KingsIsle Entertainment is a young gaming company with a hit MMO, Wizard101. I recently got the chance to visit their new place in Austin, TX and it was a blast! Their offices are smack in the middle of an up-and-coming techie area.
Fred Howard, KingsIsle's VP of marketing gave me the grand tour of the company and their new recording studio. From the moment you walk through their doors, you'll quickly spot framed pictures of their popular Wizard101 characters hanging on the walls. Fred introduced me to two community managers who work on the site's forums. They help everyone that has a question or problem with the game. I'm sure their jobs are both fun and time consuming. Next, Fred walked me briskly past another area where people were busy designing something. (Psst... it's their next big game that hasn't been announced yet.) Then I was brought into a huge room filled with dozens of desks, computers and offices. These were the people behind Wizard101 and they were busily working on their newest product, Grizzleheim. Over 35 employees were putting the finishing touches on Grizzleheim and it was looking mighty good.
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You can tell right away that these designers, editors, producers and developers were having loads of fun at their jobs just by the types of toys that decorated their work spaces. Some popular items that I spotted on their desks were Iron Giant, The Simpsons and Disney/Pixar characters.
After my designer area tour, I was then taken to an off-site location where all of their character voices and in-game sounds were created. Their studio is actually hidden behind another building in an older part of town that reminded me of Batman's Batcave. It felt so secretive. I got into their sound studio, which by the way, is also rented out by rock bands who want a nice getaway place to practice their music.
I once mentioned to Fred that when I was in high school, I had sent in some of my own cartoon character voices to Warner Bros. So, he mentioned it to Leah, the Associate Producer, and she had me read the scripts for some of their new Grizzleheim characters. Well, in short, they liked one of my voices so much they decided to use it in the game. My character's name is Ironsplinter and he's a big talking tree that you'll encounter in one of the Grizzleheim forest areas.
It was a wild experience that I'll never forget. Producing an MMO is an amazing feat. The next time you play your favorite MMO, just imagine all the people and hours that went into it.
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