Interzone Futebol

Interzone Futebol was a soccer (or “football”, or “futebol”) MMO, being designed and developed by Interzone Entertainment. I joined their Perth Studio as a Web Designer, and spent six months working closely with other people including the delightful Chris McCormick and Simon Wittber to develop the online presence of the MMO. My duties as a Web Designer mostly involved front-end work, designing the appearance of the various blogs, sites, forums and social networking areas. You can see examples of those by clicking here and here.

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A pre-release IZF video, cut by the magnificent Alex Ringis and narrated by the adonis-like Brad Power

During this time I was embedded into the Interzone GUI team, to help them with their workload and also to ensure that my sites were aesthetically consistent. I was lucky enough to rub shoulders with talented people like Cameron Royal, Richard Kong, Andy Hawkins, Darren Yeow and Ben “Goodtimes” Hammersley. As a result of this fantastic envirionment, I was able to help design many of the icons used in the game, as well as in other places around the Interzone office such as the development wiki. Click here for a full rundown of the icon work. In addition to this, I helped to develop the art style that would later be used for the in-game move icons.

Stadium artwork by the marvellously talented Simon Boxer

After six months or so I was moved into the World Design team, the position I originally applied for at Interzone, before making it in as a Web Designer. I worked with the fantastic Lindsay Fleay, the man behind the LEGO animated short The Magic Portal and real-time strategy nut, who served as my sensei, overlord and general master of World Building. Joining us was the effervescent Ellen Jurik, Content Producer and walking catalogue of hair styles. Our job was to build, sculpt, renovate, test, scrap and rebuild the world, as well as come up with ideas on how to innovate it and make it a fun place to be.

View of the Ipanema beach, one of the environments I helped create

We worked closely with both the art and design teams to ensure that our world was vibrant, mechanically sound, and full of interesting things to see and do. To this day I’m exceptionally proud of our efforts, including the massive overhaul we undertook close to the end of the Interzone Futebol project which involved a complete rethink of the game space.

Mike Turner, Vice President of Interzone, visiting the offices at night to order unpaid staff off the premises

Unfortunately in 2009 I had to leave Interzone, as the company had run out of money and I needed to do such frivolous things as pay rent, buy groceries and generally avoid dying. I remained hopeful at the time that – eventually – the company’s fortunes would turn for the good and I would be repaid the nearly $10,000 owed to me. Instead, the company continued limping along for a while as Marty Brickey, the CEO, tried and failed to get the company’s funding secure, all the while insisting that Interzone staff should continue to work without pay – many of whom did, driven by a belief in the game, and in the Perth game development industry.

This situation could not last and eventually the company imploded, ending up with Marty Brickey sending his Vice President Mike Turner to Perth, where he would go on to change the locks on the offices in the dead of night, and call the police to have protesting unpaid Interzone staff barred from the premises. Meanwhile, he and a hired engineer set to work dismantling the servers, backing the data up off-site, and moving the game to the USA to “finish development”, leaving behind millions of dollars in unpaid wages, taxes, and superannuation. I personally was threatened with legal action by Marty Brickey for “slander” and “tortious (sic) interference” if I dared to make any public comments about how Interzone owed me thousands and thousands of dollars for my hard work. Needless to say, I disregarded these threats entirely.

You can read the whole sad story here on Interzowned, the website set up by Interzone “survivors” who, having almost given up hope of ever seeing their money, at least want to inform the world of what happened. The Interzone Futebol game that we all worked so hard on is now being re-branded as “Online Soccer Champions”, and was supposed to be released six months ago. When it will actually be released is anybody’s guess, and when myself and the hundreds of fellow Interzone employees like me will see the wages and superannuation we are owed is another matter entirely.