Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Software, may have been one of those guys that often got beat up in high school for being captain of the debating team, but it goes to prove, that more often than not, people like Randy succeed in life. We recently got a chance to pose some questions to Randy and he kind enough to indulge us. We cover a gamut of topics including the Dreamcast version of Half-Life, the danger of success, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 PC conversion, what it's like to be President, and why Texas is the best place to develop games. (And a brief mention of Condition Zero.) Enjoy! And thanks for your time, Randy!

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Randy Pitchford (Gearbox Software) Q&A

Conducted by Omni

Where did you come from and how did you manage to become President of Gearbox Software?

Art Director, Brian Martel and I worked together on Duke Nukem 3D and other projects at 3dRealms many years ago. Like notable others before us, we chose to leave 3dRealms to start our own shop. In retrospect, it was a really smart decision all around. We’ve been able to ship quite a few more interesting things than we would’ve been able to should we have stayed. I wish more talent would get the courage to branch out and do something cool.

Aside from being a chronic game addict and game maker, I’ve had a varied background including being a professional magician, running low-tech businesses, studying law even being captain of my high school speech and debate team. Those things seemed to give me some experience that has been useful since I’ve been directing things at Gearbox. I suppose it’s because of that experience (and presumably because of my performance) that my peers have continued to have me work in the role I’m in.

What exactly do you do as President and what’s the hardest part about being President?

At Gearbox I am primarily responsible for executing on the direction and management of the business. Fortunately, the people who work here primarily direct Gearbox – I merely act as the executor of the will of the talent. This typically manifests itself with developing publishing deals and managing projects and teams at the high level. Also, as a trench developer by nature, I also seem to get pretty involved in various details of game development where my skills and experience lend themselves to be useful. The hardest part about my job is in knowing how to throttle my involvement at the micro level so that I can focus on the benefit of the company at the macro level.

What stage is Counter-Strike: Condition Zero at in the development cycle? How are things working out? Any setbacks?

We’re pretty far along. I’m very excited about it. As with any project, there have been interesting challenges, but part of what makes game development so rewarding is overcoming those challenges.

Please tell us what happened to the Dreamcast version of Half-Life that was advertised and hyped (and some reported finished) for months before it was cancelled.

I’m kind of fuzzy myself about the decisions at Sierra or Vivendi/Universal that led to that project not reaching shelves. Gearbox’s involvement was fairly subdued since a group in San Francisco known as Captivation Digital Labs was handling the technology – the port. They are some talented guys who managed to solve some very difficult problems. I’m often disappointed that their work was never released. Gearbox’s involvement was to create bonus content (released as Half-Life: Blue Shift on the PC). We also helped a bit with some of the technical issues that we were already solving for the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life. I’m afraid that rumors about the game being finished were pretty much true. The game got some great reviews (I think GamePro gave it five out of five – they had a review copy). Unfortunately, I’m not entirely privy to all of the reasons why it was decided it would be better off to not release it, but I bet it had quite a lot to do with Sega’s changed focus in the market and clever accounting tricks to recoup losses.

Has Valve let you in on what’s happening with Half-Life 2 or Team Fortress 2? (Or is this a "no comment, wait for E3" kind of question?)

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Valve and Gearbox seem to share enough information about what we’re each doing to be useful to each other, but by no means would Gearbox be a good source for information about future Valve titles (except, perhaps, for the ones we’re working on). I think the relationship between Valve and Gearbox works because we’ve managed to build up a level of trust with each other. For the sake of trust, information about what Valve is doing will have to come from Valve.

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Were you able to take any creative freedom porting Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 to the PC? (For example, is Gordon Freeman an unlockable character?)

Randy Pitchford: We did some cool stuff in the game along those lines. Doom Guy is in there by permission from id Software. Try using some of the classic cheats codes from Doom in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and see what you get.

Were there any difficulties in porting THPS 3? (online implementation, etc.)

Because of our long experience with networked action games, we did take a lot for granted during our feasibility analysis that turned out to be more work than expected. But, generally, things went fairly smoothly. It was really fun to work in Neversoft’s great game. I love the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games and I’m really proud to have been able to contribute to the franchise.

You’ve stated that you will support THPS 3 with new maps and other updates. When can we expect to see the first batch of arenas and what will they look like?

A map pack was released through planettonyhawk.com. We’re also working on another update that will add some more features (as well as correct some things that have been discovered by end-users). Expect more bits of things here and there moving forward. I’d like to see more releases for mod developers, but it’s tricky because of the Renderware license and because of the way the tools work…

Do you think it’s a given that THPS 3 will be supported by the mod community?

