fter this highly touted series got killed off a couple of times, it is looking like one our favorite duos is slated to return, but in a completely different form.  Telltale is bringing out Sam & Max in episodic content, and we get the details from CEO Dan Connors on the revival, how it all came together, and why it's coming out episodically.  Sam & Max will first be exclusively available at GameTap so we chew the fat with the VP of Marketing David Reid to get his take on what their company brings to the table, and what he thinks of GameTap’s competition.

Game Informer: Why bring the Sam & Max title back from the grave and what interested you about the license?  Is it going to bring back memories from the first one or is it going to do something different?

Dan Connors: We believe that the original Sam & Max property had a lot of great things about it – those are the types of things we’re going to do again in the new one. It’s all about bringing Sam & Max to life in the interactive space and that’s about the wise cracks, the crazy interesting characters, the surreal world.  So it’s just a great piece of clay to mold something around. That’s what appealed to us about the license. Aside from our history of being at LucasArts and knowing Steve Purcell [ed: The original creator of Sam & Max] from there.

But certainly there’s been a cult following through out these years that shows that there’s a lot of integrity in the content and it’s a very subsistent sort of thing versus a shallow experience. Even thinking episodically they let you go anywhere, and that’s cool.  

GI: Is that why Telltale decided to work with GameTap, because you wanted to work in this episodic fashion?

Connors: Yeah, Telltale is actually a publisher. We’re an independent company. We are looking for great distribution partners, and what we found in the online distribution world is that it’s very unfocused right now.  We went to talk to GameTap to get what their vision was and it was really in sync with what we were doing and that was getting a steady stream of content out there for users and making it a consistent stream of higher quality content over a broadband connection.  Telltale games is nothing like Bejeweled or what the typical downloadable game is considered, so when we look at GameTap and what they’re doing in the broadband space and the type of content that they have there, it just made sense for us.

GI: So what do you think the schedule for Sam & Max will be?  When will you release the first episode and how long will it be?  How often do you think you’ll release episodes?

Connors: October is when the pilot is going to air. The season starts in December, and the season runs January, February, March, and April. So it’s going to be a true episodic release. In between each episode there’s going to be animation shorts to fill in the story, and fill in the back story on some of the characters.  It’s a real exciting opportunity to build something that’s going to have real quick turnaround and really see how it’s going.  Kind of build the season over time - something that we’re finding we’re doing more and more in this model. We can respond to how players are feeling about the game really quickly, and if something cool happens in the news we can address it.  If we have a great idea moving into the future we can do it again.  None of that stuff was really available having a traditional game.

GI: How long do you think each episode is going to last?

Connors: It’ll depend on the player, of course. We’re targeting 2 – 2 ½ hours for people. We’ll see how long it’ll take people to play. It’ll depend how people play.

GI: Since it’s only on GameTap, is it available to anyone who has the service or will there be an additional fee?

Connors: It’s part of the basic subscription. I’ve been looking at the 1.5 launch – we’ve been in New York talking about it.  It looks like a great new piece of original content that we’ve been coming up with a lot of ways to really have a good offering. We’re proud to add on to that.

David Reid: In a lot of ways the reason we work with Telltale and Cyan and folks like that is about anchoring the GameTap network with the right hits that really get people to sign up for it. The vault of over 580 games is going to become that part that’s the emotional DVD part of the business – that secondary part of people bringing in their own content will be important, but it’ll be the secondary part of the “HBO side” as we call it where we work with talented creators to bring fresh, critically acclaimed content that’s not showing up at retail right away. In working with Telltale it’s a great partnership where you can bring a great title like Sam & Max and view it on GameTap, alternately start selling it, in the episodic fashion through Telltale – bundle it all up for retail for Sam & Max Season 1 as a product in the end.

GI: So the Sam & Max episodes will make it out to retail someday?

Connors: Yeah. The plan is to make all of the individual episodes available outside of GameTap after a certain amount of time.  It’ll premier there, and then be available from Telltale and other distribution partners. And then at the very end of it we see it as a Sopranos DVD where the whole season going to be wrapped up and we can get the hard goods out to people. We’re really trying to meet people’s needs in how they get the product and this gives us a good opportunity to parade the different kinds of ways people can get the product – actually making it easier for them, or fitting the way they want to get it.

GI: I remember watching the very short lived Sam & Max cartoon. It was really good. I don’t know what the licensing rights are for that show, but maybe when the eventual release comes out you can find out a way to include that.

Connors: We’ve definitely asked about it and other people have been asking about it. You kind of bring something back up in the public eye and there’s a lot of interest in it. That’s great. We’d love to have it. There’s a couple that Steve wrote in particular.

GI: How directly is Steve Purcell involved with the game?

Connors: You know, he’s busy at Pixar of course, but everything needs his blessing. We run everything through him, and if he sees something he doesn’t like he lets us know. It’s interesting, I talked about this the other day in the panel. We’re working with Steve, and we’re working with Jeff Smith of the Bone games. The relationship is very different when we work with CSI and we work with CBS it’s kind of -- send it over the wall and hope it doesn’t come back with too many changes.

In the case of Jeff and Steve, when they say something it adds to the product. It brings to the product what we want. We want to be the best storytellers – we work with Jeff Smith one of the greatest story tellers out there he comes back to us and says, “This needs to change.” It’s not a pain in the ass anymore, it’s a cool thing. The same thing with Steve, but he’ll come back to us and say, “What if the rats are doing this? What if this was a little weirder? What if this guy had three arms?” Whatever comes out of his mind, it’s always something that stimulates us, and moves us forward, and adds to the team. It’s rare to be able to get that relationship between the license holder and the publisher or developer – with all of them working in synch.

When Steve gets time he comes over – we probably see him twice a month. He has an FTP site connected to us, and he’s always going through our stuff – it’s very cool.  He’s a very funny guy.

GI: The original game was one of the first times while I was growing up that was really really funny. I kind of wasn’t aware that games could be funny.

Connors: I think intentional humor in games is pretty hard to do. It’s exciting – even now there are not a lot of funny games out there. We’re happy to be keeping it alive and making it happen again. We look at it as interactive entertainment.  Did you play Day of the Tentacle?

GI: Yes, it was another one of those early funny games.

Connors: That’s one of my favorite games of all time. But Dave Grossman who was the co-creator of that is also on Sam & Max. Instead of Dave and Tim, it’s Dave and Steve – and then another guy at our studio – Brendon Ferguson.

GI: Tim is still doing the funny games.  Unfortunately, not selling too well. Is there a concern that there’s not a market for funny games? Psychonauts was one of the best titles I’ve played in a really long time and nobody bought it.

Connors: I think its part of the industry problem in general that digital distribution can solve. Everything is getting into such the same niches and same gameplay, and the risk is so great and chances can’t be taken. The whole fight for shelf space and everything that’s done to keep something on the shelves and keep it selling.  It takes a huge investment to get it done.

There are ways Tim’s game could have gotten in front of more eyeballs, and it would have had more success. It’s hard to say. The deck is really loaded again against anything that’s not part of the mainstream. I think with part of working with GameTap is being able to have access to another audience. Giving us the audience to try something new like episodic that’s going to reposition this title and get this in front of people that are going to appreciate it instead of this status quo of the gaming industry.

GI: You were talking about games like Sam & Max being the HBO side of GameTap and how you can get these premium games in front of people who are the correct market segment. How many of these types of games do you think you’ll have like this initially?

Reid: Absolutely. This is the future of the business for us. We have a rich catalog and we’ll continue to add to that with the publishers and the things that we have. But more and more as you know if you want to win with a gamer audience there’s no such thing as a successful platform without great exclusive content you can’t find at other places. It’s exactly what Dan was saying. The Tim Schafers, the Lorne Lannings, the Warren Spectors, the American McGees that do this innovative, critically acclaimed stuff that has loyal community followings that doesn’t necessarily make sense in the economics of the console space where those publishers are used to be making 30-50 million dollar bets on sequelized franchises and things. They’re not looking for innovative new stuff they’re looking for proven hits that are just going to move units.

It’s a place where we think GameTap is in a very exciting position because we can now work with people that have these followings and have great content who have a unique voice in the industry and it allows us to position GameTap not just as another place to get derivative content or genres that are already – The world may not need another World War II game but the world probably needs more games from Steve Purcell, Rand Miller, Tim Schafer, things like that. That is exactly the direction where we think we can take this.

GI: On the other edge of the sword though, and hopefully Sam & Max becomes a huge hit and takes off and people want season after season after season. Is there a point where it becomes this iterated upon sequel type game that you were just talking about?

Reid: I guess success breeds success.  It’s entirely possible but we’re so long away from that problem.  It’d be a great problem for all of us to have. If we all looked at us and said, "Jeez everyone is ripping off. What we are doing with it?"

Connors: I even look at it more like as the greatest shows on television and the greatest things about them. We think a lot about the television comparison – the great shows and the characters and stories developed over time. The Cheers after three years was different than the Cheers after the first season. That was really the beauty of it - that people connected with them over the years. And there’s a great opportunity to do that with games, and I don’t think the way games are produced now I don’t think really anyone has figured out how to take advantage of that or knows what that is. It’s like a radical idea.

I’m real excited about exploring that. If we introduce a great character in the seventh episode of the second season – we do a spin-off season of 4-5 games.  There’s a mechanic people really like and we do a short on it. Since the channel is like I don’t have to move mountains to get on a retail shelf somewhere. It’s a virtual space, so getting different types of content up there is something that’s possible. I think that’s really exciting.

Reid: It’s the hardware model. With the console manufacturers people who have invested billions of dollars in these silicon fab plants. So every time you ship a console you have to pay a royalty back onto that console. The margins narrow every time for the publishers and developers. GameTap is a business that’s built on the broadband PC – the console you probably already own. Again it’s easier to work with publishers and developers on innovative types of things that may not be in that old school model.

GI: It seems that the console manufactures are latching onto this model as well, with episodic content and downloadable games. The 360’s Xbox Live Arcade is already out there and the other ones are coming. What’s your opinion on this general trend?

Connors: For myself, as a publisher that built a business around digital distribution, it obviously makes me happy. That means more consumers are getting into it and understanding it, which is a great thing. From my perspective it’s all good. David may have a different take on it…

Reid: It may surprise you!  I know that business very well and I was there with the launch of Live Arcade and thought, "Well we’ve got 12 games that you can digitally download to your hard drive for $5, $10, $15 or whatever, now there are twenty games, and they’re saying fifty for holiday."  Fifty games at 5 bucks a piece is 2 years of Game Tap for 500-600 games. The more and more that people pursue that business model the better and better our value proposition is going to look to people.  I’m thrilled to see it as well.  Slightly different reasons.

You’ll find on Xbox Live Arcade, you’ll find good games and proven franchises, but you won’t find the exciting experimentation that I think digital distribution and episodic content can really be about.

GI: You hear that a lot from Microsoft. It’s going to allow indie developers to play around and come up with new ideas. This is a safe place to release it. You hear it a lot but we haven’t really seen it.

Reid: No, you haven’t.  In particular the stuff they’re talking about now is around the idea of “We’re going to take some of the greatest hits of all time and we’ll re-engineer them in HD with new music and things like that.” Again, that’s a model, and it’s an interesting model, but it’s not that different from the core console model. I think that as time goes on you’ll see more experimentation going on but take a look at the 20 games today and how many have you not heard of before they came out.

GI: You have a great relationship with Sega, and you’ve got a lot of Sonic content and done some special things with that. Nintendo has announced that they’re going to be working with Sega and a lot of their first party games.  As far as these other console manufacturers latching on to developers and companies is this going to be a more competitive market for you?

Reid: It’s always the race to have the best content, there’s no question about that. But again it sort of points out everybody is looking at the exclusive content side of their business, and for us I can see easily a console owner deciding to add us on to their monthly purchase because for $9.95 a month not only are you getting things like Sam & Max and Uru Live and more before you see it anywhere else.  But when you’re waiting for the next episode to come out you’ve got this vault of 580 games today – and more tomorrow. We now have multiplayer gaming and Cartoon Network in the system.  The value of that is pretty big.

GI: What are the chances you’ll be getting the original voice talent for Sam & Max?

Connors: Yeah, we’ve got new people coming on. We definitely thought long and hard about it, but there’s so many other things going on that it would be difficult.  Reviews have been pretty good for the voices so far, and we’ve put a lot of care into it. It’s a lot to live up to for them – there’s that expectation in everyone’s heads – in all of our heads. But we’re working hard to get the right presentation and the right energy. Steve’s cool with it, and Steve signed off on everybody.  He cares a lot about how Sam & Max are portrayed.

GI: A lot of those LucasArts franchises are still very popular – you spoke about Day of the Tentacle. Is there a chance you’ll be able to wrangle a few more of those away for more episodes?  Are you working on that at all?

Connors: It’s definitely on our minds and it’s definitely something we think about. Maybe I can give you more information a while from now. It’s definitely something that makes good sense to everybody. For them it’s the same thing. For them it’s "What’s the business model? What’s the retail model?" It’s not their type of game – it’s not Star Wars, it’s not with the movie, with the lightsaber – an action game. When trying to do the two things at the same time it makes it challenging. They’ve been trying to figure out the right solution, and hopefully Telltale is part of it.