Recently, through the wonders of modern communications, we were able to hold an interview
with Kent and Kim Quirk of new game company, CogniToy (www.cognitoy.com). CogniToy, a
company based on the east coast, is currently in production on its first game, MindRover. MindRover combines some of the greatest elements of modern gaming with an adventure/racing
format based on Jupiter’s Europa moon.
Kent and Kim, the co-founders of the company tell us a little about themselves:
CSS: OK, could you start off with your name, your job title, and a little about what you do?
Kim Quirk, COO (Chief Operating Officer)
As Chief Operating Officer, I'm basically in charge all aspects of
CogniToy other than development. My more time-consuming jobs include
Webmaster, Finances, and Marketing. I also do some work in development
such as Qualification testing and product builds. I am also the network
administrator and try to help CogniToy employees solve their PC
problems. I write the business plans and look for investors to keep the
company in business.
Kent Quirk, CTO (Chief Technology Officer) and Game Designer
My role is complimentary to Kim's. I designed and architected MindRover,
wrote a good chunk of the code, and I manage the development team at
CogniToy. I also work a lot with Kim (yes, we're married) on the various
business aspects.
CSS: And your interests and fields of specialty?
Kim: My background is in engineering and I always like to get into technical details. The Webmaster and Development related jobs satisfy this part of my interests. I also enjoy creating the strategy and high level view of where we want CogniToy to go and exploring the possibilities of what we can do next. This fits in well with the business planning, finances, and marketing jobs.
Kent: Like Kim, I'm a generalist more than a specialist. I studied physics and electrical engineering in college, but spent most of my time writing software. I've had jobs as a technical writer, programmer, marketing manager, user interface designer, and architect, and I've been self-employed for more than half of my working life. I'm a hardcore techie with a strong interest in how that technology relates to people; I love to program, but heads-down programming isn't enough to keep me interested.
CSS: Anything else you'd like to say about yourself?
Kim: I really enjoy wearing many hats and would get frustrated if I only did one of these jobs. On the other hand, many days I have to juggle three or four of these jobs in the same 3 hour period and it feels like I can't possibly get it all done.
Kent: What she said.
CSS: How do you feel the Internet helps Cognitoy?
Kim: The Internet provides some key benefits that we believe will help CogniToy be successful. First of all, we will allow people to buy our games directly from us at our website. Most games are sold through publishers and/or distributors and cannot be sold directly by the developing company. If you buy games directly from the developer then both the game company and the customer wins. The customer gets direct access to the developers for asking questions, making requests, and getting help. The developer gets a much bigger cut of the revenues, which means that it's easier to be successful, and it's more likely that the money can be put back into the company to create the next great game.
The next big help the Internet gives us is the ability to gather people from all over the world who might be interested in our products. At our website we will provide chat areas, hints, downloads of add-ons, etc. In return, we get direct access to our customer base, so we can find out what people like and don't like, and use it to tune the current product or to help design the next one.
Finally, the Internet helps us to make a more compelling game. Our game will have some form of internet-based play. We will hold contests where gamers watch or participate right at our website. People will be able to find one another and play with one another online. None of this kind of interaction would be possible without the Internet.
CSS: Previous to Cognitoy's beginning, was your background in the same field?
Kim: Before CogniToy I have worked in engineering, qualification engineering, marketing, management and I have run my own consulting company. I was a marketing/engineering/customer support liaison for a year in the south of France. None of these jobs were in the field of games, but each of them contributed to my ability to create and run CogniToy.
Kent: As I said before, I've done a lot of different things, but they've always been related to the fields of software engineering and user interfaces. It's usually been fairly entrepreneurial. I don't think "more of the same" will ever satisfy me, though. My career is a journey, and CogniToy is a particularly interesting stop along the way.
CSS: If not, what was it and how hard was your transition?
Kim: When you are starting your own company, you can transition into anything. That doesn't mean it will be easy, but it means you've probably already decided to give up some income now for the possibility of creating a successful company. Many times when people transition to new jobs they agree to take a pay cut in order to learn something new. This is what I have done.