There’s already a community of people doing all kinds of interesting things with the game. Some smart folks have figured out how to get maps from prior games running with THPS3. They’ve also been messing around with characters and skins. It’s pretty cool.

Should modders have any hope when it comes to going retail or making games for a living?

Absolutely. Gearbox actively recruits from the modification community. Also, we’ve seen some great success stories out there. There are several examples of mod teams who’s games have gone commercial. Gearbox has helped some of these guys along. I think it’s a great way to learn how to make games and it’s led to a strong career path for many developers.

What advantages are there to developing games in Texas?

Cost of living is very reasonable here and we have all of the advantages of being near a metroplex in Dallas. No state taxes are a nice feature as well. I like that I can have a big house and a nice car and still have more disposable income than what was typical when I was living in California.

What is the Minimum Requirements PC going to look like next year?

That really depends on the game. It’s getting quite strange, though. New 3d hardware and dramatic improvements in bus speed and memory bandwidth are moving the bottlenecks around. Smart developers (or, actually, developers who are interested in reaching lots of customers) are really thinking hard about scalability. We are.

Is there any danger that comes with success? Or at least a fear that new efforts won’t live up to previous ones?

Success seems to give the confidence and resources for more success. There is some fear, but I think that fear can be a very powerful motivator. We try to channel our fear to make us push harder and do better.

Why the new and improved small PC game box and what do you think of it?

I have mixed feelings about the small boxes. I understand the reasons why they’re here now, however. It’s a tricky problem, though – I was in Europe recently and really thought they had the right answer by putting PC games in DVD cases. Then I went into a store that mingled console games with PC games and it really started to get confusing as to which platform I was shopping for. For the most part, I tend to trust that the retailers and sales people that presumably were involved in the decision have more time to concentrate on the psychology and utility of the new box sizes than I do. Therefore, their opinion matters more than mine by default.

Ever take umbrage with a reviewer’s opinion?

No. All criticism is useful. I am a bit concerned that print and on-line critics tend to mirror my response a lot more closely than they mirror the responses of the majority of our customers. In other words, it’s getting harder and harder to use press criticism as a relevant gauge of product success.

If you could snag any license out there what would it be and how would you implement it?

This is tough. There are things that would be cool to work on that are realistic, and then there are pipe dreams. Realistically, I seem to have been fortunate enough to work in the kinds of spaces I’m interested in – stuff like Half-Life, Bond, Tony Hawk, Duke Nukem, etc. Having said that, I would really love to work with Doom. Ironically, I think I’m more ripe to do something original next. Licenses tend to require a certain amount of loyalty that don’t provide room to advance things where they should (or could) go.

When is Gearbox going to produce their very own game – not a port or expansion – but an onest-to-goodness "we made this entirely on our own" kind of game?

Very soon. We’ve been very patient because we hope to do everything right. We’ve worked with a few different publishers to see who’s going to be the best folks to partner with. We’ve worked on some really important and interesting stuff to help us build our team and our breadth of knowledge. Most of the people at Gearbox have worked on fully original titles before, so we’ve gotten past that stage where we have to be stubborn and own something to the point where we have to sacrifice everything else that’s rational. When we do something original again, we intend it to be the right thing with the right people and at the right time.

Are there any real excuses for releasing a buggy game?

There are always problems and there are always excuses. It’s what a group does about the problems once they’re discovered that defines them. Our mantra is to be open and honest with our customers and to try to take care of everyone we can as best that we can. It’s hard to do that and there’s a lot of feedback, which tends to make developers not want to do the right thing. We just bite the bullet and do it. For example, we’re still maintaining Opposing Force On-Line and we’re proud to do it (because we still enjoy playing the game ourselves).

Who has the most power in the gaming industry?

The customer.

Why do so few women work in the gaming industry? (I base this question on many development team photos from around the gaming industry showing a bunch of pasty white guys.)

Dunno. I wish there were more so this question wouldn’t keep coming up. It’s our belief that we should just hire the best people for the job. I just don’t seem to get any resumes from women.

What moment in gaming was Gearbox’s lowest?

Gearbox’s lowest moment is every moment prior to whatever the current moment is. Gearbox seems to have incredible momentum and energy right now – and we feel like we haven’t even gotten *really* started yet. It feels as if things are just getting better and better, that we’re growing stronger and smarter. We tend to look back at games we’ve done in the past not necessarily without pride, but certainly with a pure and complete understanding that we’re already light years ahead of that stuff.

The Official Gearbox Site