Matt Chatt - Robert Sirotek Interview #5

Matt Burton continues his interviews with Robert Sirotek in this final episode of the series talking about Stones of Arnhem, Wizardry 8 and the legalities involving Sir-Tech.



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Not bad for a difficult interview with some hard questions. Interesting thoughts on Wizardry 8. It sounds like he had a much different memory of the project.

I'm actually kind of liking Sirotek, to my surprise. Cleve has worked him up as the ultimate evil bogey man but he sounds like a reasonable guy.

I think it's funny they get bashed on for supposedly screwing over Andrew Greenberg. Yet Greenberg was a full time student while Wizardry was coming out and woodhead was working full time. Having spent an absolutely incredible amount of time working on my own game, the delusion that someone makes a game in college in their spare time is just not a reality. Even back then when games were a lot simpler in the technical and artistic sense. Not to mention the accusations that he started his project with the Oubliette code. That guy has managed to get the most credit for the least work of anyone in gaming history, and didn't really do anything since then so….

Sounds like Sirotek was mostly very hands off and let people be creative. That's very admirable, and probably why most of their 'products' came out so well. That's probably why the Stones of Arnhem failed so miserably, though - it worked well with talented hard-working people but it sounds like the original team on it was just along to suck down some easy contracting money and didn't really care much about making the game.

I don't see why Cleve is so outraged. Obviously it was an unsalvageable project and the coding was the least of the issues. Would you really WANT to have your name credited to a game with 'sexy' furries everywhere and penis-like enemies? He should have walked out the door the second he saw the crazy artwork.

Also, as far as "all the evil things he's done" people are talking about in the comments

If you think Sirotek is evil, shady double-dealer you don't know the software biz that well. On a relative scale he's a paragon of virtue.

Originally Posted by ManWhoJaped
Would you really WANT to have your name credited to a game with 'sexy' furries everywhere and penis-like enemies?

Who wouldn't want to be known as the master of 'sexy' furries and penis-like enemies?