Ken Whitman been in the gaming industry for well over 10 years as a designer, a player, and a president of more than one gaming company. Ken has agreed to talk about his experiences and his thoughts on the future of the gaming industry and his own future plans. Anyone for Groo? Ken's interview is another is in a series of interviews with designers, presidents, and other important people in the industry. While, we may never meet in person, the beauty of the internet, is being able to talk to other people via email. I have tried focus on current issues in the industry and issues relating to the person I am interviewing. Craig Janssen ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q. Can you tell us about yourself? A. I have been in the RPG industry since 1988, however, I started role-playing in 1981. I started out creating MUTAZOIDS after my gaming buddies told me I could never work at a game company (after all, I am dyslexic). I grew up in Brandenburg, Kentucky-also know as the RPG State (other famous Kentuckians include Larry Elmore, Fred Fields, Roger Moore, and Jeff Easly, just to name a few). I went to college at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, where I studied Graphic Design and played college football on a full scholarship. At 6'4" and 240 pounds, I was expected to go pro. However, in 1997 I blew out my knee and started a game store while attending college ( I really hated football by then, anyway). The first company I started was WHIT Production (while stil in college). Not knowing much about the printing business, my first major investor was a local printing business; because of the high cost of printing, the company failed within 6 months. Determined to succeed, I started WHIT Publications and released Ralph Bakshi's Wizards and the World Wrestling Federation Basic Adventure Game. Whit stayed around from 1989 till 1994 when my investors decided that they could run the game company better than me. So I left to work at TSR (with my new college degree that took a little under a decade to recive) as the GEN CON Convention Coordinator. Whit folded weeks later. With over 30,000+ attendees and guest such as Mark Hamill, Adrian Paul, James Doohan, Sergio Aragons, Boris Vallejo, and GWAR, I had successfully pulled one of the biggest GEN CON ever. During GEN CON I made many cool conections. However, the biggest opportunity that reveiled itself was a chance to work with Marc Miller on T4 (Traveller, fourth edition). Leaving TSR, I started Imperium Games with Marc Miller and brought in Sweetpea Entertainment to invest in the project. Everything went well until once again my investor decided he wanted to run the show. Now I started my own company once again, but this time with NO investors. Archangel Entertainment is my baby. With all my best ideas saved up, and several good friends such as Lester Smith, Don Perrin and Larry Elmore helping me out, I began a crazed attack once again in the gaming industry. Q. Can you tell us about your game design experience? A. I have been the visionary on most of the projects developed for the companies I ran. However, Mustazoids was my first true design (even though it was riddled with spelling errors. In the late eighties spell checkers were not quite as good). I also wrote Scourge for Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, and I am currently working on a new game that should see the light of day in two years or so. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I designed the GROO card game, coming out in just a few weeks. Hope you like it. :-) Q. What are your views on current state of the industry? A. The industry is fine. Card games gave the industry an influx of capital for the last five years and increased the total game market over 300%. Now that the card market is leveling out, the industry is going to have to tighten its belt and suffer through the layoffs due to overexpansion. I hate to sound cruel, but compared to the market in the early ninties (even with the leveling out of the card market) this industry is still twice as big as it ever was when RPGs were at the top of the food chain. However, I will tell you that any company/person that has a good product, good art, and the willingness to suffer through the hard times at any expense will be around forever (in one form or another). If we would pay attention to the comics market a little better, which seem to suffer the same mistakes, only five years earlier. Q. Some have said that CCGs weakened the Gaming industry. Do you agree or disagree? And why. A. For a long time it allowed every Tom, Dick and Harry a chance to start their own game company with the new influx of cash. Now the sub-standard companies are being weeded out along with the old farts not willing to accept change. Survival of the fittest, I guess. But I do feel sorry for everyone who have lost their pants (and jobs). Q. Can you tell us who else works for ArchAngel Entertainment? Lester Smith is the big game designer, having previously designed Dark Conspiracy and Dragon Dice. Lester is woking on our new cyber-hip game called ZERO. Check out the cover on the June issue of Shadis Magazine. Tony Lee is the creator of Extreeme Vengeance, at your local game store now. Tony is a native of Los Angeles and started out as a reviewer for many gaming periodicals, including Shadis and White Wolf/Inphobia. Don Perrin is our vice president of operations and has writen several novels with Margret Weis. He plans to oversee the quality of all products and you may see his name on a few future releases as well. Our writing and art stable includes Margret Weis, Larry Elmore, Jeff Grubb, Doug Niles, Slade, Duane Maxwell, Steve Miller, and any other ex-TSR person who doesn't move to the west coast. Q. Can you go into some details about some of the product lines your company is working on? Extreme Vengance is our action movie adventure game where you play action stars like Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, and Eastwood. With a quick and easy cinematic game system, players can feel like they are the meanest bastards in town. GROO: The game is our first card game with all original art by Sergio Aragones. Zero is our stab at science fiction, a modern-day version of Logan's Run wherein the player characters suddenly gain individuality in a hive collective and must escape from the ensuing onslaught - this one comes with