General: Interview With Mark Kern - News Discussion - General Discussion

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GFulls 4/13/07 8:12:55 AM

Novice Member

Joined: 7/29/04
Posts: 476

Mark Kern of Red 5 Studios talks with MMORPG.com. See what Mark has to say about his past, present, and upcoming future with Red 5 Studios.

Mark Kern was the Team Lead on Blizzard's gargantuan hit, World of Warcraft. Now, he is the President and CEO of Red 5 Studios. In this interview, Mark answers Garrett Fuller's questions about his past, future, and the direction of the MMO industry.

MMORPG.com: Great to talk with you Mark. Can you tell us how you got started in video games and more importantly MMOs?

Mark Kern: I wrote my first computer game on a TRS-80 computer so I've been at this for some time now! I knew I always wanted to make games, but it wasn't until college that I started to think about online games. I played a commercial mud called Gemstone on the Genie bulletin board service back when you paid $5/hour to play. I was absolutely hooked, and nearly flunked out of school until one day I quit cold turkey. But even though I had quit, I kept thinking about designing the ultimate text-based MMO. Things have changed now, but I'm still trying to create teams and make the best games possible. And if you look very, very closely, you'll see some Gemstone influence in World of Warcraft today.

Read the entire Interview here.

Itzcoliuhqui 4/13/07 9:04:24 AM

Novice Member

Joined: 10/31/03
Posts: 94

Blinded and cast down from the heavens, Itzcoliuhqui strikes out randomly at his victims.

MMORPG.com:

Some people say there are too many MMOs; others think the market is only beginning. How do you believe these games will grow in a very competitive platform?

Mark Kern:

Take a look at Asia, where the dominant form of gaming is online. I think there is tremendous opportunity to grow in the market in North America and Europe, but we are going to have to stop making the same game over and over. The current rage seems to be to use a movie or book license to gather support and minimize risk, which is the wrong way to do it. We have to recognize that most narrative driven IPs are very, very ill-suited to open-world, thousand-hero MMOs. We also have to realize that people playing MMOs have stopped watching television and are now deriving their entertainment from these much more powerful and immersive games. Games are going to be the leading source of IP in the future, especially worlds created around MMOs.

Just something I enjoyed reading.

The Anti Social Gamer

Ugottawantit 4/13/07 1:49:16 PM

Novice Member

Joined: 7/17/04
Posts: 114

Looks like it's gonna be sci-fi to me from the artwork on their website. http://www.red5studios.com/ Which will be a welcome change imo. Tabula Rasa isn't going to be a persistent world and I'm already sick of Startrek and Stargate and CCP.

This looks promising

Dristol 4/13/07 4:46:46 PM

Apprentice Member

Joined: 3/12/07
Posts: 55

Great article.

"We recently hired Scott Youngblood, the lead designer of the Tribes series, and he's very excited because he's always wanted to work on a massive online game."

The Tribes series was one of the most innovative games in the history of FPS, I can't wait to see what these guys announce.

altairzq 4/13/07 9:50:07 PM

Hard Core Member

Joined: 7/05/04
Posts: 2076

$$$OE$$$
"We got your game"
(and we screwed it)

Smaller time play to achive goals and cross platforms which means more simplification, not a MMORPG I want to play really.

Deathpooper 4/13/07 11:52:55 PM

Apprentice Member

Joined: 8/06/06
Posts: 276

Have all original WoW devs left already?

shrekn 4/14/07 2:18:26 AM

Novice Member

Joined: 10/13/04
Posts: 20

As soon as Hell and heaven aca diablo3 comes out i leave WOW. As he saied it is getting old because the system is built up that all the surroundings in game are static, it dose not envolve or change because of your actions, but that is a big part in the next-gen mmo's. First will of this kind leader will be SGW, as they pay much attention to make the game dynamic,always changing.

xfire
sgw-fansite

Kryogenic 4/14/07 12:58:52 PM