From The Ghost To The Grave

Projektitachi (00:21.479)
What is up everybody? Welcome back to another week of the GZ Chop Shop Podcast. And you probably have noticed I'm missing Daniel. He's not here. No, I did not kick him off the show. He just had some things he had to take care of. So he's unfortunately not here this week, but he will be back in a future episode. So unfortunately you guys are just stuck with me. I know tough. But I have an amazing episode for you. Nonetheless today.

I have two amazing gentlemen on the podcast. You are very familiar with their work. You have seen it in the likes of the division, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Breakpoint, Dying Light 2, and more. These talented veterans are bringing their years of experience to their own upcoming game, Victory Grave Outflank. Here today from Old Glory Studios, our executive producer, Lewis Manalo, and creative director,

Matt Patak. Gentlemen, welcome to the podcast.

Lewis Manalo (01:25.912)
Thanks so much for having us.

Matt Patak (01:26.867)
Thank you.

Projektitachi (01:27.401)
Yeah, as I always like to start with a little story, when I got the email from your team, I was floored. I was like, nah, this can't be real. I get those kind of emails, I'm like, nah, no way. Because as I was telling you guys before the show, I'm a huge Clancyverse fan. I got my start with the Nintendo 64 version of Rainbow Six.

Lewis Manalo (01:55.266)
That's right.

Projektitachi (01:57.031)
And I was hooked after that. Like I never looked back and I was playing Splinter Cell. I played Chaos Theory, Conviction, Blacklist. I got into the Ghost Recon and Wildlands is my absolute favorite. And I thought the story was amazing. I remember I was playing it religiously through 2017 with my friends and I always thought to myself, I said, in those levels,

Lewis Manalo (01:58.158)
You

Lewis Manalo (02:14.486)
Thank you. Appreciate that.

Projektitachi (02:25.725)
when we were getting our butts kicked, who was at fault for some of those levels? Because like I said, the world was so immersive. It was so good that we actually had to apply real tactics. Like my buddy, was SRF. So he was like, hold on, we got to approach this differently. Like we got to, we got to approach this with that mindset and getting to sit down and talk with you guys is like.

Lewis Manalo (02:30.657)
You

Projektitachi (02:52.739)
I like I said, I was like, it's like talking to celebrities because as a gamer, we don't always get to connect with the faces behind the stories that were, you know, we're given. We get the product and we don't get to realize how much work and effort was put into it. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So I know a lot of people are probably curious on how you guys got started. So Lewis, we'll we'll start with you. How did you get?

Matt Patak (03:11.55)
Asus too.

Projektitachi (03:22.387)
How did you go from military to gaming? Like how, how did that happen?

Lewis Manalo (03:26.67)
Sure. All right, well, it was not on purpose. It was kind of an accident, honestly. so I enlisted after September 11th. I lived in Jersey City on September 11th. So I was like literally across the Hudson River when World Trade Centers fell. I watched that from my apartment window, right? But before that, I'd already been working in film and television industry and also writing some.

Um, so when I got out in 04, after a couple of deployments, um, you know, I tried to get back into it. Uh, so, you know, it's, it's never like a straight line, you know, like I'm sure, you know, like after you get out, like finding out like where it is you're going to fit in or what it is you're going to do. Um, but eventually I found myself, uh, producing some, uh, independent, uh, documentaries that were shot in, uh, South America, like in mostly in the Amazon, uh, river basin. Uh, and.

Projektitachi (04:08.488)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (04:23.206)
but then I also was still writing. So I wrote a play about like a bunch of soldiers, like stuck on a mountain in Afghanistan. And, an old friend of mine came to a reading of that play that was, you know, a few months later, he called me up and was like, Hey, I'm working on this game about these soldiers in South America. know you were a soldier and you've been to South America. You want to help us write some stuff. So, and that's how I got into the game industry and,

You know, he's that guy was Sam Strachman, narrative director on Ghost Recon Wildlands. So then, yeah, like, basically, I ended up doing a lot of heavy lifting for the for writing the dialogue and a lot of the cut scenes that are in there. So then after, you know, they started working on the next game, Breakpoint, that's when they kind of asked me to be the lead writer. So, yeah, and then I just I just kind of stuck with the industry since. So.

Projektitachi (05:19.273)
Nice. And Matt, what about you?

Matt Patak (05:22.185)
Yeah, I've always had the passion to be in games since I was a kid. Like middle school, I think is when I really even like considered the idea of making games as a career. But yeah, like Lewis, 9-11 happened and it kind of changed everything for me. Had to sign up while I was in, you know, a lot of guys in the barracks and stuff. We'd do LAN parties and stuff, like just kind of like, you know, just game it up together and like, you know, just have this all nighter session, just purely just chaos gaming.

Yeah, I always knew that I wanted to get back into like, like at least get into making games. So I looked for schools while I was in the military. So I kind of already had a plan for what I wanted to do when I got out. And I went to school for game design, found out during this process of learning all of game design that I was really good at level design. So I've made a level design portfolio and got my first job at cry tech, moved to Europe, never my.

life that I ever think I'd be even living in Europe. And I never visited and there I was working and living in Europe. after Crytek landed a job at Ubisoft working on the division one, the DLCs in between there and division two and the DLC after that. So it's been a long career.

Projektitachi (06:38.409)
Yeah, and that's that's amazing because you know the Clancy verse has is decades, you know, as I was saying, you know, telling you guys I got my start with Rainbow Six, you know, back on the the N64. And I know that a lot of the work is inspired by, you know, Tom Clancy's writing. How much of that is used in the

Matt Patak (06:45.726)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (07:07.579)
modern games for reference or you know

Lewis Manalo (07:11.742)
Well, like the current games now, like, it's, you know, like the there's definitely been a straight away from that authenticity stuff. You know what I mean? Like, you know, like what they have like droids and rain and Rainbow Six Siege now and stuff. You know what I mean? So it's and even in breakpoint, that was really when at least from my perspective, where the transition kind of towards a little more sci fi and a little less, you know, because.

Projektitachi (07:20.124)
Mm.

Projektitachi (07:24.733)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (07:38.636)
But you know, Tom Clancy was always great about his writing. It's always great about the Clancy versus it's always just like a little bit ahead into the future. You know what I mean? So like, like you go back to Red October, like that was a, there was like a something that was a submarine that was just a little bit more advanced than what everybody else had, you know? So I mean, now with, with break points, it's

Projektitachi (07:58.312)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (08:06.58)
Now we see that, okay, there are actually going to be drones and robots all over the battlefield. You know what I mean? If you watch that footage in Ukraine, half of that stuff has to do with drones, right? But at the time, a lot of the way it was presented with the wolves, they look pretty bad ass, but at the same time, walking around with a metal face mask is not exactly tactical either.

Projektitachi (08:10.159)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (08:35.0)
So it's kind of drifted away, I think. definitely tried to keep it in break point. And I definitely, I don't know, Matt, how you feel about in the division, but I think there's a lot of elements there that are, again, with the Clancy, like just one or two steps. I think it's supposed to be like five to seven years ahead of where we are now is like what, like the Clancy verse kind of.

Projektitachi (08:57.31)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (09:00.96)
aesthetic or the idea of it is really supposed to be. So it's more like speculative than actually science fiction. But you know, like some of the stuff that they yeah, and that's that's kind of the thing. Like now it's it's not really part of what they do anymore, you know, which is kind of why I think it's, you know, I think Matt and I are probably moved on to other things, too, you know, so.

