“How many reliable sources of laughter do you have in your life, every day? Every time you open your device and play this game, you will have at least a laugh.”
That’s a quote from TinyCo business head Andrew Green, describing his company’s upcoming mobile game based on the Family Guy universe. It’s a bold claim, for sure, but after meeting with Green at his company’s office in San Francisco and learning about what his team hopes to deliver, it sounds to me like he’s put the right pieces in place to pull off a hit with the appropriately (and hilariously) titled Family Guy: The Quest For Stuff.
I caught up with Green–a former Take-Two and Electronic Arts manager–and we spoke at length about almost every facet of the new Family Guy game. How it got off the ground, how it is similar to and different than The Simpsons: Tapped Out, the stigma attached to free-to-play games, and the ugly track-record that licensed games have. We discussed these topics and more. Below are highlights from our conversation.
The Genesis of Family Guy: The Quest For Stuff:
“People are going to draw comparisons between Simpsons: Tapped Out and Family Guy”
“I personally reached out to FOX myself because we didn’t have any contacts there and we just started the conversation there. We had identified some of the properties that we would love to work with. There’s literally a list of like 150 different properties…so many brands that we were interested in working on. I’m a huge nerd myself, like an actual nerd–I have social anxiety. I love storyworlds, a lot of people [at TinyCo] love storyworlds, if you walk around [our office] you’ll see toys and whatnot and we have such a great process and platform for development and we just thought that bringing that to properties that people are already love for a variety of reasons was a really cool thing to do. Family Guy was one of our top ones though; we went and talked to FOX and then the process kind of went on from there.”
How Family Guy: The Quest For Stuff Is Not Like The Simpson’s: Tapped Out:
“People are going to draw comparisons between Simpsons: Tapped Out and Family Guy, but I think the key differentiator that you’ll see…I think Simpsons Tapped Out is much more just straight collection; build and collect. Whereas [Family Guy: The Quest For Stuff] is all narrative-driven, which is really important for Family Guy because the humor is all about the character interactions, the cutaways, the randomness, the references, the insanity. And if you’re just doing collect and build, you’re not going to get access to as much of that. The core pillar of the game that we have when we first started was ‘A Laugh Every Session‘ and I think we really nailed that. I find the game to be hilarious. And we worked with the writers at FOX Television, we have writers internally also, so it’s been a really collaborative effort there. And we’ve written tons of new stories, there’s a lot of new animation, but chiefly, there’s a lot of story and a lot of character interaction that drives the loop that could be seen as similar to Tapped Out.”
“I don’t want to go out on a limb and say it’s an adventure game, but there is the element where you need certain things to actually motivate people. In the initial play session, Chris wet himself and needs new pants. There’s a way that Peter can get him new pants; it’s not like a coins or XP; there’s actual materials that are story materials that drive the story forward. There’s a lot more character discourse and narrative [than Tapped Out] and I think the other thing is there’s some also major world…the interaction with the world. You might go and do a quest and then all of sudden your entire playspace is on fire. So it’s stuff like that. The depth of the features are still rolling out. You’ll end up with chickens on fire that will run around your playspace. Stuff like that. And so there’s just a lot more randomness and interesting narrative elements.”
On The Pressure of Working On One Of Fox’s Biggest Brands:
“It’s actually been really good. I’ve been lucky to be involved initially a lot more with the writers here and at FOX and [Family Guy production studio Fuzzy Door]. It’s pretty great. We write, they write, they edit, but essentially we want them to be as involved as possible. They’re the experts, and they’re hilarious and brilliant. We have a bunch of jokes that we’ll write–maybe sometimes 50 percent, sometimes 40 percent, sometimes 30 percent will just get tossed. And it’s just like a very collaborative process. And a lot of times we get back stuff or they have an idea and they get very involved in the process. And I think one of the things that was really important for it was to give them a platform that they understood to develop content in and then understand how to interact with us. And I think they actually have, at this point, a really deep understanding of the mechanics and how the game flows and that’s where all their ideation really kills it.”
Family Guy Creator Seth MacFarlane Is Not Very Involved, But Did You Think He Would Be?
“Seth has been involved in approvals and more high-level stuff, but he hasn’t been feet-on-the-ground. That’s why he has the organization that he has. All the people there are entrusted with creating show content so they’re amazing writers trusted by both the showrunners and Seth to be creating content. And so I think they can speak the quality through. I know he’s very, very involved, in the brand and in the show. He definitely has been involved in the game, but it’s not like we sit down.”
