Passion for games launches Gearbox, career

Tag : gearbox

Just ask co-founder, chief executive and president Randy Pitchford,who was studying law in California and working as a professionalmagician when his girlfriend (now wife) encouraged him to followhis passion for gaming.

"It never occurred to me that that could be a career,"Mr. Pitchford said during an interview at Gearbox's high-riseoffices.

"I wasn't even sure how the things I bought from the storesactually came to exist. I always thought maybe there was a factorysomewhere with Oompa-Loompas in it or something."

Mr. Pitchford, an amateur game programmer at the time, sent resumesto several game studios.

Two responded: LucasArts, George Lucas' video game company inCalifornia; and 3D Realms in Dallas.

Impressed by 3D Realms' previous games and its profit-sharing -- acompensation system later copied at Gearbox -- Mr. Pitchford cameto Texas.

After cutting his teeth at 3D Realms, Mr. Pitchford and hispartners founded Gearbox in 1999.

The company soon was working on some of the most prestigiousfranchises in gaming, such as the PC version of the sci-fi shooterHalo for Microsoft.

"The reason we're big, relative to game developers, is becausewe're hungry," Mr. Pitchford said. "There's a lot ofstuff to do, and we just can't do it quickly enough."

Gearbox has several titles in the oven, in addition to Hell'sHighway .

There's Samba de Amigo, a dancing and music game for the NintendoWii, as well as a shooting game based on the classic sci-fi movieAliens, and an all-new game called Borderlands.

But Mr. Pitchford's contributions to those games are moremanagerial -- he's listed as executive producer in the credits --and he's excited to be directly involved in the company'sas-yet-unrevealed next game.

"The next project is something I'm actually directingmyself," he said. "I'm more involved in the design, thedirection and the actual execution of what we're doing on theground, and I have to, or I'll go crazy."

For all his passion for games, though, Mr. Pitchford said he's abusinessman first.

"Are we in the business of art or the business ofentertainment?" he asked.

"We view our duty as entertainers. So when we think about whatwe're doing, we start with this objective: We want to reach a lotof people and we want them to be gratified by what we offer."

Mr. Pitchford does believe that games can be art.

But while titles such as Ico or Psychonauts are definitely art, hesaid, the relatively meager sales of those games seems to indicatethat developers who pursue their visions without sufficient regardfor what gamers want have a tough time being successful.

Often, game developers who create purely expressionistic games arefooled into thinking that the tiny cadre of gaming fanatics whopopulate game blogs and message boards are representative ofmainstream buyers.

"Those of us that are really in tune with it, the hard-corepeople in the industry, those of us that consume a lot of it, thatare just dying for something fresh, we actually applaud and getexcited about those things that feel more like expression,"Mr. Pitchford said. "But if you're a business, you have to bein entertainment.

"If you have the objective of entertaining someone else,there's actually a business model that can be associated withthat."

It's a business model that has worked for Gearbox, which has soldaround 10 million copies of its games worldwide and has several jobpostings on its Web site.

In fact, Gearbox has a simple three-word motto printed on itsbusiness cards: Happiness. Creativity. Success.

That's why, when Mr. Pitchford and the rest of the Gearbox crew sitdown to brainstorm their next game, any concept has to clear a highbar before it can be considered "awesome."

"The way I'm oriented, and the way a lot of us are oriented atGearbox, is that 'awesome' has to include the promise that webelieve is the promise people want to hear," he said.

"The word awesome has to include the belief that there's anaudience."

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