when the machines could actually do it was probably them being a little smarter about
the market, and us being a little dippier. But, A, we were trying to do a little more than
we could handle and reach a larger audience, and B, we were into these games that
were a little more complicated and required a little more investment. That’s just a dif-
ferent thing. Even if we’d been using literally identical technology I think it’s easier to
express what was going on inWolfensteinorDoom.It’s easier to say, “Hey, here’s what
you’re doing: you’ve got this gun and you have to keep yourself alive with all these
crazy things coming after you. Go for it. It’s really spooky, it’s really fast, it looks great.”
Awesome. They did a great job. We were a nichier product, we just were.
So selling more copies wasn’t too much of a concern?
There was some dis-
cussion about it: “Wow,
gosh, it’d sure be nice if
we were making more
money and selling
more copies so we can
do crazy games of the
type we want as
opposed to having to
worry about how we’re
going to sell more.”
Hey, I’d love it if the
public was more into
what I like to do and a
little less into slightly
more straightforward
things. But I totally get that they’re into straightforward things. I don’t have any divine
right to have someone hand me millions of dollars to make a game of whatever I want to
do. If the market wanted a bunch moreUnderworlds, they would have bought them. At
some fundamental level, everyone has a wallet, and they vote with it.
Was there ever talk of making your games play more like the id games to make
them sell better?
id was doing a great job at doing that game. And more power to them. I think you want to
do things that connect with the market and you want to do things that people like and
you want to do things that get seen. But you also want to do things you actually believe
in and that you personally want to do. Hey, if you’re going to work twenty hours a day
and not get paid much money, you might as well do something you like. And, I love
Mario 64, and lord knows I’m probably not talented enough to build it. But even if I was I
wouldn’t do it because I love the game and I love playing it, but I have no interest in
building it. And we were building the games we were interested in; we had that luxury.
We didn’t have spectacular success and a huge win, but we had enough success that we
got to do some more. And at some level, at least for me, sure I’d love to have huge, huge
success and be able to take five years and do ten indie games and do whatever the hell I
514 Chapter 26: Interview: Doug Church
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds