What This Post Is and What It Is Not
I’ve spent most of my life playing video games.The history of that love affair is not the point of this post, so I’ll direct you to the Ironshef biography over on ezGamerz if you want to digest the entire back story. Instead, the point of this post is to set in writing my goal of creating The Most Ambitious Video Game of All Time. Recognizing that this goal is equal parts madness and major cojones, it makes sense in my mind to start the process of bringing some structure to my pursuit.
See, over the past several years I’ve watched the interactive entertainment industry explode, especially the massively multiplayer segment and through all of that experience I’m left with the feeling that there is something more out there. Something different that could be offered to galvanize the disparate audience segments through a single gaming environment that offers a little bit of everything.
Now, it is important to note that this idea has been rattling around my brain since the dawn of the new millennium and it is not something that I cooked up alone. Up until recently, my partner-in-crime for all-things-video-game was Ian Popeson. We’ve known each other for well over a decade and have worked together on a variety of projects during that time. One of those projects was a rookie game development effort. Ultimately, that effort morphed into something we felt was more manageable and manifested itself in a Wild West themed shooter called Boomtown.
We almost struck gold with that one, but ended up striking out as a series of confidential showings bore no fruit and then a series of look-alikes hit the market over the next few years — all from well-established development/publishing combos (See: Dead Man’s Hand, Red Dead Revolver and Call of Juarez. Incidentally, there were no notable AAA Western shooters on the market prior to this). Naturally, my ego forces me to take credit for the explosion of the genre even though we did not reap any rewards; more importantly, though, where that game development ended was a far cry from where it started.
The Birth of “Multitude”
When Ian and I first sat down and started talking about our potential to create a kick ass multi-player video game, we talked big. Real big. We were either too visionary or too stupid to start the conversation with something small. Something easy to wrap our brains around and begin planning. Something that a development shop with zero completed titles could actually manage. Yeah, we could have done that. And, as mentioned above, it’s where we ended up. But at the beginning. Well. Boooooring. So, big is where we started and big is where I’m going back to. I’m going back to Multitude.
Multitude will absolutely be The Most Ambitious Video Game of All Time. I’ll talk more about what exactly that means later. For now, though, I just wanted to let the world know that I am coming. Of course, it will be necessary for me to round up a group of talented game-makers and a boatload of cash, but after I do, the world of interactive entertainment will never be the same.
Calling All Dreamers…Connecting All Believers
Source: Mark A. Hicks
I don’t care about how ridiculous this might seem. I don’t care if this flies in the face of all the rules on how this works. I don’t care if history suggests that my goal is impossible. I will not be stopped. And, I encourage anyone else out there who’d like to help this from dream to belief to reality. I encourage you to think about it, talk about it, share it with your tribe. And if you really want to help, I encourage you to use the simple form I’ve set up and contact the Ironshef.
