Techies, creatives hope to start new game industry

It is hard not to compare the launch of Silicon Valley’s latest interactive entertainment startup Rocket Science Games — which claims it received about $4 million from investment capital companies in half a day, without a formal business plan — to the rollout of 3DO. The buzz around Rocket Science, a new Palo Alto, CA-based entertainment software and technology company, has quickly achieved the same level of hype, excitement and confusion that has surrounded 3DO from its inception.

The comparison is not surprising since founders of both companies are making the same promise: a fundamental shift in the way we are entertained, based on more sophisticated hardware in the case of 3DO, and software in the case of Rocket Science. It was the potential of the 3DO Multiplayer game machine, in fact, that inspired the creation of Rocket Science Games.

AN INTERACTIVE GAME COMPANY WITH A TECHNOLOGY TWIST

As one might expect by its name, Rocket Science Games is primarily a game company. Similar to Crystal Dynamics, the company plans to produce interactive CD-ROM games — no cartridges — for Sega and 3DO and potentially any of the other interactive CD players that are in development from companies such as Atari, Nintendo and Commodore. Its long-term goal is to supply programming for interactive television.

Its first three titles are expected to reach the market by September of 1994, in time for the Christmas season, which is when 70 percent of all video games are sold.

Unlike its competition in the game industry, Rocket Science also plans to be in the software technology business, particularly focused on digital video and compression applications. The company has certainly put the team in place with the potential to fulfill that vision. Most of the 11 employees at Rocket Science (four of which are founders) possess distinguished reputations in the fields of computer engineering, computer graphics, software development or entertainment.

A LOOK AT THE PLAYERS IN THIS GAME

The company is the brain child of 25-year-old Peter Barrett, formerly the director of software technology for SuperMac Technology, a hardware and software developer for both Macintosh and Windows-based computers. He got the idea for Rocket Science a little more than six months ago when he attended the 3DO launch at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

After seeing some of the 3DO titles in development and after working with a Multiplayer prototype, Barrett — who has eight interactive game machines at home — became excited by the possibilities for the advanced game play and character development that a more powerful game machine might allow. He decided to start an interactive game company with a charter that he says is “to create a new frontier of game software.”

The life, times of a wunderkid. In addition to the requisite love of a good video game, Barrett brings an expertise in software development and building startup companies to Rocket Science. A native of Australia, he came to the United States to work for SuperMac six and a half years ago when the Macintosh market was just emerging. Through his Australian-based company, Infomagic, which he cofounded at 18 and which is now a major Mac distributor in that country, he had established relationships with many of the “deities” in the Macintosh market, including Steve Edelmen, who founded SuperMac and lured him to the United States.

Barrett developed software technology while at SuperMac, including Cinepak (formerly known as Compact Video), the software-only video compression codec that has been adopted by Apple, Creative Technology, Atari, Sega and 3DO among others. (SuperMac is wooing Nintendo to support the codec in its CD-ROM-based game machine that is expected to be delivered by Christmas of 1994.)

Although SuperMac officially owns the Cinepak technology, since Barrett created it while he was there, he is free to continue to develop the codec at Rocket Science through a shared licensing agreement with SuperMac. (SuperMac, which is moving away from internal product development and becoming more of an affiliated label program for small companies developing technology, says it will work on Cinepak also.)

Money lenders and matchmakers. Although Barrett had the idea for Rocket Science, he needed additional talents to launch the company and he needed capital. He approached Merrill Pickard, Anderson and Eyre, a venture capital company, which jumped on the project, playing both money lender and matchmaker.

Ironically it was Merrill Pickard who connected Barrett with Steve Blank, a fellow SuperMac employee, who was also looking to start a new company. Blank, president of Rocket Science, is known throughout the computer industry for his aggressive marketing. As the head of marketing for SuperMac, he helped develop a turn-around strategy for the company in the late 1980s that took it from a third-place position in a race of three to the lead spot, where it has remained ever since.

How the pie is sliced. In addition to Merrill Pickard, Mohr Davidow Ventures also invested in Rocket Science. Together both investors own about 50 percent of the company. The other half is divided among the founders, key members of the technology team and SuperMac, which owns about 1 percent. (A small percentage has been left in reserve as bait for prospective employees.)

CAN CREATIVES, TECHNOLOGISTS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?

Blank and Barrett might have been an interesting enough story, but Rocket Science would probably not have garnered as much media attention or money without the addition of co-founders Michael Backes and Ron Cobb as well as several of the famed Apple QuickTime development team.

