Q+A: EDMUND McMILLEN
You mentioned you were followed by other documentary crews – can you tell us about those?
One of them was very strange. I remember her pitching weird titles – stuff like The Fawn Who Waits In The Forest [laughs]. And I’m like, “What? This is an indie game documentary!” Lisanne and Jamie were genuinely interested, which, surprisingly, wasn’t shared with the other documentary crews – which is weird, because you’d think you’d be excited about the things that you’re working on. This previous documentary crew came and filmed and actually cut my wife out of it. It was very awkward. She’d be like, “Let me get some B-roll of you playing with your niece in the park”, and then, “Danielle, can you stand behind me
while he plays with his niece?” I was like, “What?” I had a legitimate argument with Jason Rohrer, who was a part of the documentary; she told me to stop arguing with him. Oh, and Daniel Benmergui, the guy who made Storyteller – she had me sit down next to him and say, “Pretend like you’ve met for the first time”. And I’ve known this guy for five years! [Laughs.] So, yeah, there was a lot of forced stuff. But with Lisanne and Jamie, it was very apparent that they knew what was going on, and they would handle it really well. And I trusted them and I’m glad I did.
What advice would you give someone looking to make indie games now?
UCSC is the college here in Santa Cruz, and I’ve gone up and talked to classes a few times. One of the questions I always get is, ‘How do I know if being an independent game developer is for me?’ And I tell them: you know it because you’re already making games. If you’re not already making games, it’s not for you. Like, it takes a certain personality type to do this. And there’s absolutely no shame in working in the game industry – that’s awesome. I can’t – I don’t really work well with other people, and I don’t take direction well. That’s why I never did it. And I need to do what I need to do, or I’m not happy. And if you’re that type of personality, it’s going to take a lot of time. But I think eventually you can carve out your little niche and live there and people will come to you.