Projektitachi (09:07.772)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (09:25.673)
Yeah, that's what I, you know, and I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, you guys have worked in the AAA industry for a good amount of time on hit games. And, you know, now you're taking a step to create your own game. You know, you founded your own studio and you are taking those elements and those skills that you've acquired over years and you're, you know, you're creating victories, Grave, Outflank.

What was the motivation for that transition, Matt, if you want to start with made you decide you wanted to do your, you know, do your own thing.

Matt Patak (10:04.607)
I've always had the idea in the back of my mind of I wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to make my own games kind of like set my own path. And that was really my original goal, getting into games in general, was just to learn the industry and at some point break away and form my own studio to some degree and like, you know, be my own boss. I've always had that drive and it's just been taking, you know,

the last 15 years of career experience to get to this point, I, you know, the big motivational factor was just, I thought like now was the time I felt like I'm tired of like just asking people for roles that I want within either within a studio or outside of a studio. I was like, man, I've been doing this for a long time and I got the skills and the experience to do this. Let's just take a shot and do it ourselves. So Lewis and I, yeah, we're like, hell yeah, man, let's do it. let's, I know.

Projektitachi (10:55.955)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (11:01.629)
Like all the stuff that we've learned from all the studios that we worked at, like we've have that, just those eyes on what works and what doesn't. And so we bring that into, this position for our own studio. Like I know we can be successful for sure.

Projektitachi (11:16.549)
And Lewis, what?

Lewis Manalo (11:18.102)
Yeah, I mean, a lot of it goes on with what we've been saying. Like the kind of games that we like to play are games that feel authentic, but are still really accessible. Right? Like the early Rainbow Six games, you know, like you were really playing at being one of these, these, you know, people who exist in some form in real life. Right. But now like, you know, whether it's like a Tom Clancy game or whether it's

you know, Call of Duty or something where you can play a Snoop Dogg or Nicki Minaj, you know what I mean? Like they've gone more and more. Wait, what do you play? Like a Ninja Turtle now too, right? Like I kind of kind of want to try that out, honestly. But it's like, you know, but they keep going more and more towards like Fortnite, towards like these more cartoon stuff. Then on the other side, have stuff that like Arma, you know, or like Crown Branch or like things that might be a little too hardcore for people. You know what I'm saying?

Projektitachi (11:51.673)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt Patak (11:52.071)
Yeah!

Matt Patak (11:57.203)
No, I'm fine.

Projektitachi (12:02.045)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (12:11.544)
So right now we're trying to like, we're like this middle point, like which is a very wide middle, right? Like that's the kind of games that we like to play, but we weren't seeing anybody making them. rather than just playing the old games, like, you know, we decided we'd start something new.

Projektitachi (12:18.24)
Yep.

Projektitachi (12:27.559)
I'm so glad that you mentioned that middle ground because the issues that you mentioned and how like Call of Duty, how it started to where it is now, that's been one of the biggest gripes that I've personally had over the years. And I'm like, I don't know, is it my age or something like, you know, are all the games leaning towards this cartoonish approach where it's like they have to have the latest cartoon character, you know, or crisscrossing brands. And I'm like,

Matt Patak (12:40.455)
Yep, 100%.

Projektitachi (12:57.501)
Well, what is Call of Duty now? Like I remember the days when I would get online, those lobbies were a little hostile, but I'd get online with my friends and we were a cooperative team and a cooperative shooter trying to outscore the other team. And I didn't have to worry about, hey, is that shredder that just ran across the field? I'm busy staring at your skin. Right. You know, like what did Snoop do to me? So.

Lewis Manalo (12:59.233)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Patak (13:04.141)
yeah.

Lewis Manalo (13:12.536)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (13:16.942)
Like I feel bad shooting Nicki Minaj

Matt Patak (13:19.027)
Yeah Yeah, that's that's why yeah, I love snoop so

Projektitachi (13:28.755)
But I love that you guys are bringing it, the accessibility, but keeping it as a squad, as a team, and saying, let's go in the middle. It's like Baron here. Can we put something here? So with Victory's Grave Outflank, how did that concept come to be? How did you guys go, OK, this is the game we want?

Lewis Manalo (13:43.534)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (13:56.128)
Okay, sure. So, so, again, like we've been talking about Matt and I, both have worked in the AAA space for like years now, right? Like him, like 15, I've been in like 10 years. And one thing that AAA games almost always try to do is they try to be all things to all people. Right. But like one of the things I quickly learned on, on wild goes to be gone wild lands is that there's like this segment of the community playing there that is

Projektitachi (14:05.277)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (14:24.62)
that loves the game, but they only play the PVP. You know what I mean? So like all this writing that we've been working on for like years, all the actors and all the mocap and cinematics and stuff, they just skip all that. They ignore that stuff. So like looking at it from a, like a player's point of view, you know, like if that's all I wanted to play, why would I pay for all the rest of it? You know what I mean? So like, I can always use the example. It's like cable TV, right? Like I only want to watch

Projektitachi (14:47.902)
Right.

Lewis Manalo (14:54.38)
You know, like Western's on TNT or whatever, right? But then why do I got to pay for CNN and Fox News? Like I don't watch any of that stuff. You know what I mean? So what we're trying to do with with Victory's Grave is instead of having a one game try to be everything, we're going to break it up into smaller games. know, so Victory's Grave outflank is just the PVP part. And then later on this year, we're hoping to start pre-production on a more narrative focused games.

Projektitachi (14:57.662)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (15:22.358)
you know, be like a single player type thing. And, you know, a lot of, and by the way, they'll all share the same world, you know? And honestly, like a lot of, let's say the skills or like the knowledge of how to do this kind of thing, how to structure it actually comes from like my work in Wildlands year two, you know, which had all the different crossovers, which is when they're like really tried to make some kind of Clancy verse, you know, at least for a couple of years there. So, you know, so with.

Projektitachi (15:46.332)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (15:50.614)
Like Sam Fisher coming in for anybody who's not played it, you know, like their crossovers with like Sam Fisher came on the Wildlands, some of the Rainbow Six Siege characters came on it. So and it really weaves together like a a Clancyverse. So.

Matt Patak (16:06.323)
Yeah. Yeah. I want to jump in like, yeah. So like the work that I did on the division one, you could really tell really fast that that's a lot of that stuff's dictated by the higher ups, but a lot of the cool creative stuff comes in between part one and part two. Those are those DLCs in between. And that to me, it's just like, that's where the fun is. It's where a lot of the unique designs are. That's where a lot of, you know, you can take a chance on something like if you, have you ever played the survival DLC for the division one at all?

Projektitachi (16:07.134)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (16:36.507)
I didn't play the survival DLC. I have it and I never played it.

Matt Patak (16:36.731)
Have you heard of it? Yeah, it's so good. But it's it's it's basically yeah It's the original I would say I don't know like I need to go back and look at the dates but maybe I think I came before something like Like like a target I don't I don't even remember the first like real extraction shooter But this is like one of the first takes on it where everyone, you know started with the same amount of gear you had to find stuff work your way to the center and then pop pop a flare and extract and

Lewis Manalo (16:37.794)
you got to, You got to.

