Orange County Register

Last Thursday, I wrote about Carbine Studios, the start-up game company whose founders worked on Blizzard’s massively successful World of Warcraft game. Check out the story HERE. Plus here are a few more photos that didn’t make it into the original story package:

Today, another exclusive: An update on another post-WoW group of developers.

I spoke to Mark Kern, president of Red 5 Studios in Aliso Viejo and the original lead developer for WoW. His company received $18.5 million in venture-capital funding last December mainly because its three co-founders played were key Blizzard folks.

Just like Carbine Studios, Red 5 is working on a massively multiplayer game. Little is known about either game, but I have an inkling both will offer lessons learned from WoW and have a similar look.

Red 5 just opened a 20,000 square-foot Shanghai production studio that serves as its co-headquarters. That added another 20 people to its 52 employees in Aliso Viejo. Mark said the opening ceremony in China was covered by a dozen or so TV and internet journalists in China and attended by government officials and local heads of game development.

“We’re using the office to say “we’re here to win in China” because it is the world’s largest market for online games,” Mark said.

Besides Red 5 and Carbine, there are several other Blizzard offspring who have gone on to start their own game companies. Flagship Studios in San Francisco; ArenaNet (developers of NCsoft’s Guild Wars) in Bellevue, Wash.; Castaway Entertainment in Belmont, Calif. and a few others…

But what does Mark think about all these former WoW developers cashing in on Blizzard’s success? Read on…

Red 5: “There are a few that claim lineage, but not a very strong one, such as Cheyenne Mountain and many more who have merely hired a Blizzard employee or two. Obviously Arena.net has been very successful, and Flagship looks to be on the way to success as well with their game, Hellgate: London. Castaway is still kicking, I think, but the other two have dissolved. The jury is out for Red 5 and Carbine. I like to think its going to work out to a 50 percent shot at making it big, which are good odds compared to most new ventures of which only 1 in 10 survive.”

Gadgetress: Would Red 5 and the others be as far along if it wasn’t for the Blizzard connection?

Red 5: We try not to focus on the Bliz angle here at Red 5. There is a saying in this business “you’re only as good as your last game” so we have plenty to prove! Everyone, including us, says they want to push the genre but only very few actually will. Having worked on WoW gives you a financial head start for sure, but its up to the founders if they want to take the greater risk (and potential reward) of being an independent startup. For Red 5 the answer was clear: we wanted to create a great company as well as a game, foster our independence and have the freedom to create whatever we felt was the next step in this genre.

Gadgetress: I know Red 5 had a very unique hiring campaign last spring that got gobs of publicity from the gaming press. But with all the new MMO companies popping up everywhere, especially here in Orange County, how difficult is it to hire people?

Red 5: Hiring is always a challenge, of course, but it is by no means based on location. There is a world-wide shortage of good game developers right now, at a time where game teams are 3-4 times the size they used to be. If you do the math, you’ll see there just isn’t enough to go around. Luckily, Red 5 has hired some great people, thanks in part to our innovative and award-winning recruiting programs.

Gadgetress: What about the local competition? Does Carbine got what it takes?

Red 5: Sure. I’d just like to say that Kevin (Beardslee) was a fantastic animator on the WoW team and I’m really looking forward to his new game for NC Soft.

Related stories: Check out the Blizzard/Warcraft archive

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