Krome Studios: Interviewing CEO Robert Walsh
We’re bringing you to the other side of the gaming world, to a continent famed for Dingoes, Great White Sharks, and Box Jellyfish to name a few, where we’ll be shifting our attention to wildlife of a different variety, as we take a look at Ty the Tasmanian Tiger‘s developer, Krome Studios
IGN interviewed Krome Studio’s Robert Walsh, and among other things, the two talked much about the beginnings of Australia‘s largest independent game developer, current projects, and future aspirations of the company’s admittedly warm, jovial CEO.
Beginning Krome in 1999, former surf Walsh has seen his company grow from the first five members it began with. to the current roster of roughly 300 employees in just a span of seven years. With such large expansion (a combination of fresh grad students and game industry vets) Walsh’s company struggled to maintain its identity with the rapidly expanding gaming industry in Australia.
If it’s any indication of their effort, Krome’s already made the million mark for their Ty the Tasmanian Tiger title for the Xbox and PS2, an accomplishment Walsh remembers well:
Doing a million units on Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. It’s pretty hard to create an original IP, and then get a publisher to pick it up. It’s also hard to create a successful one. Cracking a million units on a title that was ours – that’s probably our best moment.
So, just how does the company handle itself, given its initial success at creating an independent title. If Walsh’s friendliness is any indicator, part of Krome’s strength lies in its relatively warm atmosphere – and we’re not just talking climate. As Walsh explained in the interview:
We’ve been able to maintain a pretty non-corporate approach. We have a really flat structure, with no true company hierarchy. You’ve walked around and seen the open door policy here. I don’t even have a door on my office. There are not a lot of offices outside the meeting rooms – everybody has access to everybody else. We try to keep a very open floor plan and that’s helped us keep our culture.
And while the company experiences the usual tirade of game designer-producer conflict that’s normal in all dev companies, Walsh was happy to say they haven’t suffered any serious clashes – the respect’s there, and that keeps things sane, even if Walsh ends up losing some of the arguments despite being the head honcho.
The full article awaits after the jump!
We’re bringing you to the other side of the gaming world, to a continent famed for Dingoes, Great White Sharks, and Box Jellyfish to name a few, where we’ll be shifting our attention to wildlife of a different variety, as we take a look at Ty the Tasmanian Tiger‘s developer, Krome Studios
IGN interviewed Krome Studio’s Robert Walsh, and among other things, the two talked much about the beginnings of Australia‘s largest independent game developer, current projects, and future aspirations of the company’s admittedly warm, jovial CEO.
Beginning Krome in 1999, former surf Walsh has seen his company grow from the first five members it began with. to the current roster of roughly 300 employees in just a span of seven years. With such large expansion (a combination of fresh grad students and game industry vets) Walsh’s company struggled to maintain its identity with the rapidly expanding gaming industry in Australia.
If it’s any indication of their effort, Krome’s already made the million mark for their Ty the Tasmanian Tiger title for the Xbox and PS2, an accomplishment Walsh remembers well:
Doing a million units on Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. It’s pretty hard to create an original IP, and then get a publisher to pick it up. It’s also hard to create a successful one. Cracking a million units on a title that was ours – that’s probably our best moment.
So, just how does the company handle itself, given its initial success at creating an independent title. If Walsh’s friendliness is any indicator, part of Krome’s strength lies in its relatively warm atmosphere – and we’re not just talking climate. As Walsh explained in the interview:
We’ve been able to maintain a pretty non-corporate approach. We have a really flat structure, with no true company hierarchy. You’ve walked around and seen the open door policy here. I don’t even have a door on my office. There are not a lot of offices outside the meeting rooms – everybody has access to everybody else. We try to keep a very open floor plan and that’s helped us keep our culture.
And while the company experiences the usual tirade of game designer-producer conflict that’s normal in all dev companies, Walsh was happy to say they haven’t suffered any serious clashes – the respect’s there, and that keeps things sane, even if Walsh ends up losing some of the arguments despite being the head honcho.
Speaking of development, the interview also went in the way of Walsh’s outlook towards the three competing consoles on the market: which did he think was a winner, and a potential platform for their future plans as a company?
As for a winner, I saw 600,000 Wiis sold in the first week. Who would have thought, and they’re predicting four million by the end of the year. But there’s no way you can discount Sony. It has such a core gaming brand strength. I think the real winner at the end of the day is the consumer. The Wii is so cool and so different, they’ve gotten something that in the past really wasn’t there. Outside of Nintendo first party, predominantly all games for the GameCube were ports from PS2 and Xbox. Whereas now, because Wii is so different, it’s going to have unique games created specifically for this creative and cool game console.
Via IGN
About The Author
