For us, it's about having the game react to the player as much as possible. There's ways you can do that with technology, graphics, AI - we're doing some VR stuff right now - and so it's what we think is great about not just our games, but what's great about video games - how are they better than any other form of entertainment?
Ashley Cheng, who I've worked with for 20 years, he's the studio head in Rockville now. He manages more of the day-to-day stuff. I can focus creatively on what we're doing now and what we should be doing in the future.
Batman. I like the idea that if I had enough money, time, and vengeance, I could become him.
Memory is a big one: our ability to use the memory and move things in and out efficiently - that affected what we were able to do more than anything.
You never know how your work is going to be received, and to have it be not just received by the people who wanted it or knew about it or our traditional fan base, which is pretty big, but also having it spill over to everybody who plays games, and then those people telling everybody else who doesn't play games - that's what it became.
I loved playing 'Ultima.' Getting my computer in college and playing 'Wing Commander.' I hear a lot from our fans, and they are the same way. Games are where I want to be.
I'm happy that you can play 'Morrowind' now on an Xbox One, as it's backwards compatible.
With 'Fallout 4,' we've done over 20 million downloads, and most of that is mods. That's a staggering number. It has always done well on the PC - but the console audience has such a hunger for it because they've waited so long. We think there's a really good future there, with both 'Skyrim' and 'Fallout 4,' that we hope to continue to add to.
What's funny is that by the time everyone plays the game - you know, we finish it, and then it takes a long time to make copies and ship it and get on the shelves - we probably haven't worked on it for a month, two months. So, we've already taken our break, and then we're on to the next thing.
When you start over and jump into new tech, you don't know what the negatives are going to be until you go through a few cycles. We're always changing our tech, but we don't wholly destroy it with each game. We're taking parts out.
A lot of times, when someone's going to pick up a game, it can be a bit daunting, like if they haven't played a roleplaying game, or they haven't played things in the series. We spent a lot of time on flow. How it feels to move through the world. How the game rewards you depending on which way you turn.
If you look at previous generations, even where they didn't open up power, you look at an early Xbox 360 or early PlayStation 3 games and compare those to the ones that came at the end. The developers are just getting better. So time is far more important than opening up a little bit here or there, though it does all help.
We didn't start at 'Fallout 3' and think about how to add to that. We take a step back and think, 'Okay, if we look at all the 'Fallout' games, what would a new one feel like?' So the focus is not ''Fallout 3' plus this'. Then we start really digging into the world.
Your plan is not as important as your culture. That means you will run into problems that will disrupt your plan and schedule, and how you deal with that depends on the culture you have created within your team.
Games have gotten so big and interesting that they've moved beyond the toy/entertainment space. It's not just a diversion from their regular lives; for a lot of people, it becomes an important part of their lives.
With 'The Elder Scrolls', you're looking at a 25-year-running franchise. It has stood the test of the 'Lord of the Rings' movies becoming popular.
Despite all of our games, all of our success together - 'Elder Scrolls,' when we started, it was a very generic fantasy. It had its parts. We pushed it to have more of its own unique identify. We're proud of the work everyone did there.
Epic science fiction game, that's always been on my mind. Post-apocalyptic, 'Fallout,' was our first choice. Sci-fi was our second at the time, when we got the 'Fallout' license. We were going to do our own post-apocalyptic universe if we didn't get 'Fallout.'
Every year, there's a new idea we can't do and a new technology for something that excites us.
The main thing that excites me is that games are successful everywhere now. Now it's successful everywhere, and that's really important for the health of the industry.
