„I just wanted to create an environment that I would want to work in“
Drumroll, please! We present an end of the year recap with Solarbots founder Miso
Misotsune – or just Miso – is one of the founders of Solarbots and the oil that keeps the cogs turning. In this year’s last team interview issue, he looks both into the past and the future. At the turn of the year, we also talk philosophy: Personal, work, and lore, of course.
Miso, 2022 is almost over, how are you feeling?
I have mixed feelings! On one hand, and this is really amazing: The team members now have really gotten to know each other better and familiarised themselves with their work, their roles and their creations. On the other hand, there were sad events as well. Team members lost family to COVID. There were COVID illnesses amongst the team as well, from the entire crew, only two people were left unscathed. Since we also have team members with pre-existing conditions, this is really concerning.
But there were also incredible developments: We found the right people to do the manga. We’re moving on with new creative director positions. It will take some time to get used to new roles and responsibilities, and things were delayed due to change in direction and new dynamics. In general, this was the biggest challenge, onboarding everyone this year. We grew from 5 team members to 22 or 23! This is a huge leap and a major milestone. Because of how well that went, everything will go even smoother in the future, allowing us to concentrate on what we care about most: quality.
So I already almost wanted to interrupt you there, because one thing was really striking and I want to get back to it. A boss thinking about the health of his employees as one of the main priorities. I know you don’t like these hierarchical terms, boss, employee, – we can talk about these notions, as well, but I just wanted to emphasize how unusual this is.
Look, in my professional career I noticed that I was most relaxed and efficient working in teams with a really good vibe, no needless animosity. Where there were no weird challenges between colleagues and coworkers, where there wasn’t this idea of who can climb the ladder faster, all of that shit. In these environments where you have this competitive surrounding with no solidarity, you’re scared. You’re scared of making mistakes, because someone might raise this issue in front of superiors. And this always meant that general productivity was just horrible. If you don’t feel comfortable, you can’t be productive. If you are comfortable, not only are you more productive, you are also aligning yourself more with your work and seeing a part of yourself reflected in what you create.
As people get more and more disillusioned with life and the world, the more they’re unhappy with their place of work, because they realise that they spend the majority of their daytime and life in general in these miserable places. And I just think that there is the possibility of people being happy with their job, even fulfilling a lifelong dream, honing a craft. There is great magic in perfecting one's craft, following a passion. Under these circumstances, it’s work, but at the same time, it’s not work. It’s an effort. And if you have that feeling, that will make you happy. For me that was just clear, it was putting two and two together. I wanted to create an evironment that I myself want to work in, with team members to be valued as people and have them know that I see them as such, and Peter [the second founding member] agreed. We want our team members to live a dignified life. It doesnt mean they get paid absurd amounts of money. We just want to enable people who work full time to create a mutual dream to have a dignified life, not having to worry about food, healthcare or their children’s daycare. If a company can afford it, why don’t they just do it? People are happier, feel more fulfilled, and therefore more relaxed and productive. So the current setup of Solarbots is mostly about me wanting to set an example. That was always important to me. Unsurprisingly, what people say they want if you ask them – security, dignity and a space to learn and grow and improve – is exactly what a community needs, nothing more, nothing less.
The point of people enjoying honing their craft and being able to learn and expand their knowledge of an activity they had already always enjoyed – this is something that came up a lot in team interviews. Many said that they feel very lucky to be able to turn their passion into their full-time job. I know that you have quit your job for Solarbots, and so have many others who had had a stable job and career before joining Solarbots. I imagine that this is quite a hard decision to make.
