Rocket Science Games

From Sega Retro

Rocket Science Games Inc. was a video game developer based in California's San Francisco Bay Area which produced both home and computer games from 1993 to 1997. The company was most known for their use of full-motion video in titles such as Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine and Obsidian.

Company

Background

Beginning

Rocket Science Games was first conceived by businessman and avid gamer Peter Barrett around January 1993.[9] When pitched to his close friend and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Blank, Barrett recalls the latter being initially disinterested. But when Barrett described the proposed company's high concept of "Hollywood meets CD-ROM", Blank grew much more interested.[10]


“ Peter described the first company in which ‘Hollywood meets Silicon Valley’ and we were enthralled. When he elaborated how CD-ROMs were going to change both the nature of gaming and the economics of the content business, we were certain he had a brilliant idea and by the end of the meeting convinced that this was a company would make a ton of money. „

— Co-founder Steve Blank[10]


After the meeting, the two spent the next month gathering about $4,000,000 in capital[10] (with Blank recalling that funding was so easy[11] that numerous venture capital firms were competing for the opportunity to invest in them[10]), and in July 1993[1] officially opened Rocket Science Games in Palo Alto, California - in close proximity to a number of software publishers, including Sega of America. A second location in nearby Berkeley served as the company's design and production facility.[8] Peter Barrett (being the more passionate gamer) was tasked with managing the development of video games and software tools, and Steve Blank tasked with handling the company's marketing and financing.[11]

Barrett's "Hollywood meets Silicon Valley" concept was easily digestible by the media, and this marketing angle ended up netting the company stories in Fortune, Forbes, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and a number of smaller outlets[11], with Rocket Science Games even holding a promotional event at the Playboy Mansion.[12] According to Blank, "the theme of our press blitz was all about how we were going to show the old tired game companies the right way to make video games. Our press infuriated the established companies who had spent years building games that sold well, but had zero press recognition."[11]

To bolster their concept of a "Hollywood" studio, the company built its initial business strategy around investing heavily in hiring a celebrity development team. Consisting of well-known Hollywood artists like Ron Cobb and Mike Backes[13], and game development veterans such as Will Wright[13], a number of staff would be drawn from both famed American special effects studio Industrial Light & Magic and the associated LucasArts; Brian Moriarty and David Fox were two such staff. Additional talent would also be recruited from Amblin Entertainment, Marvel Comics, and Apple Computer.[14] Blank recalls Peter Barrett's credentials being a major factor in convincing staff to join; having developed the Cinepak format, Barrett was an expert in video compression, and his presence helped instill confidence in a new company building itself around the tepidly-received concept of full-motion video.

A developer at the Berkeley facility works on graphics for Loadstar, mid 1994.[14]

With their Hollywood staff, Rocket Science Games went all-in on full-motion video, beginning their existence not producing games but the development hardware needed to create these games; specifically, Hollywood-style big budget "interactive movies", with their target platforms being the Sega CD and personal computers. Like Hollywood, production was exorbitantly expensive, with the company expecting each of its titles routinely cost $600,000 to $1.2 million to produce.[13] All this investment occurred while FMV games were in their decline, and with the company aware that this genre generally had sold quite poorly in the past; they were assured that their elaborate presentation would surpass previous attempts at making FMV profitable. Blank recalls the company was focused too much on appearances and too little on gameplay, claiming none of the executive staff were gamers[15][13] and that everyone legitimately believed nothing was amiss.[16]


“ “When I looked around at our executive staff, there wasn’t a single founder who was a gamer. Worse, there wasn’t a single person on our executive team who had come from a game company. Nor was there anyone with game experience on our board. […] When I pointed out my rising apprehension, [Peter Barrett’s] response was, ‘I’ve been playing games since I was 10. I know what’s great and what’s not. We agreed this part of the company was my responsibility. Don’t worry the games are going to be great.’ „

— Co-founder Steve Blank[17]


Shortly after Rocket Science Games's games were in a state which could be shown to potential customers, Blank dedicated time to going out and directly meeting with his target audience: 14-22 year old gamers. While the feedback would undoubtedly provide insight into an industry he was largely unaccustomed to[18], he then began to realize he lacked an emotional connection to his customers or product, and that this should have served as a greater warning for things to come. Additionally, the feedback received by the company's games was regularly poor. To quote Blank in a conversation between himself and a young gamer, "what do you mean you don’t want to hear about features?"[18]

