There will (most likely) be a stream of the SGA Conference on:

http://bambuser.com/channel/SwedishGameAwards1 http://bambuser.com/channel/SwedishGameAwards2

This interview with Peter Lübeck, Studio Director at Tarsier Studios Malmö office, is the third in a series of interviews with SGA winners from previous years. After bringing home prizes at the SGA ‘08, Peter and his team founded Black Drop Studios. Their game Boingo, though, was never published. Today he works with a former Black Drop teammate at Tarsier Studios.

Name: Peter Lübeck
Age: 27
Education: BTH, Karlshamn, Digitala spel
Residence: Malmö
Most underestimated game: Gothic
SGA achievement: Winner of Best Execution and Gamers Choice at the SGA ‘08, with Boingo.

SGA:What do you do?
P: My first assignment at Tarsier was as Producer on the PS Home version of LittleBigPlanet™. Since then I’ve worked as Producer on an unannounced title and on LittleBigPlanet™ for PS Vita. Now I am the studio director at our Malmö office, where I am involved every aspect of the company. One of my primary goals is to give everyone the best possible conditions and environment to perform at their best.

I deal with tasks such as “which projects should we be involved in?”, “who does what and when?”, “what skills and competences do we require?”. Then there is PR, participating in conferences, etc. It’s alot of fun with great variation – infrastructure, office management, recruitment, production, strategy, vision and value work and more.

SGA:What was the biggest challenge running Black Drop?
P: Making it work financially. We had an unfinished game and no funds, so we took a job developing this small educational game for a local company. We also applied for funding from Nordic Game for 300DK, which we were granted. It enabled us to iterate the entire concept, taking in all the feedback we got from SGA and showing the game to publishers.

We could have been more effective, lowered the bar, and shipped the product earlier.

SGA: What happened with Black Drop?
P: When one of the other founders wanted a break and moved to Tokyo (he is now back working in the game industry, though in Shanghai), I felt it was time to move on. We happened to share office space with Tarsier, and I was asked by Mattias (CEO of Tarsier) to come work for them.

SGA: What’s the difference between working at Black Drop and Tarsier?
P: At Black Drop we were five people at most. Meaning all communication within the company was easier. A small studio like that can be so much more agile and dynamic. I learnt all lot of things from Black Drop which I’ve been able to put to practice in a larger scale here at Tarsier.

SGA: What was winning the SGA like?
P: It became bigger than we thought. The awards served as proof that we had a concept people liked, both jury and other contestants alike. It also sounds quite fancy to have won the Swedish Game Awards. Stuff like that matters when you’re a young startup, since it can be used to promote your team. Later on, when you get established in the industry, awards like that aren’t as important any more, there are other kinds of challenges.

SGA: How did Boingo happened?
P: We had another game that we competed in the SGA with which didn’t get nominated called Bacteria. After showing that game at GDC in 2008, we felt that either we keep going with this concept or we do something completely different, so one day we said that “if we can think of a better idea today we’ll go for it”. One of the programmers got the idea for a ball that sticks to walls, and that was that – no art style, no nothing, just a ball that sticks to things. Then we got cracking on art style and setting, and soon the jungle environment came to be. First the game was more of a hardcore, trial and error, puzzle game. Later we iterated it to become more of a racing game and made it more accessible and visually appealing.

SGA: Will you ever finish and publish Boingo?
P: We (at Tarsier) have talked about finishing it, but there has never been time. It will probably not happen, unless someone does it in their spare time.

Screenshot from Boingo

SGA: What about City of Metronome?
P: People still ask us about that…

SGA: How is it to work with a major publisher such as Sony?
P: We’ve gained their trust by delivering premium stuff, on time. We have a strong art department, a lot of the relationship have been built by them, but by now we’ve showed that we can deliver in all aspects of game development.

We’re honored to get to work with a prestigious title such as LittleBigPlanet™ for PS Vita. Both the press and Sony call it the most interesting game coming up for PSP Vita. It’s a great showcase of the capabilities of the platform – first by us developing the game, and then the community creating their own content. The pressure is on, but so far we’ve done really well!

There’s a couple of people at Sony that we work closely with, but sometimes orders come down from high up in Japan, which can affect us directly. “We need something that showcases this”, or “We need to present a new level by this date”. But as long as you keep delivering a high quality product, you should be just fine.

SGA: Mind sharing some thoughts on running a game studio?
P:

1. The key is efficiency. Release your game as soon as possible so you get your revenue going – or else you don’t have a company. You can only get by on life support through low salaries and subsidies for so long. Though neither can you compromise with creativity. Doing something you believe you can do well – rather the something you believe will be commercially successful -, having a solid plan for how to complete the game, and putting your focus were it matters.
2. Sometimes it’s ok to go all in on one idea, make or break. If it doesn’t work out, just move on.
3. Don’t start thinking of monetization before you have a solid game. Don’t let business models limit you. If you think in terms of monetizing your product from the start it can affect the quality of the game experience, and your players will tell. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be working with how to apply various business models, just do it at a later stage.
4. Less is more. You should have spearhead focus on your game concept. When you’ve removed 80%, remove some more, then iterate and polish.
5. Check out alternative funding options such as Kick Starter, SONY’s Pub Fund, etc.
6. Involve people along the way to ensure you’re on the right track. You’re not always your own best critic.
7. A lot of ideas for games start with ”I’d like to make a game that does this”. That’s where you find inspiration and drive.

All of the 300 students invited to the conference have been contacted by mail.

Invited and can’t come? Contact us to cancel!

We’ll be adding more info to the conference page during the up coming couple of days.