There is a huge element of trust. Especially for the founding members and first ones to join the team. We had next to nothing, just an idea and the will to try. It was just Peter and I promising stuff to people. They had to take our words for it. And we stuck to what we said. It was a huge compliment, having people trust you. It means a lot to me. I take all of this trust that people in the community have given me extremely seriously. It’s a huge responsibility, but it also keeps you grounded and in check with reality. The amount of money that we managed to raise was crazy for us, who are not crypto whales and have no huge platform. This enabled a lot of development and at the same time, it’s the reason why we’re taking this so seriously. Making the decision to go all in with Solarbots was horrible for me, because I’m mostly a risk averse person. I had a stable job with decent income, actually it was substantially above the Austrian average, because I had an international senior development gig that paid well. Jumping from that into something so unpredictable … it wasn’t easy. But I just really wanted to do it, my whole life I’ve always wanted to make games. And much like many others, I somehow never went into it. I remember it very clearly: I played Sonic on the Sega Genesis and I was instantly hooked forever. But back when I was a teen, it really wasn’t remotely as large an industry as it is now. Also, one was discouraged into going into this industry. People said: Ehh, it’s not a real job.
I remember the argument was also: Well, yes, games might be a thing, but not here. Not in Europe, not in Central Europe, there are no big studios here, there’s no chance and no use trying to get into it. It’s astonishing how this notion has changed with the internet and remote work possibilities.
Yeah, I guess conservative countries didn’t really get the message that there is the internet until it was almost too late. So I was stuck in an education that I didnt really care about too much. I chose the thing that interested me vaguely, which was cooking. At least this is a skill that you need in your day-to-day life. But I was still always on the lookout for game design opportunities. It was so hard to get a foot in the door. And even when you managed, it was complicated. A few years ago, I worked for an indie game. But that was a full time job on top of my existing full time job as lead developer. And with horrible timeline discrepancies between the US & Central Europe. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night having to give people Git explanations and debug their stuff and then wake up 3h later for another full shift. Obvisouly no one could do that for too long, and after about a year, I stopped. But there was still always the need to do something with games.
You would probably dispute this, but one thing that being a chef is, is that it’s creative, and so is game design.
Yeah but I’m not creative. I’m not a designer, or a writer. I’m a more technical person, I learned that when I started doing development. I am about as artistic as I am a bird.
Still, it was you and Peter who came up with the initial story and concept of Solarbots. You’ve by now told this story a thousand times, but can you just for the sake of it take us back to how it all started? How did you think of Lacrea, Arboria and Illskagaard?
Peter and I always wanted to create something. Peter is in a very lucky situation that he has contacts to people who are willing to invest reasonable starter budget amounts. Peter really liked my ideas and vice versa. We got together and started brainstorming. We knew we wanted it to be a role-playing game with customizable aspects, we knew that manga played a role, we knew that everything was going to be story-heavy. I began with a fairly common concept of 3 factions, heavily inspired by Starcraft because I love it and it’s great. Immediately, I thought of this video, which became the core foundation of Illskagaard.
With Arboria, I had no clear idea. I thought they should be somehow nature-y but at the same time not, but I didn’t know how to make this work. Notes on them were very sparce, a bullet point list: weird, whacky, crazy. Of course the writers took this and made something amazing out of it. And then for Lacrea, I thought: Many RPGs are set in this vaguely renaissance, baroque, gothic, european setting. Gothic architecture, with its imposing and impressive structures, was a great inspiration. If you live in Europe or have visited, you will have caught yourself in this moment where you wonder how it was to build things like that. Of course there is an aspect of romanticising history. But that’s what we wanted to portray: the beauty of architecture, white gowns, scarlet red ornament, clarity and pristine feeling to everything, but at the same time it’s a society with a really dark and almost grotesque underbelly. Peter then had the idea of robots, which came from Medabots, that I also loved!
What were some surprises in the first era of Solarbots?
I think it was something to do with art. (thinks) Ah, yes: Ruin. The way Ruin looks! It was not what I expected at all!!! It’s not the picture in my mind. Ruin is purely a creation of Jess if I remember correctly. It’s like, Jess built this foundation, explained it to Griseus, who drafts it. And when I saw the first sketch I thought: Okay, that is not what I expected! But I mean, not in a bad way. Just in surprised way.
I work as a translator as well – on that note, let’s point out that Solarbots has been laying groundwork for language options and localization of the game in 2022 – and it reminds me of this. When you read the translation of a poem for example, if it’s well done, you can’t but not admire what the person has taken from and done with the original idea that was given to them. It’s like a little surprise present.
