Some of the first text based games were released in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. A text based game is a fairly simple concept in that instead of images, the player uses word commands to play. While today’s video game market continues to grow with outstanding visual prowess, the text based game market has expanded on how much it offers creative freedom to its players.
Iron Realms Entertainment develops and maintains four massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, or MMORG for short, which allows thousands of players to essentially live virtual lives and interact with each other in real time. Personally, I enjoy these games and have always wondered what it takes to run a company such as Iron Realms. I found my answers after an interview with one of the most down to earth people I’ve ever met: Jeremy Saunders, the president of Iron Realms.
Saunders had originally started off as a player of Achaea and explained how difficult it was to move up the ladder. He loved the game, but owning three martial arts schools and a gym took up plenty of time.
There were two things he cites as helping him rise from player, volunteer, and finally president.
“I loved what I was doing. Working was not really working. Sure, there were things I did not enjoy doing, but let’s face it, there are in every job. I just decided I was going to give it one-hundred percent every day and the opportunities would come, and they did. Secondly, I learned to take advice and criticism. When I came up with ideas, they were always the best ideas. No one could talk me out of them. I soon learned that was not the case (after a few failures). I had to learn when to listen to my volunteers and the players.”
When I asked him if he ever thought he would be running the show he responded with, “Not a chance”. But through all the challenges he faced, such as lacking any coding skills or previous gaming administration experience his dedication carried him through.
“It is a lot of work, and I find myself on the computer from seven AM to midnight quite a bit, but it is very rewarding. We currently have a very long list of enhancements and features we want to roll out for over the next few months and I am pushing hard to get as many done as possible over the next few weeks”
He has a bit of trouble when it comes to keeping everything in order because “the main challenge is staying focused on promoting the company. I am constantly side tracked into doing fun projects on the games. I have to constantly look at my action plan and ask, ‘Is this something that promotes the games, or is just cool’?”
Saunders left me with a glimpse at what fans of Iron Realms can look forward to soon, “In the near future we will have custom made banners and badges for players to display, fan site kits that can access data from the games, new individual game sites that are more interactive, and several other top secret goodies that we will be announcing soon.”
-Aaron
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