There’s no doubt that Evil Genius has had an eventful year. There’s been a legal row with Netflix, high-profile departures from the company and Kickstarter successes.
I think this is the first interview Evil Genius CEO Dave Scott has given since the latest headlines. In it, I ask if they could have done anything better, how hard the loss of Rebel Moon hit the company and whether they’ll be forced to abandon the thousands of Everyday Heroes backers.
I believe news of Armory is a Geek Native exclusive, but it seems that the book is just the start of what looks like another very busy year. Let’s see how it pans out!
You’re going to GAMA, so I’d like to ask whether you’re braced for people asking questions about the future of Everyday Heroes and whether you have anything new to show. What can people expect to see from you there?
Yes, my team and I are braced for some tough questions and we’re ready to answer them. We renamed our Seminar (Wednesday, March 6th at 11am) to “Evil Genius AMA” because we wanted this to be an “Ask Me Anything” kind of meeting style.
It was GAMA last year that the trouble with Netflix kicked off. I know you’ve reached a truce with them now, but how badly did it hit Evil Genius Games?
Yes, we went into GAMA last year with what we thought was going to be the next hot property. But instead, we ended up in a legal battle that was only settled in January of this year.
Without the revenue from the Rebel Moon TTRPG, we went through a period of financial hardship. We had hired a lot of staff in anticipation of growth, but we had to let many of them go over the last 4 months. I sold a big vision to those who were hired, and, unfortunately, this meant that a lot of people were let down. The whole situation tested my leadership in ways that had never been tested before. The stress was overwhelming, and I had a lot of low leadership moments because of it.
Since we downsized, we’ve brought the remaining staff together and we’ve begun to rebuild. We’ve also taken a hard look at the past to move forward. We started with the simple question: “What kind of company do we want Evil Genius to be, and how do we build the culture that we need to get there?” This dialogue has put us in a better position to achieve our goals.
In hindsight, looking at the aftermath, is there anything you could have done better? Have you made any changes to how the business operates?
In hindsight, we took a lot of risks and accomplished a great deal last year. But we also made a lot of mistakes. We hired too fast, we took on too much, and all of that took its toll on us as a company. I think it’s clear that my leadership style was tested and, on many occasions, failed. But I learned a lot. Now, I’m excited to put what I’ve learned to the test as Evil Genius Games moves forward. I’m just thrilled that most of my core staff stuck with me through the turmoil and are excited about what we can improve in the future.
Is Evil Genius a tabletop games publisher with more technology in its DNA than others? Are you one more than another, and does that affect company culture?
I’m a lifelong lover of tabletop board games to my core. I still remember when I was first exposed to D&D in 6th grade. I still remember the name of my first character—Lord Alderbaron. I remember my first GenCon when it was in Milwaukee, and I was sleeping in the college dorms.
Our first goal as a company was to remake d20 Modern and establish a modern-day TTRPG platform that could fill a gap in the market. I think we’ve achieved that. But I’m also a technology entrepreneur by training, and I can see how technology can really help improve the game experience for so many TTRPG fans. I don’t know if I’d still be playing D&D and Pathfinder if it wasn’t for Hero Labs, D&D Beyond, and Roll20. Those tools helped to keep me in the game. I want to provide a similar experience for our Everyday Hero customers.
With the loss of the Netflix deal and the financial impact that had, are you still committed to the Evil Genius Organised play program?
Yes, we are. In fact, we’ve made 2024 the year of the organized play program. This decision came out of hard lessons that we learned at Origins last year. We had a 10×20 booth on the floor and also a little annex shop outside of the gaming rooms where people were playing our games. We got very little traffic at our booth on the floor but were blown away by the traffic to the little annex. We realized that when people try our game, they love it. Nearly one out of three players bought our game after playing it. This indicated to us that we succeed when we can get prospective customers to try our game, and it is why the organized play program is so important to us. We want people to try the game, because when they do, they fall in love with Everyday Heroes.
So far, we’ve been thrilled with the reaction to our Organized Play Program. We have over 100 dedicated volunteers and GMs constantly running games online and across 35 states and 4 countries. Just yesterday, we ran our 200th game!
We also launched an app called “Dispatch,” which is a game finder and a paperless tracking system for character progression. Using technology, we’ve made great strides in meeting the challenges that we observed with existing org play programs.
Your peace treaty with Netflix stated that you won’t get to release the Rebel Moon TTRPG and will do another sci-fi game instead. Is that right, and what can you tell us about Intergalactic Heroes?
That’s correct., We were able to keep the game mechanics that we created for Rebel Moon, so we plan to repurpose them into our own sci-fi setting. You should have seen producer Bryan CP Steele salivate at the chance to revive this property. We think that the work that was done on this game is really excellent, and we’re excited to develop and share it with our fans. We’ll be running sessions of the game at GAMA this year.
I’ve seen a post that describes Everyday Arcana, Intergalactic Heroes and Military Heroes as new TTRPG Systems and I was hoping you could clarify. Are these new rules or new stuff for Everyday Heroes?
They all have a different relationship with our flagship product – Everyday Heroes. Military Heroes works with the core rule book. It adds several new rules systems that make the game feel more tactical, dangerous, and realistic. Intergalactic Heroes and Everyday Arcana will be built on our core game mechanics from Everyday Heroes but will be presented as stand-alone games that include everything you would need to play. They will be compatible with all the other settings but have their own look and feel. Everyday Arcana will have in-depth magic systems, and Intergalactic Heroes will include rules for space exploration and combat among many other systems.
The Everyday Heroes Kickstarter did well, backed by over 4,000 gamers who signed onto a system that enabled Cinematic Adventures. These adventures are big names like The Crow, Highlander, Kong: Skull Island and other movies. Are these backers going to get any more Cinematic Adventures in the next 18 months, or are you pivoting to your own IP entirely?
More Cinematic Adventures are coming. The lawsuit and the writers’ strike really put a damper on our efforts to sign new IP licenses, but we have now re-engaged with the studios and have a few exciting IPs in the works. So, while we won’t be producing any new Cinematic Sourcebooks in 2024, watch out for 2025! In the meantime, we’re producing additional content for Kong: Skull Island, Pacific Rim, Highlander, and The Crow.
There have been suggestions that a potential future of Cinematic Adventures might be a “lock-in” tech library. Can you comment on that? If I want a Highlander TTRPG, can I buy a physical book? Will that be true for future books?
Yes. We still plan to print physical product and offer PDFs on platforms such as DriceThruRPG. We also plan to support 3rd party VTTs like Foundry. In addition, we will also be offering a brand new digital experience vis SideKick – our own digital platform. This will give you access to the rules, allow you to make characters, and other cool things.
Are you planning on releasing content for Everyday Heroes, which is a more traditional supplement for backers? Vehicles, weapons, NPCs, rules expansions and that sort of thing?
You bet. This year, we will be launching the Armory. It’s a nod to d20 Weapons Locker. With over 700 weapons included, the Armory will be the largest resource book of its kind. We’re really excited to get this in the hands of our customers.
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