Shack: It seems that some companies have adapted better to the episodic mindset than others. For example, Valve's Half-Life Episodes aren't exactly arriving on a regular timetable. How is Telltale coping with such a strict schedule?

Dan Connors: We've done it one bite at a time. Telltale's really had the luxury of being the company that was built from the ground up to do this. We've never done anything different.

Certainly, there's been that shifting mindset for a lot of the people there. I mean, Telltale's a lot of vets, we wouldn't really be able to pull this type of thing off without really seasoned game development talent. But we also have a lot of really new people that have only worked with Telltale and have a total different perspective on the way the industry works.

I think the big thing for the team is, it's a real rhythm thing. They really have to be in sync. You have to get used to the idea that there's always a product going out the door.

Shack: I think it's amusing that one of the criticisms against the first episode of Monkey Island was that it felt less like a complete story and more like a setup, something you usually hear about television shows.

Dan Connors: I think a lot of people, they aren't exactly inaccurate when they say that. I think Episode 3 has kind of been the payoff of the setup, and 4 and 5 are just going to get better from there.

There's so much, if you go into it with an open mind, there's so many advantages from a story-telling and experience standpoint in doing it this way. Everybody just continues to get better and better at it.

Shack: With Monkey Island being the fastest-selling Telltale release yet, what's that mean for a possible Xbox 360 version?

Dan Connors: I would love it to be on Xbox 360, would love to sit down with those guys and figure out the best way to go after it. We definitely want to get Monkey Island onto the Xbox. We think it would be a great home for Tales. I think we just need to talk through the logistics with them and do what makes sense. I know they had great success with Monkey Island: Special Edition. We think there's definitely an audience there and we definitely want to get the game to them.

Shack: What's your take on the PlayStation Network?

Dan Connors: From what I've seen PlayStation Network is really flexible and they have their head around how a publisher might want to present their games. It would seem that enabling new ideas and innovation is a big part of their vision.

Shack: Does that mean we'll be seeing Telltale games coming to PlayStation Network?

Dan Connors: It's certainly always been our goal. We think Sony is doing some really great things with PlayStation Network, and everyone here at Telltale is excited about the platform. Nothing is set in stone, but I'd say that there's some good potential there.

Shack: What are you thoughts on the PSP go? It's built around digital distribution, and Telltale is a company that focuses on digital distribution, so it seems like a natural fit.

Dan Connors: Definitely. I think they're in the right place and they've built great hardware to compete with all of the other small gaming systems, handheld gaming systems.

We're always excited about a device that gets more people playing games, and I think our games would translate really well to the system. I think that gamers are gonna love it. We have one in the office the other day, [it] shut down business for about thirty minutes while everyone sat around and just uh, you know, got all excited and gah-gah goo-goo'd over the thing for half an hour.

It's always good when the staff is interested in what's going on and thinks it's a great idea. It's exciting news.

Shack: What about the Nintendo DSi?

Dan Connors: I think that has always been a great platform too. The handhelds have been something that are kinda "next generation" for us to think about. We're still focused on PC and consoles. I think there's a product that works very well on the DSi and as soon as we can figure out how our stuff could work there, I think that it's a good target.

Obviously, their install base is great, so that's always an interesting thing for us. We're still a little bit aways from that part of the business being open.

Shack: Telltale's got several Wii games under its belt, and industry trends seems to suggest that it'd be easier to port from Wii to PSP than Nintendo DS.

Dan Connors: Ironically, huh? I think there's probably some truth to that. It's certainly something that we still need to get the details on exactly how the hardware works and everything else. It's not something that we're deeply entrenched in at the moment. That's a huge opportunity for us.

Shack: What about iPhone? Is that part of your expansion plan moving forward?

Dan Connors: It definitely is, and that's another thing where I know that Monkey Island: Special Edition was a big seller there. It's part of the element of the types of games we make, being able to work on those types of devices. We feel like there's an audience there. What we don't understand right now is the ecosystem of the distribution and what it really, how you get an app on there that can move really well because it's so competitive and there's so many different applications there. We're really thinking through that part of the strategy and once we have that in place we'll sync it up wit h our tech strategy and try to bring the stuff over to iPhone because it certainly makes a lot of sense and it seems like it's a pretty democratic system in terms of getting your content to the market.

Shack: With Gromit and Monkey Island wrapping up soon, what's next? Sam & Max Season 3? Dave Grossman mentioned wanting to revisit Loom....

Dan Connors: [laughter] Well, the first one is certainly a lot closer than the second one. We're currently, we've got product in production right now that we've been talking about but we haven't really set a release date to. Everything else, we're just ....we're out in the streets, sort of talking around to different folks to figure our franchises that make real good sense for a May-June timeframe. Hopefully we'll pull something in that'll blow everybody's mind. We're pretty excited about the people we're talking to, so hopefully we'll have a pretty huge announcement here soon.

Shack: You've partnered with LucasArts before, and they have a very rich catalog.

Dan Connors: Yes, yes. They've been great partners. We'll see if there's more there. It's really been great getting to know LucasArts again after years away. I like the new group of people they've brought in over there. I think they're doing some original things and we're real interested in continuing to just be a partner with them.

Shack: I don't know if you've heard this, but Gearbox's Randy Pitchford recently called out Steam for exploiting smaller developers.

Dan Connors: Really?

Shack: He claims Steam takes too much of a cut from smaller developers. That's okay, for bigger developers, like Gearbox, because they'll sell enough units to make up for it. But he's worried about smaller developers, and thinks it would be better if Valve spun Steam into its own company to prevent a conflict of interest. As someone that's done business with Steam, what's your take?

Dan Connors: I don't consider Telltale to be a small developer. I think we're more built to be a publisher and to have a publishing arm. Any channel we work with has got to be fair and reasonable, or else they won't get our content and we'll go somewhere else or we'll distribute it ourselves. We have a little leverage, and don't consider ourselves necessarily in that category, so I can't speak to that.

I will say this. What I've seen from the people I've worked with at Valve is complete support and a real cooperative relationship with us. What people kind of underestimate is how much they're giving up in giving access to their audience. If they wanted to charge [developers] for putting you in the front of them, they could charge you probably what they end up taking from you in their backend.

It's that access to audience and market position that's really super hard for an independent developer to get, but Steam provides. There's a value for that. [Valve] could just have their stuff in those spaces, or just sell their system, but they're giving independents another marketplace. I can't really see why that's a bad thing.

Shack: Speaking of digital distribution partners, what ever happened with GameTap?

Dan Connors: I think they had a good idea. It's what happens a lot of times when people come into the game industry with an idea that the industry is going to be like the industry they're currently in and don't take into account how unique the game industry is and what it takes to sell games and what gamers expect. I think they came in with something that's great, was a really powerful application, but they didn't understand what gamers wanted out of it until a little too late in the process. That's just my take. But they were certainly great with us and they helped us a lot and they certainly helped get Sam & Max and Telltale off the ground, so we'll always be grateful to that.