[/caption]Hace unos días, en el Gamelab aquí en Asturias se presentó Basket Dudes, un juego de baloncesto MMO gratuito que sacará al mercado la compañía española Bitoon Games. Aprovechando la ocasión, le hice una entrevista a David Cantolla, uno de los responsables del juego junto con Fernando Piquer, que además es el creador de la serie Pocoyó.
I have tried not to ask the typical questions and focus above all on what I would be interested in knowing about Basketball Dudes, trying to get away a little from the usual questions asked by the press who hate the game, also taking the opportunity to talk a little about Pocoyo and make it as enjoyable as possible for you, dear readers and trolls. There I leave you with the interview (Although it seems long, there are only 17 questions :) ).
Hello David, first of all, thank you very much for granting me the interview. Here goes the battery of questions that occurred to me (Note: It was 12 at night when I thought of the questions and I couldn’t think of any better introduction).
Who is Basket Dudes for?
In general, the audience we are targeting is quite broad, Basket Dudes is a sports game with a “role-playing” touch, designed on the one hand for casual players, who only want or can, dedicate a few minutes, and on the other for more “hardcore” players, who are motivated to reach the top in the competition, and things like trading objects, combinations of talents, finding the best strategies in the forums and the classic dynamics of role-playing games.
Why use a “Free2Play” model and not opt for Wii’s WiiWare or Xbox Marketplace?
Basically because this formula gives us more freedom in the business model and at the same time access to many more players in the world. The Free2play model also makes consumption more democratic and balanced and that is an opportunity for our work and for our company that we like very much.
El juego parece que también estará disponible para Mac. ¿Mac o iPhone?
Yes, it will be for Mac and PC. Surely later we will make some specific Basket Dudes content for iPhone and iPad, but in principle we do not plan for it to be multiplayer in those cases.
Why also for Mac when it has such a small market share compared to Windows? Does it have anything to do with the fact that Mac users are more accustomed to micropayments, encouraged by purchasing cheap apps from the App Store?
The cost of accessing Mac users for our type of game is not too great and yet the number of users does seem important enough to us. For me, who has been using a Mac for more than 20 years, I am very excited. Now there are starting to be more games, but for years I have had to have a PC to play and a Mac to work.
To what extent do you think piracy can affect your business with Basket Dudes? Are micropayments the solution to piracy?
Apparently there is no advantage to pirating something that is free. What we want is for many people to enjoy our games, so where they download from doesn’t matter so much to us. It will be another thing if there is a parallel market for virtual goods as occurs for example in World of Warcraft, but of course, we would like to have those problems ourselves, it would be an extraordinary sign.
What will be the game requirements? Will Macbook laptop owners be able to play?
We are going to try to make the game work on computers with basic features. Part of the challenge is accessing countries that do not have a very modern fleet of machines, and where at the same time there is not such widespread use of consoles because they are still expensive.
Interview done in Pixel y Dixel with Fernando Piquer about Basket Dudes.
In the teaser you can see a player with a cartoon appearance that inevitably makes you think of Pocoyo. To what extent will the game’s artwork be influenced by this series?
Of course both products belong to a common vision. For many years, in everything we develop we have looked for a recognizable identity, something that works not only because it is beautiful, but because it has the ability to develop as an entertainment brand. That’s what we did in Pocoyo. We really like the Toy style, and it hasn’t been seen much in basketball games, so we decided to go further down that path. In this case Raúl Castellanos Cano, the artistic director of Bitoon, has created a world that responds perfectly to this idea.
Will Basket Dudes have any type of interaction with social networks? If so, with which ones and why?
Yes it will have. For everyone, the exposure that social networks allow you is very important. For us, in addition to that, it is a way to improve the perception of the game’s community; in fact, part of our development plan includes the creation of tools for users to generate their own content.
How did the idea for Basket Dudes come about? How many people have worked on the development of the game?