Family Guy: The Quest For Stuff Was Always Going To Be A Free-To-Play Game:
“First and foremost I’m a gamer, been a gamer since I was 4 years old; I understand all the issues that free-to-play would bring.”
TinyCo’s always made free-to-play mobile games. We were one of the first free-to-play mobile game developers on mobile devices in general back in 2009/2010. Solving a lot of the issues with the mobile infrastructure in general and how to make free-to-play mobile games. That’s one of our specialties, free-to-play mobile, and this was always conceived as a free to play mobile game.”
On The “Free-to-Play” Stigma And How Family Guy Will Be “Fair”:
Customers…their thoughts, their feelings on our products are important. Any and all customers. You want to listen to your customers, you want to understand what they’re talking about. I come from a traditional games background; first and foremost I’m a gamer, been a gamer since I was 4 years old; I understand all the issues that free-to-play would bring and I think it’s actually a really interesting topic. It’s a lot more nuanced than the black and white conversation that some people have. If you look at a lot of our games or even Simpsons: Tapped Out or a myriad of other popular free-to-play games that are in this space right now, people are monetizing, people are engaging, people are enjoying themselves with these games.”
“I think the disconnect comes from ‘what type of experiences fits what platform’ For instance, I play Borderlands 2 on console, I have my expectations set, I know how I’m going to play. I’m gonna lean back, I’m gonna drive through quest after quest, loot after loot; do I really want someone cherry picking $1.99 here or there? Interestingly, I’ve spent money on microtransactions for Borderlands 2, and I bet you if they threw out a new gun a week for $1.99 I’d buy it. So Borderlands is a very different type of experience on a very different platform than Family Guy is on its platform. And if I were to talk about experiences like a Borderlands or games that have PvP specifically, pay to win sucks. It just makes everyone that feels like their skill or their abilities that they’re bringing to the game are moot because I could just loot up through hundreds of dollars of transactions and then I could just dominate whoever I wanted to because I’m just superior. And that to me strikes as unfair. It just feels unfair. Those kinds of games are really complex; the systems are complex, the moment-to-moment gameplay is really complex; the relationship the gamer has to those games is so much more entrenched and competitive and their heart is in it; it’s skill, it’s competition, and it’s taken seriously.
“What’s funny is that this has been going on for a very long time. There are free-to-play games that have been out there since 1994. Magic: The Gathering is essentially a free-to-play game. Where you can essentially build a deck for $400; yeah, you’ll probably still get your butt kicked by some other people, as I’ve learned over and over again, but yeah, you can buy your way into being competitive. That’s an issue for those games. I think that’s a very different issue than what people bring to…when they look at a free-to-play mobile game. I think they’re not taking into account the platform to the game. So you look at games like the ones that we’ve made in the past or you look at a game like Family Guy that we’re making now and what we’re essentially doing is we’re giving you access to a world that you love and you’re getting bite-sized content access on your mobile devices. To me I think that’s super-cool. Simpsons is a great example of that. I think even our games Tiny Monsters, Tiny Zoo, obviously these are much simpler games with brands that aren’t as deep; the characters aren’t as deep, the worlds aren’t as deep, but that’s the great value of Family Guy. So now I get to have a bite-sized content moment with Family Guy. I get to interact with the characters; I get to even play around with it a bit. And the monetization comes from the customization and the depth…more like speed of access. And it allows us to create a ton more content over a longer period of time and people can access pretty much all of that content for free as well. And it’s a pretty big value in my opinion.”
“I think that there could be more innovation in the free-to-play space in general and I think we’re going to continue to work on that”
“There’s going to be customization as well as some premium elements, but eventually you are going to be prompted for microtransactions as part of the new user experience; we want that to be a really good experience. And we want to make sure that when you do get to the point where you have to potentially pay to go more quickly through the progression than waiting on the progression, that that’s not an unforgiving thing. We also want there to be things that you can do that if you’re waiting, there’s other things for you to do so that you’re not just waiting and that’s that. The game and the model is actually a pretty good fit and I think that there could be more innovation in the free-to-play space in general and I think we’re going to continue to work on that–on balancing the reward vs. the amount of what the user is putting in. I think that’s important. And I do think that we’ve balanced it pretty well on Family Guy. And I think that the one takeaway that I think is really important is ‘is the quality of what you’re producing going to drive people to be happy with that dynamic?’ And I think Yes. I think that people are going to get incredibly rich, premium story, adventure, access to the characters. It’s actually very valuable.
