why do you make games like what actually started things like back in 99 super philosophical question why people do the

things they do right I knew that I was going to make uh video games back then that that’s there was no other thing I

wanted to do that was the that was the thing I wanted to do the most in my entire existence you start with

intuition then let the game reveal itself from a production point of view this sounds very expensive how do we

actually make this happen proactively in a maybe more efficient way yeah you can’t I think that’s saying from the

GetGo we know what we’re doing and then you try again and and you go like but we don’t know what we’re doing how many

times have I I have heard developers say like well we need to make it right this time or next time or how do the other

ones do it well that’s the thing is that unless you’re doing when you’re founding a new studio like picking the people at

the start it sounds like that’s one of the most important things I don’t think people realize that when you when you

create a when you have a team when you have a company an operation in general it’s all about the people

but it’s not about the people individually it’s all

about rafhael welcome to the show thank you for inviting rapael founder of

Arcane behind Dishonored one and two amazing games that I grew up watching actually so during my playing

vicariously through YouTubers phase it was one of the few games where I watched from start to finish Lov the story so

yeah very excited for this I want to start very briefly with how we met because I thought it was quite funny um

nice in Cypress actually in home turf so how did we meet Rafael yeah we were at the some sort of

the Afterparty of the GDC y right it was a really cool house uh with nice

swimming pool and fantastic barbecue and catering and uh yeah we were just talking there randomly and uh thought oh

that’s a you know sounds like a cool thing to do let’s let’s do that podcast yeah and I love your introduction as

well I was like hey nice to meet you I’m Harry and said hi I’m Rafael and then it took a good half an hour for me to realize oh he made that game and this

game I was like ah okay so yeah it was very humble introduction and then we got to know each other which was very fun yeah been very eagerly waiting for this

fantastic so I love to get a quick intro of kind of you were at Arcane for 18

years but you’ve since became a consultant for a bit and now you founded a new studio wolfi so yeah I would love to get a just a brief recap of what

you’ve been up to yeah I mean uh yeah you pretty much summarized it I uh I was in the industry

since uh uh 1993 started with EA and then uh

eventually I you know I I want I was have really have that that kind of like mentality of of doing my own thing and

and I’m very driven about like some specific games and projects that I wanted to do so uh Arc Fatalis was the

first game that I um I wanted to make I had the passion and a dream to make this happen I wanted that that was the most

important thing in my entire life at that time when I was uh 20 something 25 or whatever and so by the time I was 29

I founded Arcane studios in France uh we were only four people back then so me

and a bunch of friends we uh crazy enough to stop this and then it became

uh you know became the Arcane that everybody knew and loved uh Dishonored I mean before that Darkness magic

Dishonored to prey uh and then I left in 2017 so after

the company at that point was about uh 300 people between the French and the Leon and the and the Austin office so it

was half and half Austin was doing prey Leon was doing this too even though people are confused because the the

Harvey Smith the the who became the leader of this of uh of Aran Austin was

actually Leon for this to so but anyway um and then after that I left in 2017 after 18 years uh for variety of reasons

there’s too many reasons to uh to list but some were very personal and uh just a need to for change and you know seeing

the arc the end of that Arc like the Arc of Arcane was was really powerful for me like I had seen from the Inception to

selling to First success to uh you know growing Etc all that was really fun and

and interesting but then I feel I felt like okay I got to do something different now so I left for uh and then

I was like around for two years uh just U focusing on music and and Consulting and doing personal stuff and uh

eventually the itch uh took again and uh with you know Julian Robi who was

actually one of my very very first early employee and and uh uh he was also at

arane with with me in 99 frankly uh we decided to do it again so wari was born

in uh 2019 uh and I’m now now the creative

director and president of wari Studios we made our first game was a smaller

game compared to what we’ve done before called weird West uh it was a good way for us to assemble some of the some of

the people that would then you know become where we are now where now we we have a bit much much bigger team and

we’re getting ready for at some point this year announcing something that I believe people are GNA be very happy

about Al righty very exciting so with this conversation I would love to you know dig into the journey that was Iain

just to kind of give a bit of insight and some lessons for you know everyone listening at home but yeah also want to

get into wolfi and a little bit about your consultant um experience I’m very curious about that so yeah I’ll just

start off just to kind of understand like why do you make games like what actually started things like back in 99

because that’s a very different world than it is now it’s probably not as common it is now you know to have that

as a career so that’s a very long time ago so what started it all yeah you know uh I think people it’s

it’s a super philosophical question why people do the things they do right uh I think some of us are looky to do the