Yes! And to get back to this point of creativity, I would maybe rephrase it like this: Sometimes I have blips of creativity, sometimes I envision singular aspects of a whole that might be interesting. And I hand this over to the experts. To see not only how they approach it, but what they turn it into is amazing. A lot of the time, the result doesn’t really have a whole lot to do with what I imagined, but at the core, the principle is still tangible. It’s stunning. I just love talking to an artist about concepts, asking for something specific or advice on something, and see how they would do it. How they make something come alive. That’s one of the reasons why I love princess Yani Sarh. She’s my favourite character because she’s so powerful and interesting, and it all really comes from the way that she was captured by manga artists and writers.
Ruin as brought to life by Griseus.
Another point that was mentioned a lot in this year’s team interview rounds: That truly the emotional aspect is what structures everything, from colour choices and fight sequences to character design of course, and even quite technical things like the minutiae of animation.
What’s unfortunate is that this takes a lot more time. If we didn’t care about this, could we have finished things earlier? Absolutely, There’s no doubt in my mind that there would be earlier shipping. But we don’t want to be that. We want to touch people, pull on heartstrings, connect with them, and in my opinion, there is a stronger connection over story. That’s why we put so much effort into this. It’s not perfect of course, but it’s still worth taking extra effort and steps. At the end of the day this is more meaningful.
What I always loved was the moment when you finish a good book or a game with a great story. Or an anime, manga, what you will. And it’s heart wrenching, and at the end, it leaves you with a sense of emptiness when you’re done. You sit back and you’re like: What now? There’s nothing that can top this! Life is meaningless now. (laughs) That’s what I’m always searching for when I’m searching for media to absorb. Ultimately that’s what we want to recreate in solarbots. We care about the emotional response. Yoko Taro is a Japanese game creator that I love. His games, if you really take the time, if you really dive into them, they really do something to you, they’re philosophical masterpieces. He’s one of the biggest inspirations for me.
Let’s stay with game design for a bit. I feel like many people are disappointed in traditional game publishing and big game studios. And as tools became more accessible and people realized that they want something else, something more or something new from the game industry, perhaps a vacuum opened, and Solarbots stepped in. Of course people have always been modding and designing smaller games on their own or in private. But still, it seems to me that now, more projects like Solarbots are happening. What do you think is the reason for that?
Obviously, there are still great games, and many indie devs making great games, there are devs that listen to fans. But unfortunately, weve seen a worrying trend of previously loved gaming companies drastically deteriorating or simply slowly leaking info that they always have been horrible. Of course the issue of ethical consumption is complicated, and understandably, some people don’t even want to think about it. But what I always admired was when developers focused on the humanity of their team members as well as the quality of the work. Not giving a shit about race or gender, in apositive way: At Solarbots, we have people from all over the world, transgender team member, women and men… If they’re good at what they do, why would I care about anything else? Also there are growing concerns with certain genres, genres developing into directions that original fanbases don’t like for example. But this is where we come in and we want to do things differently: We’re not just a single genre game. Not a single experience. It’s why we started the manga, have a lot of story content, and why we are working on building this whole universe. It’s a foundation for the future and it will create opportunities. If you don’t start out with this, it will get noisy and difficult to do this if you monkey patch it later. There will be plot holes. We all know it from the later instalments of games we love. And we’re not going to be totally immune to that, of course, but if you have a solid universe and good foundations, there’s more to play around with. There was definitely a void for a project like this. I’m not saying it’s the best or something, it’s just – we want to make something unique, and believe in it.
Crypto and NFTs have gone through a full media cycle now. From being relatively unknown and obscure, to having this huge boom, coming into the mainstream and getting a lot of attention, to now being ridiculed as well as tossed aside a bit as well.