Matt Patak (17:05.011)
That was so cool. And like, as a level designer, I love that because I could make the world far more creative. I could put my thumbprint on something. I could make it just super unique and the community ate it up and it was really well received. It's just that, you know, Ubisoft has shareholders and they got, you know, crazy amount of studios to manage. So they have to like, if we can contract Nicki Minaj or Snoop Dogg or something, that makes them a return. But the stuff that really becomes unique is just between the cracks. And that's where I think we have the

a huge advantage with what we're doing is like, we're not necessarily following these trends. And I don't want to follow the trend because I think that's, you're trying to compete with, you know, these guys have just been around like, like, you know, how many versions of Far Cry are there? How many versions of Call Duty are there? How many versions of Battlefield? These people have years, not decades and decades of experience of a headstart on us. But if we can come up with a new concept, a new kind of interesting take on an old formula.

but kind of really put a new modern polish on it, it's gonna really pop. I think the market is right for this, because people are just, like you said, they're seeing the same thing over and over, and they just wanna feel something different, but familiar. You know what mean?

Projektitachi (18:18.951)
Yeah. And I, you know, when I went and I checked out the game, one of the features that you guys have and I was like, OK, now I have to try this was before the battle begins, the real battle begins. It's, you know, planning your your foxholes and setting things up. And it gave me an end war kind of feel because I was a huge fan of war. And I thought that game was ahead of its time. And I was like, man, if they could just redo this.

Matt Patak (18:35.901)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt Patak (18:41.055)
Mmm.

Matt Patak (18:47.784)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (18:48.305)
Now I'd be totally for it. But I love that that it's not just a drop teams in and shoot to the end. Like you have to think before the match even begins. What made you guys decide to go in that direction? Because I think it's amazing.

Matt Patak (19:00.735)
100%.

Matt Patak (19:05.407)
Well, for me, I've played so many of these, you know, fast-paced twitch action shooters that it becomes so repetitious that you know where the player is going to be by the time they come around that corner. If I pop a grenade, boom, I'll get at least two kills. I come around the corner, someone's going to be in this corner. It was so repetitious. So those players that came in with that, you know, fresh eyes that never really looked at this game before, they're wrecked. They have no shot.

Projektitachi (19:22.771)
Yep.

Matt Patak (19:32.743)
And I always found like whenever like a new map or new DLC or something came out, I always felt like, I actually outsmarted these people. read the room. understood the map because it was fresh to everybody. We all kind of had that fresh take. then it's like those that take a time to, to look at the map, kind of understand which route is best. How do they set up an ambush? How do they go about then that this rewards those types of players. And I thought, okay, like a map that is always evolving players can change it.

you know, based off of how they want to either defend or attack. To me, that was just like the new, map becomes something fresh every time there'll be a meta that forms like, they always put a, you know, a booby trap here. always move the objective over here, X, Y, and Z. Like, but once you start to understand the meta, then you can start to like, like at the game of football, you start to like, everyone's doing West coast offense. No problem. You know, we'll just do, you know,

Projektitachi (20:23.965)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (20:24.191)
blitzes and everything, we're just pressing the quarterback constantly. So it's like you have to adapt to the changing landscape. And that to me was, that's the connection that I've always wanted with games. That's the hook that keeps me coming back is it's always something new.

Projektitachi (20:38.833)
So you guys are doing the PVP first and then you mentioned some work in the future. Can you tell us a little bit more about what might come after the PVP?

Lewis Manalo (20:51.212)
Yeah, sure. again, like it's so the right now, again, we haven't even entered pre-production right now. We're still like batting around concepts. But right now we have attached as creative director, Christian Devine. He's a game writer. He's most known, I guess, for writing Life is Strange. Yeah. So again, like it's so like if you're going to go narrative, you know, just try and find like the best writer you can. So like and the impact of

Projektitachi (21:09.156)
Projektitachi (21:15.92)
You

Lewis Manalo (21:20.974)
You know, that story, you know, those stories is kind of undeniable. Like we actually met while we were both working on Dying Light 2. I think it was really just DLCs that I was working on. So I don't know if you've actually played anything I worked on in that. don't think I even made it into the game. So, but yeah, so, you know, we just stayed in touch, you know, after, you know, getting friendly there and, you know, like again, kind of.

With the way, so the world that we've set up is basically like it's set in like the end of 1984. Like there's been like a huge global blackout, right? So 84 is like middle of the cold war. So in, in Europe, you got like NATO on one side of the iron curtain, you got Warsaw Pact guys on the other side of iron curtain. Nobody knows what's going on. They're not getting any communication from anybody. So what do they do? They go do Joe logic. They just start shooting, right?

Projektitachi (22:14.953)
You

Lewis Manalo (22:16.184)
So like, eventually like NATO pushes to the east of the Soviet Union kind of crumbles because as we now know, like they didn't really have all the resources, all the strength that they advertised, right? But then this is now boom, like, okay, so we've won the cold war, but now like people are dying off because there's no electricity, like, because there's no electricity, you're not running hospitals, you're not storing food, you're losing all your medicine, right? So.

like all these soldiers and former soldiers out there, they're either like still trying to do their mission or they're just like, well, let's just be bandits or like, I'm going to be a fricking warlord in Eastern Poland or something. Or like if there are local soldiers that are like, all right, we're going to form a militia for our own, for our own town. Right. So, but in this context, like there's like a, it's a whole universe. Like there's a wealth of different stories that you could do that. You know? So like,

Projektitachi (23:02.313)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (23:12.02)
it's given Christian like honestly like too many different options as to what he could do. So, you know, like he tends, in a lot of his writing, he tends to like have younger protagonists. So we're talking about that a lot, you know? So like in Life is Strange 2, you know, there's his two brothers, you know? So it could be, I mean, probably less superpowers going on, because we're not really going that science fiction, right?

But you know, like it'll be young, probably younger characters and kind of like how this kind of thing might, would affect them. So.

Projektitachi (23:45.385)
Okay, okay. So what are some of the difficulties you guys have been running into? know, as I said early, as a gamer, we see the finished product and I'm guilty of this as well. You know, we get the game and we like, there's a bug here. You know, like there's a Bethesda bug. Why is my guy spinning in a circle? Why is he T-posing? Because we don't understand what's happening behind the scenes, like in level design and my goodness, you know, what's up with the writing? We don't understand.

Lewis Manalo (23:54.914)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (24:01.538)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (24:04.585)
Classic.

Lewis Manalo (24:12.43)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (24:12.541)
you know, that you guys might say, hey, here's an idea, here's a concept. And then it gets all up to shareholders and like, no, don't do that. And we don't, you know, we don't know what's going on. like from when you were working at Ubisoft and other studios, what issues did you run into and what issues are you running into while running your own studio? If you want to start off, Matt.

Matt Patak (24:35.773)
Yeah, I think from what we're trying to deal with is finding our style. Like we have a vision, we have an idea of which way we want to go, but honing that in, like narrowing that down, both combat and narrative and world and animation, whatever you can think of, just finding that as to separate ourselves from what's already out there.

Again, not so much that we become unrecognizable and people are, it's like a turnoff, but finding that balance, that middle ground, I think is key for me. And like, this is something I've seen throughout most of my gaming career is we pretty much have an, like a solid idea of when it comes to the PVP structure, which way we want to go. but when I've seen and what we're working on currently, but what I've seen in the AAA space,

Well, I'll take it back to my first, you know, game industry experience at Crytek. I worked on Rise, Son of Rome and like that game went through three, maybe four iterations until it finally became that God of War style clone that it became in the end. And this is just because like the, you know, the, CEO just like came into the office. Like I watched Gladiator last night. Let's make a game about that. Okay. How do we do that? Like, what do we do? Like, so then everyone scrambles. Try this.

Projektitachi (25:49.817)
Projektitachi (25:55.561)
Hmm.

Matt Patak (25:56.167)
And we show it to them. Nope, not that. So they go through this massive, like, you know, just process. And I think it's a huge waste of money trying to find the game concept. And so for us, it's like, we got the concept, we have the world, we just need to find how we fit. So.

Projektitachi (26:13.191)
And Lewis, what about you?

Lewis Manalo (26:14.758)
Yeah, I mean, if I take it back to, you know, just the beginning of my career at Ghost Recon Wildlands, a lot of it is just that, you know, like I was given this. So this is kind of parallels like why we're here, where we are. Like I was given this mandate of like, write it like it's real, right? So little did they know what real was going to be like.

Projektitachi (26:39.526)
Eee.

Lewis Manalo (26:39.574)
So that's the thing. So the writing and I recognize completely that the writing and Ghost Recon Wildlands, it's like divides people. Like they either love it or they hate it, you know, and just switch it off. Right. So, but like one of the, some of the best, like some of the, comments that I've gotten from, from veterans is that I've appreciated the most or when they say that, yeah, like that was the most realistic part of the game, you know? And it's because like, you know, like

Even like from the SF point of view, like, you know, in the 82nd, like I would often work with those guys, be trained by them, like get to know them personally. I've been like to their homes, you know? so like got beat up by a of them in Brazil. That was the wrong class to join. But, but yeah, but anyway, like, uh, so, like, so now like,

Projektitachi (27:20.795)
you

You

Lewis Manalo (27:33.25)
where we're at now, we're, it's a different space now. Like now we're trying to find the authentic and like, let's be honest, like there are reasons why Call of Duty has become much more like Fortnite or why like the niche stuff has become more niche, you know, it's because it is hard to distinguish yourself in that middle area, you know, and it like, and again, a lot of it comes back to like, how are you getting your funding? You know?

Projektitachi (27:51.016)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (27:58.678)
So like, people see like, okay, Fortnite's doing really well, let's put the Ninja Turtles in our game. You know what I'm saying? Like then, okay, then it, then it just becomes like a pragmatic decision from a financial point of view. so like for, for us being like a smaller studio, a smaller project, it becomes double-edged sword because, you know, for an investor coming to us, there's not going to be as big of a risk, right? We're not trying to mess with any $200 million budgets over here.

You know, like we're just like, okay, well you get us five, we'll be good for like three years. You know what I'm saying? So, but like, but at the same time, it's like, how do you attract those people? You know what I mean? So it's especially now, like, is this getting a little inside baseball, but like with a lot of the funding that was going into games, especially the last few years, like, so video game.

Projektitachi (28:33.029)
You

Lewis Manalo (28:54.284)
Like funding has actually increased over the last year, I guess, but a lot of that investment is going to this AI tools or AI games. So it's really more on the AI space as much as it's in the video game space. So that is one of the big issues we're having now is just honing in on basically finding the right people to partner with to make our game successful, to find the right audience.

Projektitachi (29:24.565)
I know and you mentioned AI and I know Daniel and I have talked about AI and how it can be a useful tool, but how it shouldn't be involved in everything. And you guys are very clear on like AI not being, you know, writing. You guys try to, you know, keep everything. I guess you could say homegrown. So like, what are your thoughts on the industry leaning so hard into AI with

Lewis Manalo (29:30.104)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Patak (29:35.88)
Right.

Matt Patak (29:45.811)
For sure.

Projektitachi (29:54.055)
you know, video games. It's kind of scary in my opinion.

Matt Patak (29:58.729)
here.

Lewis Manalo (30:00.408)
Well, for me, from my point of view, it is a tool. know what I mean? Like it's, it was actually really funny. Like, so Grok 3 just came out, right? So my brother was actually just like, he was like wargaming on it. Just like asking it, okay, well what happened if like the Ranger battalion went against like Russian VDV, like, which is like the airborne over there, you know, like the equivalent. And it just kept going and like extrapolating stuff. But like, you end up seeing like a limit to its logic. You know what I mean?

So it's a very, it can be a very useful tool, you know, just, mean, at this point it's like not every good technology, like, or not every technology, even if it's like bad or good, like actually makes it right. Like I don't have a 3d TV, you know what saying? Like, don't know if either of you guys do, but that remember that was like huge. Like you, couldn't walk into any store without seeing those, but like nobody's using those now. Right.

Projektitachi (30:43.431)
Right.

Projektitachi (30:47.004)
you

Projektitachi (30:52.092)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (30:57.846)
So again, a lot is gonna come down to the market and if people find it useful, not whether or not people like it, you know, like for better or worse. So, but yeah, like, I mean, the end product will always end up being in the hands of people. That's kind of where I come down, where it comes down to.

Matt Patak (31:17.331)
Yeah. Which game studio was it that had that six finger Santa Claus picture? Was that Call of Duty? That it was the AI generated Santa Claus picture with six fingers on it? they'd like, yeah, it made it into the game too. I think it was, I'm pretty sure it was Call of Duty. I might be wrong, but that to me is like.

Lewis Manalo (31:29.802)
I don't know.

Projektitachi (31:30.505)
That sounds AI. Yeah, anything that has six fingers is usually...

Lewis Manalo (31:36.127)
okay.

Matt Patak (31:41.821)
That's nothing I want to ever do right there. It should always like Louis said, should be a tool to kind of get you off to a good start. And once you find your foundation, then you replace the AI with the human touch. And in the same way, like a lot of people are really annoyed at like marketplace asset flips where they're just, you I made a cool game. And they just, put it on marketplace for early access for like 20 bucks. And it's literally just crap that they bought off the marketplace and they didn't put any.

Lewis Manalo (31:49.729)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (31:55.304)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (32:01.932)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Patak (32:12.179)
real of their own touches in there. That's just going about it wrong, in my opinion. You should use that as a foundation to kind of set the tone, get your bearings and work with the concept that you have. But then you got to gut that system and rebuild what you have based off of what you know. And that's, think, how AI should be used. And I think some studios are getting away with it, some studios aren't. And yeah, we'll see. We'll see where the future takes us with AI.

Projektitachi (32:41.489)
Hopefully it doesn't get out of hand because like you said with the images that pop up now, and I do, I use AI as a tool, but that's because my team is small. There's like three of us. So it's like.

Matt Patak (32:43.322)
Yeah, it could.

Lewis Manalo (32:51.107)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (32:54.429)
Yep, you have to.

Lewis Manalo (32:54.732)
That's the That's key thing. That's the key point is that now what I think AI is going to do is it will make development teams smaller and smaller teams will be able to achieve more. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I'm not going to discount that, especially the space we're in right now.

Projektitachi (33:08.136)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (33:13.353)
For sure.

Lewis Manalo (33:15.724)
I don't know if you guys have seen any of these guys on, they're posting on X, like they'll just take a couple days and use Grok to just make a whole 3D game with like AI in it, you know, and they'll do it in like days. Yeah. And it's, know, and it's like, no one would ever mistake it for anything other than a prototype though. You know what I mean? Unless it's one of the people that just remakes Pac-Man, right? But like, in which case they just think it's like 40 years old, but.

Matt Patak (33:26.655)
Saw that the other day, yep, crazy.