thing we do because we we chose it and we want it and that’s what we that’s

what makes a tick uh and some of us unfortunately look at work like more like a means to

an end um and I’m I’m considering myself very very lucky that being a big fan of

video games when I when I was a kid since I was uh 10 probably eight actually that’s that’s when I started

and you know I’m 53 so when I was eight back then it was not many people playing video games but I it’s I was always a

huge fan of video games of role playing games like uh um um dungeon and Dragons

you know pen and paper stuff and also music I was I I liked you know I was a kid uh I was one of those nerds one of

those uh very shy introverted uh kid you know I had kind

of a tragic start in life with my my mother died when I was very young so I kind of kind of like some people would

do go into drugs and or whatever I instead went into reading comic books

and uh drawing and making stories and video games and writing music you know

that was my thing uh and uh So So eventually I I managed to do that of my

work you know uh I was I was lucky to get into it frankly it was just a weird story through Electronic Arts that got

me in um but once I was there I knew that I was going to make a video gamees

games and uh and and not work on any video games I want to make my video

games and uh and this is always been hard it’s it’s it’s a very hard and

lonely road because nobody wants you to make your video game everybody uh wants you to work on their video games you

know if you if you a journal publisher or uh you know this uh the system is is

what it is you know it’s it’s it’s just very hard to impose your story your

video game your vision to an entire system including the

gamers so then you founded it and did it yourself from my understanding yeah again I think some

you know a lot of it is being being naive and being uh uh thinking you can

do it it’s it’s it’s uh but you know when you’re in your 20s uh that that

energy that that Navy is so um such a blessing you know it’s uh it’s the best

thing that we can have and uh again people will try to tell you oh it’s too

hard don’t do this or you know have a safe life or whatever I was like well I don’t know uh you know 20 28 29 I was

also lucky to have an uncle that was very entrepreneur in his in his uh in

his mindset and uh he saw he saw in me my passion uh and I don’t think he realized

I don’t think he knew how uh risky and because it’s artistics as well right video games are it’s it’s how do you how

do you uh get something that is it it would be the same as trying to be successful at doing movies you know or

or making music or making uh paintings you know people would be yeah good luck my son you know uh it

doesn’t sound like a like a thing right and now the times are different because people become super Popular by being

YouTube influencers or whatever so it’s the most popular career choice right for kids when they want to grow up I want to

be a YouTuber yeah exactly so everything goes now right so bits are off uh so I

think today would not be as shocking if you wanted to be a video game maker even

though the ticket to access it you know there’s a lot of money involved there’s making a company hiring a lot of people

getting the interest of other people getting the interest of of uh the press and the and the influencers and and and

most of all the the the the polishers so it is it is hard I’m not saying it’s easy uh but you back then that that’s

there was no other thing I wanted to do that was the that was the thing I wanted to do the most in my entire

existence yeah writing that 20s energy you mentioned I feel like I’m in a little bit like that and hearing you use

the example of your uncle I’ve kind of just reflected now like I’ve been blessed because like my dad and both my

grandparents started businesses and I didn’t really internalized that when I

kind of for me it’s like ah I can help this person and start my own business and just do XYZ it makes sense but then

from speaking to people realize that’s not really a common thing so having that person who be like yeah go for it and

that is a blessing so I love the origin story there I’m curious you mentioned my games I think

for people listening who may have not like know the type of games like from my understanding it’s like first person

immersive games is there anything more around that like what are your games yeah I want to make my games and

by this I mean um I’ve always been and that might sound generic right

because I think you can take any game and then say oh yeah well that sounds like any game but I’ve always wanted to

explore worlds that’s that’s my thing I I like the simulation aspect of a property of a

game like I like the idea that I’m losing myself in a world that feels like

it’s uh believable feels like it’s a it has a sense of place where I can do then

I can then do things and that maybe the other the other characters don’t know I’m here and I can go around them I can

I can screw with the systems I can you know I can do this this thing is super important to me it’s like it’s like finding the the uh you know this the

secret seller of of your of your grandfather and like you know like going around the things and yeah know that if

you you’re kind of like in the secret area and like only and it belongs to that’s your experience right and so I I

