Twenty Questions:
An Interview with Christian T. Petersen
Wow! It has been a while since this
feature has seen print. I promise to try and bring you a new
interviewee once a month. This is just such a cool feature of the
National Gamers Guild that we just have to keep bringing it to you.
So stay tuned. There is a lot more of 20 Questions to come!
For as long as I have been with the NGG, we
have had a fantastic relationship with Fantasy Flight Games (FFG).
Not only do they produce some of the coolest games out there, but they are
also a bunch of great guys! It would be a disservice to you,
faithful Guild Members, if I didn’t share with you my chat with the CEO
and Founder of Fantasy
Flight Games, Christian T. Petersen. So read on and enjoy!
The NGG has had the pleasure of working
with you for a couple of years now. We
appreciate the great relationship we've had.
Thank you.
You’re welcome. You guys have been phenomenal in helping us out.
We appreciate your demo ability and the help you have given us.
How long have you been
in the gaming business?
Well, it depends on whether or not you are talking about FFG specifically.
I did Learn to Paint in Denmark when I was 15.
In high school I did Pegasus Games Import.
That was back in the 90s. I
founded the second games convention in Denmark called Games Weekend.
It drew about 450 people a year.
I know you are going
over this on your website, but briefly tell us how you got your start.
I went to college in the states and started this company (FFG) in 1995.
We did comics. That
didn’t do very well. I was
always hot with games. So we
released Twilight Imperium: First Edition in May 1997.
What is the most
difficult thing about getting started?
I think there are two answers to that.
There is the reality of what was the hardest when you got started,
which was raising funds. And
in retrospect, the hardest or biggest lesson is knowledge.
Attaining knowledge in the market.
Understanding that it is a long road.
I have taught entrepreneurship classes and teach that the original
plan never really happens.
So,
did you have time to kick back and play while you were getting it started?
I was enthralled by Magic then. Of
course we started off by doing comics, so I did take time to play because
I was into games.
So
what's the deal with Diskwars? I mean, cardboard flats flipping onto
each other? How did you manage to sell that idea?
I didn’t have to sell it to anybody.
I met Tom Jolly at Essen in 1998.
He showed me a game there called Xenopod.
The game had nothing to do with what Diskwars would turn out to be,
but involved disks flipping onto each other.
I saw in it the concept of a mix between Warhammer and Magic.
You had to sell the
idea to your distributor though.
Yes. That was very difficult.
The two we went with first were Thunder’s Edge and Diskwars.
Unfortunately, people who saw Diskwars could only think of one
thing…Pog. We had a hard
time getting around that.
I basically did the whole
design and the combat system. In
February – May of 1999. The
whole thing with Diskwars is that we had to invent a whole new concept of
packaging. One of the big
things was doable was print. So
we went to the printer and I invented a new term.
“Flat”. That is
all mine. These were like counter sheets.
I stole that from the theatre.
We had a three dimensional game concept in two dimensions.
Frankly, most counter sheets were printed on 8.5”x11”.
The whole idea of changing that format was quite something.
We were able to do it quite economically.
We actually cut the disks out ourselves with scissors.
In May of 1999 we presented it to the retailers.
Then we had a huge phenomenal response.
At this time, I was alone in the company.
I actually got pneumonia from doing it because of the paper dust
from the flats. We took it to
Origins 1999 and sold out of everything we had.
And of course there is
Armada, your disk game based on Twilight Imperium Board Game.
How is that working for you?
Armada doesn’t have a lot of players.
I wish it had more. Sales
are a bit down. We are going
to make some efforts to revive that, but right now there isn’t a lot of
product support.
So, my wife wants to
know if you're married. (sigh)
Yes. (Laughs). To Gretchen
for 3 years.
If you could pick one
famous person of the opposite sex to be with for an elegant night of
dinner & dancing, who would it be & why?
Cleopatra. Why?
Because any woman who is well known more than 2000 years after her
death had to be something.
That is a pretty
unconventional answer.
Any conventional answer would get me into some domestic trouble.
A Game of Thrones
appeared to be very well received at GenCon. Why do you think that
is?
I think that we put together an attractive looking product with a fun
game engine with a much beloved license. I think this will only have a serious growth in the near
future. I think the GenCon
success was derived from the quality of game play and the large following
the books have. It is still
doing phenomenally for us. It
is selling fast.