Projektitachi (33:34.057)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (33:41.373)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (33:42.53)
But yeah, but you know, again, it's the thing is a useful tool. think there are going to be a lot of times when, you you want you might have an idea, but you don't have the time or the money to like really prototype it. And, and, and I could prove useful.

Matt Patak (33:56.575)
That's right.

Projektitachi (33:58.483)
Well, I guess we'll find out in the future. Speaking of prototypes and everything, when are you guys thinking about making Outflank available? What is your hopeful timeline? don't want guys don't don't stick them with a severe timeline. When is your hopeful timeline?

Lewis Manalo (34:16.43)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (34:22.838)
Okay. Well, we're really hoping to... So right now we're working towards the vertical slice. So it's going to be like one battlefield, right? Like one level that we're really hoping to get to pretty high quality, right? So if and when that works out, then we're really hoping to have an early access release. like a real beta, still be really polished, but at the same time, we want to be able to get that feedback from players.

Projektitachi (34:30.729)
Mm.

Lewis Manalo (34:52.366)
to really get all the features working well. Especially because there are a lot of team-based kind of features. So even in a controlled internal play test with teams, you're not going to get what you have when you have the public plan right. But we're hoping to get to early access within a year. And if and when we get the funding, that'll be able to happen.

Projektitachi (35:16.221)
Awesome, awesome. Now, Matt, this is a question for you because you've worked on level design for many years. How do you go about when you are creating a map, especially for a team-based thing, that's like a whole different ball game from like a single player game. How do you figure out the design of your map, especially when you've got to take like you're taking real world places and you're putting them in a game and they've got to be destructive. They've got to have

tactical points, like how do you figure that out?

Matt Patak (35:48.435)
Yeah, a lot of it, you basically look at the structure of what the game that you're making that level based in does and like the rules sets of that. like with the division, was a four player co-op with the, you know, with the player driven campaign. So it's like, okay, we understand this. We understand it's yes, it's set in real world spaces. We just got a, the, have to set stages in different like gates for, okay, with one player enters the space.

This is how many AI spawn and have, you know, a certain logic for that. If two players enter the space, we increase the amount. We have them coming from different directions. got, so there's a lot of tons of different variables. Iteration is, you know, is what really matters. You ha you can't just sit, you know, with one design, one idea that you made and think that it's going to stick forever. It's going to evolve. It's going to change. And it's constantly testing, constantly playing it, constantly working on it, constantly adding, constantly talking to people.

But yeah, with what we're doing, like it's all coming down from us. And so for me, it's like, that was understood for me from the get-go. So I made that two, two kilometer by two kilometer level in about a month and a half, because I had already known that this is what I kind of wanted to achieve from an environment space wise. then for each point of interest that we're fighting over, I understood like we could take different approaches. Like I use, you know, you know,

different Call of Duty levels from Call of Duty 1 and Call of Duty 2 as inspirations for the layout, the base layout of just like how I want it to feel and flow. But obviously it's going to take on a shape of its own. And that's a whole part of the process. You can literally have like Dust 2 from Counter-Strike, copy and paste that into Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. And it's going to change. It's not going to be the same. It'll...

you'll recognize a lot of stuff, but it won't play the same because the game is different. So you have to really revolve your design around what your game is that you're designing for. And that just takes a lot of practice. Like you have to like and understand the game that you're working on. So.

Projektitachi (37:58.889)
Okay. And since you guys are now, you know, officially an indie development studio, I know, you know, I myself have been toying with the idea of stepping into that realm. So here's a great opportunity to get some wisdom from you guys on, you know, some, some pitfalls that, you know,

Matt Patak (38:11.123)
Okay.

Lewis Manalo (38:18.158)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (38:19.549)
people might not realize or come in some things to look out for skills to improve upon. Like what would you, what nuggets of wisdom would you give someone like me who's completely unaware of what's waiting on the other side, know, gamer to developer.

Matt Patak (38:34.107)
Yeah, for sure.

Lewis Manalo (38:38.062)
I'd say don't wait, man. Just fricking do it. You know what I mean? Like honestly, or like if you are afraid of, like if you don't have any experience as a developer, I think one thing that can be helpful is, you know, just helping people out with their projects. know, like, like, like, especially after I got out of the military, like trying to get back into film.

Matt Patak (38:41.193)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (38:55.871)
For sure.

Lewis Manalo (39:01.268)
One of the best ways to do it, you know, like I wasn't going to be able to start my own thing from scratch right there, but though one of the best ways to get back into it was to help people I knew with their projects. Right. So you help people out with that. Like you end up learning a heck of a lot. You end up meeting a lot of people, you know, learning a lot of different, you know, learning, and then you'll be able to learn from other people's mistakes, frankly, you know,

Just like Matt and I've learned from the mistakes that, you know, people have made at the AAA studios who worked at, right? But yeah, I mean, so this is one thing that I keep saying. So I got two teenage boys, right? So one of the things I keep telling them is that you're not going to know everything. You just got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Right. So like nobody like. Like.

Projektitachi (39:44.713)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (39:48.93)
the nobody knows shit really like, you know what I mean? Like the industry's always changing. Like players are always changing. The technology is always changing. We're talking about all that stuff here right now, you know, like five years ago, nobody would have predicted that, you know, we'd have to be like coders would be competing with AI for their jobs. You know what I mean? So, I mean, just get into it, you know, just, just jump in, you know, like, and, you know, like, you know, maybe like

Projektitachi (39:50.985)
You

Projektitachi (40:08.969)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (40:14.249)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (40:17.664)
make sure there's a lifeline so you don't in case you know you can't swim right but you know like I wouldn't like bet your life on it necessarily but just go ahead just go for it you know

Projektitachi (40:20.873)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (40:28.799)
Yeah. Yeah. I totally echo that for sure. One thing I'd say is the type of developer you want to be, you should probably figure that out pretty quickly to some degree, like find where you thrive. Like that for me, I noticed really, really early on in school when I was going to school for game design, that when we hit the level design class, for some reason, everyone was struggling. Like, and for me, I was like, this is so easy. Like, why is everyone complaining? But when we got to the character, yeah, we got to the character modeling class.

Projektitachi (40:54.121)
You

Lewis Manalo (40:54.862)
you

Matt Patak (40:58.183)
God help me, I hated every moment of that. just like, I don't care. I want to build the world. so, yeah, but some people love that. So finding that part and not necessarily, I can't tell you how many like interns and other people I've talked to about their portfolio, they'll have like 20 pieces of 20 different things. It's like, okay, which one do you like? Which one are you good at? like, if you can't tell me that, then you might want to either narrow that down or.

Lewis Manalo (41:03.15)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (41:04.979)
the world.

Matt Patak (41:27.549)
maybe game development is not necessarily for you because it's, we are, it's a team based, you know, industry. Like you have to, like Louis said, you have to rely, have to fail and your teammates are there to help you out. That's why, you know, some people are good with coding. Some people are good with animation. Some people are good with level design, but you find your niche, you find your corner, but then you find your team of people to help out. And then from there, you can really, you know,

break in because people will need your help. regardless of, know, all I do is, you know, paint textures all day for 3D models. I don't do anything else. Perfect. Perfect. We need that. We need so many textures. come on. So not being a jack of all trades, I'd say really hone in on being a specialist and really polish that portfolio so you can showcase and put your good stuff at the top and show your show your work and your iteration and what you've learned and how you've grown.

Lewis Manalo (42:03.982)
Hmm.

Projektitachi (42:04.937)
Perfect.