I’ve liked that because I guess in in the past I was very much into table pen and paper pen and paper RPG sorry uh and

there is this this notion of what you do next you know that is the thing that the dungeon master always asked and uh so I

was never into platform games I mean I was into them because they are fun and and I I get it I get what they but I

wouldn’t say it was grabbing me as much as I was grabbed by something like as a

kid when I was when I was eight I think my first big RPG was Ultima 2 Ultima

yeah Ultima 2 and uh was it was huge franchise back then I mean as huge as

100 thousand people probably uh but uh it it’s I think anything that you know

how when you when you when you love a specific music when you’re a kid when you love a specific food when you love a

specific uh movie property anything game it stays with you for the rest of your

life uh uh there’s a there’s a moment that is very uh formative in our in our

younger years right so like if you think of like the the music you were listening to when you were 15 I I I I bet more or

less it has influence now with the music you’re you’re going to be listening for the rest of your life 100% like for me

RuneScape is that game because I had that when I was 8 years old to 18 also now I’m thinking about it the soundtrack

of music I will never forget and it’s got that aspect where I can just travel make my own little stories and unlike a

platformer I don’t think of an individual moment that happened in a platformer and have that burning in my

memory but I have that when it comes to like skying and runescope because I’m like ah that made me feel something

right and it stays with you and that’s yeah like like you said they all have

their place but if I think game and like in all capital letters I start to think

the simulation game so at least for me yeah and and so all throughout history of of gaming there’s always been that

one or two or three cool games per year right and so like based on when you were

playing that is like for me it was Ultimate ultim in the world Fallout and

that’s it after that I’m of course gonna be Wai for GTA 6 yeah yeah yeah uh so

that’s why yeah I like I like games I like I like games that make me trouble and and where I can explore and and uh

simulate uh you know feel like I’m I’m I’m really I have possibilities a space of possibilities that’s why those games

like arcs dark Etc they provide that all righty let’s get into a bit about the

game development because I know there’s a lot of people who want to make these games and I was looking through your

last podcast and you mentioned something quite interesting you said making a game is like making a

salad with tons of ingredients now I would love for you to explain that for me

please uh yes so

if you think about the number of moving pieces that you have when you make a

game uh and unlike so if you if you’re making a

building there’s also a lot of Ming moving pieces right you have the the electrician that need to make sure comes

after the plumber or maybe the deposite I don’t know I’m not a builder uh and uh

and then if that day is sick then you have to you know and then you’re late now Etc so they all that so that’s the

production side of things but it’s a building so it’s pretty known quantity where has a video

game uh you don’t really know where you’re going so and so you have all these ingredients

all these all these things and you need to give it time you need to it’s G to it’s going to be messy it’s going to be

complicated and and uh you’re going to have to adjust the the recipe as you go

because you don’t really know the destination you might have a vision or you might think you know where you’re going and that takes you somewhere

that’s necessary you know you can’t you can’t just go like well I don’t have any idea like you need to go somewhere you

think you’re going there even if then that direction is going to change halfway um and that’s fine but anyway my

point about the salad thing is that yeah you got to you got to taste it you got to you got to wait uh until it it really

works together uh and every time you add an ingredient you you need to make sure it still works with the other ones uh

and there might be too much of one too much of the other uh and sometimes in

our cases anyway because of so much simulation is is is uh at at play uh then the the the recipe uh kind of um

reveals itself to you as you go you you go oh that that that thing goes really well with that thing so let’s uh let’s

let’s add more of this or let’s fix it or let’s make sure it works or whatever you know interesting so you mentioned in

that same podcast just to follow up on this point like you start with intuition then let the game reveal itself now I’m

thinking from a production point of view this sounds very expensive like how do we actually make this happen proactively

in a maybe more efficient way now that you’ve done it a few times yeah you can’t I think that’s the thing is that

the first time you do it you go [ __ ] man that was uh exhausting and and I think we got lucky and never again this way

now we’re gonna you know from the GetGo we know what we’re doing and then you try again and and you go like but we don’t know what you’re doing you know

and so like now you fail again even though you succeed at the end but you you feel like still failed because it’s

like that process is horrible like we got to we got to we got to be better at this you know how many times have I I

have heard uh developers say like well we need to make it right this time or next time or or you know or like how do

the other ones do it well that’s the thing is that unless you’re doing a building like I was talking about in our

industry a building would be making a sequel of a game like the 14th iteration

of of of a of a game right so so take big franchise number 14 and then you can operate in a in a

way more um right production you go you know and

even then there’s still going to be some elements like the story which is going to be like H story still might change as

we implemented because we realized it’s not as clear as we thought it would be or you know people don’t respond well or

whatever because some of these things you can test in advance like you know are people going to like the overall

theme but you can’t really test like if if if a a quest is going to work really

well because it’s really based on how you implement it you can’t really preest the implementation there’s just no way

you only see in context so so yeah that’s that’s the thing is that at some point the production has to relax a

