Introduction
It's now time for the response to Erik's questions set by you, the community.
So, you said that you like cooking... What meal is you specialty?
Creole Cuisine in general, the secret of cooking is to know your ingredients and blend them together like a painting, ever flavor and color at the right time.
Can you give some examples of what your work is? Working on marketing? Things like making commercials etc
Well, marketing is to prepare a product for a market, reach out to the customer and give the customer the feeling that the product is “need to have” item. Advertising means to tell the customer what the product is about and create even more of a sense of desire for the product.
I start out very unromantic and neutral by analyzing the market the core customers and the competition; then I take those ingredients and cook a fine marketing meal out of it.
And for desert, there’s the merchandising
But No, I don’t make commercials, I see to it that good agencies and Film production companies make then as good as it possibly gets.
As a producer, do you have any creative input or hands on creation of things in the game?
Yes; to a certain extent, but I try to keep it in the background.
My responsibility lies more in controlling quality and enabling artists and directors to achieve the quality. It’s a team effort and a producer tries to reduce the Ego.
How many months before releasing a game do you start working on the merchandizing and marketing stuff?
This is not bound to a date, you start planning and thinking about merchandising and marketing from the beginning on. It’s just not a huge load of stuff in the beginning of a game production, as the project grows and more elements of the game are being created and the story progresses you try to come up with ways and details to reveal and a timeframe in which this can happen. At some point of course if a release date is set, you start planning to this point.
Do you feel the original Crysis could have had more promotional material circulated?
I don’t think Crysis was short on promotion.
I was not involved in the project back then but I think the hype that was created was to focused on the technical superiority and the fact that you would need a new super computer to play it, well I had a two year old PC at that time, and it played Crysis fine, not on high spec but still looking better than any other game on the market, and most important, IT WAS F***ING AWESOME FUN
What's your favorite project you've worked on in the past?
Past – Present – Future
CRYSIS 2
Ever thought/were asked to participate in a horror movie?
YES, I was involved in a few SF and horror projects, the last time I got in contact with the genre I was asked to direct a Vampire film in France, but the production company didn’t pursue the project further. This happens a lot in the film industry.
Do you think sex sells? (even though Crytek have a sex-free history) [GTAIV 18+]
I know that Sex sells, but you need a franchise or a story that fits, or sometimes a product isn’t good enough and needs a sales boost. Crysis is a great game, it doesn’t need Sex to sell it.
Is that a question?
If it is, and I guess you just want to know when we release Crysis2
I honestly don’t know an exact date, we are trying to create the best game ever, and this, you can’t just nail to a date and yell it out to everybody, what if we think we need another month to make it even better, everybody would be disappointed by us not keeping the promised date, but no one recognizes the fact that we are doing this to give you fans out there an even better game, once we are certain to what date we can give you guys the best possible Crysis2, we will tell you.
What exactly does your job involve?
I can only give a few examples, since the job is rather organic in nature and it involves many things and sometime unexpected tasks are added.
I produce results, this means I create a framework in which a creative team can go about their creativity and doesn’t need to worry about anything other than creating. I oversee this process and jump in whenever there’s the need for anything the team needs help with.
And if I do my job right the team creates a great game, and if not it’s my fault, sometimes life isn’t fair, but that’s the way it is.
When working on design, whether it's sound or other, do you ever use a MAC? Or is your work strictly Windows PC based?
Basically everything is Windows based, even though some people including me also work on a MAC when necessary, but in a company the size of CRYTEK it is very important to have a consistent network. We have an awesome IT department, and they need to keep the network save and running, and that is much easier with everything on running Windows.
Are you going to officially support Windows 7 and fix some issues a fair deal of Windows 7 users have been dealing with?
I know Crysis2 will run on Windows 7, but I don’t know what issues you are talking about. I trust our R&D team to take care of these things; I am not involved in the software engineering part.
Do you listen to music when working?
I listen to music whenever I get the chance to do so, but I have to be in a lot of meeting every day, when I need an acoustic coffee in the morning my favorite wakeup call is a song called COMBUSTION by a Swedish band called MESHUGGAH.
If so what type/artist do you prefer to listen to when working?
Other than that I like to listen to internet radio, mostly a station called whisperings, solo piano music, to keep me calm.
A big thank you to Erik for answering so many questions as in depth as he has. Please check back next week for another Inside Crytek Article!
-MyCrysis Team
28.10.2009
I liked this one
It's *Mac though.
28.10.2009
Nice to read, but I didn't get a hint for the release date
Btw, nice list :-O
28.10.2009
meshuggah?! helllllz yeah!
28.10.2009
@zezeri: we did got a hint, theyre not sure about a release date yet so that means: 1 theyre pretty eraly in development
or 2: they want to make it as good as possible so they will announce it like 3 months in advance,
nice interview
28.10.2009
quote:
COMBUSTION by a Swedish band called MESHUGGAH.
You may have just found a new band for me to listen to.
METAL LIVES
Thank you for answers.
28.10.2009
@tostie
Yeah, I know. But I thought because he was doing merchadinse and stuff that they aren't far away from release. Also I don't think they are to early. The've already had about 2 years time ..
29.10.2009
"Past – Present – Future"?
Each interview reveals the stupidly tiniest amount of awesome info for Crysis 2!
Or maybe it's Crysis2, like all the interviewees are calling it.
MyCrysis Inside Crytek - Erik Staub - Community Answers!
It's *Mac though.
