Interview with Jon Van Caneghem

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Jon Van Caneghem
January 2017


Regular readers will know this name well: as one of the original founders of NWC and creator of the Might & Magic games, Jon is considered the spiritual father of the franchise. As he said it himselt: "I wrote the first Might and Magic while finishing college on an Apple II, and I’ve been making games ever since." After 3DO went belly up in 2003, he moved on to other things while Ubisoft would eventually pick up the baton and continue the series. Currently, he's CEO of VC Mobile Entertainment. After the release of Creature Quest, we were able to get him to answer some questions for us.

1. What's your current job? Please outline what your work entails.
"CEO, so I oversee everything involved with running the company, but I try to spend as much time on game design as possible."

2. What's your favorite part of the job?
"Designing new games and playing new games, but working with a talented and enthusiastic team is by far the most fulfilling."

3. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
"Hopefully doing what I’m doing now but with multiple teams."

4. What do you like to do in your free time? Do you still race cars?
"Yes, I’m quite active with several racing organizations and I won a national championship with NASA-pro racing 4 years in row! I still play lots of games on PC and Mobile, but my hobby has always been racing cars."

5. What was your inspiration for Creature Quest?
"I was enjoying many of the current mobile games and I had the idea to bring some of the elements that made Heroes so much fun to the genre. So many people who have mobile devices have never experienced anything like this."

6. What are you most proud of?
"When making something new, it’s very difficult to create a game that’s fun and addicting. I’m very proud of how the game has evolved, the decisions we made along the way and how much fun it is to play."

7. How big is the team?
"We just past 20 people and growing."

8. What are you hoping for with the global release?
"We all hope for a big hit, but just having a large number of players try the game and enjoy playing will be awesome."

9. You're just now launching globally; why the "soft launch", why didn't you launch globally right away?
"In the mobile world, this is quite common. We have made a tremendous amount of changes and adjustments during our soft launch, which is difficult to do in the PC/console world, but it gives us a chance to iterate and polish before we go out to a large audience. Its especially important for free to play games that only generate revenue from players sticking around."

10. What are your future plans for the game?
"We have an entire roadmap for the next year and beyond. It really becomes a live service like the MMO world where we have the ability to constantly add and improve the game, and respond to consumer feedback."

11. What does Creature Quest have in common with the games in the Might & Magic franchise?
"The combat system has the same feel as the early M&M RPG’s (party of portraits, taking turns attacking waves of creatures). The adventure part of the game is like exploring maps in Heroes, find treasure, resources, battle blocking armies, completing quests."

12. How is working on a mobile game different from the PC games?
"Embracing the input differences is probably the biggest challenge; swiping and tapping is very different from keyboard / mouse / controller. The play session length also makes for very different focus and scope. This means different types of games will work better than others. The list goes on, but at the end of the day it still must be fun!"

13. Fans like to think about "the road not taken" - did you have any specific plans for the future of the M&M/Heroes series, lore-wise and gameplay-wise? Did you have any visions for Heroes V or other games?
"I really wanted to make Might and Magic Online a long time ago, this was before EQ and all the MMOs. We started on it and had a lot of great systems and ideas, unfortunately I was never able to finish it. For Heroes, I had a very cool design for V that I would still like to do and now with all the connectivity and server power available, so many new cool things could be done with the Heroes franchise… (raising and waving hands in air)"

14. Were you proud of the creature lineups of HOMM IV factions? Were you planning to do radical changes in HOMM V factions due to fan reactions?
"Yes and yes, but the most heated debate was whether or not to allow the heroes on the battlefield (H3 vs H4)"

15. Do you think there's a chance you might work on M&M/Heroes related titles in the future?
"Hmm… maybe?"

16. What do you think is the future of gaming? Will mobile games grow at the expense of PCs and consoles?
"The future of gaming is… more gaming. I think all the platforms will grow, although mobile will always reach a much larger audience."

 

That's it - big thanks to Jon for taking the time and we hope to hear more from him in the future.



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[MadMax]

Wonderful job admins!
I really wish JVC would return and save our burning franchise.
I got nostalgia shivers from this :')

[Danny]

Thank you!!

[MadMax]

Also, I am starting up a guild in the game soon! Masters of Sighisoara will be the name. Join the fun!:)

[Demilich]

Interview is plain empty, imho. Questions like "how big is your team", "what is favorite part of your job" and other like that are so... boring. There is nothing deep end interesting in questions regarding M&M lore or games. For what group of people the interview was taken? M&M fans? Very doubtfully.

The only question that is good here is #15, but there is no answer. Oh, well.

[Kalah]

The questions are based on the ones sent in by the fans.

