Robin Flodin, CEO of Zeal Game Studio with 20 employees and part of two man studio Power of Two Games, will be the first out in a series of interviews with former winners.
Stats
Name: Robin Flodin Age: 24 Residence: Gotland, originally from Stockholm Most underrated game in you opinion: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines Education: Game design and Graphics, HGO Studio: Zeal Game Studio, Power of Two Games (with Teddy Sjöström) SGA: Dwarfs!?, winner of Game of the Year SGA ‘10
Entrepreneurship
SGA: When did you start running your own business?
R: Started out at age 18-19 with founding a company in the advertisement business doing websites and graphics. The same company was used when we started doing games during our second year at HGO. This is what became Zeal eight months back when we created a joint-stock company.
SGA: Any certain reasons why you became a business owner?
R: It was granted having a lot of business owners in the family, coming from that kind of background. It’s a sensible path to walk.
SGA: What has been the greatest challenge running you own business?
R: Getting it started. We were 13-14 people back then, and writing out all 13-14 paychecks was tough. Also it’s always hard to get a team to stick together, to make them realize it’s worth it. Today, though, it’s obvious it was worth to keep going.
SGA: What’s it like to be a CEO?
R: Less developing, more business and papers… and meetings. You should consider that maybe you want to find someone else to be the CEO of your company. I didn’t come to this industry to sign papers. It’s a fun job, sure, but developing is something I’d rather do. And it’s massive work running your own business, which you got to be prepared for. I work 10-12h a day – including weekends. Much more work than if you join an older studio that has had time to get established.
Screenshot from Dwards!?
The Game
SGA: How did Dwarfs!? happen?
R: We had a class where the theme was “impending doom”. We made a silly, early version of Dwarfs!? and said to ourselves “this could be really cool!”, so we finished it.
SGA: What has happen since you released Dwarfs!??
R: Back then we really hoped it would be well received, and it was!
The SGA
SGA: What’s the SGA part in the making of Dwarfs!??
R: Prizes are always nice. To be able to show that you’ve won prizes is really good when you’re looking for publishers. It’s kind of like having high grades in school, though winning prizes is tougher because you have all this competition from the other teams. But exactly how much difference winning prizes makes is hard to say. Abroad, people get impressed when you tell them that you have won the Swedish Game Awards, like “did you guys beat Battlefield?”. You have to let peoples imagination work in your favor – it’s not lying.
SGA: What did winning the SGA mean to you back then?
R: Acknowledgement, very positive feedback. It’s a nice price to win. Might have published Dwarfs!? anyway, but it makes a difference in the negotiations with publishers. And it makes it easier to find publishers for new games when you can show them “we made this game and won this prize, now we want to make this new game, do you want to work with us?”.
Tips and hints
SGA: Finally, some words of wisdom that you want to share with the contestants of the SGA ‘12?
R:
1. Everyone can be successful, you don’t have to be super smart. It’s all about putting in the right amount of time and effort, and believe in what you’re doing. People are often their own worst enemies, hindering themselves from doing what they want to do. They give up before a competition because they don’t think they can turn in a good enough game it or they give up after losing a competition instead of focusing on the next one. That’s the difference between those that are successful and those that are not – persistence.
2. Epic’s CEO once said that it’s the questions that are of interest, not the answers. For example, they had been developing several games at the same time as parallel projects and learned that that was a bad idea. However, he said, they later realized that they just done it badly, the concept of having parallel projects is not bad per se. The lesson learned wasn’t a very good lesson. And the market always changes, if you have an idea you have to check it’s validity from several different aspects.
3. Go to the GDC in Cologne and similar events. Learn from the masters. Meet new people, broaden your network. It’s an integral part of running your own game studio.
SGA: Thanks!!!
More stuff
See TotalBiscuit playing Dwarfs!? here. Read our interview with former SGA winner Tau Petersson here.
