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In gear: the founder of Slant Six Games is a serial startup player with an enviable success record in the competitive entertainment sector
Mission: Be independent and empower partners and co-workers Assets: More than 15 years in the business as a game producer, senior executive and studio founder Yield: Building two successful game development studios in less than a decade
 Andrew Petrozzi
One might guess that Brian Thalken, the founder and managing director of Vancouver video game development studio Slant Six Games, would be an auto nut. That assumption wouldn’t be far off the mark, but Thalken finds his thrills on two wheels – not four. The 48-year-old collects vintage motorcycles. He has a 1957 Lambretta 125LD, a 1966 Triumph Bonneville, a 1978 Triumph Tiger and his prized 1952 Vincent Rapide, which he sold his 1974 Norton Commando to obtain. Thalken also shares many characteristics with motorcycle enthusiasts, including a streak of independence a mile wide. The son of a U.S. Air Force pilot was born in Bermuda, and he and his family moved around America before finally settling in California. Thalken graduated from San Francisco State University in 1987 with a BA in artist management. He spent the next three years working for management agencies booking musicians Robert Cray, Los Lobos, John Lee Hooker, George Thorogood and others before a two-year stint spearheading public relations and fundraising campaigns for non-profit organizations, during which time he moved from San Francisco to Vancouver. He also met his future wife and the mother of his two young daughters. “We were seriously looking at moving back down to California,” Thalken said, “and a friend of mine I had worked with in the music industry, Ian Verchere, had gone to work for Distinctive Software, which became EA Canada. He was over at a barbecue at my house, I had just got married, and he asked what we were doing.” When Thalken told Verchere that he and his wife were considering moving back to the U.S., Verchere suggested he join him as a producer at Radical Entertainment. Radical had fewer than 30 staff when Thalken started work there in 1993. But five years later, with employees numbering about 200, Thalken found he was happier working in smaller organizations. He quit and founded Barking Dog Studios, which subsequently grew to about 60 employees before it was bought by Take2 Interactive’s Rockstar Games division in 2002 and renamed Rockstar Vancouver. Thalken would spend two more years at the helm of Rockstar Vancouver before deciding to call it quits. “We got bigger and more structure and corporate policies were introduced. I realized then that I was happier being independent, being a little smaller and being able to make my own decisions, so I decided to leave,” he said. Because of contractual obligations, Thalken took the following year off and enrolled in the jazz studies program at Vancouver Community College. Thalken, who plays the guitar and upright bass, said it was one of the most challenging endeavours he has undertaken. But fortuitous circumstances were already at work pulling him back into game development. A friend who worked for Sony Computer Entertainment America’s (SCEA) Bend, Oregon, studio knew Thalken had assembled a group of people, including some talented engineers, and planned to start a new studio. He asked Thalken if he would be interested in doing subcontract work, because Sony Bend had been unable to attract enough suitable employees. “Before you knew it,” Thalken said, “we were up and running with a new studio before we ever intended to be.” Slant Six was in the right place at the right time. Its first subcontracted project was for the graphics rendering engine used in SCEA’s Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror. “Back at Barking Dog, we had always wanted to work with SCEA, but we only ever did PC,” he said. “To have it come back and fall into our lap, we were very fortunate.” SCEA liked the results. It subsequently offered Slant Six the opportunity to develop SOCOM: Tactical Strike for the Sony PlayStation Portable. SCEA was again pleased with the final product, and Slant Six was tipped to develop SOCOM: Confrontation for the Sony PlayStation 3. “Brian’s strongest business attribute is his ability to stick to a plan,” according to Iain Cross, former director of the audio department at Radical Entertainment. “He has a very fine ability to apply his motivation and goals to any situation and steer it accordingly. He reads the room well and is timely and appropriate with his responses to the crowd or individual.” Added Sean Murch, CEO of Playful Entertainment and a former producer at Radical: “Brian is a straight shooter who is good at separating core issues from noise. He is great to work with because what you see is what you get. His messages are clear and concise.” Thalken’s second startup studio in less than a decade had begun with five people in 2005; by the end of 2008, it had grown to 110 employees. Slant Six has a new IP in the pipeline for the Sony PSP that’s scheduled to be released in 2010. The studio also continues providing new downloadable content for SOCOM: Confrontation. But Thalken doesn’t anticipate the studio growing much larger any time soon. He estimated another 5% this year. Thalken confirmed that Slant Six has not yet been forced to cut staff as Electronic Arts and other smaller local studios recently have. “When you see companies like EA and Radical, they’re owned by or they’re publicly traded corporations, these are measures to appease shareholders,” he said. “But historically in times of economic downturn, the gaming industry has always done just fine. … Month after month, there are record numbers of games being sold. As long as we keep doing what we’re dong, and that’s focusing on making AAA hit products, we’ll be just fine.” •
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Business in Vancouver February 10-16, 2009; issue 1007 Photograph: Dominic Schaefer |
