What do you want to do with the game we’re making and the studio we’re making?” I said, “I always want us to be within striking distance of greatness.” All of a sudden it clicked in our heads. Moving to EA Redwood Studios as general manager of the company's Visceral Games, he collaborated with Bret Robbins, including the popular Lord of the Rings video series and 007: From Russia with Love. He was eventually approached by PUBG Corporation. “You know, I’ve worked with companies that have been heavy-handed in the past before, and they’re the complete opposite. But he was willing to share that it’s a narratively focused game built in the Unreal engine that takes place in the world of PUBG. They retained those roles when, that November, Activision acquired the company as a wholly owned development studio operating on an independent model. Schofield: One of the reasons I moved it to San Ramon, besides the fact that I found a great place and that it happens to be my hometown, is that I knew of a lot of great developers who lived in the East Bay and traveled to Silicon Valley every day. He was asking me, “What do you want to do with games? Glen Schofield: Not a heck of a lot. Striking Distance Studios is making triple-A games. Where to get the equipment, the people, all kinds of things. He was given the green light to go build a studio and make that game that he described. A lot of concept art coming in. He’s been in the industry for a long time, and he knows how long it takes to finish a project — and how to make sure it gets completed on a reasonable schedule.

PUBG Corporationannounced today that it has named Glen Schofield as the chief executive officer of a Striking Distance, a new game development studio. We don’t need it yet, but when we get into the motion capture studio — luckily we did some motion capture earlier, so that gets us going. © The Escapist 2020. We’re the only game company on the East Bay and the only mocap studio in the whole bay area aside from ILM.

We had our network guys fix things. Of course, they won’t tell me that deadline — it’s too soon to actually commit to anything publicly, especially now that everyone at the studio is having to work from home because of COVID-19. Schofield: We’re making a triple-A experience, yeah. Glen Schofield’s new studio, Striking Distance, is making a new game in the same universe as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). It was a discussion that’s near and dear to our hearts. Schofield grew up in New Jersey;[5] with the encouragement of his parents, he began drawing and taking art lessons at an early age. We’ve got help from around the world, and everybody else there is working from home. We’ve hired a very senior team. Now that we had the core of the team, we could all branch out into the areas we knew and bring in people we knew. With all the freedom that Striking Distance Studios has been given, there’s always the worry that it’ll fall victim to scope creep and spiral out of control with ideas and complexity.

“It’s a very professional team that’s not taking advantage of the situation at all. GamesBeat: Is the team still pretty concentrated around San Ramon, or were you spread out anyway? Then I hired a COO and a CTO and a chief creative officer. A narrative focus is a major change for a game related to PUBG, which isn’t known for its story. [9][9], Schofield, executive producer on the project, worked with Michael Condrey, senior development director. It made building Striking Distance a lot easier. You’re trying to get me to say what I’m making. We’re working on the story right now, working on design. They were action games. Then a week later, two weeks later we moved back out. The game launched a franchise of sequels, comics, novels and films, and went on to win more than 80 industry awards, including the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' Action Game of the Year and two awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. We checked, and we were able to get Striking Distance. His career began as an artist and art director with the New Jersey video game company Absolute Entertainment. Schofield: I was having a conversation with Steve as we were starting to come up with names. The game itself is in the early stages of development, so Schofield wasn’t keen to share too many details about his vision. So it’s basically a brand new franchise.”. We went out and got whatever equipment, in most cases cameras. We still have a lot of hiring to do, 40 or 50 more people, in all kinds of disciplines. It’s crazy.”. When asked if it was a shooter, he resisted using that description. Above: Glen Schofield’s grandfather was in the 34th Infantry Division and earned a Purple Heart. Under Schofield, the studio will be developing a game with a narrative experience set in the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds's universe. “We saw this coming and we had a couple of days where we told everybody to practice working from home,” Schofield said. Now we are getting underway, and starting to build.”. He had just started moving his dozens of new employees into a new headquarters in the suburban city of the East Bay Area region, a couple dozen miles away from San Francisco. Schofield: We kind of saw this coming, that we were going to have to work at home at some point, or at least we thought we did. We’re hiring through this. The game's theme of humans in space losing perspective to their place in the universe is influenced by the works of Arthur C. Clarke, after whom the game character Isaac Clarke was named. Schofield picked his hometown, San Ramon, California, for his new studio. “We’re trying to do interviews via Zoom and all that, but anybody that wants to relocate or move, they’ve kind of put that on hold for now,” said Schofield. Since I’ve done this before, I was able to get us a place, pick out a place eight or nine months ago that I really liked here in San Ramon. They’ve found themselves in an unusual situation, however — they’re allowed to do pretty much whatever they want with the property.

People came back on that Monday and let us know what equipment they were missing or what wasn’t working. During his time at EA Redwood Studios, the studio was ranked 17th in the top 50 Game Developers List of 2009 by Game Developer Research. Trying to make something that’s quality. Phillip Moyer works at the local news station KSNV-TV, but that's boring, so he also writes about video games whenever he can. But even with these obstacles, Schofield says they’re moving forward and making deadlines while maintaining a freedom that Schofield says still feels unreal.

He then relocated to Seattle to join the West Coast's burgeoning video games industry. But the real challenge is whether PUBG Corporation will be able to take its success and turn it into something longer-lasting than a single runaway hit. Before the release of the Season 4 Cinematic Trailer last year, the entire plot could be summed up as, “You’re someone who has to kill everyone else before they kill you.” That on its own was enough to make it a worldwide phenomenon and kick off the battle royale craze that led to the release of games like Fortnite Battle Royale, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty: Warzone. He is married and has 3 children, paints in his spare time, and is a habitual exerciser, both cardiovascular and weight training, averaging once a day while on deadline, twice that when not. It makes sense. Two weeks ago we had to clear out. He took over the Dead Space franchise when I left EA, and then he took over the studio, Visceral Games, after I left. They’re like, ‘You’re the creative dude.

It’s definitely about making a triple-A style of game. He pitched his idea for a game, and PUBG Corporation said yes. Just all along, I really liked talking with them, and their creative philosophy, and their time philosophy.”. You guys come up with it.’”.

And it’s not the kind of thing you can do at home, with everyone isolated. We’re talking more about building the studio. Schofield: There you go! Right now, even with 70-something people, I think the average development time in the game industry is 14 years. GamesBeat: Is this triple-A, as far as where the focus is?

Schofield: The first thing I went out to do was to hire my C staff.