Toys For Bob - Developer Profile Feature

TotalVideoGames ongoing insight into the way developers work has essentially focused on independent teams. When the opportunity arrived to speak with Californian-based developer, Toys for Bob, who were taken over by Activision in May of 2005, we were more than eager. What lies in store for a developer with such a rich history and an impressive CV which could lose some of its free spirit and autonomy?

The list of games created by Toys For Bob is impressive and the company's roots go right back to 1989. Headed by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, their first success came early on with Accolade with Star Control I and II, a game that even now is regarded as one of the early iconic action/strategy titles. Toys For Bob then worked exclusively with Crystal Dynamics between 1993 and 2002; initiated when Crystal Dynamics hired both Paul and Fred and a collection of the team who still continued to work under the banner of Toys For Bob. One of their first tasks was in jointly creating The Horde (3DO), Pandemonium (PlayStation), as well as porting Star Control II to 3DO, all of which were relatively successful!

Alex Ness now producer at Toys For Bob, who has been with the company throughout their long journey, explained the merging of the two teams and the eventual breakaway in 2002 back to the original setup. "Stability was the big plus for us. Knowing we would get paid and knowing we wouldn't have to go out searching for deals once our current project was done. And once again, we liked Crystal Dynamics so the partnership worked well. The benefit on their side was that they had a very reliable, sensible, and yes, even handsome developer in us. We had a great engine for prototyping so it was very easy to communicate our games to management over there."

Moving swiftly to the present, 44 personnel now work at Toys For Bob but it would be fair to say that they have never been so large with an average of half that number over a majority of the years. Right at the start it was a mere 11 and it's interesting to note over that long period that all but one still remains within the company in what has been an eventful time. Throughout all the changes perhaps the biggest was the buyout of the company by Activision last year. Alex Ness was eager to explain more about the shift from independent developer to being part of the Activision Empire, which came with a number of positives but also one or two unanswered questions.

"The reasoning behind the Activision acquisition on our part was definitely once again about stability. Activision had published our last two titles, Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure and Madagascar, so we already had a close relationship with them. So far, not much has really changed since the acquisition. Activision is good about letting each studio maintain its original culture/personality, which we like a lot. As far as how much of a say we get, I'm not totally sure yet. I guess we'll find out when our next project is decided upon. Hopefully that will be soon."

Toys For Bob has created games on many formats, along with a number of genres from strategy to action and like to go the route of variety, never specializing too much towards any one genre - though you'll probably never see an RTS from them. Their belief is that you must have passion and understanding of the game you are creating and they are not the right people to create the aforementioned. Toys For Bob employs a game-by-game approach to their development although a conventional sports title would be a wish from Alex.

Presently Toys For Bob is working with the Neversoft engine on Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam for Activision, which means there isn't a whole lot of R&D being undertaken for this specific project, but the team does place the appropriate resources and personnel on the creation of their own tools when needed.

"You asked about there being a greater importance on technology with the introduction of Xbox 360 and PlayStation3 and I'm going to make that a separate paragraph. I guess my answer is yes. The more power and capabilities we get from hardware, the more we have to live up to the power and capabilities and that generally requires more from our technology. I think it definitely can place a burden on creativity in several ways. For one, since it takes more and more people to make these games, the budgets get higher and higher. Higher budgets mean more financial risk from publishers. And more financial risk generally means publishers are scared which often leads to less room for creativity. Secondly, as technology improves, games tend to become more realistic because, well, they can. People seem to like this but it definitely can limit creativity."

Their ongoing goal is to create and maintain a system where artists and designers are pretty much enabled to do whatever they want and try not to run too 'programmer-heavy'. The reason being that if a designer is going to own their level or section of the game, it makes sense to give them as much control as possible and not have them too dependant on the programming team for features. Instead, they can implement most things themselves through a powerful and easy-to-use scripting system.

Toys For Bob has been responsible for a mixture of original titles and games based on licenses, and although Activision will probably decide in which direction the team heads, it was interesting to hear Alex's views on which area is more gratifying.

"Creating a unique title is probably more rewarding but can also be a bigger pain in the ass. As I mentioned earlier, console video game budgets have really skyrocketed in the last 7 years and this leads to publishers being incredibly apprehensive about what games they put out. That's why we're so flooded with games based on licenses and sequels and sequels of games based on licenses these days. It just seems safer when you know there's a built-in audience for your game. So my point is, doing an original (aka riskier) title would mean a lot more scrutiny from the publisher because they have less reason to believe people will buy it. Plus when you do a license, certain things are already established. Like for instance, if you're building a character that already exists, you just have to make your character look like it's supposed to look. You don't have to go back and forth with focus tests and feedback from various places to finally come up with a character that 50 people can sign off on. Things like that can be a real hassle. All that said though, most people are generally going to feel more ownership to something they created themselves and that's what can make an original title so rewarding."

