Matt Chat interviews Brian Fargo #3
- Thread starter SharkClub
- Start date
Pretty interesting 3-piece interview. Good find!
I still really enjoyed Stonekeep. Ah, childhood - rocking out on computer RPGs while my friends played their N64 games. Icewind Dale being his favorite RPG was cool. He seems to still be a big fan of the party-based RPGs. Hopefully they get a hold of Wasteland, especially with saying that he wouldn't want to deviate from the original gameplay like they did in the new Bard's Tale(still need to play that one).
500 employees at one time? Holy shit - I always assumed 200 tops. I never have read about Rebecca Heinemann, either, so I was confused a bit at first - Those interviews might be worth a watch, too. I've never seen a video with Brian Fargo, so it was nice to see him fleshed out. It must be a bummer to have his baby(Interplay) taken away, but I'm sure he gets some gratification from knowing he took a part in industry classics.
Good stuff.
I still really enjoyed Stonekeep. Ah, childhood - rocking out on computer RPGs while my friends played their N64 games. Icewind Dale being his favorite RPG was cool. He seems to still be a big fan of the party-based RPGs. Hopefully they get a hold of Wasteland, especially with saying that he wouldn't want to deviate from the original gameplay like they did in the new Bard's Tale(still need to play that one).
500 employees at one time? Holy shit - I always assumed 200 tops. I never have read about Rebecca Heinemann, either, so I was confused a bit at first - Those interviews might be worth a watch, too. I've never seen a video with Brian Fargo, so it was nice to see him fleshed out. It must be a bummer to have his baby(Interplay) taken away, but I'm sure he gets some gratification from knowing he took a part in industry classics.
Good stuff.
Cimmerian Nights
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
They are, she's a very sharp woman and has a ton of tales to tell. She gave a lot of insight into the industry and game design.Makagulfazel said:
I really like the Matt Chat interviews, his reviews don't do much for me. While a fan, he doesn't serve up softballs and generally holds their feet to the fire when warranted. The MCA, Tim Cain and John Romero interviews are great too.
Nice to have an old timer with some perspective on history, gaming evolution and shining light on the more influential designers/games that media types born after 1990 are most likely blithely ignorant of.
Good interview. Very good. I never knew much about Fargo before this, and honestly, I didn't have some "good" opinion about him, considering the current state Interplay is in. Luckily, it turned out it was all just my lack of proper knowledge and stupid prejudice. Fargo turned out to be a really nice guy, much to my stupidity.
And Matt is a great guty also, and an improtant factor in today's retro gaming communty, at least in my opinion. He had great infulence on my gaming "taste".
But I'll never forgive him for deleting my post on his channel!!!
And Matt is a great guty also, and an improtant factor in today's retro gaming communty, at least in my opinion. He had great infulence on my gaming "taste".
But I'll never forgive him for deleting my post on his channel!!!
frosty_theaussie
Still Mildly Glowing
Makagulfazel said:
Those were great, especially the stuff about Michael Cranford.
Reconite said:What did you write?Atomkilla said:But I'll never forgive him for deleting my post on his channel!!!
At the time I was in some "NES hype", because after a long time I plugged in my old NES and played those games. For days you could say.
So, under the influence of it, I wrote a very long post about it on his channel, suggesting an awful lot of stuff, such as making a "NES episode" or something, trying some of the best games for the console (Super Mario Bros., Battle City, Guevara etc. - mostly my favorites). I also supplied him with many links on how to acquire those games etc (of some, I honestly am not sure whether they were legal).
But the post got deleted soon after, and I was really annoyed by that at the time.
Looking back at it, he was right to delete it, because it was mostly rubbish what I wrote, incoherent, unecesarry rubbish. I would (probably) delete it too, if I were him.
So it got deleted, and no harm done, but memory stayed, and I sometimes make a stupid joke about it, like this one.
Atomkilla said:Good interview. Very good. I never knew much about Fargo before this, and honestly, I didn't have some "good" opinion about him, considering the current state Interplay is in. Luckily, it turned out it was all just my lack of proper knowledge and stupid prejudice. Fargo turned out to be a really nice guy, much to my stupidity.
And Matt is a great guty also, and an improtant factor in today's retro gaming communty, at least in my opinion. He had great infulence on my gaming "taste".
But I'll never forgive him for deleting my post on his channel!!!
Brian Fargo does seem like a pretty nice guy, but he helped drive Interplay into the ground. It's okay to dislike him for that.
By the way, the Becky Heinemann interview is really good too.
No, it was fucked up when Fargo was in charge. Rumors about Fargo being a douche to everyone in the industry nonwithstanding, the problem was never really his personality, just that he's not a good manager.
D
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.Pixote. said:
Reconite said:
Interplay began to go downhill since they went public on the Nasdaq. If memory serves right, they weren't able to turn a profit until 2003ish under Caen but even that was by selling Shiny to Atari, Galleon to SCi, and I think there was a Baldur title around that time which did a million?
There was a 5-7 year timespan between Interplay going public and Fargo leaving, I highly doubt he could have pulled a turn around given more time. The fact that Interplay is still around given everything that happened is a miracle itself. The only thing that either Fargo or Caen could have really looked towards was Shiny and Enter the Matrix (which sold over 5 million units under Atari in 2003 although the success didn't exactly do wonders for them either).
In the interview it's interesting that Fargo acknowledges the consoles trend, wasn't there general opposition within Interplay in the early 00s when Titus wanted to help establish the console side of things at Interplay?
But I agree with Fargo though, Interplay really didn't have much "internally" to compete with Grand Theft Auto, Madden, 2K, etc that would guarantee multi millions unit sales every release without heavy licensing fees.
I always thought Kingpin: Life of Crime was a pretty cool game (made by Xatrix and published by Interplay), but sadly there was no attempt at making a sequel - which I thought it deserved (even though I will admit the game play was fairly simplistic). The character were certainly entertaining.
.Pixote. said:I always thought Kingpin: Life of Crime was a pretty cool game (made by Xatrix and published by Interplay), but sadly there was no attempt at making a sequel - which I thought it deserved (even though I will admit the game play was fairly simplistic). The character were certainly entertaining.
I think they were working on a sequel which was canned during the closure issues.