In face of the continued negative feedback, Rocket Science Games still had plans to expand. In mid 1994, Blank and a business associate travelled to Japan to meet with potential investors, with the intention to work out potential distribution or licensing rights. Despite appearing in person with a number of firms, however, the company was not able to work out any deals, squashing any plans to bring their games to Japan.[19]

Later that October, Rocket Science Games hired their vice president of marketing directly from Sega of America.[20] One of Richard Burns' first tasks with the fledgling startup was to gather early feedback on their first two Sega CD games directly from customers, something which faired very poorly. After only two weeks with the company, Burns began to voice strong concerns about the lacking gameplay; stating the games lacked the addictive power to actually keep gamers wanting to play.[17] Steve Blank states that these pleas were unfortunately ignored by the executive staff, including himself.[11]

The company's disregard for gameplay was reportedly so severe that the game Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine was produced without any playtesting. Once the programmers had finished bringing the game to a relatively bug-free state, that version was immediately finalized, with Rocket Science Games so confident in their expensive presentation that they felt no need to actually playtest it for balance or fun.


WIRED magazine, November 1994.

Despite the poor reputation of full-motion video, the developer's focus on highly-marketable presentation and industry hype eventually garnered a significant amount of interest from both investors and fellow game companies. In May 1994, Rocket Science Games was awarded with $12 million in funding from Sega Enterprises and the Bertelsmann Music Group[21] in exchange for the two companies becoming the developer's exclusive North American and European publishers, respectively. Around this same time, the company's two development facilities would later be consolidated together and relocated to a suite in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood.[7]

Decline

Even with the developer's significant investment in making their vision of FMV gaming profitable, their first games (Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm were released to mixed reviews and extremely poor sales. Despite production budgets upwards of $3,000,000, the company was shocked to see their flagship games sell less than a few thousand copies each.[22]


“ We raised $35 million and after 18 months made the cover of Wired magazine. The press called Rocket Science one of the hottest companies in Silicon Valley and predicted that our games would be great because the storyboards and trailers were spectacular. 90 days later, I found out our games are terrible, no one is buying them, our best engineers started leaving, and with 120 people and a huge burn rate, we’re running out of money and about to crash. This can’t be happening to me. „

— Co-founder Steve Blank[17]


Blank goes on to state that the failure of Rocket Science Games as a whole was something the company's executive staff and investors became unequivocally aware of around January 1995, roughly a month after the botched releases of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm and Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine.[15]

Acquisition by SegaSoft

By the middle of 1996, the situation at Rocket Science Games was dire. With sales virtually nonexistent, the company was struggling just to stay in operation[17], and with attempts to commercialize its CD-ROM development software having proven fruitless.[23] Thankfully, in August of that year the company would receive much-needed funds from SegaSoft, who entered into an agreement to become the developer's sole publisher; although according to company investor Kathryn Gould, "we ended up selling to Sega for nothing".[24] The company underwent heavy restructuring, ceased to become a publisher itself, and was refocused solely on computer game development. A staff of 100 was downsized to 35, including gutting most of upper management and building the studio around the developers. Blank and Barrett left during this restructuring, with Barrett placing some of the blame on Sega and the Sega CD - claiming "they had backed the wrong horse". A number of in-development games were cancelled during this downsizing, including a sequel to Loadstar (for which the live-acting filming was reportedly complete) and a roller coaster simulator titled DarkRide.[22]

Unfortunately, this tightening of an already-failing developer had a noticeably negative effect on the quality of their future games. The much-hyped Rocket Jockey shipped missing LAN support that had been heavily promoted to the press and was even advertised on the game's box; it wouldn't be patched into the game for several months. Obsidian also suffered from significant quality issues upon launch, containing several bugs which prevented completion of the game entirely. While the company's SegaSoft games did see some level of critical acclaim, none of them did particularly well financially, and unable to secure additional funding, Rocket Science Games was forced to close down in April 1997.[5] While the developer's main business appears to have been shuddered, a barebones staff was retained in some capacity to finish the publishing of The Space Bar and Darwin Pond. Although it was hoped that the success of these games would convince SegaSoft to take a second chance on the company, this did not come to pass.[5] Ultimately, after having lost nearly $35,000,000 over the course of its four years in business[15][25], Rocket Science Games was permanently closed.