“That’s the thing that we really focus on here is to make sure that the game is valuable, and that it’s funny, and that the brand flies out of your phone at you. I think it really sings. At that point, as a player, you get to decide do I want to purchase more quickly or should I wait? But the value is there in my opinion and that’s what important.”
You’ll Know What You’re Getting When You’re Prompted For A Microtransaction:
“We illustrate that pretty directly, always. It’s important that our customers understand what they are paying for and why they are paying for it. That’s one of the points of good communication, good user experience. The other thing that we also have is a really great community team that actually really cares about our customers. And they’re going to be heavily involved, and we have 55 million customers [on Facebook] that we’re going to be talking to; we’re going to make sure that all of them have the best experience they possible can have with the game. I think [the debate around free-to-play] is something that as an industry that we should be talking about. But I also think that talking about it will [remove the stigma]. It’s a changing and evolving industry.”
Licensed Games Don’t Have The Best Track Record…Why Will Family Guy Be Different?
“What we’re doing is we went to the drawing board, literally, and we were like ‘What is the experience that people want to have with this brand?’ And what they want is they want more of the show. They want to interact in the same way that they interact with the show. So if you can’t match the world, if you can’t match the humor, if you can’t match the characters, the feel, then you’re not going to be successful.”
“Not talking about any other game, but let’s say I take Snoopy. Let’s say I take Snoopy and it’s going to be the Snoopy shooter, and then everyone’s like OK, sounds good. Let’s make the Snoopy shooter. Now Snoopy is kind of just running around shooting Woodstock and everybody else, and you’re not getting the normal kind of interactions between the characters that people want. Because really what you’re interacting with is this mechanic. And I think console games in the past have had to rely very heavily on the mechanic and less on the experience of the IP. The best ones have been ones where they’re like ‘What makes this amazing? What makes being Batman the coolest thing you can possibly do?’ And then how do you build a mechanic around that. As opposed to being, ‘OK, third-person shooter, but you’re Iron Man’ [laughs].”
“There are some sh***y action games that I love. I’m just a fan of sh***ty third-person action games. For instance, I play all the Spider-Man games. I love the Spider-Man games, and those, ehh, they go up and down but they’re never really reviewed past a 75 or so. I love them because I get to fly around like Spidey, the fighting is pretty good, they’ve done enough for me as someone who likes Spider-Man. As a game, for everybody? I don’t know if it’s going to make the cut. I think it’s all about what is the brand, what is the experience of that, how do you translate that. It’s just like taking a book and adapting it to a movie. Taking anything and adapting it to anything, it’s like, what makes this great? Where does that actually spirit lie and then how do we get that onto the platform–which in this case are mobile phones [which are] very different than consoles–and actually make it work? I couldn’t even tell you necessarily what a successful Family Guy game on consoles looks like. I haven’t done the work. But what we’ve made for the mobile device is the right thing because we said what people want–when they look at the screen they want to know that they feel like they’re watching the show. That they feel like they’re in that world, they’ve got ownership of that world, that the characters are completely who they are, that the writing is new and just as funny as the show; it’s unique, it’s hilarious, that you have that element of randomness. And that you bring out the flavor and the subversivness of the Family Guy universe in everything that you do. That it’s imbued in all of the mechanics and all of the things that you’re doing. And it’s there.”
Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff Will Riff On Current Events As Recent As The Week Prior:
“We have weekly content cycles. So we actually can make fun of or lampoon anything that’s [recent]. Our updates are going to be pretty regular. Our bigger feature updates are going to be monthly, every five weeks or so, but yes, weekly content updates.”
Green Can’t Wait For Someone Who’s Not Familiar With Family Guy To Play The Game:
“What I’m excited about [laughs] is someone who hasn’t watched Family Guy who downloads the game, starts playing it, and they’re just like ‘What the heck?’ I can’t wait to see how many more people we can bring into the brand because I do think it’s a very authentic brand experience. But yes, you’re going to have to like [type of humor].”
Family Guy: The Quest For Stuff is available today on iOS and Android.
| Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch |
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