Inside the Games Interviews Denis Dyack

The Game Reviews: We are here with the Founder and President of Silicon Knights, Denis Dyack, who is also the Director of Too Human. Can you tell us a little bit about your lineage?

Denis Dyack: I have three degrees. My first degree is in Physical Education, from University, where I was a Varsity wrestler. Earlier on, I was in to Twae Kwon Do and martial arts. I was the Twae-Kwon-Do champion for a while, so was very much into physical sports. I went to University to wrestle.

I took physical education, so that I could work out and be at school simultaneously. As I was getting close to graduating, I realized that I wanted to make video games. In our area back at that time, probably 1989, the video game industry was very, very small. I think I was on my Atari ST system, playing Ultima III. I really loved it and it inspired me to want to do it. It could have even been earlier.

I figured that if I was going to make video games, I better learn how to make them. So I put myself through computer science. My grades were not that great, with a 76 average when I was studying physical education. But when I took computer science, I was actually high average in the University. That was surprising for me, and I did very, very well in it. Just when I was about to graduate, we started making our first game called Cyber Empires and I decided to go off and get a Master’s in computer science.

Halfway through the Master’s, we finished our first game, and got it published in the U.K. by a group called Millennium, in 1991, before we incorporated. I flew to the west coast and bumped into people at SSI. We got our first publishing deal and I decided to start a company. At that time, we knew nothing. We are 185 now and we have gone on to do Cyber Empires, Fantasy Empires, and Dark Legions. We wanted to get over to the PC market at that point, and did our first Playstation game, Legacy of Kain. Then we went off to do Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid and now Too Human. So that sort of, is the history.

TGR: Okay. As a self starter and entrepreneur, what were some of the trials and tribulations that you went through when you were trying to grow? How did you feel when that first title got published?

DD: It was amazing; there is no feeling like it; I cannot explain it. You get a degree and it is something that it is an achievement that no one can take away. It is something you always feel proud of and I still get a rush when I go into the stores and see the game out there, see people play and saying they enjoy it. It is very different, but I guess the thing that sort of caught me off guard with the industry, is that I had no idea of how things were done. I could not have possibly predicted people were achieving the goals we wanted, or the course to that. It has been so tarried and harried and just insane at times. Maybe someday I will write a book, but it is a very difficult, difficult industry; it is very hard.

TGR: I am sure it was a pretty decent learning curve, too.

DD: Rather than the “leading edge,” I would say the video game industry is on the “bleeding edge.” It is very hard and very competitive, there is no question.

TGR: Did you have start up funding, or did it just kind of all come out of your credit cards and pockets?

DD: That is right, nothing.

TGR: So it was a big risk and obviously it paid off.

DD: I guess it was a big risk. You know, I always say this to people who are thinking about doing it themselves: just never let anyone tell you that you cannot, because you have to do what you want to do. But it is not easy, that is all; it takes a lot of challenge. When you are an entrepreneur or when you have your own company, it is a black hole for time. You need to be able to separate your personal time from business, because business will suck everything out of you. You have to really bounce that. If you are not careful, you will lose your balance and it will affect your business life eventually, and other things fall apart.

TGR: I know exactly what you are talking about that there. It is very easy to get too involved, because it is a passion.

DD: It is, and it will take everything you have.

TGR: It is just like crack.

DD: There is a whole technology now that is changing our lives. This whole idea of people thinking that technology is helping us, that we communicate more, is all not true. It is actually making us work more. The whole myth of a nine to five work week died 50 years ago. So in the knowledge-based economy, everything has changed.

TGR: So for instance, do any of your employees work from home?

DD: No. We do not like that, because of the loss of reciprocity from the face to face interaction. It is just really, really difficult to communicate ideas. We have sort of a whole guild philosophy where you have to work with everything, and it is really important to the quality of games. So we are not big believers in working from home. We do not do contracts, outsource or anything like that, either. So it is a very different environment at Silicon Knights.