Celebrity Byte

How big is your guild?

We have about 60 people in the guild. It's a raiding guild. That's the focus of the guild. There's attrition, people come and go, but the core group is the same.

Curt Schilling receives massive adoration by his fans at a Red Sox game.

What do you hope to bring to your 38 Studios game in production, as someone who's played MMO games since the start?

I'm smart enough to realize we're not here to make my game. We're here to make a fantasy game that 10, 15, 20 million people want to play. That's the challenge. I think creatively we're off the charts, but I also know if R.A. [Salvatore] writes the greatest story he's ever written and Todd [McFarlane] draws breathtaking art, and the game sucks, then none of that matters. People play games because they're fun. If your game isn't fun, no one cares how cool the story is or how cool it looks. That's never been more true than today with the saturation in the MMO space, projecting ahead three to five years it could potentially be double or triple what it is today. You only have so much leisure time.

With a World of Warcraft movie in the works and Sony spinning off EverQuest into comics, books, and action figures, are there plans to expand your MMO game beyond the actual game?

When you look at Todd and what he's done and you look at RA and what he's done, you're probably not wrong in guessing that this is going to be a whole lot more than just a computer game. This is going to be an incredible experience... all of it. I know a lot of it is unbelievable because I'm a gamer. I know how awesome World of Warcraft is. I know how good the guys at Bioware are. I have four or five MMOs on my laptops, but I play one. I know what exists and I know some of the things we're doing is going to blow people out of the water. Some people are going to do some of the things we're talking about by the time this game ships three to four years from now, but no one will put all of these things together in one game like we are. And that's very exciting to me.

We're getting to a point in time, although people don't want to admit it, that a nerd is the exact opposite of what it used to be. To me, if you can't get on a computer, surf the net, or send an e-mail, you're a nerd.

Where do you want this company to be five years down the road? Will there be multiple game properties?

Our focus is on this initial IP and making it... where it is now is breathtaking. The grander vision is to look five or six years down the road and ask where do we want to be? We don't just want to be a games publisher. We're going to be an entertainment company. We're going to re-invent the way game content is going to be delivered through our strategic partnerships. We're in very lengthy discussions with IBM about a beneficial long-term partnership with them.

And there are other companies we're talking about partnerships with. That's one of the things I'm having to learn. It's not throw the ball and get an out. The business world is a plotting, methodical thing. There's no instant gratification here. We won't and don't move at other people's pace because other people don't have our best interests at heart. Only we know what we want and how we can do things and we need to find people that believe in those same things.

Curt Schilling's character in Everquest.

There are over 100 MMO games in development. How does that impact you in creating this original game?

I look at the fact that there will be over a 100 MMO games out in the market the same way as when I was 15 years old and I was told that only 1 out of every 100,000 kids that plays professional baseball gets drafted and one of every 1,000 of those kids ever makes it to the big leagues. My first thought was, looking around the room at the group of baseball players, was wondering how disappointed these guys are going to be when they realize it's not them. I've always thought of it that way. And I don't know any other way to look at it. We're going to publish a game. We're going to be one of the world's leading entertainment companies in the next decade. The only thing left for us to figure out is the path to get there.

What are your thoughts on the role of games and technology in today's culture?

We're getting to a point in time, although people don't want to admit it, that a nerd is the exact opposite of what it used to be. To me, if you can't get on a computer, surf the net or send an e-mail, you're a nerd. That's where the world's going. My 11 year-old son, the things he can do on a computer are staggering. And that's hip and cool at school now. If you were on a computer when I was in high school, you were a nerd.

What role do you see video games playing today in baseball?

People say I'm breaking barriers because I'm a pro athlete...we all play games. The guys who don't play computer games... I guarantee that they have a PlayStation or Xbox with them on the road. They spend twice as much time playing those games as I do playing the PC. This is a wired world, and it's just going to get more wired.