of-exile-interview-with-grinding-gear-games-brian-weissman/#ixzz1sLqII3NT

Great interview! Thanks for posting this! =^[.]^=

Great ending

Thanks!

Thanks for posting this up on the forums, I enjoyed answering your great questions!

Nice interview. Thanks for sharing.

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BrianWeissman wrote:

Thanks for posting this up on the forums, I enjoyed answering your great questions!

Thanks Brian, glad you enjoyed it.

Not enough rhyming responses.

Great interview, thanks. :)