I like Brad Wardell. Not just because he makes cool games, but comes across as a guy who really cares about the games he makes. And likes to make games. I know, crazy, right? But it's true, from his posts on QT3 and interviews I read, he sounds like he actually has a good time making games. That's pretty rare in this industry of slave programmers and publishers who wouldn't know a good game if it bit them.
If you too think Brad Wardell is the bees knees, you'll like this interview on Gamasutra:
GS: That's one of the things I wanted to ask you about. I wanted to ask about the Master of Magic license. You guys looked into that didn't you?
BW: Yeah, we did. We pursued it. Actually, Atari came to us a while ago. I thought they had a pretty good idea. That is, over the years, Atari has collected a lot of good IP (Intellectual Property) like X-Com, Star Control, Master of Orion, Master of Magic and a lot of others that a lot of people didn't realize that they held. So they came to us and said "We're not really interested in publishing these things ourselves, but what we'd like to do is license out the trademarks to third parties like you guys and we'll make a royalty off of them." So, we sat down and decided that Master of Magic would be our first, since it's close to something we'd done and Master of Orion 3 had already come out. We were able to agree on the money, so we thought everything was set, then their legal guys got involved, and that's where it stalled. They wanted the right to approve any marketing we did with a mutli-day stipulation. Say, for instance, me talking to you right now would be considered marketing and I would have to have approval first. That sort of thing. Then there was the weird thing, like if the game was manufactured overseas, someone from the company would have to be onsite to make sure there was no child labor.
What, you don't want to stop child labor? :P
It's a good interview and it talks a bit about their next game that is in no way similar to Masters of Magic.
What Would Matt Do: Play more Galactic Civilizations 2, if I wasn't already playing so much Gears and NWN2 (though I'm about to give up on this one I think).