Legacy

Blank states he learned a number of important lessons from the failure of Rocket Science Games, but three were particularly memorable: "get outside your office and test your product's viability with real customers", "ensure the executive staff and founders are aware of your product's viability", and most crucially, "no formal product launches until you have early sales validating the product and sales process". He goes on to admit that ignoring poor customer feedback was one of his biggest mistakes in managing the company[11]; believing if Rocket Science Games had listened to early feedback and dialed back hype, they could have delivered truly great games, but that "the huge mismatch between expectations and reality of our first games diminished the brand and demoralized the company – we never recovered."[11]

Despite losing out on their returns, his investors had promised Blank another $12 million in capital to start his next company, [15] as by 1994 he had already launched half a dozen successful businesses, and investors knew they'd most likely score another win.[15][11] Ultimately, the company would be Steve Blank's first and last time acting directly as the CEO for one of his startups[26], and after his experience with Rocket Science Games, says "to this day I still can’t play a video game."[27]


“ I learned how to dial back the hubris, get other smart people to work with me – rather than just for me, listen better, and act and do what was right – regardless of what others thought I should do. For my next startup I parked the behaviors that drove Rocket Science off the cliff. We established a team of founders who worked collaboratively. When my co-founders and I got the company scalable and repeatable, we hired an operating executive as the CEO and returned a billion dollars to each of our two lead investors. „

— Co-founder Steve Blank[27]


Of all the company's games, Rocket Jockey seems to be the most fondly remembered, having seen a critical re-evaluation by the modern gaming scene, and with the game seeing both a healthy modding scene and multiple attempts at remakes.[28]

Quotes

“ I heard about a new company called Rocket Science Games that was just starting up, and Brian Moriarty was one of the first people they hired. I called them to see if I could join. They looked great on paper. They had some really strong people, engineers- some of the people who had invented some of the best codecs for compression. They had some amazing ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) matte painters, modelers. It was an all-star team. But what we ended up producing was really heavily art-driven instead of game-driven, and there really wasn't anyone in the company who were gamers other than Brian and myself. Whenever there were trade-offs, they went toward better-looking art. I was working in a genre that really wasn't my type. It was an action shoot 'em up game. We had to use pre-rendered video instead of graphics rendered on the fly like in Rescue. The idea was that you could take this new CD-ROM, put a bunch of video on there, and have it stream off. You'd get to a junction and you could move left or right, and it'd show a transition scene based on the choice. They got that all to work, but it was taking too long to do all the scenes, computer graphics and the pre-rendering. I ended up taking what was originally a ten- or twelve-level game--with each level offering different gameplay and converting it to ten or twelve levels of the same game, with only slight tweaks. It was a huge compromise. I liked the story we came up with, but the game (Cadillacs & Dinosaurs) was not one of my favorites. „

— Game developer David Fox[29]


InterARC

Although ambitious, InterARC would ultimately end up as another one of Rocket Science Games' many unrealized projects.


“ InterARC is the first attempt by a major player in the gaming industry to introduce pay-by-play dynamics to the Internet. Working in tandem with CyberCash, Rocket Science is developing the ability to charge sub-dollar amounts for transactions over the Internet. In other words, instead of dropping $50 bones for a whole game, you can pay for games on a per use basis-- just like the arcades! „

— Official website[30]


In February 1996, Rocket Science Games announced a partnership with CyberCash, Inc. to launch a virtual arcade service based on micropayments. CyberCash, a virtual currency company, would provide the financial infrastructure for the platform and use it to jump-start their "electronic coin service". This announcement was heavily circulated by the media and, along with several other micropayment-based services of the mid 1990's, was heralded as the "next big thing" in internet commerce.