little bit and integrate the chaos into their own uh their own structure which

which is terrifying for for a lot of producers and uh yeah it takes a special

breed yeah so let’s say you have a team of producers they hear you they

understand they need to do it like you use the word fail but it sounds like this is kind of like a part of the process so maybe it’s the wrong

definition the word fail like how do we have that potentially more celebrated or more of a active thing so you can so I

feel like rapael understands this but how do we make it so everyone understands it and like looks for these moments well it’s it’s a lot of uh

communication with the team it’s a lot of um uh it’s a lot of not treating it as a

failure but treating it as a process uh you know the first time I understood this was when we worked with uh did did

you play half lifee 2 half lifee 2 I haven’t I’ve watched some videos but I have the idea okay so half lifee 2 was

uh let’s say the you know there was at some point there was Doom which was one of the revolution in the industry you

know and everybody was like oh my God how did they do that and then the half lifee 2 was another one of those right and uh I don’t know after that which one

because it’s it’s like the beol ETC like there’s less and less of them right it’s now we’re more into an interative phase

of of the development of the industry rather than the revolution side but anyway Half Life 2 I had that kind of

like Revolution kind of a aspect to it when it when it came out because it was beautiful and very fun at the same time

and nobody could understand how they did that and uh and when I was uh working

back then on Darkness ad so we were uh it was a little bit after half lifee 2

we were working on that game we’re working with with actually some people from B because we had their technology

and uh and their art director was helping us a lot and I was I was asking

Victor an was the art director and I was asking him man like how we keep failing at this like how did you guys do it how

you know how do you make it pretty and fun because what happens with us is that the Lial designers do something and it’s

kind of fun and then the artists come in they break everything uh but now it’s pretty but

then the LEL designer come back and it’s not fun you know everybody yells at each other it’s horrible yeah exactly and he

said he said with his uh uh usual Cal he

said something well you have to you have to integrate this in your schedule you have to accept it as part of the process

and and then you will stop looking at it like you you you fail because it’s it’s part of it they do the thing these are

the gas come in they break everything and they they add their layer and now part of the process is going to be to

repair things so instead of screaming and crying about it do it accept it as integrated in your schedule and and then

every iteration is a new version of that and you know it’s almost like U uh you you you merge the new version of of your

source code uh you know because you you got that new version of the technology is things are going to break and yeah

it’s painful and there’s two way you can look at it either you you cry and scream or you allocate the time to make it

clean and uh everybody is not you it’s about setting expectations internally that you know to answer your question a

little more briefly it’s it’s about setting expectation no I love that and the sound

of like when you have a Sprint actually planning for the pain part rather than every time it happens we like ah we’re

wasting time like no we have budgeted for this so that can hopefully stop the whole Snowball Effect where everyone

starts panicking yeah awesome you mentioned before if if you were making

like the 14th iteration of a game then you can kind of be a bit more efficient

well you’ve had one game which was super successful Dishonored one and then made Dishonored two but there was a bit of a

gap there between so I wondered what did you learn from making dishonor one that you brought to dishonor 2 from a

production perspective it was a very painful development because we change engine uh

so the the first one was UN real three uh and then we went to another one

internal from It software that we ourself modified and then we redeveloped some tools called void

engine and so that alone was incredibly incredibly painful uh and uh what we

learned though if you if you think about if you think about it when you have the lore of Your World

already and when you have the game playay identity and the visual identity

we had the other direction as well you already have a lot you already have a lot so then what’s

going to be pain because you know the destination you know you know where you’re going and then the the the only thing that is going to truly differ

between uh the first Dishonored and the second Dishonored is more going to be the story itself so not the lore the

story even though you can deepen the lore but you you are operating from an existing LW some characters that now you

can develop further Etc so it’s actually a very very different exercise uh I was less involved in this on too uh Harvey

Smith was uh you know as much as Dison one was harvy Smith and I as co-

creative director Dison two was uh most principally Harvest Smith I was like

sometime chiming in but I was focused on prey uh so it was it was uh you know I

don’t know all the all the all the details of of this on two as much uh but I was following it as uh you know as as

the CEO of the company back then um plus consultant uh creative but but not much

more than that I was just testing occasionally fair so it sounds like what

how much of the pi is the law and the World building when it comes to like the development because you mentioned that

was a huge part like is that more than 50% of like the effort or how does that look oh percentages are so hard to