18 people work at Bitoon, many of them are professionals with whom we have been doing things for more than 15 years. They are our colleagues and our friends and the level of demand and quality is very high. In this sense it is one of the best teams we have been able to put together on a project so far. The idea of Basket Dudes comes from Fernando Piquer, my partner at Zinkia and one of the people I first heard talk about casual gaming and free2play in Spain. Fernando had long believed in a casual basketball game that mixed competition, collection, trading and community and he drew me in with his enthusiasm for the idea.
¿Consideras que los juegos de Internet “Free2Play” son los “tapadillos” de las consolas y que todavía existe un mercado por explotar en ese ámbito, y que dicho mercado se puede considerar infravalorado?
That is our bet after Zinkia and on which we are focusing our business efforts. I don’t think we are wrong about the future of this market, which certainly has it, the difficult thing in this case and with the competition that there will be, will be getting the products we develop right. That is our challenge.
Currently there are many multiplayer online games, such as WoW, Lineage and also many pages with Flash games to pass the time. What incentives will Basket Dudes provide to choose you over the others?
We have put a lot of care into its development. It is a game of a different kind than the ones you are referring to, much more casual than the big ones and much more complete than a flash/web browser game. It is not necessary to invest large amounts of time to have a satisfactory gaming experience and at the same time it provides a level of depth large enough for a player who wants to dedicate themselves more deeply.
Can you tell us a little about the game modes, controls, etc.?
It is still a little early to tell you things, because we are in full development, in principle it will have a keyboard control mode, the possibility of connecting a “pad” to the computer and possibly mouse control
What number of players do you hope to have in Basket Dudes playing and registering?
This is our first product. In the world of free2play it is difficult to guess what your audience is because it is a type of game that has more and more followers and the penetration of broadband in many territories means that the numbers of free2play players change substantially from year to year. Unlike the traditional platform game where you have to anticipate a number of sales, here we are able to respond to many possible scenarios.
Has it been difficult to find financing for a video game like Basket Dudes?
We have had to be very creative but we have found the trust of a group of investors who have totally believed in the plan we want to follow. It is a difficult time to find financing and apparently such a different model based on micropayments and free of charge should a priori encounter many more problems, however there are investors eager to explore new markets and take risks on well-argued projects of this type and with a solid team to execute them.
Aunque esta pregunta no tiene que ver con el juego, siento la obligación moral de hacértela. Aunque Pocoyó es una serie que está claramente dirigida a los críos preescolares, son muchos los “adultos” que la vemos de vez en cuando. Como anécdota, yo oí hablar de ella por primera vez cuando un amigo me comentó que era una pasada llegar a casa a las tantas de la madrugada de juerga y ponerse a ver Pocoyó porque te reías mucho con ella. ¿Crees que emitir series infantiles a las tantas de la madrugada podría ser un nicho aún por explotar?
It depends a lot on the state in which your friend arrives home, he may find it very funny or much more funny. There is something hypnotic about seeing simple products in the wee hours of the morning, which is why teleshopping works so well. I personally still don’t know how I don’t have a house full of strange products purchased in the wee hours of the morning.
Another question from Pocoyo, which I’ll take advantage of since I’m here. Every time the narrator asks a question for the children at home to answer, there is always one child who answers later than the others. Could you tell why this is?
That boy’s name is Iván and he is my nephew. Delaying the voice gave it a little more real touch of interactivity, not all children respond equally quickly. By the way, the other children from the first season are my nephews and my sons. You see, from the name of the series to the dubbing, everything stays at home.
In this life those things happen to you by surprise. We created Pocoyo with a lot of love, a lot of work and a lot of internal criticism, I try to make it like that in every project I get involved in. In the case of Pocoyo, I did it thinking about my daughter (at that time I only had one) and it turned out very well. Now it is part of the memories of many children and some adults. You couldn’t ask for more, and hearing stories like the one you tell makes me feel really proud of what we create and to continue trying to build projects with my heart.
Many thanks to Idoia for making this interview possible :)
| Link | Official Game Page |
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