Lewis Manalo (42:23.054)
if you're looking at it as just like a studio, like you want to release your own kind of games, Like one thing that we did, which was actually, we learned a lot from, feel, is we released a Fortnite Island, right? Like it was like not, it was really like not labor intensive. I think it was like built in like a couple of days or something, but we were able to test out certain things. And you also just learn.

So we could see like how players would react to this kind of thing like immediately, you know, so like one of the things we did, like it was just a PVP thing, but we like limited like the, like a lot of the movement stuff. So you couldn't really like jump and things like that. And like we limited how much you could build and the kind of weapons that you could get just to kind of see like what would happen, you know? So, and so it's, it's something that I actually like, I picked up from another like

Projektitachi (43:00.464)
Mmm.

Lewis Manalo (43:12.258)
developer like who's like they're mostly do code development stuff, but they also wanted to test out some ideas that they made like a a boss battle or something, you know, so like, honestly, like that's like the Fortnite Islands and Roblox, like those are really low barrier entries to like getting into game development. So anybody interested in that can do that stuff. They should because then they will learn about, you know, level design and character design and other kind of mechanics as well.

Matt Patak (43:30.6)
Absolutely.

Matt Patak (43:40.051)
Yeah, modifying the games that you play, man. I think if you're passionate about that game and you know it, get in the tools, see what you can do, change the settings, fiddle around.

Lewis Manalo (43:46.434)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (43:49.701)
I'm glad that you, you know, specify getting and figuring out your niche because I tried my hand at level design for a little bit. And I was kind of like how you were with the character design. Like I tried with Bryce, Bryce when that was the thing. And I was like, I know how I want the world to look, but trying to learn all these tools, I was just like, so I.

Matt Patak (44:02.047)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (44:11.276)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Patak (44:12.627)
That is the hardest part, learning the tools for sure.

Projektitachi (44:14.609)
Yeah, it was learning the tools and I was like, all right, well maybe I'll try character design using dads and I was like, that isn't it. But I think I kind of fall in more like with you, Louis, where like writing, now that's my jam. I've got tons and tons of stories. I've got concepts and I'm just like, you need a world. I got you. You need lore. I got you.

Lewis Manalo (44:25.42)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Matt Patak (44:26.271)
There you go.

Lewis Manalo (44:34.112)
All right. So that that's a whole other bag that you've opened. So because a lot like honestly, a lot of the the game writing because game writing always just serves the gameplay. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, I didn't like come up with Sam Fisher, right. But I had to put him in a story. You know what I'm saying? And like there are mechanics that came along with that. You know, certain gameplay mechanics that came with that. So for me,

Matt Patak (44:36.873)
There you go.

Projektitachi (44:48.194)
and

Projektitachi (44:54.973)
Right.

Lewis Manalo (45:03.278)
the writing is always where the player meets the game. You see what I'm saying? So like, I always use the example like Super Mario Brothers, right? Whether you're playing Super Mario Brothers 2 or whether you're playing Mario Kart, it's Mario, right? And there's like a story there. Like, you know, like Mario's got some ex-girlfriend around Super Mario Kart something, right? That brunette, right? So I can't remember the name. Yeah, and then Princess Peach is whatever. But, know, like, so, you know, like,

Projektitachi (45:17.288)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (45:21.833)
Yeah, yeah, always getting kidnapped somehow

Lewis Manalo (45:32.536)
putting in a narrative context makes it like a kind of a human context for whatever the gameplay is. So it's not just touching icons in some geometric world. You see what I'm saying? It's actually like collecting gold or whatever. So honestly, a lot of the high level story stuff, a lot of that is actually...

You know, if, it's like a new game, you know, lot of that's those decisions and things that are actually handled in marketing, you know? So like, and being in the space you are, it's actually not a bad way to transition to marketing either. Right. So, you know.

Matt Patak (46:09.959)
Absolutely.

Projektitachi (46:12.307)
How much is marketing actually involved in game development? And I would, and please, because for years, I've, and Daniel's been like this too, we're like, does most of the budget go to marketing because Call of Duty's commercials, and even with Breakpoint, I think you guys had like an 11 minute thing with Lil Wayne. I was just like, hmm. So can you please clear the air? How much is marketing actually involved in game development?

Matt Patak (46:17.727)
you

Lewis Manalo (46:22.796)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (46:29.88)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (46:34.894)
That's right. Okay.

Lewis Manalo (46:41.964)
Okay. So I won't say any games names of any games, right? But there was a game I worked on that had a hundred million dollar budget and the marketing budget was also a hundred million dollars. So, yeah. So, and so marketing, have a lot of say, you know, except at the end of the day, like if somebody wants to go play a Sonic game, you know, Sonic the hedgehog game, like how did players going to identify what that is? And a of that comes from marketing.

Projektitachi (46:45.146)
You

Matt Patak (47:00.361)
For sure.

Lewis Manalo (47:11.51)
Now, I think, I mean, that's the way it's been in a lot of different industries for a long time, right? Like you think of new Coke, you know, that's a marketing gimmick. That's just Coke with more sugar. You know I mean? Right. So, but like, and, that's the thing, like, so a lot of decisions, good or bad can come from marketing, you know? So again, like that's as, as, as a writer in the AAA space, like I've been lucky enough to collaborate with marketing a lot of times.

Projektitachi (47:16.809)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (47:21.511)
Yeah, yeah.

Lewis Manalo (47:40.194)
You know, like, like I've worked on, like a lot of some of the trailers that you probably like all the breakpoint trailers. I, I was at least, I wrote many of them, not the live action ones. but I either wrote or like, oversaw the writing of, of many of those, those other ones. so, you know, like, and as a developer, you want, you want to work with marketing, you know, you want the players to know what the game is going to be. You want it to be an accurate representation too, you know,

Projektitachi (48:09.278)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (48:10.38)
So, cause it's very often, and then this happens a lot. Like the game that you're sold is not the game that you're playing that you get the end of the day, you know? And that, that'll piss off a lot of players and have them be like, well, screw this. I'm not going to play number six when that comes out. Cause number five lied to me, you know? So.

Projektitachi (48:26.703)
Mm-hmm Yeah, unless you're call of duty because apparently they can get away with it and we keep coming back Keep coming back

Matt Patak (48:26.835)
Yeah. Yeah. If you think about the...

God. Yeah. The marketing actually had a huge say when it came to the development of the division one. Like I was just a, just a level designer on that team, but they literally, Microsoft came in like the division one was originally supposed to be in Peru. Like, I don't know, a little nugget drop there. was supposed to be like a competitor. was a PC point and click MMO like click on minutes. Like Tom Clancy's version of the old Republic is what

Lewis Manalo (48:35.554)
Hahaha

Matt Patak (49:02.419)
we were originally working on. Well, however, Microsoft came in and dropped a bucket ton of money and said, we'll cover all the marketing, but the location is going to be someplace iconic and that's New York City. Like, so basically they had all the say to say it's going to be New York. That's, that's final. Cause it's the most PR, it's the most, you know, marketable city in the world. Like everyone recognizes it. It's like the moment you look at that's screenshot. So they had that

Lewis Manalo (49:22.478)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Patak (49:31.295)
power to literally dictate the entire environment and story behind where the division became, like where it started.

Projektitachi (49:40.969)
Yep. Good old Microsoft coming and dropping the bucket of money. So the Division one came out and the Division two was like right on its heels. Why?

Matt Patak (49:44.19)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (49:45.538)
Fingers crossed!

