Josef Fares on starting game development, financial chaos with A Way Out and changing from a mad man to a genius

[Macca]

Every summer in Sweden a variety of famous swedish people records basically a podcast for everyone to listen to about their life stories and such. And today the outspoken Josef Fares(A Way Out, It Takes Two) had his and I figured I'd translate some of the stuff he talked about in it.



Growing up in Lebanon:

" In Lebanon, my brother had a video game console which he played Pong on. But it was hard to play in Lebanon, it was tough and there was a war and we had barely any money"

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Beginning of his game development career :

" I moved to Uppsala where we developed the game(Brothers) and we lived in a small student apartment. In the beginning we were about 5-6 people but eventually grew to 15.

-When the demo for Brothers was finished. A bunch of muppets in corporate suits tried to impact the game and change stuff"

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A Way Out's development, almost selling his shares in Hazelight and almost going out of business

"The game got more and more ambitious and the budget wasn't enough. I wasn't able to make it work. So when we were in the middle of development and I realised we had already lost 5 million[OP's note: Unsure if he means US Dollars or SEK]. I got a little bit of panic but didn't say anything to the team. I couldn't pay the team salary for a fair few months after that.

At one point I was ready to sell some of my shares in the company to make it work, that's how I desperate I was. The guy actually turned down the chance to do so, which he probably regrets today haha.


It was pure chaos. I remember vividly a meeting with my accountant and he warned me that the company was in trouble. If the game hadn't succeed and sold well I'd end up on the streets with all the debts I'd racked up

But eventually I found a solution. I started directing a bunch of advertising films so I could earn some money and pay the salaries. I left the studio as often as I could do earn money. And it fucking worked in the end. When I now think back to that time between 2014 and 2018, I've forgotten almost all the difficult parts. It's like old relations, you have a tendency to pick out the good parts and ignore everything bad. We had a fucking great time and I only remember that, even though there were some tough times"

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Fuck the Oscars and changing perceptions

(The Fuck You speech at TGA 2017 gets brought up)

- Four year laters we released It Takes Two and it won the Game of the Year awards. And in those four years I went from the crazy person who screams at gaming awards to being declared a genius

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Quotes from:

Han satte allt på spel – och gjorde succé: “Hade bokstavligen hamnat på gatan”

Hazelight-grundaren bakom spel som A way out och It takes two berättar om chansningen som kunde kostat honom ordentligt.

www.breakit.se

Så gjorde Josef Fares succé i spelbranschen

”Kopps”-stjärnan Josef Fares lade filmregissörkarriären på hyllan och har i stället gjort global succé i tv-spelsbranschen. Hans tv-spel har vunnit över tuffa konkurrenter, så som ”Grand Theft Auto”, men vägen dit var inte spikrak – och ett tag låg han fem miljoner back. – Vid ett läge höll jag...

www.expressen.se

Josef Fares låg fem miljoner back

Han var nära att hamna på gatan. Trots framgångarna som filmregissör tvingades Josef Fares ta stora lån och skuldsätta sig för att lyckas med sin nya dröm i spe

www.aftonbladet.se

The sommarprat/podcast(in swedish):

Josef Fares - Sommar & Vinter i P1

Spelutvecklaren om varför han lämnade filmvärlden för spelbranschen.

sverigesradio.se

 

[Wrexis]

I started directing a bunch of advertising films so I could earn some money and pay the salaries. I left the studio as often as I could do earn money.

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Man that is so refreshing to read. I'm so used to hearing about CEOs hustling for investment. Kudos.
Though scary for the staff.

 

[Y2Kev]

And think of where he is now after It Takes Two. Very cool.

 

[Cirrus]

I'm surprised at "A Way Out"'s funding issues. That was being published by EA at the time so I assumed that they would have no problem with regards to funding.

 

[Thera]

Thanks for the translation OP.

It reminds me the story of Hello Games.

 

[Deleted member 2595]

Really refreshing and frank. Also incredible dedication to the craft. He took big risks but also put in life-consuming effort.

 

[Macca]

I'm surprised at "A Way Out"'s funding issues. That was being published by EA at the time so I assumed that they would have no problem with regards to funding.

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It seems like this might've been before EA went in and published it.

 

[8bit]

I kind of feel he hasn't addressed the elephant in the room though.

 

[Deleted member 2595]

I'm surprised at "A Way Out"'s funding issues. That was being published by EA at the time so I assumed that they would have no problem with regards to funding.

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The main root of funding issues I've seen, especially for burgeoning studios, is paying staff. An inexperienced leader will be super excited to hire more staff but then might not manage the game's milestones enough (or just not crack the whip enough) and before you know it 6 months have passed while you were paying 5 extra people full time and it destroys your bank account. This can happen even when a big heavyweight publisher is involved - the publisher doesn't oversee the studio's bank account, they just check the game's status, provide support, and sign the cheques.

 

[VAD]

Wow I had no idea he actually took a second job to pay his employees.
Mad respect to this guy.

 

[GrantDaNasty]

I'm surprised at "A Way Out"'s funding issues. That was being published by EA at the time so I assumed that they would have no problem with regards to funding.

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The Vertical slice was possibly quite expensive by itself (before they were greenlit and given a budget), as the jump in complexity from Brothers to A Way Out is quite massive.

 

[Fudus]

Still trips me up that it's the same guy that directed Kopps and Jalla Jalla

 

[dex3108]

I kind of feel he hasn't addressed the elephant in the room though.

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[Raigor]

I'm surprised at "A Way Out"'s funding issues. That was being published by EA at the time so I assumed that they would have no problem with regards to funding.

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Most likely EA and Hazelight agreed for a fixed sum and Josef was too ambitious and things started to become bigger than expected and of course EA is not going to say: "Oh ok here's more than what we agreed for". This is was Hazelight debut game as well, they were still umproven as a studio.

The jump in production from A Way Out to It Takes Two was really massive and it was only possible because AWO did pretty great sales wise.

His third game might be close to low end-AAA in dev budget most likely

 

[Macca]

Should also note that in these podcasts the guest gets to choose various songs to play during "breaks" and Fares choose a lot of video game songs actually. Stuff from like Mario, Street Fighter, MGS, Horizon, Uncharted, Zelda etc.

 

[Toxel]

Love the dude

 

[Zeenbor]

Running a game development studio is hard and requires a lot of sacrifice. Props to Josef for finding a way to keep the lights on and paying his employees during difficult times. Looking forward to seeing what his team cooks up next!

 

[bushmonkey]

I played through A Way Out with my son last month and I loved it. I regret not playing it earlier but it didn't get the best of reviews at the time so I hadn't bothered. I should have known better.

 

[Paganmoon]

Sommarprat the radio show being referred to as a podcast...

 

[Macca]

Sommarprat the radio show being referred to as a podcast...

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Hahaha. "Summer chat"

 

[waterpuppy]

Still trips me up that it's the same guy that directed Kopps and Jalla Jalla

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Same, my brain still has a hard time accepting that Josef Fares the director and Josef Fares the game dev is the same person lmao.

 

[apocat]

Sommarprat the radio show being referred to as a podcast...

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This is me right now. I'm unreasonably annoyed, even though the description is honestly pretty accurate.