One of the things that always happens with every field: Where there is money, there are scams. But I don’t blame the technology, I blame the people. The best thing you can do is to try to be the alternative. Blockchain is an interesting development, there has never been a way to transmit information that fast, as efficiently, in a secure and decentralized way. Every single hack has been human error: hack of a bridge, of a contract, “hack” of wallet. The blockchain itself is essentially impenetrable. So having this technology that is technically impenetrable, it’s a huge waste not to make use of it. It’s fairly short-sighted to demonize crypto and NFTs. There are many many good actors, also who make mistakes, maybe get their smart contracts exploited, but who really remedy the issue, reimburse and try hard to make things right. It goes to show that the space does have potential and people with integrity. The more people we have in crypto that have integrity, working for non corrupt protocols and projects, the lower the percentage of the scam artists is going to be. If you leave a space only to the bad actors, well, then of course it will get foul. It’s the same with the internet. Luckily we learned to use it for wonderful things like learning a musical skill, looking up a pie recipe, or sharing our life with loved ones. And it made life better for people. But still, even there, there were always drawbacks: data breaches, information leaks, the darkweb. Sooner or later that’s gonna happen with pretty much any service, especially if it’s financial. Paypal was exploited, for example, and a premier password management software has just recently been breached. But this is exactly the reason why relying on single point of failure is bad. One bank, one data provider, one party responsible for server security – they can always be corrupted or hacked or go down or fail in any other capacity. But an interlinked international network is harder to take down.
It’s also an issue of media and technological literacy, I think.
If you use a crypto wallet for authentication, it’s very safe, it can only be exploited if you yourself as the user are not careful. If you don’t give away your private key, you’re fine. You have to be mindful. You have to keep your digital wallet just as safe as your analog one or your bank account login, just the same level of security is enough. You wouldn’t and shouldn’t download sketchy CD-Key Generators for pirated games on the same machine that you use for your online banking (or at all), and you should have the same level of vigilance with your wallet. Then it’s really a no brainer to utilize. Sooner or later it’s going to be very mainstream in gaming in one way or another, but also generally mainstream for a lot of things: Authorization alone will be a big thing utilizing blockchain. Things have also fortunately gotten greener, and there are efforts in reducing energy consumption.
What about stolen art NFTs and money laundering?
A lot of artists have seen art being stolen and being listed as NFTs. For most parts, these don’t sell. Just because they’re listed, doesn’t mean they’re being sold. It’s much like bootlegs: They exist, and sure, they’re illegitimate, but they don’t hurt the original artist’s wealth if they’re just lying around somewhere in a little unknown corner store. That’s gonna happen, unfortunately, but still, the odds of that selling are very low. And money laundering is certainly not unique to crypto. I understand where people are coming from, though. Nobody wants people to be scammed, exploited, or spend their life savings/generational wealth. That’s why we need to invite more good actors into the space and educate about it while being realistic.
While we’re at it, what’s the first NFT you owned?
Solarbots! There are some others that I found interesting but they were all so expensive. So I just had to enjoy them from afar. But I have a lot of friends that own different NFTs from different projects, there is merit to many!
Arboria, Lacrean Empire, or Illskagaard?
Lacrean Empire. Hands down. Easiest question to answer. I dreamt them all up, but still, they’re my favorite. No contest. Their whole vibe, the aesthetics, their badass princess – the most badass leader in all of gaming history. She’s just the coolest in every conceivable way. So cool and strong, she lifts a person like it's nothing.
Oops, a little spoiler from the manga! Speaking of unknowns and upcomings: What are you looking forward to in 2023? Where will Solarbots go next year?
Player housing! I am a huge sucker for games like Animal Crossing: I’ve spent hundres of hours on my island. I love spending time decorating stuff and hanging out. Chilling in Final Fantasy XIV guild or player houses, doing nothing. Or idling in Dalaran. These were the inspirations for having social spaces, hangout spaces, to chill with friends. And when the furniture API comes out, it will be even more spicy and interesting, because people will be able to create their own experiences within player housing.
So can we come to your island for the new year?
Oh yeah! My entire island is decorated, all my villagers have vacation homes and they are fantastic. I can show you around and we’ll watch the fireworks together.