[Quantomas]

Who did know that Jon Van Caneghem is a successful racing driver?

Apparently he likes to be at the wheel and in control. This mindset is what you need to successfully create a Heroes of Might and Magic game. Makes perfect sense to me.

[MadMax]

Been playing Creature Quest for 2 days now. I LOVE it. I do wish the graphics were a bit more "Heroes". But it is fast paced and tactical. Looting and exploring is made fun.

Join my clan MoS (that's the full name as Masters of Sighisoara wasn't available).

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

A question I would have asked was, " How does it feel to be in charge of creating the next entry into the C&C franchise, just for EA to screw you, your team and the millions of C&C fans over?"

Ya know?

[Vitirr]

I'm sorry to say but I agree with Demilich, this is a pretty shallow promotional interview with little to no interest to M&M fans. Just to note, I'm pointing more to the answers than the questions, though I didn't find them that good either.

And he could stop pushing the idea that this has anything to do with Heroes in order to sell his product to this audience. I hope it is just that though, trying to sell his product, because if he really beleives so then I'd be pretty surprised and dissapointed.

The questions are based on the ones sent in by the fans.

Not mine though.

[Kalah]

Not mine though.

Number 15? I can't help it if he won't go into depth on it, but I did ask.

[Vitirr]

Not really. I wondered if he would be interested to make any game similar to Heroes (or M&M for that matter), not if he would participate in a Heroes/M&M related project, since I give for granted that the second is not going to happen being the franchise in the hands of Ubisoft. And in any case that is something that is not in his hands while the first could be, especially now with the opportunity of starting a croudfunding campaign that would greatly reduce the financial risk of such project.

Don't worry anyway Kalah, it's not like it was mandatory to pick my question, though I thought it was interesting for the whole community.

[Kalah]

Yeah,it would be great if we could one day do a whole interview about JVC's possible return to the franchise, but I'm not sure he'd be too interested talking about that in detail. One the one hand, I guess one doesn't want to ruin ones future career chances by saying something too negative or be dismissive, but on the other hand he is rather busy with his current project.

[Karmakeld]

I'm mostly disappointed about the lack of a posted deadline but indeed the last few questions were the most interesting ones. Some of the questions also seem a bit cut.

[Troller]

If I'may not mistaken this is the first time he's shown an interest in working on a M&M game in a very long time...

He has nailed it with Creature Quest it is a very well crafted game and it doesn't hurt that the music is amazing either:-) I really hope that it also becomes a financial success so we will see a lot more from him...
Regards Troels

[Pol]

Yes, it will be interesting to watch it how it will fare. Because, no doubt, regarding all the experience and fame JVC is not backed by some Ubi/Steam/Origin PR deparment and budged. And the start is always one of crucial points.

Let see, I hope that JVC will nail it!

Might & Magic, there, that may be premature. May be once, later, he will return to this subject with renewed desire. I belive that's question of better timing.

[MadMax]

Yes, it will be interesting to watch it how it will fare. Because, no doubt, regarding all the experience and fame JVC is not backed by some Ubi/Steam/Origin PR deparment and budged. And the start is always one of crucial points.

Let see, I hope that JVC will nail it!

Might & Magic, there, that may be premature. May be once, later, he will return to this subject with renewed desire. I belive that's question of better timing.

I too hope he will return to Might and Magic. Or at least make sometging similiar.
I have been playing Creature Quest for a few days now. I love it, can't stop playing. Looks like it is going good too, 100k downloads already! Yay!

[jeff]

Well if he does, I hope UBI is no longer the owner. As long as UBI holds the rights; I do not believe even JVC can save it. They will not give him the time and resources necessary for success.

[Pol]

I believe that Ubi cannot offer freedom, all that top management will be still trying to impose "wonderful" ideas. And that cut that company out.

[Tress]

I am glad that JVC finally found a place where he can finally create game with some of his vision. Making MMORPG in age of WOW ,which he did in Trion, is dead cause since it will 90 % be wow clone which will never amount to much.
I actually tried creature quest and for mobile game it is very fun and interesting , specially if you like party based RPG's . Game have some non-serious tone as mm's 1-5 had with tons of puns (those are basically present for every other creature like black meowgic for cat mage creature, or parr-ley for parrot pirate creature) and ton of culture refferneces like many tailed -fox creature as one of epic creatures you can recruit.
There are of course elements that are plague of many mobile games like random elements that forces grinding i.e combo point count for creatures is preset thus even if you get rare creature it may be nearly useless if it have 1 combo point as well as monetization model : game have slighly too prevalent pay to win model, specially when game have competitive element, as well as play time is limited by energy which can be recharged over long time or bought.