Define uh because they are everything is so interlaced intertwined in uh you know

you make a gadget and then it becomes part of the lore somehow but like

initially it was a gameplay idea or a lore idea created a gadget you know

created an idea for gaml so it’s it’s hard to know what what are the percentages of things but I would say

different games have different Focus uh and I would say Dishonored was

extremely low focused extremely low focused uh because it we wanted uh you

know when you start to game you could say well it’s going to be it’s going to happen in

LA and in in the world of gangsters or whatever you know and uh you have some

level of lore because you need to say uh here are the names of the gangs here is you know more or less the I mean

precisely the history of how they met Etc so there is some law but the law that you’re touching operates in reality

in in uh you know in in the world that exists so you can you can refrence you you’re not wondering like if you see a

McDonald in the street it’s going to be perfect you know it’s going to support your LW so like you’re really operating in a law that exists for the for the

most part uh same with you know a war game at war or something like World War

II whatever you’re probably going to use most of like you have all the access to all the realities of of the time like uh

the uh you know the weapons the the the the language the the the different

uh protagonist that play Etc whereas with Dishonored we reinvented

practically absolutely everything I was joking with Harvey that maybe we should not reinvent a device for the fork for

example like you know there’s a fork on the table let’s just call it a fork right we don’t need to but uh we went

really wild on uh on Reinventing absolutely everything we could like you know the type of Elixir to heal the type

of technology to you know everything was reinvented so this one was very very low focused uh prey a little less yes but

still pretty much too but not as much now the new game we’re working on just

as much at this honor unfortunately or fortunately I don’t know depends for who yeah for you maybe a bit painful but

hopefully for the player they’re goingon to love it right yeah but it’s painful but it’s also so cool when you pull it

off at the end and you know you really feel like that that kind of like nice balance between what’s what’s uh um

familiar understood but at the same time uh different is uh you know is very hard

to achieve because you could go way too early in and nobody understands you or you can just go banal and and then

there’s nothing special about it so it’s it’s difficult to find that balance yeah I feel like what you mentioned before

like those Monument games half lifee 2 I would say like fortnite’s one of them it’s usually a variation of something

before and they’ve combined then they’ve become something new so I think like you said trying to make something completely

different be ahead of your time bit painful um for the player and this way we can hopefully get the best of both

world something Innovative but possible to create you at Arcane was President CEO

and co-creative director and now at warfire you’re also very similar situation like you are the creative

director and president and I’m thinking like with Arad as well when I was a

recruiter we were working with them and the CEO at the time was also very involved in the creative situation now

he’s you know stupped down as CEO and he’s been the creative director and then

there’s a new CEO but you kind of still have a situation where you’re president and also co-creative director and you’ve

done that for 20 years so how does that work like what are the different roles and how do you balance them yeah so it’s

a little different this this time because uh at Arcane I was the the CEO

and creative director until we sold to Bethesda and then I became the

president uh but I was still uh also acting as somehow CEO of Arcane whereas

this CA in this case with wari uh I I have a CEO this is Julian RI

who was my who was my intern at uh at Arcane he was 18 when he joined us uh

but he became so cool so strong and good at his job that eventually he’s way more

organized than I am and so for this new iteration having him as the CEO makes

much more sense and me as the president uh meaning that yes I’m I’m I’m very

aware of all the of all the uh you know the backbones of the company the the the

direction where we going the the um the strategy Etc the operations those type

of things operation Etc but I’m less on the money for example than you know he

knows where we are in the bank account it’s I don’t even know how to log into our bank system uh so he’s a little more

on the operation even though he’s creative as well by the way uh but but uh he he’s he’s more on the on the

operations and I’m more on the on the face of the company slash recruiting of

the people he’s more on make make things happen and I’m more on the uh on the on

the on the Creative Vision side you know like um um yeah but I I’d like to say

I’m more on the fun part but I think the other side is more you know it’s more fun for him yeah

exactly it’s taste buds right everyone can have the same thing so I’m guessing you prefer this format where

you kind of you’re in your lane I guess you can say like yeah I’m grateful for having someone like him that I that I

fully trust 100% like 100% And and that you know sometime we take this for granted uh but when you have a business

partner where you know the business part doesn’t have their own agenda trying to like steer the boat somewhere or whatever it’s it’s really cool we we we

both go exactly in the same direction it allows me to relax more into the part that I’m feeling more comfortable with

which is uh you know the the the creativity and the vision for the you know the culture of the company Etc

um yeah that’s that’s that’s more that’s more what I enjoy to do so it’s it’s

cool because with Arcane I was a little bit trapped into uh some stuff that you

know for many years I I did not want you know I did not necessarily want to uh uh