You have gotten some
pretty nice licenses lately. Last
year it was Lord of the Rings Board Game and this year it's Game of
Thrones & DragonBall Z Board Game.
What is involved in getting that to happen?
I think that the magic word here is “credibility”.
Lord of the Rings has given us a huge leg up in being taken
seriously. I doubt we could
have gotten DragonBall Z without getting Lord of the Rings.
It is kind of a “chicken and egg” concept.
In your opinion, what
makes a good game, CCG or otherwise, good?
Obviously different people have different tastes in games.
Some people like a game if it has a fun theme in them.
Some games with silly themes are popular.
I think the difference between good and great is that great games
create a whole new experience. They
cause an imaginative and social experience.
The great game will create a whole new platform for that kind of
experience. The great games
have been the most revolutionary. Things
like Diplomacy,
Magic, Settlers
of Catan, Axis
&Allies. There are a
vast amount of good games. Good
games are games that have a clever, non-awkward game system. They allow you to have an experience that can’t be
replicated anywhere else.
What is your favorite
game?
Hmmmm…. (Chuckles) Reiner
Knizia says that his favorite game is the one he is working on.
I think there is something to that.
There is something to tasting your own cooking.
The favorite game that I am not working on or haven’t worked
on…the one I am most impressed with in the last couple of years is El
Grande by Rio Grande. However,
it would be a disservice to dozens of game companies out there to say I
have an actual favorite.
What is your favorite
movie?
It would be a disservice to many movies to name a favorite, but I would
have to say The
Empire Strikes Back.
Book
or Series?
Lord of the Rings.
Some people out there,
distributors, retailers and gamers, say FFG has too much on its plate.
How do you respond to that?
Well, I can certainly understand why they say that.
We do a lot of stuff. The
way that I approach it is that I feel we have a knowledge and talent to do
many different types of games. As
much as we are fans of the games we do, we also have to look at it from
the business perspective. We
have to keep creating. We have to be diversified.
I think none of our games have suffered from lack of attention.
We are a company that makes games.
That is our mission and our business plan. I think we can look back over the last 20 years and you will
count a large number of dead game companies.
I have a commitment as an employer to make a profitable company.
If I didn’t have that I wouldn’t be anything.
I have a commitment to my customers to make high quality games.
Everything we put out has our own seal of approval.
We have to do things in a way that makes sense economically.
To put it into perspective, we have sold more of our Legends and
Lairs D20 supplements in the past year than we sold of Diskwars during
its entire run. If we stayed
focused on just one or two games, we wouldn’t be here anymore.
What changes have you
seen in the gaming industry since you got in it?
The biggest change has been the evolution and devolution of the market
leaders. Companies that are
leaders have crumbled and collapsed.
We also see that one of the bigger issues is we see a lot of new
entry companies trying to make high quality products just out of the gate.
There are a lot of new companies out there with good-looking stuff.
We are seeing more product than ever.
The player groups are broken apart into separate networks, which
play many different things.
What changes would you
like to see in the next few years?
That’s a really good one. (Pause)
I would like to see the…(long pause). I would like to see the evolution of many different things.
I would like to see the retail base allow people to come in and
play in the store. Make the
game stores destination stores. There are going to need Point of Sale gear.
That will increase the communication between all layers of the
gaming industry. I guess I
would like to see an increase of information flow in the different levels
of the industry. I also would
like to see a strong gaming magazine that has a strong following.
It has been attempted many times, but not succeeded.
It may be the impossible dream.
Who is your favorite
superhero and why?
Ummm…(Very long pause) I really don’t care much for superheroes.
I don’t have a specific favorite.
I don’t hate them. I just don’t like them.
It is a part of pop-culture that I haven’t really gotten into.
Any last words? (I
mean that in the nicest way)
It’s been a really great learning experience for me personally.
I hope that everyone out there who enjoys these types of games will
spread the word. There are
games out there for everyone.
And, of course, boxers
or briefs?
Boxers.
Interview by Bill Albanito
(Posted 09-18-02)
Are you a big shot in the
gaming industry?
Maybe a little shot? If you would like to be considered
(or nominate someone to be considered) for our "20 questions with
___" please e-mail
Mr.
Albanito directly! Thank you!