When Ron Gilbert was a kid it was all about the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Space Wars, Asteroids, and any kind of arcade game you could get your hands on. As much as Gilbert loved gaming he didn’t realise his passion for the industry until he learned how to program.
“I was about thirteen years old at the time and for a thirteen year old the most fun thing to program is games,” he laughs. “I didn’t want to write accounting software or anything at that age. So I just started programming a lot of games and that was something that I really enjoyed doing quite a bit.”
Gilbert got his foot in the door when he took a program he had created for the Commodore 64 called Graphics Basic and showed it to Human Engineering Software to see if they wanted to publish it. They liked the program so much that they instantly offered him a job. Gilbert left college to work with them writing programs for the Commodore 64, but unfortunately after just six months on the job, they went out of business. Deciding to heading home and re-enroll in college, Gilbert received a call that would change his life.
“I got a call from somebody at Lucasfilm because they were looking for a Commodore 64 programmer and they knew that I had done a lot of commodore 64 work at Human Engineering Software — they must have given them my name or something,” he says. “I got the call from Lucasfilm and I got the job and I guess the rest is history.”
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The rest is history indeed. Working under Steve Arnold with just seven other people, Gilbert was given the freedom to create without having to worry about market pressure. “All of those things didn’t exist when we started and I think some of the games that came out of there in those early days really reflect that,” he says.
During his time with Lucasfilm, Gilbert produced games that — despite somewhat lackluster openings — have grown to become cult classics. When Maniac Mansion was released in 1987 it received a rating of just seven out of ten from some reviewers, whereas today's critics unanimously rate it a ten. “I just kind of laugh at that,” he says, “because that’s not what that game got when it first came out, but people have this lens of nostalgia that they put over that stuff.”
Nostalgia or not, Gilbert still holds fond memories of Maniac Mansion as the first game he and Gary Winnick had ever designed. “It was a tough project because we had never worked on a game before,” he remembers, “and we really had no idea what we were doing, but it was a lot of fun... we were just throwing stuff into the game because we thought it would be fun and we weren’t paying a lot of attention to stuff.”
The project ended up taking so long that he even recalls almost getting fired at one point for being so far behind schedule. “I don’t know if I really would have got fired, but I definitely got a stern talking to,” he laughs. “It was a lot of turmoil but it was a lot of fun.”
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Since those early days Gilbert has produced game after game in almost every genre and shows no signs of slowing down. Despite being immensely proud of all of his work, Gilbert does regret one thing — he doesn’t own any of them. Throughout his entire career Gilbert has worked for other companies or sold the companies he started, which means none of the games he has ever created belong to him.
“I’m kind of done making stuff other people own,” he says. “I’ve spent my entire career making everything from Maniac Mansion to Monkey Island to all of the children’s adventure games we did at Humongous Entertainment, even The Cave that I just finished, I don’t own any of that stuff. I just decided that I am done with this, I’m not going to work on anything I don’t own anymore.”
Gilbert would love to go back and remake of one of his favorite games, Monkey Island, but Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm and their love of hoarding IPs may never let that idea see that light of day. “Disney bought Lucasfilm for Star Wars and that’s the only reason that they bought them,” he says. “All those old adventure games, Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island... they were just stuff that came with the deal to them.”
Holding true to his new goal of owning the games he creates, Gilbert has recently released a game that he made with just himself and one friend — an iOS release called Scurvy Scallywags. “I really enjoy working in the mobile marketplace because the games are much smaller,” he says. “I can do all the programming on them and my friend Clayton [Kauzlaric] does all the art on them and it’s just the two of us and we make these great games. I do own those, and I am very happy for that.”
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Gilbert is currently in between games and is taking some time out to open the inaugural PAX AUS (Penny Arcade Expo Australia) in Melbourne. Though he has some experience with Penny Arcade — doing the keynote at PAX Prime in 2009 — when asked how he feels about opening PAX AUS, Gilbert’s voice breaks as he replies: “Scary.”
“Whenever I’m talking to people, whenever I’m doing speeches and stuff, I always get really nervous about it,” he says. “I just hate public speaking so there’s a lot of having to psych myself into it when I go out there, but it’s always fun.”
As long as he has the crowds laughing within the first minute of being on stage then everything else is easy. Gilbert plans on talking about the creativity that goes into making games, but doesn’t want to give too much away before the event. Gilbert is sticking around for the full three days and loves meeting people who are fans of his games.
“I like to hear from people how much the games I have made have meant to them at some point because that makes me feel really good. It makes me feel that I have done something worthwhile, I haven’t just made this vacuous piece of entertainment, I’ve actually made something that touched people in a way.”
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And that is what it has always been about for Gilbert. He has never cared about making money or submitting to market pressure. It has always been about the creative experience. “Why do musicians make music? Why do writers write? It’s just because it’s a creative expression for them, and for me, that’s what making games is.” he says.
PAX AUS runs from July 19-21. You can catch Ron Gilbert on Friday July 19 at 10:30am in the main theatre.