Backes, whose most recent credits include display graphics supervisor on Jurassic Park and co-screenwriter on Rising Sun, is writing a film for producers Kathleen Kennedy (Jurassic Park) and Frank Marshall. Cobb was the creative director on Alien, The Last Starfighter, Conan the Barbarian and numerous other films. Both men are well-known among the Hollywood and Silicon Valley communities as able to walk the line between understanding how to entertain people and how to use the computer as a tool to heighten the entertainment experience.

Neither Backes nor Cobb will be part of the day-to-day scene at Rocket Science. Instead, they will write and produce specific games (Cobb is now working on the plot line for one of the first three titles to be delivered), provide direction on visuals and story development for other titles and act as liaison between Rocket Science and other Hollywood talent interested in producing interactive games.

The missing link. They will also work closely with the Rocket Science technical team, which includes ex-Apple employees Peter Hoddie, Sean Callahan and Mark Kruger, among others, to create what Barrett calls “the missing link” that the company hopes will make “interactive entertainment” something other than an oxymoron.

According to Barrett, the fundamental flaw with games today is that there is no “methodology or language” to create content for this emerging market. He hopes to change that at Rocket Science by developing powerful tools that artists and storytellers can use with ease. (We have heard this many times before but so far no one, with the possible exception of the QuickTime team, which brought digital video manipulation to the masses with Macintoshes, has delivered on that promise.)

Not a bad day at the office. To create a common language for artist and technologist, Backes and Cobb have the technical team watching movies, playing video games and looking at comic books. They then discuss things such as why an animated plumber with a big head and a mustache works better on a small screen than Arnold Schwarzenegger, or why a movie or special effect worked, how it was done technically and cinematically and how it could be translated for interactive entertainment.

According to Barrett, the tool development at Rocket Science will progress — at least initially — in conjunction with the development of the first few titles, so that the technology can evolve based on the needs of the storytellers and creators. The company’s goal is not to accommodate the limitations of existing tools, but to create tools that enhance creativity. Hence, a new type of interactive game might emerge.

“With Rocket Science we’re trying to establish a higher level of craft and imagination in the design of interactive entertainment,” say Backes. “Most interactive games, as they exist today, are not particularly sophisticated entertainment. Many games are stuck in the rut of shoot ‘em or race ‘em. We’re going to attempt to design games with a more complete sense of place or environment where the stories have both subtext and, hopefully, wit.”

At this point the company will not publicly discuss any of the titles planned or in development. According to Barrett, production costs for each of the first three titles will range from $600,000 to $1.2 million, with the costs coming down as the production methodologies and tools fall into place. Rocket Science plans to follow a Hollywood movie production model to fund title development. To that end, they are seeking advances against royalties for at least the first three titles.

A GAME THAT WILL BE WON BY STRATEGY

There is no question that the Rocket Science strategy has potential: the talent, money and infrastructure to create something truly different for the interactive entertainment market is in place. But the company has given itself a Herculean task on an extremely tight deadline.

In Peter Barrett’s own words, Rocket Science is “dead” if it cannot deliver game titles into the channel for Christmas 1994; first, because the video game business is so seasonal, it will mean waiting until Christmas 1995 to make its mark; and second, because at that point Rocket Science will probably need another cash infusion. None of the core team wants to see venture capitalists own more than the 50 percent they already possess; they would again be working for someone other than themselves.

The realities of meeting its goal are harsh. Even the most mundane CD-ROM titles traditionally require 12 to 18 months of development time; there’s no way of knowing how long it will take to develop the types of titles Rocket Science plans to deliver. In addition, the company is really still unpacking boxes. It only moved into its offices this month and is still setting up computers and bringing on more people — about six — before this year is over. All this commotion does not exactly create the type of environment necessary to establish that common-language Barrett is so earnest about developing.

Confident under pressure. Right now, though, he and the team are confident of success. They have storyboards for one of the titles and are in negotiations for the other two properties. According to Barrett, all three will be in development by this Christmas, with the help of a freelance design team who will be hired on a project-by-project basis. More importantly, he says, the Rocket Science team is a group of people — many of whom have worked together before — who have reputations for delivering solid products under amazing pressure.

“If you do a good job, and you do a good game, you can be a winner in this business,” says Barrett. “There is no Microsoft in the game market. This is still a hits business and we plan to make hits — lots of hits.”

Janice Maloney