Shack: You've worked with Iron Lore in the past. They just recently had to shut down. What is your take on the state of the independent development community? Healthy?

Albert Reed: The game business is a really, really hard business, because it's creative, and I think a lot of times the business aspects are overlooked. We have that bootstrapped mentality, where we don't have any outside money, so if we lose money, we go out of business, full stop. We don't have a sugar daddy paying for everything in the background. So I actually think that's a big reason that we've managed to be as successful as we are, because we run a real..

Shack: Tight ship?

Albert Reed: Yes, very, very tight ship. We buy expensive computers.. and crappy desks. [laughs] Good chairs.

Shack: How large is the studio?

Albert Reed: 35 [employees]. We have two projects going right now. Well, Mass Effect. And then we have the unannounced project we can't talk about. And then we're working on.. it was demoed at GDC actually, a game that will be bundled with the Emotiv headset.

Shack: Oh right. Can you explain what the Emotiv is?

Albert Reed: It's uh.. wow. It does a number things. We view it as a game controller that reads your mind. [laughs] Not to put too fine a point on it.

Shack: How does it work, anyway?

Albert Reed: I have no idea how it works! [laughs] I know it's EEG, which is an old, kind of reliable technology. There is some magic that interprets it, which is what the geniuses over at Emotiv have unlocked for us. And yeah, it can do a whole bunch of things, and we're making a video game with it.

Shack: Can you tell me anything about the game itself?

Albert Reed: Not yet. Soon, actually. It'll be very soon.

Shack: Maybe at E3?

Albert Reed: Uhh, I don't actually know, we don't have an exact date yet.

Shack: And I assume this will be a PC project?

Albert Reed: Nothing announced yet. Sorry, I keep having to say that. I'm really excited for the day where it's a Demiurge project, and we're in control of it, because I think a lot of the confidentiality stuff is overblown in the games industry.

Shack: There are a lot of studios out there that are being bought up by larger entities, BioWare included. Do you guys see yourselves staying independent in the face of this?

Albert Reed: It's not something we're trying to do. We greatly value our independence. It lets us work for anybody who's interested in hiring Demiurge to make their projects better, or create their games. So it's not part of our strategy, but I freely acknowledge that the industry is rampant with consolidation.

Shack: So as an independent company, would you prefer to be still providing a service role in the future, or do you see the studio wholly creating its own games?

Albert Reed: It's actually a little bit of both. We really, really enjoy working with big intellectual properties that we don't own. Getting the opportunity to work on Mass Effect is pretty fantastic. At the end of the day, we want to be sure that we're giving games to consumers. So that's one of the things that was great about Mass Effect. BioWare entrusted us with this gem they had created, and we got to listen to BioWare's fans, and create a game for them, and for the people who want to play games on the PC. So for us it's definitely a focus on products, not services. But part of creating a product is in service to the consumer, and sometimes in service to the property holder.

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Shack: So after 14 months, are you in for a bit of a break here?

Albert Reed: Oh, no time off. [laughs] There's always more to do. You know, I think Demiurge is a studio that has far more projects than we could ever take. We're definitely bottle-necked by our ability to find great people. That's what we struggle with the most here. So we are always very, very busy.

Shack: Is it a relaxed atmosphere in the office, or does everyone just get down to work?

Albert Reed: [laughs] I think, this shows in the work I guess, it's a very controlled environment. We're very regimented in the way we go about doing things, for a game company. We're probably at the wild and crazy end of your typical company.

Shack: So no Nerf fights?

Albert Reed: Actually, I don't know where they came from, but we have these rubber frogs that you can slingshot across the office. [laughs] But aside from that, it's very professional. You know, aside from the flying frogs.