Kent: Let's talk about transitions. Ten years ago I was working on embedded system technologies for telephone companies. That low-level hardware knowledge transitioned into a consulting contract writing device drivers for a video board, which transitioned into writing lots of device drivers for Lotus 1-2-3, which transitioned into a marketing role at Lotus managing device driver development, which transitioned into a programming role at Lotus developing software for a handheld computer, which transitioned into a user interface design role on a visual programming product, which transitioned into a job as an independent design consultant for an educational software firm.
Then Kim and I started CogniToy. I'm using my entrepreneurial background to help manage the company, my marketing background to sell the idea to investors and to customers, and my design and programming background in all those areas to invent and code up a game that uses concepts from my work in embedded systems, visual programming, and educational software.
It's different, but everything's connected.
CSS: What did you do to prepare and plan for Cognitoy?
Kim: First we thought about it for about a year. How could we get some money to start the company, what is the smallest amount of cash we could live on, and we talked to a lot of people about the idea for the first game and how that could be made into a company. We were careful not to give many details to anyone that might want to build the same product. Before I left my job, we had created a business plan and gotten a commitment for the first $50,000 of 'seed money'.
Kent: And while all that was going on, I was working on the design and some early prototyping, which was part and parcel of the process of constructing the idea into the business.
CSS: Where do you see Cognitoy in 5, 10, 20 years?
Kim: 10 or 20 years is way to far in the future for me to see. I think most companies feel good if they can project themselves out 2-5 years. In 2 years I think CogniToy will have some interesting add-ons from our first game and I hope we will have lots of great ideas and inspiration from some of our customers. I expect we will be just shipping our second game and will be working on the third and forth in parallel. In 5 years, as well as creating games based on the programmability idea, I expect we will have some partnerships going with other companies which I don't think I can talk about at this time. A more optimistic scenario would have us working with other companies in 2-3 years.
CSS: Where do you see gaming in 5, 10, 20 years?
Kim: I think gaming has a very bright future in the next decade or two. With the number of PCs in the homes increasing rapidly and the number of people connected to the Internet, I think the gaming industry will flourish. PC entertainment is now a popular alternative to watching TV or a movie. The Internet makes it easier to communicate with others while playing, or to find others that like the same kind of games as you do. Now gaming can be much more than a single player activity, so more people are enjoying it.
Kent: Looking out a bit further, I can see a few interesting trends. Immersive 3D environments get better all the time. We're probably five years away from performance that allows the creation of a virtual environment that is visually indistinguishable from film quality. So we'll definitely see motion towards more cinematic experiences in gaming. Combine that with the overwhelming trend towards interesting multiplayer experiences, and I think we'll see a convergence towards a telepresence model similar to the one that Neal Stephenson describes in "Snow Crash". There are some very interesting game ideas you can come up with in that kind of virtual environment.
CSS: Where do you see the Internet in 5, 10, 20 years?
Kim: I suspect the Internet will be a part of nearly everyone's lives in 5-10 years. It will completely transform how we do business, how we learn, how we meet people, how we find information. I think it will become at least as necessary and popular as the telephone is today, and access to the Internet will be available in many devices --not just through computers.
CSS: Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years?
Kent: Creating cool stuff that lets people expand their minds in interesting ways. That's basically what I want to do with myself. I think games are a great way to experiment with new ideas without having to force those ideas to be completely practical.
CSS: What do you feel is your hardest challenge personally in Cognitoy's development?
Kent: Managing my time effectively. I have so many roles, and so many responsibilities, that I feel that almost everything gets a little shortchanged.
CSS: What do you feel is your hardest challenge as a group in Cognitoy's development?
Kim: It's always difficult to keep a group together. Once you get more than two or three people working on a project, there will be differences of opinion and personality differences that cause tensions. I think it is important to have one person carrying the vision for the game so that we aren't trying to design by committee. It is important to get input from others, but the final say for a game should go with the lead designer.
CSS: How will this game be marketed to get a fair market share against the big-name big-budget gaming companies?
Kim: Big-budget companies create a name and interest in their products by throwing money into advertising. Today you can even see ads for computer games and console games on TV. That is BIG budget advertising. Our marketing stategy is to take advantage of the power of the Internet. Our target gamers are on the Internet and look for information on new games online, and they tend to tell others when they find something they like to play. We believe that if we create the game they will talk about, then we won't have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising to get the word out. We do need to build a great game, so that we get good reviews, get some publicity, and we also need to buy some advertising, but we can only spend tens of thousands of dollars. So we will do the best we can by working with gamers to create the game they really want to play and hope that they'll appreciate it.