Matt Patak (49:46.643)
For sure.

Matt Patak (49:55.985)
Yes. Money, that's why. So in AAA development, your first release of a new IP is usually not the moneymaker. That's usually where you lose a lot because you're developing the IP. You're trying to set a new narrative standard, a new emotional standard, new characters, new world, everything. So you use a lot of that budget to develop that idea.

push it to create the new functionality, the new gameplay. But once the gameplay is there and everyone loves it, well, they're obviously gonna buy part two, right? So you can take what you learn and everything that you know from part one. I'm not gonna say copy paste, but pretty much copy paste the functionality that the core pasted into a new world and then just, let's just reskin it, put a new city. Okay, Washington DC, we're gonna do that now. And like, this will be the new take on it. And then, you know, we're gonna go to lower Manhattan with the expansions and DLCs like...

It's easier for a developer to say, okay, it's going to sell. Let's go. We have the code. Let's just update it with what we learned with part one. And we're going to sell the same amount of copies, but with half or less than half of the budget.

Projektitachi (51:09.249)
So kind of in the same vein of talking budget and the moneymakers. What are your gentleman's thoughts on a lot of games going live service? I know that guy.

Matt Patak (51:14.014)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (51:21.742)
I mean, I get that definition gets like kind of tricky these days as well, you know, so, a game, cause there's a thing like a game that you never actually own. You know what I mean? That's one thing, you know, like, and obviously I've worked on games like that where like, you know, like, and players, they recognize this, you know? So, so they're like, okay, so when support for this game ends, I'm not going to have anything to play. You know what I mean? And that's a, that's a real thing, especially.

Matt Patak (51:23.583)
Yeah.

Projektitachi (51:34.003)
Mm.

Projektitachi (51:48.819)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (51:51.48)
Cause this is one of the things that I think a lot of people working in the industry or even like who are really into the industry or really into gaming with a lot of people don't realize is that some people, only buy one game a year, you know, exactly. Right. So they're, so they want that. They want to own that game, you know, like that there's a lot of decision that goes, honestly, I think a lot of it is cause like my

Projektitachi (52:05.384)
friend like that.

Lewis Manalo (52:15.864)
kids, you know, they're teenagers, they're going to buy a game, you know, they're going to buy one game because that's what the cat is kind of cash they have. Right. So I was the same way when I was young. Right. So yeah. So when you turn it into a live service thing, which is, you know, it gets a little trickier because then it also comes into like what aspects are live service? Like, does it have lots of free updates? You know, because like Wildlands year two.

Projektitachi (52:19.145)
You

Matt Patak (52:34.014)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (52:40.575)
For sure.

Lewis Manalo (52:41.91)
I think Wildlands Year 2 did it really well. There's a lot of free stuff that came that kept keeping people engaged. know what I mean? I mean, a lot of this was obviously towards the eyes towards the next game. that, you know, when the next game came out, of course they're going to buy the next one, right? Because they still been playing this game for like two years after it came out, right?

Projektitachi (52:47.081)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (53:03.246)
But again, like the experience that people would get in that year too was still a very full experience. So I don't know, I'm not against it. Like what parts do you not like about it? You know what I'm saying? That's probably the better way to address your question, right? So what is it?

Projektitachi (53:18.125)
Yeah. Yeah. I guess because, like you said, the ownership, I, you know, we're we're old school gamers. So when I went to the GameStop and I bought my game, it was mine. Like, yeah, I know I don't own the rights to it, but that game could never be taken away from me. You know, that experience could never be taken away from me. And a game like, guess, you know, Destiny, Destiny 2 is a

Lewis Manalo (53:25.836)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Matt Patak (53:38.879)
That's right.

Lewis Manalo (53:38.923)
Exactly.

Lewis Manalo (53:46.935)
Hmm

Projektitachi (53:47.667)
great example. And they think we forgot. I remember paying for my copy of Destiny 2. And then they went live service and I'm like, okay, well, what about the people who paid for the game? When you're done, we're just forgotten. You know, there's we can't go back and play it. And you know, they lean really heavy into, you know,

Lewis Manalo (53:51.071)
Hahaha

Lewis Manalo (53:58.488)
Paid. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Patak (53:59.357)
Yep.

Lewis Manalo (54:06.028)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (54:14.161)
microtransactions of Daniel's here, we tell you he is not a fan of microtransactions. And, you know, we understand that the microtransactions pay for those free updates. And at least that's what we thought. But then you see a game like No Man's Sky that came out in 2016 and for almost 10 years is dropping full expansions for free. And then you have to ask your question. Well, wait a minute. What's happening here?

Lewis Manalo (54:18.711)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (54:31.373)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (54:40.275)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (54:40.736)
Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of that, I think is how they use their budget. Right. So, so like a lot of like they either got, they either planned on having update, like what we're, we're planning on having updates. We're trying to like, make sure that we don't release without the budget for those. Right. but then like, yeah, like a lot of the microtransaction stuff, see like, cause I'm like of two minds about it. Right. So like, if somebody wants to get that cool looking skin, like

Matt Patak (54:42.653)
Yeah, totally.

Projektitachi (54:57.353)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (55:10.646)
You know, but it's not something that's, but it's something that's not for everybody, you know, like, you know, they're willing to pay for it. Why not? Right. But like things like loot boxes, I'm really against, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, things that, that really are just like gambling. So again, like I'm a dad. of course, like whenever my kid's like, can I buy these loot boxes? I'm like, hell no. So like, I'm not teaching you the like gamble like that. You know, you gotta learn poker.

Matt Patak (55:21.523)
Yeah, game changers, man.

Matt Patak (55:38.579)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (55:40.366)
real freaking game, you know? Yeah. So.

Projektitachi (55:41.149)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (55:42.153)
Gotta make your money back, man. Yeah, I would say I'm not so solid with my opinion on it quite yet. I do understand it though, because if I think about how many copies of Madden that I've bought throughout my lifetime, and those aren't, I can't use those anymore either. But if they're gonna come out like Madden NFL, and it's not even like a new game every year, it's just like a subscription and then you're always getting the...

There's no Madden 26, 27, 28, it's always just Madden. In the same way that like, FIFA switched to FC, and now I'm assuming that that's gonna go down that route too. And if you think about, I'm hoping Rainbow Six Siege kind of can set this up to where they got, they're going with Rainbow Six X like after 10 years. And it's just like, okay, it's not part two. And that's what they specifically said. It's absolutely not part two. They're not trying to divide their community. And I think that's key is like, cause if you,

Lewis Manalo (56:19.288)
Hmm.

Matt Patak (56:37.949)
You know, if you're a big fan of, you know, Madden 23, Madden 24 comes out and it's like, they change a lot of stuff. You're not going to want to log in. You're going to stick with yours and it divides your communities. But if the game is like, you know, it's like a Netflix service where everyone's logged into the same app. It's always updated to the same part. Like that to me, I'm I see, but again, I, yeah, you're the ownership part sucks because maybe there'd be like some type of like either grandfather clause. If you bought the disc, you can.

Lewis Manalo (57:03.126)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (57:07.901)
You know, you're always in or I don't know.

Lewis Manalo (57:09.742)
Well, we'll look at like, but our plans for outflank for Frigida's you have outflank just to be really clear is for people to own the game. You know, like we, we like it's a PVP game and we absolutely like, we'll plan on having servers to host matches. But like if people want to have their own matches somewhere where they like tweak stuff or, know what I mean? Where it's just like, okay, everyone, everyone only gets five bullets or whatever, you know what I mean? Whatever they want to do, you know, like

Projektitachi (57:10.013)
You're always in.

