GDC Online: Neal Stephenson's Company Working On 'The Mongoliad' Game

At GDC Online, Neal Stephenson discussed ongoing work to adapt the collaborative writing project to a game -- backing up recent news that his company is hiring game developers. Stephenson's company Subutai has already hired Jeremy Bornstein, veteran of Smith & Tinker and Perpetual Entertainment as its president and CTO, and has been recruiting game developers, as announced on its official Twitter account. Stephenson discussed this in small detail at his GDC Online keynote speech. When journalist Geoff Keighley asked him if current project The Mongoliad -- a collaborative novel which follows an elite squad of knights on an assassination mission -- would make a good game, Stephenson chuckled and allowed that it might. He later mentioned that there is an "embryonic" game project in the works based on The Mongoliad. "We have a demo that we're showing around that exemplifies what we want to do," he said. The ultimate goal of the project? "Here's a way you can become a character and participate in that world interactively." As far as adaptations of his existing work into games, he doesn't really like the idea. "I think the thing to do would be to develop the world and the game material at the same time," he said. "It's one of those 'be careful what you wish for' things, with both movies and games, so I haven't been super aggressive about pursuing it." He doesn't have much interest in working in-depth on a game project, either. "The problem is always that, at the end of the day, I can sit on my butt, and make things up and write them down, and get paid for it, so it's hard to get me interested in doing in anything that involves leaving my house, or dealing with other human beings," he said. You can read the full write-up of Stephenson's GDC Online keynote here.