An Interview with Kevin Bachus

There's a lot of creativity in developers and in publishers that's really not able to be used, because games are just so expensive and difficult to produce. So we left Microsoft to create Capital Entertainment Group, as way to address those issues, and to provide another source of production expertise and funding that would allow really creative, innovative games to come to market.

Kikizo: So tell us about how Capital Entertainment Group itself actually got started.

It was actually started by four people: myself, our CEO Gene Mauro, Mark Hood, and Seamus Blackley. You know Seamus, and I've said a bit about myself... Mark Hood was most recently General Manager at Sierra Studios. He spent fourteen years at Sierra Online, and he's one of the most creative production executives in the industry. Mark has a real background for producing and managing the production of games, and he's really seen and been involved in every type of production you can imagine - starting fourteen years ago at Sierra Online, when it was just Ken and Roberta Williams, and just a few people with a lot of great ideas for adventure games.

Gene was one of the first developer talent agents, so he actually went and represented developers to secure production deals with publishers - to try and get funding and to get their ideas places. Gene and I were pursuing similar paths, trying to figure out from a production standpoint how to take advantage of this opportunity, but yet addressing some of the challenges of getting the games funded, especially some of the riskier, more innovative games. Gene, from the perspective of a developer agent representing developers, was finding the frustration of trying to get the more creative games placed with publishers. So he went out after E3 of 2001, to try and put together this company and raise money for it. We were introduced by a mutual friend. He said, "you guys keep talking about the same sorts of things - you should hook up." He'd already met and was working with Mark, and it was only natural that Seamus should come on board as well. So the four of us really put together the concept of the company as it stands today.

Kikizo: So now that it's up and running, how does CEG work? What problems is it really out to address and how successful can it be?

Capital Entertainment Group is the industry's first independent production company. So, like a film production company such as Miramax, Castlerock or Imagine Entertainment, we go out and find intellectual properties - in our case, games. And then we produce those games - we work just as any publisher would to provide management to the development teams, to provide the help and creative support, the structure and discipline that enable great games to come to life. If you think about it, every game that's been successful has existed in a kind of safe creative bubble, that's allowed the game to come to market. There was just a great convergence of talented people, with enough money and enough time, and bright ideas, to be able to change the world, as we know it, as gamers.

"When you look at a game concept on paper, it's very difficult to make a decision to put $10m-$15m into it."