Today I had the wonderful chance to speak with video game and interactive art designer, Gregory Weir who had just returned from the Flash Gaming Summit in California. His recent game, the Majesty of Colors recently reached one million plays and his other unique flash games are doing great as well.

Good Game Get!
So how are you doing?

Gregory
I’m all right. San Francisco was fun. This morning I’ve mostly been catching up on e-mail.

Good Game Get!
Awesome. How did Majesty of Colors do?

Gregory
It didn’t end up winning the award. But it was up against Coil and Auditorium, so I don’t feel too bad.

Good Game Get!
Gotcha. So what exactly do you do besides blogging, podcasting about, and making video games?

Gregory
That’s about it. I do a column for GameSetWatch called The Interactive Palette in addition to my own blog. But right now, I’m making a living off of my Flash games.

Good Game Get!
That’s incredibly awesome. Do you have any traditional college education?

Gregory
I do. I have a bachelor’s in Computer Science from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, with a minor in Language and Literature.

Good Game Get!
Very cool. So Indiana is a pretty strange place for a game designer to be living. Of course, with the internet now you can live anywhere.

Gregory
Well, I went to school in Indiana, but I’m living in Charlotte right now. There are some people doing games locally, and more in the Raleigh area. But I work on my own, so all I really need is an internet connection.

Good Game Get!
So how exactly are you making money of your games? Obviously they’re free to play on Kongregate, and I know that Kongregate has a program where they give you cash money for your games depending on their popularity.

Gregory
My primary method of income is through sponsorships. Basically, portals pay me to put their branding before my game. If you play Majesty of Colors or Exploit, you’ll see an intro animation from Kongregate at the beginning. Anywhere it goes on the internet, Kongregate gets some advertisement. I can also sell “non-exclusive” licenses to portals who want to show the game without Kongregate’s branding.

The secondary source of income from the games is advertisement. On most sites, I use MochiAds to show 10-second ads while my games are preloading. That doesn’t get me as much as sponsorships, but it’s a decent amount. Some sites, like Kongregate, also offer a share of the ad revenue that they make off of a game.

And then there’s a bit of cash here and there for winning contests. I’ve won a monthly contest at Newgrounds for Majesty of Colors and weekly contests at Kongregate and MochiMedia for Exploit. Each of those brought in some money.

Other Flash games can use other forms of monetization, including micropayments and a traditional pay-for-the-full-version shareware model.

Good Game Get!
It seems you prefer to make your money off of the advert revenue since all of your games are completely free to the public.

Gregory
I do really like having my games be completely free. It makes them incredibly accessible. The Majesty of Colors has had over a million plays in just a handful of months. There’s no way it would have reached that many eyes if I’d charged for it.

That isn’t to say that I’m unwilling to make a non-free game. But at the moment, I’m going to keep making my games free to the public. Hopefully, people don’t mind looking at an ad while the game loads if it means they don’t have to pay anything.

Good Game Get!
Yeah, I really think that’s the nice thing about the internet is that you able to make things “free” as long as you have some sponsership. Plus, with piracy being so rampant, sponsership is definitely the safest way.

Gregory
It’s definitely a way to make piracy irrelevant. Personally, I think that content producers are altogether too hysterical about piracy. Yes, it’s lost revenue, which is a shame, but it’s a reality of the medium and of human nature. You learn to deal with it. 2D Boy, the makers of World of Goo, seem to have the right approach.

Good Game Get!
They really do. So speaking of the Majesty of Colors. You’ve noted that it’s inspired by a dream you had. How so?

Gregory
Well… the story of Majesty of Colors is that it’s a dream that the narrator had. It’s not actually based on a dream that I had. H.P. Lovecraft was one of the inspirations of the game, and he has a few stories that play with the idea of an otherworldly dream that’s a little too real. But I didn’t actually dream that I was a squamous beast from beneath the waves, or wake up to find my arms covered in ragged scratches.

Good Game Get!
Hahah. I see. Well it’s good that a dream didn’t wound you.

Gregory
That would have been scary.

Good Game Get!
All of your games tend to use pixel styles, this is even more apparent in The Majesty of Colors. Why do you use such primitive graphics, when Flash is capable of much more?

Gregory
I like the look of pixel art, it’s easy to produce quickly, and it’s easier to make good-looking pixel art than most other kinds. But it’s also a deliberate aesthetic choice in the case of Majesty.

Majesty of Colors depicts a simple-minded, innocent creature exploring a new and mysterious world. Blocky pixels are the crayon drawings of the video game universe. They put players in mind of an older, simpler time, and encourage players to fill in the gaps with their imagination.

More realistic art would have given the game a more realistic feel, which wasn’t my intent.

