Digital Extremes moves from the days of shareware programs to set the mark in mainstream gaming
By Michael Lafferty

Its one-word title has become synonymous with the best of shooter games, and when Unreal first hit the market, the title not only stood for a PC program, but also did a pretty good job of describing the action and the advancement in gaming.

Digital Extremes was actually founded in 1993 and is based in London, Ontario, Canada. And while Unreal and Unreal Tournament have definitely put the software developer on the map, this is a company this is about more than a pair of titles. In fact, Digital Extremes had established itself before Unreal came along.

True, the Unreal franchise has registered more than 3 million units sold worldwide across three platforms (PC, PS2 and Dreamcast), and the future looks just as ‘unreal’ for the company. In development are Unreal Championship for the Xbox and Unreal Tournament 2 for the PC.

James Schmalz

So how did this groundbreaking company come together? James Schmalz, founder and creative director for Digital Extremes, took time to talk with GameZone and answers some questions about his company and gaming.

Question: Anyone can find the background information about a company, when it started, et cetera, but can you give us the history of the inspiration of the company? What started the idea of the company? How did it come together? Did you recruit developers or did this just involve the folks who finally put the company together?

James: “Inspiration? Inspiration came from the many hours spent playing Pong while I was 7. I was hooked from the start and the obsession grew from there. By 12 I was programming an Ultima 1 clone on my Apple IIe. I never really knew you could make money or a living from making games until I was in university. During university, in my spare time, I made my first original game, Legends of Murder and it was published by Big Blue Disc, the monthly disc magazine in the US. I received $1200, so I made a sequel – none other than Legends of Murder 2 and made $2200 (I know, real original title.)

“At this point I had to decide between a career in engineering or following my dream of making games for a living. As you may recall shareware was a pretty big thing in the early 90's. So, I started up a shareware project called Solar Winds in early 1993. Epic Megagames published it and I earned $50,000 in royalties. My decision had been made! Because of that project I was able to start up Digital Extremes later that year.

“Originally it was just a one-man shop and DE's first project was Epic Pinball, which was a huge success but to really make something big and groundbreaking I needed help. I hired a couple of people to help with the sequel to Epic Pinball, Extreme Pinball and also started the framework for Unreal. As time went on, we realized that Unreal was becoming a much larger project than expected so we looked to Epic to partner with ... and as they say, that was history in the making.”

Q: Assuming that the two are linked somewhat, can you recount the history of the first title DE put together? What was the goal of the project and how did you achieve it? If you could go back and tool around with it a little more, would you? If so, why? If not, why not?

James: “Oops, I guess I kind of answered this question with the first question. But too elaborate a little more ... my goal for my first project was just to see if I could do it and turn a dime trying so that I could continue my passion down the road. I don't think I would go back and change anything on my first project because it was my first attempt at anything and mistakes I may have made during it helped in shaping my thought process for future projects.”

Q: What qualities, in your estimation, does it take to make a good game developer/programmer/designer?

James: “Determination, foresight, creativity, passion .... the list could go on and on, but those few come to mind first, plus a good work ethic. You really have to put in long hours in this business to get anywhere.”

Q: What do you think is the single most important factor in creating a game?

James: “Making sure it [the game] is fun and never losing site of that aspect throughout the process. Too many people focus on one aspect, like the technology or visuals and forget they are trying to make something fun. It's important to have all aspects of the game as high in quality as possible, but the key aspect is entertainment by a wide margin.”

Q: What part of creating a game presents the greatest challenge? What brings the most joy?

James: “The greatest challenge is trying to do better than you did in the last product. Nobody wants to make a great game and then follow it up with something inferior. So, the biggest challenge is to continually raise the bar for yourself. It's not easy.

“The most joy is derived from seeing things come together. It's very exciting to see the fruits of your labor and be proud of it.”

Q: Do marketing trends or genre fan forums play a role in the development of a game?

James: “Absolutely and if anyone tells you different they're lying. Listening to your audience is key to making great games and having a top-notch marketing plan to back the game up can help make it a blockbuster. But the big thing and possibly the most difficult part is to listen to the right things from your audience and work it out so these things can be incorporated into your idea. If your idea isn't flexible to change then there's no point in even trying. No idea is absolutely perfect from the start.”

Q: This is an industry that has seen phenomenal growth over the past few years. Do you think that will continue? Where do you see the industry going?

James: “I think it will continue for a long time as a larger and larger percentage
of people get computers for their homes. There is a huge percentage of the world population that still don't have computers who eventually will. So, the market will continue to grow for many, many years.  Even if at some point the market stops growing, hit games will always sell monstrous numbers, so developers like us will always have a huge audience to make games for, regardless of the growth of the industry.

Q: What do you consider to be the ultimate gaming experience?

James: “Definitely massively multiplayer experiences are cutting edge. So many wild things happen when you are actually interacting with real people rather than computer AI. In the next decade we will see some amazing things happen in the massively multiplayer genre.”

It should be noted that, according to its own Web site, Digital Extremes is working on that massively multiplayer title.

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