Our first questions were about what happens to the current Sir-tech games--Jagged Alliance 2 and Wizardry 8. Both are still being developed Sir-tech Canada, he told us, which is a strictly separate entity from Sir-tech Software; the former is a developer with different ownership, the latter is a publisher owned by he and brother Norman, and it is Sir-tech the publisher that is closing its doors.
Sir-tech Canada has said that work continues on both Jagged Alliance 2 and Wizardry 8. Jagged Alliance 2 is said to be about 90% complete, scheduled for early next year, and in search of a publisher.
More mysterious is the fate of Wizardry 8. While the developers have said that the game is still being worked on, and that it is in search of a new publisher for its fall 1999 release, nothing specific was mentioned about the Wizardry franchise itself.
When we asked Robert Sirotek about the status of the whole Wizardry franchise, its trademarks and its backlog, he became a bit reticent. He did say that Sir-tech Canada does not hold those rights, that they were merely doing one game--Wizardry 8--for the Siroteks, but when we pressed as to whether another publisher had picked up the Wizardry franchise, he said only, "Perhaps or perhaps not. I can't speak about that subject right now." He did add that it wasn't GT Interactive, however, contrary to reports published elsewhere.
At any rate, once we went over the fate of the games, we then spoke about the state of the industry as a whole, and what he thought may have went wrong, what he and his brother Norman might have done better, and where he thinks the games business is going.
IGNPC: Has the shutdown of Sir-tech the publisher been a long time in coming?
Robert Sirotek: Yeah, I'd say so. The state of affairs in the industry at large has not exactly been healthy, and if the industry were a little more mature, and people conducted their business affairs in a more responsible fashion, we may have decided to proceed. But we didn't think the industry was ready for that, and we didn't think we were ready for the crapshoot out there, so we closed it.
IGNPC: Did you ever consider giving up publishing and just concentrating on becoming a developer?
RS: The company really never was involved in internal development, it worked with a series of external developers. Some time ago we gave it some thought but felt that it was important that the focus of the company remain on publishing, and not be distracted by development initiatives. For that reason that we didn't pursue it.
IGNPC: So what are you and your brother going to do now? Do you have any interest in still being involved with computer games?
RS: I don't know. I can't speak for my brother in terms of what he will do, but I am looking forward to taking stock in my situation over the next several months and planning what I want to do. Obviously, if there is a right opportunity that comes along I may take it, but I think it will really have to be a good opportunity to convince me to stay in it. It's a lot of work, it requires a lot of effort to do well at it.
I have just recently been given a new daughter, and I'm very much enjoying her, and I don't know that I want to go through the aggravation and the hassle of the last eighteen years all over again for something that may not be all that prosperous or all that solid. So I really don't know what I want to do.
IGNPC: Do you have enough to take some time off or retire?
RS: I don't think I'll retire, but I have a little bit of breathing room to take stock of my situation.
IGNPC: When you look back at some of the companies that started as the same time as Sir-tech--like Ken Williams' Sierra On-Line or Richard Garriott's Origin--do you think that maybe you should have sold at some point? Any second-guessing, things you'd have done differently?
RS: You know, to look back at the water under the bridge is always something one should reflect on. I have no regrets for doing what we did. We had a wonderful opportunity to see the world and make friends with people from all over the world. We have watched a fledgling little cottage industry, literally from garage shops, grow into a multi-billion dollar industry. To watch that unfold has been a truly and absolutely unusual experience.
Should we have sold years ago? I don't know. I mean, I'm an entrepreneur. Norman's an entrepreneur. We have that entrepreneur flair, and we're ready and willing to take reasonable risks, and we felt all along that our risks did not surpass the opportunity for reward.
At this stage in the industry, and with the ruthlessness of certain players out there, and their total disrespect for people and relationships and contracts, I'm really not sure that it was worth it anymore. And so I don't leave this industry remorseful, I leave it somewhat disappointed that it had to come to this state of affairs, because I think in the end who will lose is the consumer.
All that there will be money for are really just hack job products, if you know what I mean. You're not going to see mega-dollar projects, because the price of software has just got to a point where it costs too much in terms of what you're going to get back in terms of the unit sales.
IGNPC: It's too expensive to innovate?
RS: It's getting exceedingly expensive, and people's wish lists continue to skyrocket.
I think what you need to see in this industry is consolidation. I think you're going to need to see a top three or a top six publishers, and I just hope that they're responsible enough to be able to provide proper funding to quality developers that have the vision and the background in the industry to be able to innovate in a way that makes people laugh or cry on the computer.
