TGR: Where did your career start, and what would you recommend to people who want to get into the industry or even want to start a studio.

RM: Well I am from a Medical Doctor background, as is Greg. We loved games, but we never even talked much about forming a studio. We just had lunch one day, and we have been playing games all of our life and all through med school. Well, we both were practicing at that point. I did emergency for a while, and he did geriatric stuff. We always kind of talked about our favorite games. It was like, "Why don’t we just take whatever money we have made as doctors and put it all into a studio and just start it up." So within an hour basically it was like, “Yes, that is a good idea.” We didn’t think about it much actually, which is probably good in retrospect.

We went with our passion, and actually, the great thing is that we hired great people. And a lot of the people stayed with us over years, and with our first two games, not a single person on the team had ever made a game before Litchi Steel and Motorskate. We had 60 people, and not one had ever worked on any game, and some of the guys had never even used computers before. Our lead designer was at a comic book store, he was the best DM in his hometown for D&D. We had heard, “Hey he is a sharp mind, he has a lot of promise.” Another guy was a tech artist that carved ducks that had never used a computer before, and we figured that he had 3D skills, maybe he can translate that. So a lot of inferring about the quality of the people.

I think the key is that if you want to start out and be successful, you have to recognize it is a team effort. If you get good people around you, and you treat them with respect, they will do amazing things. Let them do their craft, do not micro-manage them. Give them goals and broad ambitions, and then let them fulfill those, because they are always going to exceed every expectation you give them. I think if you give them the freedom and the runway to do some amazing things, they can. And you know, if you have to have the fun in the process and play all of your own games before the ship to find the bugs and give some feedback and see some of that stuff actually make it into the game, well that is fine too.

That’s the fun part of the day for me, when I actually attend a triage or something and just kind of sit in the corner and maybe once every 20 minutes, I say something. It might get used or maybe it won’t. It is a matter of talking through the ideas, so if it is not a good idea, then it will not get used, basically.

TGR: What is your favorite game of all time?

RM: Well, there are five. It is probably System Shock 1. It came in 1993 or 1994, and it was a very hard game to play. It was a looking glass, and some of the stuff you have seen in BioShock and with Ken Levine’s team, which is actually in my top favorite 10 games as well. So it is like a cluster of some of them. Ultimate Underworld is up there. Woodrick 1 is probably my second or third favorite game. It was released in 1981 or 1982 or something like that on the Apple 2. But System Shock came in 1993 or 1994, I think. I played it four times start to finish. It is not a game I necessarily recommend people copy, as it is actually really hard to play, but its depth was groundbreaking. Full 3D world, with this nuanced kind of storyline, and this incredible villain that you empathized with, even though you did not like the villain. There was a lot of complexity and depth in that universe, and you are always on this trail of voice recordings. I am one step behind, and I have to save them. If you are one step behind, you have to save them. Great progression systems, great music, and very great example of a craft I think.

TGR: Well, thank you so much for your time.

RM: Thank you.