Good Game Get!
It’s so incredible that it’s made such a come back. Something is absolutely unique about pixel art, and it does work wonders for the Majesty of Colors and I couldn’t imagine the game any other way.

Gregory
I think people realize that photorealism is not the pinnacle of visual design. We’ve reached the point of diminishing returns for realism in video game graphics. That can even be seen in mainstream commercial games. Look at the 2008 Prince of Persia or No More Heroes for games that have discarded realism in favor of an intentionally artistic feel.

Good Game Get!
You’re right. Sadly, I don’t think those titles will ever fair as well as realistic ones.

Gregory
I’m not so sure. It may make me an optimist, but I think that people who play video games are more discerning than folks give them credit for. Just as there’s a market for animation in films and television, there is a market for non-realistic games. Heck, the Sims is one of the bestselling franchises ever, and it uses a cartoon style for its art.

Good Game Get!
This is true. So on to another one of your games. Exploit. Exploit is a computer hacking game that centers on hacking an oppressive government that filters free information and produces propaganda. Why make a puzzle game with such mature themes?

Gregory
I’ve always liked games with story. It’s one of the primary things I look for in a game, so it’s something that I try to include in my own games. When I decided to make a puzzle game about hacking, I knew it had to have a prominent, action-filled story. The cyberpunk and hacking genres have always depended on story, whether it’s the fun-but-dumb story of Hackers or the more serious plots of Snow Crash and Neuromancer.

One mistake I see a lot of developers making is fitting games into boxes. Because puzzle games don’t tend to have stories, people think they shouldn’t have them. But puzzle-solving is just a game mechanic like any other. I think we hurt ourselves when we try and lump a number of unrelated aspects of games together into categories and call them “genres.”

Good Game Get!
That makes a lot of sense. Mainstream video game criticism loves to use genres to describe games. How do you feel about video game criticism?

Gregory
A lot of mainstream video game criticism is focused around being a buyer’s guide to games. There’s certainly a place for pure reviews. If I’m looking for a new game, I’ll often look at reviews to help me find what I’ll like or dislike. And so-called genres can be useful there; if a game is an “action-adventure,” I know generally what to expect in terms of gameplay and structure.

I also like “New Games Journalism,” which seems to me to be focused on the cultural impact of games, and the experience of playing them. The social aspects and things like that.

One aspect of video game criticism that has been almost ignored until recently is criticism in the literary sense. It’s still hard to find people who are actually looking at games from an analytical perspective and evaluating them in the same way that English majors view literature. It’s finally happening, thanks to people like Auntie Pixelante or the folks at GameSetWatch. But it’s been a long time coming, and there’s still not enough of it.

Good Game Get!
Totally. I really enjoy that type of journalism and I’m actually trying to transition into it.

Gregory
It’s definitely important to furthering the art of game design. I like to think that analyzing and discussing interactive entertainment has made me a better game designer.

Good Game Get!
Well, it would have to. I can assume you’re working on a new game right now?

Gregory
Yep. As you might now, I set a resolution for myself to release a game a month in 2009. My March game will be a Flash game called “Sugarcore.” It’ll be less deep than most of my previous releases. I’m also finishing up a piece of interactive fiction with a target release date of April 1st.

Good Game Get!
How exciting, man. Do you still have info about Sugarcore locked down, or do you want to share some specs about it? Unless you’ve already discussed it on your blog, which I’m sorry that I haven’t read the archives too far.

Gregory
No, no, you’ve got the exclusive. :) It will be very colorful. It’ll be sort of like a circular version of Breakout with puzzle and action elements. And no paddle.

Good Game Get!
That’s really intriguing. Do you know when it’s going to drop?

Gregory
Before the end of the month.

Good Game Get!
Sweet. So couple of fun questions. Have you ever seen Freaks & Geeks and what’s your problem with strategy games?

Gregory
I haven’t seen Freaks & Geeks, but it’s on my list of shows to watch. I have to warn you: it’s a long list. I’m still in the middle of Farscape. As for strategy games… I’ve found very few that I’ve enjoyed. I don’t have the micromanagement skills for real-time strategy games, although I loved Homeworld. I’ve definitely enjoyed some more sedate strategy games, though. Alpha Centauri was amazing.

Good Game Get!
Yeah dude, micromanagement kicks my ass. Well the reason I asked you about Freaks & Geeks is because you share the same last name as the show’s main characters.

Gregory
Ah, cool. I also share the last name of Dr. Elizabeth Weir from the Stargate franchise, which I have watched. All of it. In a single month.

Good Game Get!
Haha, that’s incredibly epic.

Gregory
Yeah, I was pretty tired of it at the end. I could pick out all of the cliched plot structures the creators habitually used.

Good Game Get!
Haha. Well Gregory, I really appreciate you taking the time to let me talk with you.

Gregory
Thanks for asking to speak with me!