Projektitachi (57:33.289)
You

Lewis Manalo (57:36.718)
Absolutely. Like we want to be able to empower players to do that kind of thing. You know, because that again, that's the kind of stuff that we came up with on, you know what I mean? So it would be like LAN parties with Halo and be like, all right, nobody gets a sniper rifle this time. You know what I mean? Or everybody gets a sniper rifle. Yeah.

Matt Patak (57:37.705)
Good work.

Projektitachi (57:53.319)
Hang on, there's only one bullet.

Matt Patak (57:55.699)
Goldeneye, no odd job, no odd job, Goldeneye.

Lewis Manalo (57:57.678)
Yeah

Projektitachi (57:58.185)
So I know you guys have it available for early access on Steam. Is it going to become available anywhere else in the future?

Lewis Manalo (58:09.516)
I mean, that's a hope. That's a bit, you know what I mean? Like right now we are trying to, we're trying to find a publisher to work with, you know, like one to get, make sure that the game gets in as many people's hands as possible, you know, cause everybody wants that for their game, right? So we want to be able to find the right, the right audience. want to get that, but you know, yeah, like a hundred percent, like if we could get it on other platforms, we would, but it's not something, one, it's not our expertise.

Projektitachi (58:18.025)
Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (58:38.06)
You know what I'm saying? Like, so we want people who are good at it, but it's also costly. Like one thing is, know, the one thing that you don't understand is that to even get your game tested by like PlayStation, to see if it gets the gold or whatever, to be able to be released. Like that costs like 200 grand right there. You know what I mean? And that's, that's more than our budget for vertical slice.

Matt Patak (58:54.109)
Yep. Yep.

Matt Patak (58:58.143)
I've heard you're also, you're almost as a new studio as long, if you're not a part of that, the PlayStation network, you're almost guaranteed to fail the first time though, not approve you and yet you gotta hit it again with the tweaks and the adjustments. This is something that's like kept a lot of people out of the AAA space. Like even going to console, it's why I look at the PC is like the Android of the world. Like you got a lot of apps on here, a lot of crazy apps, but you can do it for free. Whereas, you know, the app store on Apple iPhone,

Lewis Manalo (59:09.174)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (59:14.158)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Patak (59:27.239)
is like your Xbox and your PlayStation, you gotta go through this approval process, but it's gonna cost you.

Lewis Manalo (59:27.63)
Mm-hmm.

Projektitachi (59:34.729)
Yeah, I had a feeling it was harder to get on console than it is to, you get on PC.

Matt Patak (59:39.528)
It absolutely is,

Lewis Manalo (59:42.158)
Yeah, I mean, and there are code changes that have to happen too, you know, like, and those are that, that, like I was saying, that's not our wheelhouse. There are actually some studios out there that that's all they do is port or that's like their specialty, you know? And, uh, if, when we get there, I'm sure it be like working with some of them, but you know, that's, uh, that's not, that's not in our immediate plan. It's not in our one year plan. Let's say.

Matt Patak (01:00:06.215)
Yeah, that takes a bit of growth to reach that level.

Projektitachi (01:00:11.731)
Well, for anyone who's trying to support you guys, where can they find you?

Lewis Manalo (01:00:18.862)
Sure. So yeah, so right now we're actually doing an equity crowdfund, you know, so it's similar to like what people would see on like Wefunder or Start Engine with those tech things. We're going through this platform called Fola Capital, which is, they're focused on veteran owned businesses, but people can just go to oldglorystudios.us and we have links to that stuff there as well as like links to our Steam page for the game and all our socials too.

Matt Patak (01:00:47.027)
Yeah. Yeah.

Projektitachi (01:00:48.745)
So final thought because I know you guys are you're very busy gentlemen, you're creating an amazing thing here What else do you have on your I guess you could say future wishlist for Old Glory Studios like what could we expect from you guys in the future because I Like I said, I checked out, know what you guys Displayed for outflank and I'm loving it and I'm already curious like hey, what are they gonna do next?

Lewis Manalo (01:01:16.558)
Yeah, yeah, like, no, so at least so in the immediate, like in the near future anyway, we'll say like the, you know, we are trying to establish like the victory's grave as like a whole story world, you know, so one of the things that we're working on is like a tabletop RPG, you know, that will probably like release like a free like web, you know, like a PDF version.

Matt Patak (01:01:17.043)
Yeah. Yeah.

Projektitachi (01:01:18.555)
Ubisoft has been letting me down lately.

Matt Patak (01:01:21.32)
Yeah, for sure.

Lewis Manalo (01:01:45.166)
Hopefully in the next few months. So just to introduce people to the world, you know what I mean? To understand like what it is there. Because, you know, like I feel like in a lot of, let's say, AAA games, you know, or even something like For Honor, right? Which is really a PvP game. But then they tack on a little like six hour like single person campaign just to explain what the world is, right? You know, or was it Apex Legends had all the like, you know, the

Projektitachi (01:02:04.626)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lewis Manalo (01:02:12.418)
commercials that had, they were basically like short cartoons, right? So for us, we're going to do that with, you know, like the tabletop RPG that will introduce this kind of post-apocalyptic world, set in the eighties. We'll see like if people manage to get to see Ghostbusters not before like the apocalypse happened. So stuff like that. Yeah.

Projektitachi (01:02:15.208)
Yep.

Projektitachi (01:02:29.801)
you

Matt Patak (01:02:32.486)
Yeah, and with with Alf-Lank, nothing's set in stone. I'm not going to drop any names, but some decent e-sports teams are we're talking with about that too. So in collaboration with that to develop the game alongside them.

Projektitachi (01:02:42.19)
Projektitachi (01:02:46.249)
But see, and Daniel missed out on that because he's huge on the eSports. He's huge on it.

Lewis Manalo (01:02:46.434)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (01:02:50.564)
If he only knew what's coming, man, if he only knew what's coming.

Lewis Manalo (01:02:53.218)
Yeah, yeah.

Projektitachi (01:02:54.921)
I'm personally excited and I'm so glad that I got to talk to you both. I'm gonna rub this in Daniel's face. I'm gonna be like, man, you shouldn't allow, you you gotta handle your power better so you can attend this. But I would love to be able to talk to you guys again in the future as things progress for Old Glory Studios. But Lewis, Matt, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat with me today. Guys.

Matt Patak (01:03:03.421)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (01:03:08.449)
Yeah.

Lewis Manalo (01:03:12.949)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Matt Patak (01:03:13.021)
Likewise, likewise. Yeah, 100%.

Projektitachi (01:03:25.725)
Go check it out. Go check them out. Visit their studio. And please support Victory Grave Outflank. It looks amazing. And I love that you guys keep everybody in the loop. You guys have a newsletter. So no one is asking questions. A lot of devs, they'll just stop communicating with their community. But you guys aren't doing that. So go and check it out. And wherever you're listening to this, subscribe, like.

Lewis Manalo (01:03:44.45)
Yeah.

Matt Patak (01:03:44.902)
Yo-yo.

Projektitachi (01:03:53.917)
Get more episodes of the GZ Chop Chop Podcast, JeezyChopChopPodcast.com. Anyway, that's all the time we have for this episode. Thank you guys so much. And you guys take care of yourself and each other. We'll catch all you wonderful people on the next podcast. Later.