Kent: Our other advantage is that by using internet-based distribution, we can keep more of every sale, so that we don't have to get as big a share to survive.
CSS: What should a computer science person learn or study to have the right skills to move into your field?
Kent: Games are the most technically challenging field I've ever worked in. With games, you have to push the limits in all areas. The game has to be on the leading edge in performance, interface design, graphical quality, audio, and gameplay. It has to be innovative and create a mood. That kind of work is not for the faint of heart or mind.
If you want to work in games at all, you have to be a bit of a perfectionist, have the ability to become an expert in whatever area if you're not one already, and you have to be the kind of person who's capable of really getting immersed in your work. And it definitely helps if games are also your primary source of entertainment.
CSS: Has on-line/networked gaming revolutionized the computer gaming business?
Kent: I think it's more like "evolutionized". It was inevitable. People want to play against each other. As good as various AIs get in the different genres, how much fun is it really to get taunted by ReaperBots? You know it's just a canned comment. But when your officemate breaks out into maniacal laughter because he just turned you into a settling cloud of blood particles with a rocket to the face, well, THAT's fun! Well, fun for someone, anyway.
CSS: What piece of advice would you offer to the students who are interested in getting into your line of work?
Kent: If you want to be a good programmer, you really do have to study. Work hard. Build your skills. Read the industry literature -- not just the gaming magazines, but the computer magazines. There are all too many programmers in the world who really don't know what the state of the art is. When I talk to someone who doesn't understand basic algorithms and when to use them, I'm amazed. It's the equivalent of a professional carpenter who doesn't know how to use power tools.
CSS: (Technical question:) Point of perspective shifts can be very confusing for a player of a 3-D game, especially when the controls change according to perspective (example Gex2). What efforts have you made to keep the shifts & controls "under control" for the user?
Kent: Careful interface design can minimize this. We also have four different camera views, and the user can choose between them, and when we change views, we don't cut to the new view, we pan and zoom to it so that people keep their sense of place.
CSS: Where should people go to keep up with the latest developments and trends in gaming, 3- D graphics, web design, etc? What books should they read? How do you stay current with the latest trends?
Newsgroups, mailing lists, and magazines in your areas of interest are the best way to keep up with what's current. There are also web sites that do a good job of staying current now. Join the IEEE or the ACM and get a couple of the journals (this is especially cheap for students).
In my particular field, I read (in no particular order):
Print: Game Developer, PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, Dr. Dobbs Journal, Scientific American, Wired, The Boston Globe, PC Week
Web sites: gamasutra.com, lots of gaming news sites (gamespot, gamepost, betazine, and so forth), a few game companies
Newsgroups: comp.risks and a moderated C++ group are all I'm reading regularly right now. I used to spend a lot of time on the various rec.games and alt.games groups, but a poor signal-to-noise ratio and lack of time forced me to stop.
Mailing lists: I subscribe to several lists in areas of interest. These tend to be the best way to stay really current, at the cost of a bit of time to keep up.
CSS: Heroes inspire us to do our best. If you have heroes, who are they, both in and outside of your field?
Kim: Since I'm more on the business side of gaming, my heroes are people who have started their company, kept control, and become successful.
Kent: One of my heroes is Richard Feynman, a brilliant man (Nobel Prize-winning physicist) who never forgot to look at the world with childlike wonder and then tried to figure out how it worked. I admire several wonderful writers who can create worlds and make them believable -- Neal Stephenson, David Brin, Nick Hornsby. Edward Tufte is the man who almost singlehandledly revolutionized the way the software industry thinks about how information should be displayed. In particular, he does so from a strongly moral foundation. To hear him speak about the way Dr. Joseph Snow invented the science of epidemiology during the cholera outbreak in London in the 19th century is truly inspiring.
I have several other heroes you've never heard of -- friends and relatives who live their lives in balance and whom I am greatly privileged to know.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you for the opportunity, Kent and Kim.
Their story is inspiring to each one of us here. We all want to be something better than just the
software engineer in the second cubicle on the left. Their drive to create their own company and
bring their ideas to life just shows that you can keep the big dream and make it a reality. We wish
the Quirks and CogniToy all the best.
Interview by Nicholas Meshes