Allen gaming company years in the making
April 13, 2015
Among cozy desks covered in action figures, gaming memorabilia, cans of Diet Coke, and different snacks, BonusXP employees type away on their computers, some with separate touch screen monitors, specially designed with artists in mind. Plastered on the walls are animated concepts of their upcoming game, Servo, and whiteboards show the finite details of the work that went into it.
It’s the latest result from a process that began twenty years ago at the University of Arizona.
“I was interning at IBM back in college. My officemate and I decided to make a game because we weren’t too thrilled with the IBM gig,” BonusXP CEO Dave Pottinger said. “We started a company on my credit cards and managed to get a finished game published. That didn’t go anywhere, but it turned into a great demo for prospective employers. I got a programming job at Ensemble Studios (developers of Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, and Halo Wars) straight out of school.”
These first experiences fueled the creation of BonusXP.
“I founded BonusXP about 3 years ago with two former Ensemble-ites, John Evanson and Jason Sallenbach. As CEO, I run the studio on a daily basis, negotiate business deals, and serve as the executive producer for our games. My passion is working on the games, though. I do programming and design on the games,” Pottinger said. “ I think computers were more instrumental in my love for games vs. consoles, though. I learned to program on an Atari 800 computer. In college, I decided to switch majors to computer engineering after playing Wing Commander II on my 386 PC.”
As a gaming company on the rise in DFW, BonusXP is in a popular place for such companies.
“I think Texas is a nice middle ground between LA and NYC which traditionally did a lot of this work, plus the cost of living here is very low compared to these places so you can live a nice life and afford to work at the places you love,” senior artist Shell Meggersee-Briggs said. “Dallas has a lot of great undergraduate and graduate programs and that fresh talent is augmenting the already existing great studios here.”
Wandering around the BonusXP studio, it seems like most employees are here because it’s their passion, something they feel fortunate for.
“My job is to make art all day, I’m pretty lucky,” Meggersee-Briggs said. “I used to work in Visual Effects industry, where we would do lots of little projects with a very short turnaround. I loved the work, but wanted to be able to stay on one project a little longer. I applied at a bunch of small local game studios and haven’t looked back since.”
As for other forms of entertainment, they influence BonusXP as well.
“We draw inspiration from every source that we can get,” Pottinger said. “We particularly use other media references when initially discussing the game. It helps to make comparisons between things (e.g. the exoskeletons from Edge of Tomorrow vs. the exoskeleton in Elysium).”
The design process, as well, is different from other companies.
“Our development process is a little out of the norm,” Pottinger said. We build a playable prototype as fast as possible. Both of our current games were prototyped and playable within a week of starting. They looked nothing like they do now, of course, but we started playtesting them and iterating. We are big on iterating. We stop work at least twice a week so everyone can play the games we’re making. A lot of our development is driven by that playtest feedback. Most other studios tend to have a more top-down model where playtesting doesn’t drive the bus as much.We are also a little unique in that we don’t really have leads or do a ton of upfront design. Most games have a clear lead designer, for example. That person is responsible for all the decisions about the game (or delegates them as needed). We tend to do things more as a group here at Bonus. The benefit is that everyone is more involved. The cost is that it takes us longer and we meander a bit at times.”