raise money or do things like that okay there’s driving forces that you know

makes it hard to not do that that’s very interesting I was going to ask you later on but we brought it up now it’s like

when you’re finding founding a new studio like picking the people at the start seems to be like one of the most

important decisions and you’ve kind of told this a little bit like you knew him since he was 18 he was the intern so you

had that trust and it sounds like that’s one of the most important things when you’re picking who’s going to be kind of

with you at the start of a new studio man it’s funny you talk about that because doing w f is like is like

playing new game plus it’s uh I I we are in a position

where uh we can this time start the game again but know exactly what we want and

you know we got I mean 80% of this company is for Aman people wow and the

value the value of having a team and I don’t think people realize that when you when you create a when you have a team

when you have a company um an operation in general it’s all about the people but

it’s not about the people individually it’s all about the dynamic that you’ve

created between the people this element goes extremely well with that one that without this would

not really do his thing Etc and so the value of having a team that has failed

together many times succeeded together many times uh know each other laughs about the same [ __ ] uh can scream at

each other but but with love uh is is incredible we are way way

more efficient it takes decades to create those team and the people that

I’m working with right now for the most part I’ve worked with anywhere between

10 and 20 years together wow that sounds like the biggest code so there’s a lot

of implicit communication there’s a lot of uh everybody’s an autopilot you know

uh they already know what I want before I even say it because at this point they just want it as much as I do they I

don’t have to convince them about some of the values of uh of the kind of games we do you know that usually we have to

tell people oh that’s the reason why we do this like no the team is in autopilot they know exactly what uh before showing

it to me that how I’m going to respond to things um so it’s yeah it’s very very

uh powerful effective I can imagine the

I’m just thinking for the people listening who don’t have the luxury of having a team where they’ve worked

together for 20 years straight that seems like we’ll be like yeah that’s very nice to have but how do

I have that implicit communication now is there a way to FastTrack this from my

understanding this was just through sheer osmosis through 15 years of maybe being in the same office potentially so

I’m curious like if you were trying to recreate that Vibe what would you do yeah I mean it would be like saying

how do you recreate the the the the vibe of that perfect group of friends uh you know we all have

that at some point in our lives and you in your 20s uh early 30s I’m not sure I’m not

sure exactly how old you are but uh 26 26 right so there’s this moment

where you have um you know that group that group of

friends you have where you know this girl is with that guy and then they you know there’s there’s this thing right

like there there’s incredible and it took years it took like 10 years to make and and you know each other Etc you

can’t recreate that it’s just an iterative process where the the one who stick to the culture stick and then the

other ones move move away and then some new ones that are just appropriate to come in and and and that that really

cool Dynamic that’s it’s the same with companies I think with uh you you sometimes have that magic or or band you

know you have that magic where everything is just perfect and uh you can’t create that you can’t buy that

that’s why that’s why it’s always funny to me funny in a single way when you

have those big groups full of money that come to a city and they say

triple the salary we’re going to open our Studios hire anyone hire the best

ones I have stories Rafael I have stories from the recruitment perspective speaking to the people and exactly what

you said like they come in usually foreign make the studio

pay triple the salaries there it’s like all right recreate what you did at King like okay and then it doesn’t work for 3

years I don’t know we try again elsewhere close the studio like yeah so

much pain and thank God frankly because I I’m glad it’s like this

because at least there’s some justice it it means otherwise that money would really buy anything but it

can’t some of it you just can’t rely on money to have it it’s uh [Music]

yeah the human the the human aspect is important and sometimes it’s just yeah it’s just no way to buy it yeah I think

you need that passion I think founder-led Studios I feel like that has its own special section like if it’s a

Founder Le Studio you have that Vision um I was again I’m just trying to make

it something that we can kind of hopefully touch on advice wise like you mentioned how do you build a group of

friends and I’m thinking okay if you were really trying to like from the sound of it you kind of need a core

group first if you wanted to build that Core group and then only then you can hopefully build on it and then get a

company a band group of friends yeah yeah it’s going to definitely rely on a on a on a group of

like four five six very very strong personalities or something

that you know there’s some sort of a dynamic that works really well between them and and the interesting thing and

you see this even in um you know you see this in some shows like

some TV shows like Silicon Valley or something and of course it’s it’s it’s a dramatization it’s it’s but but you see

different elements with different strength and sometime you go like but everybody think like this one person is

is doing everything or is is like the the mind but really it’s the other one that is more shy or or like more quirky

that actually without that person this other person would not be as good as as everybody thinks right so it’s really a