mind-boggling, cutting edge, photo-real "art" to give the game a "cyber-hip" look. Q. Your company was recently formed? Right? It stared in January of this year, weeks after I left Imperium. Our first product, Extreem Vengeance, hit the game stores last week. Pick it up, you'll like it! Q. Do you think your company will fare well, in the current state of Gaming industry? Quite a few companies are downsizing or just disappearing, what measures does Archangel Enterinment have planned to prevent this? A. Once again I feel the market is fine, but to cope with the current retail paranoia, we plan to release the highest quality products at the lowest price. This doesn't help create a high profit margin, but it gets the product in the stores and with a little luck, re-orders within 30 days. The biggest problem any new company has is that the retailers don't want to buy a lot of products until they see it. Unfortunately, the cost of small print runs makes games too expensive to print. Thus, most new companies dont make it because they overcommit or underprint. Having learned this lesson long ago (and the fact that I know most distributors), I think we have an edge that other new companies don't have. Plus I have p----d away over $250,000 in the last ten years learning what not to do. Q. From your company's WWW pages, I take it we will be seeing more on the pages? A. We are working to have a full interactive site within the next few months, including solo Action Path adventures for your enjoyment. Check out our site right now at www.archangelent.com. Also, shoot us your comments! (Blam, Blam!) Q. Can you tell us why you formed Archangel Enterainment? A. I'm nutz! I don't know how to have a real job. Gaming is my life :-) Is that good enough? Just kidding :-). Where most of the above is true (in one way or another), I am just a very driven person and I don't know how to give up. At an early age I choose to go into this industry and I will not stop until I feel I have made a difference in the life of everyone who games. Sometimes one has to keep chugging along if he truly wants to be respected by his peers and this can take years. My motto is "Persistence to the point of success!" Q. You were with Imperium Games in the recent past, correct? A. Yes Sir. I was president for one year. I worked hand-in-hand with Marc Miller, forming the company idealogy and getting the team together to make it work. Q. Could you enlighten us to why you left Imperium Games? A. In my original negotiations with the investor I was suppose to own 51% of the company once the initial loan was paid back. However, the investor had rights to tell me where to spend the money and as time when on, I was forced to spend the profits to ensure the possibility of the game being turned into a movie or TV show, thus not being able to repay the loan. After the release of the first game, the investor and I had it out because I have put a year's work into this project (with NO pay) and I would be damned if it was going to continue this way. So I stoped production on all the books until I was bought out of the company. Within two weeks the papers were signed and Archangel Enertainment was formed. Q. There seemed to be some issues between yourself and the rest of Imperium Games before you left. Any truth to this? A. I am a simple Kentucky boy, and being from the country I was always taught to live up to your word and give more than you have to. I gave the investors at Imperium 150% and they reneged on their word and that's all I gotta say about that. However, working with Marc Miller was the best experience of my life. He is a great man and I hope he gets everything from life he asks for. I wish Imperium Games the best of luck and hope Traveller lives long enough for our grandchildren to play! Q. Can you go into some details about the GROO CCG? First of all GROO in non-collectable, When you purchase a set you have all the cards you need for 2-4 players. The expansion of 55 cards will be released at the same time will increase the game another 2 players for a 2-6 player game. GROO is a silly game. A beer & Pretzel type of fun. The game was created to simulate the chaos GROO causes in the comics. However, there are underlining mechanics that will allow for some strategy, but no one is every truly same from GROO! In the game you try to build a 7 point town and a n army to protect the town (and attack others who has a town growing way to fast). Sounds simple? Well that part is, however, one card stays on the table at all times...GROO. He wanders from town to town (the players do some of this, however, he is most maneuvered by a simple die roll at the beginning of each turn) and usually wreaks havoc. Its like a big game of HOT POTATO. Strategy exist as long a GROO is not in your town. Q. Why was GROO picked to base a Non-CCG on? The world is based on who you know and I meet Mr. Aragones while I was working at TSR. I thought that if I ever started a new company, I want to do a GROO card game. That's it. Oh, Sergio is a great man! Q. What are the differences in designing a CCG vs a RPP product? Financially cards games cost a lot to put out but reap a great profit. and RPGs cost less to put out and make a modest profit. Risk wise, card games are really risky now-a-days and RPGs are sure money (if you know what you are doing). Design wise, card games take less effort to design but require a professional designer (the mechanics show like your underwear), whereas a RPG can hide rules (like a 19th century royal dress). Q. It looks like you have a very impressive team of designers and artists working for ArchAngel. Can you tell us about some future products in the works? Right now new companies new to change quickly to survive. Anything I can tell you about nest years product, most likely will not happen. However, my new philosophy is that I only make cool games. I have some things I want to do, but I run my company where designers and artist submit ideas to me. If it sounds cool, I look at it. But here is some stuff to chew on but don't ask me anymore questions about them!-) We are working on a new game with Larry Elmore, Margaret Weis, & Lester Smith called Sovereign Stone (1998) I am designing two games Badlands (1998) & Acronoly (1999) Soverine Stone is a trademark by Larry Elmore. Badlands and Acronoly are trademarks of Ken Whitman. 1997. All rights reserved. Thanks for your comments and time, Ken.