That's one of the reasons why we got into this, but it just stopped becoming fun, and we just don't think that the future, at least in the next three or five years, bodes very well for independents, and I honestly do believe that consolidation needs to occur in order to see less product coming on the market, but of that, more innovative product.
IGNPC: You don't think small or middle-tier companies like Bethesda or Interactive Magic will make it?
RS: I don't have an optimistic view of it. Bill Stealey [head of Interactive Magic] is a wonderful guy and I do know him personally. He's the kind of guy that is a real innovator and a real entrepreneur, and I'm sure that he'll do what he needs to do to survive. That's his nature.
I wish them all the best, I wish all my peers and colleagues the best. But I personally don't think that second-tier companies are going to survive, you know. If you look at other industries, the automobile industry, the record industry, that's what happens. You have a weeding out to the big three. That's the rules.
IGNPC: When you talk about players in the industry that don't respect contracts or don't play by the rules, are you talking about distributors, retailers--are they the biggest problem for small publishers?
RS: Definitely. I think that retailers today aren't making money on software sales, they're making money on marketing programs that are shoved down your throat. I think that's very onerous, and a very dangerous path for this industry to proceed down.
Retailers are in a good position--they not only carry games, they carry lots of different things--productivity, business software, hardware, and all sorts of things. They can dictate.
And for now, I suppose until [game publishers] consolidate down retailers will dictate. But the pendulum will swing to a more moderate center line, eventually.
IGNPC: Do you think online commerce will change the balance?
RS: I think so, but I think online commerce has quite a bit further to go before you're going to see it really have impact. And even still, how are you going to get your message out? You still need to advertise, right? So still, whatever you do, will be a very costly affair to get your message out, entice consumers to buy it.
Online will make it difficult. People love to touch packages and see them, and decide. Sure, downloading demos is very useful as a practice, and we did that, but it doesn't always convert to a sale.
IGNPC: When do you think the games business turned from being a relatively friendly, cottage industry to today's cutthroat marketplace?
RS: Towards the latter part of the 1980s I saw the industry getting more difficult. It was really around the time the first wave of Hollywood companies got in and, much to my satisfaction, departed.
The second time around was in the early 90s, when the same group of Hollywood companies came in with big money. This time they did far more damage; they stuck around a little bit longer, but most left as well.
IGNPC: Did they raise the bar in terms of marketing budgets, production budgets?
RS: It isn't as simple as that. I think that a lot of things messed it up. I think that in '92, this is when you began to see real problems emerge.
I personally misgauged mass merchants, the ramifications of them getting into the marketplace. A number of the well-known mass merchants out there embarked on a policy of requiring publishers to pay huge, huge money to be granted shelf space. And that's fine, we played ball on that basis.
Because at first, in the early 90s, a number of them kept your products on the shelf for a good six months before they began complaining about a sales slowdown or whatever. And at least that six-month gap gave publishers a chance to coordinate their marketing initiatives, their advertising campaigns, their mailings--all of this stuff that can never be timed precisely.
And we found last Christmas that many of these same mass merchants, who were willing to give you six months back in 1992, now would only give you three weeks to a month at best. You had to coordinate all these initiatives, create demand, and see your product sell in exceptional quantities within that month before these people said either mark it down or take it back. It's very difficult to operate in that environment.
Some of them in fact refused, even after we paid for the buy-ins--the tens of thousands of dollars we paid in August for shelf space for products due in October--these retailers cut their orders in half and didn't go as deep as we had anticipated.
That's what I mean by disrespectful. They have no concept of relationships. They just do what they think is best in their own short-term interest and that's the end of it. I don't think that's a healthy way to proceed for this industry.
So it's for these and other reasons, that unless you have the huge energy mass of an Electronic Arts, to be able to dictate policy to these people, it's really a losing game.
IGNPC: Would you like to say something to all the gamers who have played the Wizardry series over the years?
RS: It's been a hell of a rush and thank you very much! And I think I can speak for Norm in that respect as well. It's been really grand, we appreciate all of our fans and all the e-mail we've been getting, there's been just a general outpouring of sympathy for us due to the situation.
IGNPC: I want to thank you for your time as well, and for all the games. Believe it or not, the first computer game I ever bought was Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. And now this.
RS: Wow. Well, you never know, perhaps our paths will cross again.
-- Jason Bates