" '...do I believe a true successor to Star Control II will ever appear?' We'd love to do one but we just need to find a way to convince Activision it's a viable idea."

Having been around for nearly 20 years, Alex as part of Toys For Bob has seen many changes and commented that the gaming scene at present isn't very pleasant which was further reinforced by, or at least, the console gaming scene what he has already touched on - bigger and bigger budgets, scared publishers, creativity inhibited, sequels and licenses everywhere.

"Over the last 10 years we have certainly seen much bigger teams, and more realism. And again, my hope for the future is that we kind of go back in time. Maybe even literally back in time. But I don't think time travel backwards is really possible anyway. I just hope that there is room on the console market for a wider variety of games that don't all have to cost over 10 million dollars to make."

The future however did look slightly rosier and there was cause for optimism which he believed can be seen with the public swinging back to being more focused on gameplay than graphics and technology, adding also mobile games and PC games they call "casual games", and increased popularity in retro games is helping. Online gaming is very attractive to the team and they hope the next title they do will feature online play and continuing the theme, with a twinkle in his eye, expressed visions of a massively multiplayer title but that was probably very, very far down the road!

Keeping an eye on other developers and their games, with a special focus on racing games, SSX 3 and Burnout Revenge have been very influential with the team, with a large contingent of people at Toys For Bob who play Bomberman for the Super NES still insatiably every day. Not only do they admire whoever made Bomberman they are also big fans of one of Activision's other studios, Vicarious Visions, because they just appear smart and level-headed.

It was perhaps understandable that the one console above all others that developers and gamers alike are raving about, and with the team already working on the Wii with Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, they believe the machine is helping create even more excitement in the gaming community.

"Well, we'll have THDJ wrapped up in the next few months and then we'll jump onto a new project. Of course, we won't be able to officially say what that project is until it's been properly announced, which will definitely happen more than 6 months from now. As I said earlier, I think the Nintendo Wii rocks. Actually, I don't know if I said that earlier. Did I? Well, it's still true. We've really enjoyed working on the Wii and expect it to really change the industry for the better. I was skeptical about their motion-sensitive controller at first but after playing with it for 5 minutes, I became a believer."

Before moving even further into the future, older gamers amongst you will have fond memories of one of the team's best selling games Star Control and whether the initiative on their website for fans to petition Activision for a sequel of the game is tongue in cheek is hard to say. (NO!!! THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT TONGUE-IN-CHEEK! THEY ARE VERY SERIOUS. SO SERIOUS THAT I WAS TOLD TO WRITE IT ALL IN CAPS by Alex) but it is an extremely enticing idea for a game that is a cult-favourite to the present day. Asked to describe the difficulties in resurrecting such a title in today's business driven market, and pressed if he believed a true successor to Star Control II will ever appear:

"The main difficulty would really be keeping the fun elements of SC2 without it appearing too low-tech to Activision and our consumers. I'm speaking of the 2D gameplay. There's really no way Super Melee mode would be nearly as much fun in 3D. That would ruin it. We could use 3D models and everything and make them look incredible but the gameplay itself would have to stay 2D. Would the mainstream video game audience go for something like that? I have no idea but God I sure hope so. That's also my same answer to the question, '...do I believe a true successor to Star Control II will ever appear?' We'd love to do one but we just need to find a way to convince Activision it's a viable idea. Oh, and we do have the rights to the Star Control universe but not the actual name itself."

For a team which has been around such a long time, just wanting to concentrate on creating games with a little more maturity and possibly less censorship, or at least, a greater acceptance of games with adult content is certainly one aspect Alex would like looked at. "I'm all for ratings and strict enforcement over said ratings but I hate the idea of games being so much more limited than other forms of entertainment, like movies, in terms of what they're allowed to show."

Before concluding with some advice to other developers on their longevity the team felt it was a sad fact that the annual get together for developers, publishers and the media at E3 will now be very limited.

"Regarding our longevity, I guess I'd say the obvious stuff: Be careful about growing too fast. Find as stable a publisher as possible. Try to create a very specified deliverable schedule with your publisher and make sure your milestones occur frequently and regularly, no less than once per month. Of course you want to make sure and hit those milestones too. Don't get too hopeful about royalties; try to budget for guaranteed bonuses instead. Watch out for big jerks. Nail down your next project as soon as possible - assuming it's just going to be a sequel of your current project is not always the safest assumption. Keep up on all the admin stuff. Hire an accountant to do monthly reports. It feels like I should end with something big but I can't really think of anything big. Maybe I'll just repeat the most important thing: Be careful about growing too fast also; oh yes I've said that!"

TVG would like to thank Alex Ness for providing this insight into the world of Toys For Bob...