October 23, 2009 

Nick Wlodyka Shares His Thoughts on the Future of the Industry
By: Dakota Grabowski 

“A lot of development studios are working on Natal stuff. Some games will lend themselves better to Natal than others. What’s cool about Natal is that one of the real challenges our industry must figure out is, ‘What else we can do besides pushing our titles just to have them on the platform?’” 

GameZone was granted the chance to pick the brain of the General Manager of Rainbow Studios, Nick Wlodyka, over the past weekend while previewing their upcoming title, MX vs. ATV Reflex.
He shares his thoughts on Project Natal, digital distribution, XNA, and much more. Read on to see where he sees the future of video gaming and what games he started out as a gamer. 

Nick, what are your duties as a general manager? 

Nick Wlodyka: I’m really lucky as a general manager at Rainbow. For me, it’s different than it would be at other studios. Some are business-oriented; some are studio management and leadership positions. I came up through design and love making video games, so, for me, the general manager revolves around three pieces. There are the creative components that I work on a daily basis to see how things are coming together. There are the numbers and business side where I pay the people and see what games are making money. And then, there’s the studio leadership stuff where I help make the people creating these games better. 

As of right now, where does the industry stand with a lot of buyouts, mergers and studios closing down?

Nick Wlodyka: It’s tough. I’ve been in the industry now for just 14 years, so I’ve seen a lot of things happen over that time. We are in a very tough spot now because games are expensive to make and there’s only a few games that are successful. There have been games that have been great, but not successful at all. In the past, there have been games that weren’t very good but were successful. So it’s a paradigm shift where there are good games that aren’t able to compete. When the stakes were smaller, say five years ago, you could create games with smaller teams, lower budgets and people were more apt to take chances. Now, it’s tough as you see sequels taking over. Take for example; people at Rainbow are great at creating racing titles. Everybody at Rainbow would love to create a first-person shooter, but we don’t have a brand like, say, Call of Duty. We also don’t have a team that is experienced in doing that. 

 So you have to stick to your area of expertise?

Nick Wlodyka: Racing is really our strength, so we have to invest in that area. I think the industry is at a crossroads where developers must try to figure out how to develop games for less money. If you see something for $10 and add a bunch of stuff to make it $30 rather than pushing it towards $60 right from the get-go. It is kind a big thing we have to figure out. How are we going to bring down cost for the gamers and not become expensive from the start? 

How many people does Rainbow employ and how many projects do you work on simultaneously? 

Nick Wlodyka: Rainbow is a studio of 110 based out of Phoenix, Arizona. We work on two projects. We just finished up on the MX vs. ATV stuff and we have an IP [intellectual property] in development for the Wii. So we work on two projects simultaneously. 

How do you feel about digital distribution and the future of retail? 

Nick Wlodyka: Ahh! The million dollar question. Let’s tackle this in a couple of parts. Is it the way the industry is naturally gravitating towards? Absolutely. I think over time you will see more and more of that. Is that what’s best for the consumer? I think ultimately it comes down to convenience and how much they are willing to spend on stuff. The thing is that there are so many good games releasing at the same time. 

Is there a chance that the industry could end up being over-saturated? 

Nick Wlodyka: I don’t think so and my reasoning is because of how much it costs to make these games. Studios are really looking close to what is being released because they can’t a take a chance that they will become labeled as “same as another game”. Studios need to sell and earn back their money, so they will be making smart decisions based around that. 

Is the XNA, WiiWare and independent development a viable way to earn a job at Rainbow? If not, what is? 

Nick Wlodyka: I get a lot of questions about breaking into the industry. It’s very tough. It depends on the studio, and for us, we look for young people since we see them as the future. What do we look for in the people we hire? Ultimately, it’s the person that stands out and don’t look to it as a nine to five job. They need to find way to break past everyone else such as an awesome portfolio or even have created their own game. They need to be super passionate and able to work within a team since they are only as strong as the team they are working with.  

Outside of Rainbow, what development studios do you like to keep an eye out for and enjoy the titles they create? 

Nick Wlodyka: As a studio, we try to see what’s going on within the industry. I don’t have any favorite studios, but as a general question we always ask new applicants, we end up asking, “What part of your job did you enjoy with the last company you worked for?” Even with the worst game, there’s always something good about it that you could pull out and apply to your own game. It’s all about making your own studio better. 

Growing up, what were a few favorite games that stood out? 

Nick Wlodyka: I started out with Choplifter and thoroughly enjoyed that since my dad built me an Apple II. I moved onto Hardball Baseball since I was a huge baseball fan growing up. I started to move onto other sports titles such as 4^th & Inches on the Commodore 64. On the NES, everything from RC Pro-AM to International Ice Hockey, which was three on three, I enjoyed a lot. Contra was an absolute blast in its particular space. Over the years, especially now, there’s a lot of people who say, “I only play first-person shooters” but that’s a very limited mindset. It’s important as a game developer to look a lot of different genres. 

Could you see yourself back in 1985, when Excitebike first released, imagining what games could be like in 2009 with MX vs. ATV Reflex? Was the evolution of games plain to see? 

Nick Wlodyka: That’s a tough question. We all have our roots and Excitebike is one of the first bike games people think of. There’s definitely a level of inspiration drawn from the game over the years. So much has changed but there’s still purity in old school games that are easily accessible. We kind of lost that in the industry, but we are once again finding that. 

Ian Wood stated prior to this interview that Rainbow has received the Natal development kits. Could you speak on your impressions with the technology? 

Nick Wlodyka: Don’t listen to a word Ian says! A lot of development studios are working on Natal stuff. Some games will lend themselves better to Natal than others. What’s cool about Natal is that one of the real challenges our industry must figure out is what else we can do besides pushing our titles just to have them on the platform. There’s nothing I can speak about right now, but we have a lot of unique ideas. 

All right, I gave Ian a chance to sell our readers MX vs. ATV Reflex and I’d love to give you a chance too. Why should gamers decide to purchase MX vs. ATV Reflex over other racers? 

Nick Wlodyka: There are a lot of good reasons starting with variety. You can race bikes, ATVs, trucks or even buggies. You can see snowy mountains or drive in a stadium. You can see your vehicles destroyed or make marks in the terrain. There’s total control for tricks and everything we put in the game is super fun. If it wasn’t fun, we ditched it. The other thing is that we really raised the bar with terrain deformation and rider reflex system. Nobody else is doing that so we created a complete package with a lot of variety. 

Thanks a lot Nick. 

Nick Wlodyka: No problem.

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