Chile: The games industry, in general, has witnessed movement of high-level employees from established companies to found new companies (ArenaNet, inXile, etc) over the last couple of years. Do you see this phenomenon more as a trend toward the grassroots of game development, or as a flight by developers away from corporate hindrances?

Bill Roper: It really depends on the individuals, but I think a bit of both applies. We are a creative industry, and many of the top developers do find themselves stifled in many ways within the structure of large corporations. Many developers who leave established companies to start up a new concern do so to get back to their roots – being a vital part of a small, focused team in a company where they set their own destiny and success as much as possible.

Chile: There are many computer game sites online to provide value added features such as video files, interviews, previews, patches, and media. But, many of these sites are moving toward a greater focus on marketing campaigns. That is, many sites now force users to view full-page ads, oftentimes for completely unrelated products, before they can reach the content they intended to obtain. Some developers seem both content to trade away their fan's attention spans, and exclusive content, in exchange for the seductive availability of bandwidth and server space provided by these game sites. With these thoughts in mind, will Flagship Studios provide content related to their game(s) equally to all fan sites? Or, will Flagship offer the fans all content on Flagship servers in addition to the regular routes of value added media features?

Bill Roper: This is so far from where we are on the game, I cannot speak to the question with any level of certainty. What I can say is that we want to create an exciting and compelling game with an equally fantastic online destination. The game is our first and foremost concern, and every decision we make is with the game and the player’s experience in mind.

Wargasm: Lastly, and this one should be the easiest to answer, what are the system specs of your computer(s), and why do you have them in your machine?

Bill Roper: Since I am doing mainly game and graphic design, as well as puting about a thousand virtual miles on Word documents a day, I am using an older system right now. When I start to get into daily work with the engine, I’ll use that as an excuse to buy a new rig !

AMD Athlon XP 1700+
55 GB disk drive
Radeon 8500LE Video Card
512 MB RAM
Yamaha CRW2200E DVD drive (for grabbing screen captures and watching movies!)

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