GDC – NetDevil takes lessons learned and moves forward into the world of LEGO

March
8, 2007

NetDevil
takes lessons learned and moves forward into the world of LEGO
By

Michael Lafferty

"It’s
very cool to be making this game"

The press release on March 5
was rather simple …

The LEGO Group today
announced it has commenced a working relationship with NetDevil to develop a
massively multiplayer online gaming experience to further engage its dedicated
and active community.

For NetDevil President Scott
Brown, this presents an incredible opportunity.

“There is no publisher,” he
said, “it’s just LEGO and us. It’s very cool to be making this game; we all have
young kids.”

Brown was chatting during a
meeting at The Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco Wednesday.

NetDevil is not a new
company; it was founded in 1997 and the first title out of the gate was Jumpgate,
which introduced some new elements into the space genre. Recently NetDevil
developed the NCsoft published apocalyptic vehicle-based game Auto Assault.

The question was posed –
what did the company learn from making Auto Assault.

“Some of the big stuff,”
Brown stated, “is to be harder on ourselves.” He went on to state that
previously the company would advance an area of the game and congratulate itself
for the improvements, but sometimes the improvements were not quite good enough.
To that end, NetDevil is “developing a new culture at the company – before we
weren’t mean enough.”

As for the details on the
LEGO title … well, that is still being kept under wraps, but Brown said “We have
a great IP, but it’s a very different game.”

Of course, the LEGO title is
not the only project in development. NetDevil is also working on Warmonger,
Operation: Downtown Destruction, ‘an apocalyptic, first-person shooter, built
around the AGEIA PhysX processor, which enables NetDevil’s unique,
piece-by-piece destruction system and is designed to deliver stunning fluid and
cloth-based effects unlike anything seen before.’

Will the lessons learned
from Auto Assault follow through that game as well? Likely. For one, “with Auto
Assault we thought it was easy and it wasn’t,” Brown said. The new user
experience has to be easy and fun, he stated, and NetDevil is “looking at
systems designs in a whole new way.”

So, how do you decide what
property to pursue as a game foundation?

“We’re insane,” Brown joked,
then imitated a company planning meeting – “this seems like it would be really,
really difficult – let’s do it!”

The LEGO property is “almost
one of the best possible IPs you could have,” Brown said, because “there are no
limitations on it.

“LEGO is different because
they came to us. They are serious about making a great game.”

Does not having a publisher
worry you?

“Publishers know things that
we don’t know and LEGO doesn’t know about selling video games,” Brown stated
frankly.

Brown stated about how, when
he was really young, he played a game called Lemonade Stand, and from that
moment on he was hooked on making games. When he found getting a job in the
industry tough, he simplified it by helping form his own. And now with the LEGO
deal, NetDevil is poised to bring an innovative IP to the MMO market.