Interview with Sean P. Tracy, Crytek

We caught up with Sean P. Tracy, License Support Engineer for Crytek, at the Dubai World Game Expo where he was showing the audience how to set up an entire level on Cry Engine 3 in under 45 minutes. We sat down with Sean to talk about the Cry Engine 3 and how to get started with developing video games.

Sean P Tracy, License Support Engineer, Crytek

MEGAMERS: Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got involved with Crytek.

Sean: My career path wasn’t a normal one. I was part of the Canadian military. I was initially in the army and while I was there, and even before that, I started modding games like Neverwinter Nights and some of the older games like Baldur’s Gate, and making my own content and sharing it with my brother. So, we started developing games just for fun. And while I was in the army, it was a good way for us to stay in touch, we were developing these minigames together. And then eventually, a guy named Harold Sealey who was the engine business manager for Cryek at the time caught wind of our project for Cry Engine and it was the biggest project that we had taken on. He called me and said come on over to Germany, take a look at our studios and if you’re interested we can give you an interview and I said, yeah, Of Course.

Pretty tough call – working in the military or working in the games industry (laughs). So, we did the interview and it was a perfect fit. I already had a lot of practical knowledge of the engine, so it was a really easy sell to be a part of Crytek. Harold Sealey was in charge of licensing, so at the time, I was hired as a designer for licensing. At the time, licensing was a really small team but we’ve now expanded to over 25 people worldwide. My official title at the moment is Licensee Support Engineer, which basically means that I’m in contact with licensees on a day to day basis, for instance, people like Vertex and I’m trying to establish workflows and pipelines for their games. Not everyone is making a Crysis first-person shooter and though the Cry Engine is very robust in what it can do, you still have to establish pipelines and development for your particular game type. So, I help the licensees figure out a way how to make their games faster and easier.

I’m also in charge of training the new licensees. When a licensee does a full source code license, we usually set up two weeks of training. So, we do a training on-site and a training some times in Frankfurt. They’ll send someone like me to go out and show the licensees from start to finish what we you can do with the sandbox. We try to gear it towards their game. For instance, if it’s a third person adventure game, we’ll show them all the things they need to develop a third person adventure game, if it’s a beat-em-up fighting game, then that’s what we show them.

What are your licensees developing at the moment?

Well, Aion is a good example. That’s on Cry Engine 1. About five years NCSoft licensed Cry Engine 1 and we have a very strong partnership with them. They’ve developed a phenomenal MMO game – absolutely crazy! It’s doing very well in the Korea and China. It’s also doing well in Europe and The States right now.

We have other licensees that are military-type licensees, so we do simulation stuff. So, it may be a vehicle simulator or a driving simulator or even to the point that we have haptic devices, which is actually a real weapon which they’re shooting at a screen and on the screen we project cry engine levels and the soldiers are actually shooting at enemies. So, we do a lot of different things.

Who are you working with in this region?

At this moment, we are working with Vertex Studios. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal any more information right now.

Are you working with the Dubai Police to develop Crime Scene simulators?

I wasn’t going to mention that but yes, we’re in discussions with them right now. There’s a strong partnership there.

Who’s developing the project for them. is that Crytek?

No, that’s not our development; we’re not an outsourcing company. We don’t take on other people’;s project. We only develop our own IPs. But we’re more than happy to license the engine and support our licensees. We’re one of the few middleware providers that gives you continued support as they develop the game.

How does the licensing work? Do you just pay a flat fee for it?

It’s always different and on a per contract basis. You would get in touch with my boss, Karl Jones, who is the engine licensing manager. He’s the director of all the global licensing.

You’ve got a military background. Did you ever get any formal education in gaming?

I was in the army for a number of years and I changed to the Navy because I was a little sick of the way the army was working. Once I transferred to the Navy, I got a technologist degree there. What that entailed was doing a bunch of electronics courses. It wasn’t necessarily computer science but I learnt things like digital logic, just the basics on electricity inductors and how to repair equipment. It thought me how to problem solve. The digital logic courses comes in very handy when developing games. I think it’s essential that if you want to get into games, you need some sort of technical training – you need something to stand on.

What advice would you give to youngsters who want to be game developers in the future?

Start them on! For instance, Ahmad Jadallah from Vertex Studio started as a mod. He is only 24 years old and he’s almost running the entire company now; and that’s how he started — with mods. I’m really impressed with this guy. I haven’t met him in person but we have exchanged emails and they started as a mod team, the same way that I started. Some of the best people that get hired into this industry are the people who start these mods because it really show’s passion and that’s the biggest thing. If you’re developing games on your own time, just doing it for the love of doing it, that’s a huge thing for a lot of companies. On top of that you are teaching yourself skills that you’re going to need in the industry anyway. It’s like any job — when you get there, the company will have to train you. Now, if you can come to a game development company and already have most of the skills they need, they don’t need to spend so much time training you. They can sit you down, put you in front of a company and you can get started.

How do you start developing mods?

Almost any game will support mods (except for certain games like Modern Warfare 2). Crysis is a great example. It comes with the Cry Engine sandbox with the game and you have all the assets from the game which you can use to do whatever you want with. You’re only limited by your imagination.

I’ve heard of a few students in Dubai working on Neverwinter Nights mods. Do you have any advice for them?

That’s how I started too. Neverwinter Nights is a nice place to start. They’re from my hometown, Edmonton, Alberta. Neverwinter Nights is a very nice toolset. It’s very good for designers and the reason I say that, is because it’s a top-down DnD (Dungeons and Dragons) type of game and it’s all about writing dialogues and stories and that’s really the interaction between the story and the player that makes you a good designer because you realize what you need to do in order for the player to see your vision.

Though they’re our competition, Unreal Tournament is a fantastic editor. It takes a bit longer to do what you want to do but it’s still there and these are all major titles that you can spend hours and hours developing projects for.

If I wanted to join Crytek, what would I need to do?

The best thing is to be able to walk into the door with a CD and CV, and say, play my game and check my resume. If you walk into an interview with only a resume, then you’re only walking in with the way you can speak. If you can talk the talk, then great. But most people need to see proof. So, if you walk in with some artwork or a video of what you have made, it demonstrates that you have the stamina to go through with the project and finish it. That’s a big thing for most developers. So, yes, bring in something that you can show that you have made.

What do you think of the Dubai World Game Expo?

I like it. This is our first time at this show and we’re definitely liking it.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. We hope to see you here next year as well.

Thank you.