From Mod to Retail: Tripwire Interactive Builds Videogame Business on Old Blueprint (You Can Too)

People often ask me “how do I get into the videogame industry?” Having entered only three years ago, I try to formulate a response concocted from two parts quotes I’ve read and heard, mixed with one part my own story and experiences. I feel it’s a winning combination – chewy, spicy, and textured enough to reveal new flavors upon repeated tastings. If you possess the necessary cooking skills (any kind of industry experience), give the recipe a try. But keep in mind, the better you know your audience the better the dish.

Budding audio engineers, mixers, masters, noise makers, and sound mavens comprise most of mine. I know these guys and gals, and not only from inhabiting their school as a teacher. I once wore their shoes. As a student here at the Institute of Production and Recording, I wanted nothing more than to make Ben Burtt’s contribution to film audio seem tiny and inconsequential compared to my involvement in videogames.

As an outsider looking in, I obsessively approached the profession of “game audio dude” from every possible angle. I applied a critical ear to every game I played, listened and watched every interview and podcast involving an industry professional, and joined any and every relevant community. I contacted people too, asking for career advice, tips, and more contacts. And then I graduated, became an employee at Activision, and subsequently discovered people would pay me to write about videogames, another lifelong dream. I may pursue the audio career path once again in the future, but right now the student body can benefit from the information I acquired.

To my young game audio kin, I often recommend joining the modding community – groups of game designers, young and old, who take existing title assets and code and add, change, or dismantle content to suit their artistic vision. Modifications may be small – a reskinned weapon or minor gameplay adjustments, and sometimes they’re much larger – former “world’s most popular online action game,” Counter-Strike,” began as a mod in 1999.

Immeasurable experience and contacts may be gained from participating in a mod’s development, regardless of the product’s ultimate quality. All that and a self-inflicted pat on the back may be all you receive for your first project, depending on distribution, popularity, and the originality of the content. Oh well.

Copyright’s a nasty, pervasive little bugger who’ll prevent the sale of mods utilizing any number of the original title’s assets. If monetary return sounds more delectable, seek employment in the development of total conversion mods, where all assets used are original and lawsuit-free. Ideally, you want to take this route. The potential’s incalculable.

In fact, the financial success of one total conversion mod, Red Orchestra: Combined Arms, warranted the opening of an entirely new development house.

After winning the “Make Something Unreal” competition, and the $50,000 prize money, the Red Orchestra developers founded Tripwire Interactive and decided to take the “franchise forward as a retail game.” According to the company site, the subsequent release “achieved both critical and commercial success garnering several awards including “Multiplayer Game of the Year” and “FPS of the Year” for 2006.

Most recently, Tripwire developed and released Killing Floor, a cooperative first-person shooter built on a “survive as long as you can” gametype and infused with qualities most often found in role-playing games, such as class-based play, leveling, and an in-game store with purchasable guns, grenades, ammo, and body armor.

Pre-sales catapulted Killing Floor to digital distribution service Steam’s weekly top ten weeks before the title’s release. On May 19, five days after the official release, weekly Steam sales charts revealed Killing Floor snagged the top spot, besting Activision’s Call of Duty: World at War and Valve’s Left 4 Dead, both triple-A blockbuster titles, but released months before. To this day, Killing Floor somehow nudges its way to Steam’s top 10 from time to time, even with dozens of highly anticipated titles making their way to the premier videogame digital distribution service.

The folks at Tripwire are a savvy bunch, obviously in tune with today’s most advanced post-release money-making tactics. Twice this year they’ve released optional downloadable character packs – “Outbreak” first on July 24, and “Nightfall” on October 22. Both cost a measly two greenbacks and inject a little extra flavor to the otherwise basic stable of military men.  Sales information on the aforementioned content’s not available, but with at least two players using a skin from either pack popping up in every game I enter, I’d bet money the return on investment leans in Tripwire’s favor.

Since transitioning from modmaker to developer and publisher, Tripwire remains connected to their roots. On December 11, 2009, Steam released a news item informing users “The first free MOD for Killing Floor, Defence Alliance 2, is now available on Steam!” and also announced “Major updates to Mare Nostrum and Killing Floor have also been released.” Like Tripwire’s original Red Orchestra, Mare Nostrum is a total conversion mod for the retail release of Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. Allowing the mod’s updates to piggyback on their own content update isn’t just a classy move, it’s a good business decision that further solidifies Valve’s, makers of Steam, positive stance on independent development. At this point, following the Modern Warfare 2 modification nonsense, calling Valve the anti-Activision isn’t a clever knee-jerk prod, it’s a vital observation.

Tripwire’s giving back to the community, too, literally. The same news item with the aforementioned information also revealed four community-designed maps for Killing Floor – all submitted for a map-making competition held by the company. The news item’s description for winner, KF-Icebreaker, fits well: “…one of the most ambitious, creative, and visually stunning Killing Floor maps ever made, Icebreaker is set on a large icebreaking ship that is pitching and rolling in the middle of a fierce storm.” And to the designer goes $10,000. Not bad for just one map.

The other finalists, KF-Departed, KF-Crash, and KF-FilthsCross, all feel appropriately distinct, offering players new aesthetics while forcing them to adopt new, level-based, strategies. The game’s not different, but there’s now more variety than ever. For that, we can thank Tripwire and the modding community.

Other companies transitioned from mod-maker to money-makin’ developer, including Splash Damage and Unknown Worlds Entertainment. Formed “by the creators of high profile free mods, such as Quake 3 Fortress,” the former developed 2007’s Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and recently announced a development partnership with Bethesda Sofworks. The upcoming first-person shooter Brink is the first game formed from the bond.

Unlike Splash Damage, Unknown Worlds continues to remain fully independent. The company’s next title, Natural Selection 2, still has yet to receive a release date. But, as a sign of good faith, they opened their doors to pre-orders months ago, from which they received over $200,000. The number’s especially startling since, at the time, few media on the game had been revealed besides a few screenshots and a brief teaser video. In an interview with Gamasutra, Unknown Worlds founder Charlie Cleveland said “pre-sales have completely changed our financial picture.” And here’s another quote from the article, including the astute, but obvious, lead-in observation by the writer Chris Remo:

“Digital distribution’s rapid growth has carved out a space for those studios that hardly existed before. ‘The model has changed so much, so quickly,’ Cleveland said. ‘Five years ago, there wasn’t a clear path for us.’”

Now there is. The game’s due to release for PC, Mac, and even Xbox 360.

As for how to enter the modding and independent game communities…let Google and intuition be your guide.

Tags: Killing Floor, mods, Tripwire Interactive

This entry was posted by Kyle Stallock on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Gaming, Multimedia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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