Thanks to Hans Kuiper for translating the entire interview in english!
Gamers.nl: Could you give us a small view where Triumph Studios is all about? How many people are working there and how the company was being established?Lennart Sas: Triumph Studios has its residence in Delft and there are working 6 people here. We also have an American employee who works from California, and some freelancers for sounds and text. Triumph Studios started when we were in college, when I and my busine a ociate Arno van Wingerden already were into games.
When we were in college we did a traineeship at Epic Games in the USA for some time. We learned a lot about making games there. After college we started making Age of Wonders which is based on an early prototype.
Gamers.nl: What made you decide to develop computergames?LS: The obvious reason: Because we have a pa ion for games and because the development of games varied and creative job!
Gamers.nl: In The Netherlands, does developing games involve certain ad- or disadvantages? Does this location bring more difficulties with for example finding a publisher or making the pre enthousiastic?LS: In the internet-era, the location has become much le important, but as a beginning developer you must put much effort in getting the attention of publishers. In the past a prototype was enough. Now you must have a game which has been completed for more than 50%. In The Netherlands this is a problem because it's hard to find banks or investors who want to finance the first critical phase in the development of a game: "What?! a million for a game?!"
The pre doesn't bring much difficulties. American developers do fly a lot to Europe to present their games, we are somewhat more in the US. The only advantage I can think of is that in Europe, the wages are a bit lower than in the US... and the beer is much better here.
Gamers.nl: What do you think, is the main reason that there are so little gamedevelopers in The Netherlands. In countries like Germany, the former Eastern Europe countries but also Scandinavia it seems to succeed.LS: I don't think that it is that bad with the number of gamedevelopers in The Netherlands, but it would obviously be good if there were more. If you compare the number of inhabitants of The Netherlands with Germany or the former Eastern Europe countries it is in correct proportion, I think. (This year two, maybe three reasonable big Dutch games => There will be eight to twelve international releases from Germany, a country four times bigger than The Netherlands?) The gra always seems greener at the other side...