The service, later receiving the name InterARC (Internet Arcade)[30], was never given a firm launch date nor were any specific titles mentioned. After the initial flurry of excitement, the partnership failed to produce any further announcements and the service was never heard from again. As SegaSoft had acquired Rocket Science Games only half a year after InterARC's announcement, it is assumed the platform was a casualty of the cuts made by the publisher in late 1996. Despite this, SegaSoft would later partner with CyberCash and use their micropayment system (now named CyberCoin) for their Heat.net online gaming service.

Softography

Mega-CD

Mega-CD 32X

Saturn

IBM PC

Windows PC

Magazine articles

Main article: Rocket Science Games/Magazine articles.

Press releases

Artwork

  • RocketScienceGames logo bw.png
  • RocketScienceGames logo alt.png
  • RocketScienceGames logo.png

External links

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 http://variety.com/1993/biz/news/rocket-science-taps-h-wood-talent-for-cd-games-109022/ (Wayback Machine: 2017-02-22 02:27)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://alter.com/trademarks/rocket-science-games-75975836
  3. ↑ Next Generation, "July 1997" (US; 1997-06-17), page 24
  4. ↑ https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-computer-gaming-going-game-university (Wayback Machine: 2023-02-07 08:05)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 https://www.wired.com/1997/04/rocket-science-takes-a-dive/ (Wayback Machine: 2020-11-30 09:28)
  6. ↑ https://www.pch.net/resources/NSFNET/regional-techs.94.02 (Wayback Machine: 2022-12-27 22:52)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 https://steveblank.com/2009/06/01/rocks-in-the-rocket-science-lobby/ (Wayback Machine: 2022-10-04 10:33)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 https://www.wired.com/1994/11/rocket-science/ (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-17 02:45)
  9. ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveblank/details/experience/
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 https://steveblank.com/2009/07/02/rocket-science-2-drinking-the-kool-aid/ (Wayback Machine: 2022-10-05 01:41)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 https://venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/youre-not-as-good-as-the-press-thinks/
  12. ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-orr-112b3a36/details/experience/
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 https://www.inc.com/magazine/19940401/2864.html (Wayback Machine: 2022-05-27 06:10)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Sega Visions, "August/September 1994" (US; 1994-xx-xx), page 18
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 https://www.inc.com/zoe-henry/how-steve-blank-lost-35-million-and-bounced-back.html
  16. ↑ https://review.firstround.com/Looking-for-Love-in-All-The-Wrong-Places-How-to-Find-a-Co-Founder (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-31 07:54)
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 https://steveblank.com/2009/07/16/rocket-science-5-who-needs-domain-experts/ (Wayback Machine: 2022-10-05 02:41)
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 https://steveblank.com/2009/07/09/rocket-science-2-hollywood-meets-silicon-valley/ (Wayback Machine: 2022-12-07 00:55)
  19. ↑ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/03/someone-stole-my-startup-idea-–-part-1-are-those-my-initials/ (Wayback Machine: 2022-12-16 22:24)
  20. ↑ https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1002607/0000950123-96-005789.txt (Wayback Machine: 2018-08-26 15:03)
  21. ↑ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.11/rocket.science.html
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 https://www.badgamehalloffame.com/ (Wayback Machine: 2023-01-19 21:34)
  23. ↑ https://www.telecompaper.com/news/rocket-science-games-is-new-video-games-firm--10159
  24. ↑ https://epdf.pub/the-kingmakers-venture-capital-and-the-money-behind-the-net.html (Wayback Machine: 2023-02-07 08:04)
  25. ↑ https://review.firstround.com/Looking-for-Love-in-All-The-Wrong-Places-How-to-Find-a-Co-Founder
  26. ↑ https://steveblank.com/2009/02/23/out-of-the-ashes-something-isn’t-quite-right/ (Wayback Machine: 2022-12-16 22:24)
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 https://steveblank.com/2013/02/26/failure-and-redemption/ (Wayback Machine: 2022-11-24 02:16)
  28. ↑ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/07/masterpiece-rocket-jockey-for-the-pc-1/
  29. ↑ [Honoring the Code: Conversations with Great Game Designers Honoring the Code: Conversations with Great Game Designers]
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 http://www.rocketsci.com/interarc.html (Wayback Machine: 1996-11-14 06:35)
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