38 Studios is an odd company; the CEO is a baseball player, and he repeatedly references the creative/leadership team of his company. This four people he mentions most – to the exclusion of nearly everyone else in the company – include a comic book artist, and a guy who writes Dungeons and Dragons books. Oh, and there’s a really, really quiet guy who actually knows how to make video games. So yeah, 3 of the 4 people running the company know nothing about video game production.
Well, the quiet guy – not the baseball player that so clearly craves attention – has finally given an interview. And now we all understand why the attention-starved baseball player has been doing all the talking. Brett Close is a video game development veteran, and the nicest guy in the company. But damn, Brett isn’t exactly a quote machine. When asked about 38 Studios’ acquisition of Big Huge Games, Brett had a few, um, interesting things to say. Check out these excerpts:
So once we became aware of that, and recognized the capabilities of the studio, which we already knew, but we knew the talent, 38 Studios has always been about gathering great talent together to do incredible things. So, it’s an incredible studio. And once that situation arose it was just evident that we needed to figure out a way to turn those lemons into lemonade, right?…They’re, as I said, incredible veteran talent that, the more we examine the situation, the more it was a hand-in-glove fit just in terms of the cross-compatibility, the cultural fit, the technology fit, and just the philosophy of how we approach things in terms of development and intellectual properties. So, you know, it’s sort of made its own gravy.
As in the wake of the acquisition, there are a number of things that we need to examine. So saying that THQ would not, is not accurate. And saying that THQ would, is not accurate. Reevaluating what is going to be the, in terms of the publishing, deals for any of our products is, frankly at this point, something that we haven’t announced yet.
In terms of where development will go with that very interesting property is — as are all of the pieces in the portfolio — specifically what we will do with that is TBD at this point in time.
Our secret sauce, obviously some of it is the tie-ins that we have involved in terms of R.A., Todd [McFarlane] and the talent and experience that have built MMOs before on this team, as well as variety of other products. What I will tell you rather than drilling into details about why this is going to give people something that they have never experienced before, give them a type of product that they never played in an online experience, that they have never had — what I will tell you is that it’s simply based on that talent and based on our approach and our experience in building these products.
I could go on and on. Brett, nice guy that he is, doesn’t seem to be into complete sentences. Or, for that matter, sentences that make any cognizant sense. Tense shifts, wild interjections, subject changes, bouncing around – yeah, it’s all there. To be fair, I’m not sure this is really all Brett’s fault. Spoken English is not the same as written English, and it seems the interviewer simply transcribed large portions of a recorded statement from Brett. It’s a common error, and tends to make the interviewee look like someone who learned the language yesterday.
It may not be fair to the interviewee, but it’s funny as all hell. If you’d like to read more, Joysiq has the full interview right here. 
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I trascribed the interview and, I’m not sure if you’ve ever spoken to someone, but that’s how people speak – they don’t have full sentences written out in their minds. Our readers are distrustful of prepared statements and “marketing” speak – a casual, conversational tone communicates candor and transparency. Leaving in the occasional tangent helps enormously – the interview is definitely edited for clarity and grammar (no UMMS or UHHS, or incomplete thoughts). In this respect, I think Brett came off as very well-spoken and thoughtful.
Here’s an example of a snippet where he’s speaking in fragments, but it’s very conversational, and he comes across as very informed and intelligent –
“So the fact that this facilitated and materialized our vision of getting Copernicus as an IP out over more product platforms, more channels, and the fact that this studio is just a great fit. It’s just flat out a great fit for 38 Studios in terms of technology and team. And increases our choices. Increases our product portfolio. Allows us capabilities with their product back-catalog. It just creates more choices and more opportunities for 38 Studios.”
So: we could’ve rewritten portions of his comment to remove the fragments and/or run-on sentence (depending on where we put the periods), but that’s tricky for several reasons: 1) putting words into his mouth (!) 2) removing the casual tone of the conversation and venturing dangerously close to canned marketing speak.
This is the way we transcribe all of our interviews: http://www.joystiq.com/tag/interview
Thanks for the feedback, but I also wonder how this was the one takeaway you got out of the interview.
I’m not sure how to respond, Chris. You admittedly recorded, then literally transcribed an interview, which made an otherwise intelligent man appear like a dolt. Who does that?
The answer is nobody. The reason that professional journalists don’t literally transcribe recorded interviews is because it makes people look outrageously stupid. If that’s actually Joystiq’s policy, that is the most poorly thought out policy I’ve ever heard. There is a reason that no one else in the industry has a policy that is remotely similar.