Friday, March 22, 2024

Eric Peterson on Vicious Cycle Software and Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

Eric Peterson Vicious Cycle Software

Not many gaming companies can boast of having a games engine that is licensed to other companies in the industry. Vicious Cycle Software is well known for their Vicious Engine. GameGuru.in (GG) got in touch with Eric Peterson (EP), who is the President and CEO of Vicious Cycle Software for a virtual tête-à-tête. Here is the whole e-mail interview:

GG: Can you tell us something about yourself?

- Advertisements -

EP: I have been working in the game industry now for over twelve years. I started my career in this industry as an artist/animator with MicroProse and within a few years of working at the Chapel Hill, North Carolina location, I became the Art Director there. In 1999, there was a round of layoffs and the studio was shut down. Shortly thereafter, some of us banded together and formed Vicious Cycle Software, Inc.

Since 2000, I have been the President and CEO. And, as of June 2007, Vicious Cycle became a D3Publisher development studio. We continue to make games for numerous console systems, and we also license the Vicious Engine to numerous companies around the world.

GG: What games is Vicious Cycle Software currently working on?

- Advertisements -

EP: We are currently working on Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard for the PS3 and Xbox 360. We are also starting two unannounced products for the same systems.

GG: Can you elaborate on Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard? What was the inspiration behind the game?

EP: Eat Lead is a third-person shooter with a sense of humor. Eat Lead pays homage to many of the best known video games over the years. There’s tons of action along with computer hacks that radically change the environments, enemies and weapons throughout the game. You will use an innovative cover mechanic and interactive hand-to-hand combat to outsmart classic enemies like zombies, space marines, military soldiers and more.

- Advertisements -

As for the inspiration, we succeeded at making a very funny game with Dead Head Fred and wanted to continue along those same lines with Eat Lead. However, this time we decided to take the comedy a step further into the realm of parody. From the onset of this game, we knew we were going to make a shooter and because there are a lot of shooters on the market, we had to differentiate ourselves from the pack.

The way we felt we could accomplish that goal was to go the humorous route and make a game that parodies the industry we all know and love. There really haven’t been very many games that dealt with parody over the years, so we felt it was an opportune time to give it a shot.

GG: You develop games for many platforms. By far, which gaming platforms have been the most challenging?

- Advertisements -

EP: They all have their unique challenges and every machine has a different set of standards and hardware that we need to develop for. If anything, creating and maintaining a cross-platform engine, has been our most challenging task.

GG: You just released the Vicious Engine to the Indian game developers. How excited are you about the whole thing? Any special plans?

EP: Actually, we are very excited. This is our first real push into the territory, so in a sense it is our flagship venture. We will be expanding into other territories worldwide over the course of the next year.

- Advertisements -

GG: What about cross-platform gameplay? How important is it for game developers to take into account that factor when developing multi-platform games these days?

EP: There are only a small number of titles on the market that get released on just one platform. By releasing your title on multiple systems you can cross-collateralize your development budget and potentially increase your sales by simply offering your product to more gamers. If your development team has the technology to ship a game on multiple platforms, it can truly be beneficial.

That isn’t to say that developing a game for one system doesn’t have its benefits. Being able to concentrate your team’s efforts on one set of hardware is extremely useful and it allows you to not have to play to one’s systems potential weaknesses.

- Advertisements -

GG: Coming back to the Vicious Engine, can you elaborate on the numbers? How many third party developers have licensed your product?

EP: The first version of the Vicious Engine (also known as Ve) has been licensed to three universities/colleges for educational purposes, four Serious Game projects and 31 commercial games by external developers around the world.

Internally, we have used Ve for 11 commercial releases. Eat Lead will be the first game developed with our latest technology (Ve2), and as I stated earlier, it will be released on PS3 and Xbox 360.

- Advertisements -

GG: Where do you see Vicious Cycle Software in the near future, in the next three to five years?

EP: I see us doing a lot of the same things actually – making games and developing technology. First and foremost, we create and develop games and those games, in turn, drive our technology. At that time, we will also most likely be releasing our third iteration of our engine for an entirely new set of gaming systems.

GG: What new games and new IPs (besides Matt Hazard) can gamers expect from Vicious Cycle Software in the coming months?

- Advertisements -

EP: Since our other titles haven’t been announced yet, I can’t go into too much detail. What I can say however, is that no matter what we develop, we will definitely be concentrating our efforts on solid action titles. We will also continue to push our Ve2 technology as far as it can go with the upcoming releases while also developing more features that can be useful to our clients.

GG: What kind of gamer are you? If you had to choose one game, would it be Gears of War 2 or Resistance 2?

EP: I would choose to play both – in fact I do play both! I develop games for a living, so I purchase as many games as possible. I enjoy third-person and first-person shooters, platforming games, puzzle games, RPGs, etc. I like just about anything out there.

- Advertisements -

Related Articles

Latest Articles