team thing it’s it’s a dynamic between a certain amount of people uh that’s why taken in

individually you know you might have this amazing uh uh artist lead artist or

something that also needs is is kind of like this other assistant that they used to work with that somehow even though in

absolute value on the paper is not as high somehow was bringing something to

that person my point is there is something about osmosis between between things between uh between personalities

between people that go beyond uh a resume or that go beyond um um you know

the the the the the character sheet that you on on Oran

game I’m thinking about this and you don’t have to answer this but I’m curious this osmosis do you think that’s

possible to do from scratch remotely oh remotely uh well

I don’t know I don’t have that experience so far I’ll have to say uh right now our company is very um um a

remote we have people from everywhere but it’s people that we’ve worked with

physically before for the most part I mean there are some there are some new elements

that we’ve we’ve integrated remotely uh that never worked at Arcane

before and that are a good fit so we’ll see it’s possible I think it’s

possible um yeah it probably is possible but

man I I do I do uh I do miss the time of uh offices off his space and and going

out to lunch together and you know because it’s it’s in between the meetings that the true meeting

happen yep I noticed that at conferences as well like the real business at least for me always at the parties or in

between the actual meeting I’m curious like for you guys if you’re fully remote at woli do you have regular

meetups like some studios do even if they’re fully remote how often do you have them what does that look

like uh we used to have two or three per year now we have one per year because simply because we are so we’re more

we’re bigger now than we’ve ever were uh we’ve got 55 people so but we choose you

typically we choose a destination that is fun like our next one is going to be Brazil nice and uh yeah we we fly

everybody and uh and have uh yeah have some some meetings in a hotel and

swimming pool and and so that yeah it’s a good moment to

celebrate our our partnership and a collaboration uh and at the same time

work and we do that yeah about once a year at this point I’m just curious um of the setup

here because I’ve heard of a few different ones like some people do where they have like the all work together and

then they spend the evenings together and they do this for a whole week some of them it’s a bit more chills like Hey we’re going to basically have a vacation

and there’s going to be some web seminars and like talks for the week but there kind of like not doing your actual

work week and some of them it’s like we’re just going to all work together for a week well we had different

versions of that I think like the ones the ones you’re referring to and the ones I was actually uh talking about

like we we call it the wolf gon so this one is a very specific format we go to a

uh either big rbnb I mean it used to be B rbnb now it’s big hotel and uh we have

a few conferences where we um uh we you know there’s a few presenters that are

going to talk about uh some you know for example the current version of the story or whatever uh to everybody in the room

um and it’s and that’s it and the rest of the time is uh

fun and lack of vacation frankly but then we also have the meetings where uh

at Alpha for example we’re going to fly some people in Austin because I have an office there uh we have office space

there and then 10 or 15 of us are going to work together non-stop for for two

weeks or something you know oh nice to like the good old

times make it happen put it fit it in the Box uh so you know we we do have

those bursts uh sometimes or sometimes we also have me going to France for a

week to and you know trying to work on

spe on a specific thing very closely with the level designers because we are at the stage where we need to uh

reorganize the the you know the mission flow whatever um so we do have all of that so all in all we do we do meet um

you know regularly somehow some of us anyway not everybody but there there a

few people that travel quite a lot I like that a lot actually I’m thinking if I was doing a wants to do

like that two week Sprint you mentioned like you can get a lot of Osmosis done in two weeks yeah you can and then again

and then you keep the momentum because it’s a lot of it is synchronizing between people and then like you go off

and at least you know what you’re doing yeah because I’ve had Jeremy Stein on a previous episode and everyone he’s just

founding a new studio he used to work um at it was on fool guys and then cybo but

a lot of his founding team is people he’s worked with for 10 plus years and he feels like that is one of the biggest

reasons why he can have that kind of remote start but if I were to do that again or if I was a studio founder or

some reason then that two we Sprint because I want to take advantage of Global Talent like why wouldn’t you then

yeah getting that two we Sprint it’s just yeah and also like you said I like the office Vibe I want those memories

you know like everyone just running around like H like at least for me it seems like a good memory to have

true lovely so just closing off now just curious about wolfi you mentioned you

have a game coming up um what is the story of wolfi why is it called wolfi like what is the what is

wolfi well there’s always been some sort of Wolf theme in in you know um this

it’s my band with Wolves yeah um wolfy yeah it’s just it’s just a just a name I

know there’s not necessarily tons of tons of reasons behind it um but the

next game so we are about 55 people at this point we’ve teased the internet

before with what we’re doing so we’re doing a you know it’s it’s a first person uh ritual sci-fi

RPG and uh I I do believe that the fans

of the games that we’ve done before while at Arcane are going to be uh very happy to uh to to see when when they see

the the the the games you know uh but anyway our next

step at this point is to um find a publisher so that’s going to be um

that’s going to be our next um business effort is going to be focused on planning a publisher so we are going to

the Gamescom with our um you know their material to show and um hope hope for

the best nice amazing and I know a few Publishers so guys have a hopefully

they’re listening and yeah Gamescom we’re going to party at Gamescom I assume um naturally we have to that’s part of

the yeah get get all the Publishers in a room like hey look at the game that’s that’s the way to do it

nice Rafael word of advice to Founders you’ve done it twice now and over 20

plus years if you’re finding a if you’re founding a new game what was one thing you would tell

them yeah I would say the world is different now than it was when I did it uh so you have different advantages and

different uh difficulties um one of you know the the advantage is that

today you could make a game with five to 10 people if you are if you

can if you have the the not even the money but if you can if you can spare you know like your on your lifestyle if

you can if you can really be lean and maybe still living with your parents I mean say you’re anywhere between 15

years old and 22 23 or whatever if you manage to gather people that are just as motivated as you are which is rare

because a lot of people will say they want to do things but uh eventually they they when when it comes to time to

actually doing it they they are feeling more like distracted or lazy or whatever it’s takes an incredible amount of drive

it takes this needs to be the thing you want the most uh in life at the moment

where you are in life that it’s got to be you got to have you you need to want to see this come out right this game

that you have in mind to be a to have a chance to succeed at it because otherwise it’s so hard it takes a long

time there’s no instant gratification for it it takes two three four five years uh of very very hard work a lot of

doubts it’s a very lonely road but assuming you have that in you and you find other people that are that have

that too then the benefit is that you could use unreal five uh download the the the

SDK and uh learn everything you need to learn assuming you’re you’re you’re fairly technical or artist or whatever

you have that little team they all the tutorial online on YouTube Etc you can absolutely do everything uh the biggest

problem after that is going to be discoverability which is not something we used to have before in in the in the

90s in the 2000s uh there were so many Gatekeepers uh from the Publishers to

the to the people who give money to to the to the press that uh um being

discovered uh was was hard but once you were then you had you had all eyes on

you right uh now uh so it back then what was hard was

to convince people that you could make a game now it’s hard is not that is to

reach reach to the to the to the public uh so I don’t know Tik Tok I don’t do

that today no I think more seriously you uh you do you do an early access uh and

you slowly build your community and you slly be interest for your game uh at first you are where you are in life you

know you’re not famous uh you can’t hire big people that are famous uh because

they won’t come to you they so you have to do with what you have and that’s the rule of the of the game since this game

exists uh the game of doing business you know it’s always been the same you gotta it’s hard at the very beginning you gota

you got to go through a lot of Hoops and being be consistent a hard worker honest

uh and then and then it’s not a matter of luck because if you constantly hit

you know you’re honest you’re passionate about what you do there’s a moment where it’s not luck anymore you know the

things are aligned and you go through yeah it’s like a matter of time I wrote about this like luck is like

fishing if you cast a bigger and bigger net then eventually the fish are going

to go in but if your net is Tiny yes you could get lucky but the only thing we

can control is how big the fish net is is and if like you said check the boxes you you’re honest you actually keep like

you kind of put bashing your head against the wall is one way to say but just keep fishing and then you can

complain about the weather but you can’t change the weather so we just need to keep fishing keep showing up and then

eventually fish come I like I like that I like the fishing and allery tree that’s good one lovely rapael where

should people find you what do you people if anyone’s listening what should people check out

uh well I’m on I guess I’m on Twitter and Instagram even though I don’t I don’t post uh like a madman but uh but I

would like to plug my band uh weird wolves uh we are you know I’ve I’ve I’ve

done some of the musics for Dishonored and prey and weird West uh with the band

so and and people people like those those those songs uh that they that were in those games so please yeah come and

check us out weird wolves this one uh find us on Spotify follow

us and uh yeah add our playlist you know there’s a there on on my main profile on on weird wolves there’s a there’s

there’s a playlist that that has all our songs there support us if you like us

yeah listen to the music and then yeah if you hate it if you hate it don’t you know that’s if you hate it send Rafael a

personal email no I’m kidding so we have yeah weird weird wolves. comom it’s

literally exactly that they have all the links to what we just said and fantastic rapael thank you so much for joining the

show yeah thank you so much it was a very fun fun conversation