Justin Donnell is a game developer and entrepreneur with a very unique idea. He wants to combine gaming development and social media in a different way. He’s not looking to build another Farmville, he’s looking to bring all of YOU, the gaming community, into the process with the game developers. It’s a great idea, at the right time, and he’s here to talk about it.

Q: Justin, can you tell us a little about your past gaming experience?A: Odyssey, Atari, NES, SNES, etc, etc, etc, Present Day. Oh you meant development experience. My development experience started with the Unreal Engine. My most notable work being the time I spent programming for a large Transformers project. I spent some time making 2D games in Game Maker and learning it’s scripting language, then eventually made the move to Flash and ActionScript. Somewhere in the midst of that I started Faceplant Games. The original business model involved the development of customized games. The ‘Community Development’ model came later, and I just kept the Faceplant Games name. What can i say, I love that logo. FYI, it was designed by my good friend Scot Gilmore at Rooster 3D.
Q: Can you tell me ANYTHING about your Transformers project? I promise I won’t tell anybody.
A: That project was a prototype demo that we wanted to submit to Hasbro a few years ago. The guy who headed up the project, Vincent M. Donatelli, ran into some severe family trauma and we put it on hold for a while. He’s currently doing his best to bring it back to life. I was the lead programmer on the whole shebang.
Q: How do you like working with the Unreal engine?
A: I love the Unreal Engine, plain and simple. Unreal is where my game development experience began. I started creating custom maps for the original Unreal Tournament, then delved into texture design and 3D modeling, and eventually dove head first into learning UnrealScript. That was actually the first language I ever learned extensively. The Unreal Engine, and all that Epic has provided to game developers, has by far taught me the majority of what I know about development, and has enabled me to get where I am. I can’t forget the great community surrounding Unreal either, I received a lot of help from a lot of people. All though my current focus is not on Unreal, my roots will always lie there. I look forward to taking part in another Unreal project eventually, hopefully finishing the Transformers demo.
Q: Why do you like to insult me so much on Gchat before asking for favors?
A: Because….after crushing your confidence and general feeling of self worth, you’ll do what I ask in the hopes of regaining my affection. LOL j/k. Seriously though, I only joke around with people I like. Let’s not get too mushy though, it will scare away the hardcore gamers.
Q: I noticed that you have Actionscript listed as a skillset. How do you use that in the development process?
A: ActionScript being the scripting language used in Flash, I use it extensively while developing web based games.
Q: Now just what is Faceplant Games’ approach to game development?
A: We’re offering a community driven game development platform. It allows game developers to interact and collaborate with the gaming community during the development of their games. They can create their own pages within our site to showcase their team and their games throughout the development process. We provide them with many tools for interacting with the community. This allows developers to find out exactly what gamers want, what they like, don’t like, etc.

It also allows gamers to take part in the development process from start to finish. They can play games currently in production, collaborate with developers, give their feedback, and even submit their own game ideas. Each game idea gets it’s own page as well.

If you’d like to see it in action, check out the videos on the “How it Works” page – http://faceplantgames.com/gamedev/?page_id=2

The site is deeply integrated with Google Friend Connect and makes use of many fantastic tools such as Google Wave. There’s also plans to integrate features of Google Buzz into the site.

As of this writing, the new site has only been live for just over a week.
Q: How did you come up with this idea?
A: I was standing on the toilet trying to hang a clock when I slipped and hit my head on the sink. No wait, that’s how I came up with the idea for the Flux Capacitor. (Not only is that a bad joke, but it shows my age.)

Actually I was sitting in my mechanic’s waiting room reading “How Successful People Think” by John C. Maxwell. That really is the truth this time. I had been trying to come up with a business idea that incorporated both gaming and social media. Then it just popped in there. What just popped in there Ray? (sorry, couldn’t resist). Actually the idea came in part from my past experience. I had always involved outside people in the development of my games, at least in small ways. A great example being the “First Impressions” feature offered by Flash Game License. On a very small scale, I had always been practicing “Community Driven Game Development”.

The eureka moment was the idea to expand on some of the approaches I already used, deploy them on a much larger scale, and make the whole thing a very open system that provided a very social experience. After a lot of brainstorming, building a site, re-brainstorming, and re-building an entirely new site, Faceplant Games is where you see it now.
Q: Tell me about Faceplant Games’ charitable efforts.
A: Simple, we give 25% of our revenue to various charities. How do we choose those charities? We let our users create Charity pages, similar to the Game Idea pages. If you have a charity your passionate about, you can submit some information about it, and a page is created. We choose a different charity every month or so, usually based on user popularity, and give 25% to them until we move onto the next charity. So gamers and developers can help us give back while doing what they love.
Q: Implementing social media and crowdsourcing is a pretty interesting idea to introduce into game deveopment. Have you seen this done anywhere else?
A: I thought that FPG was the first to take this type of approach. However, shortly after the release of the first website, I came across “The Zombie Game Experiment” from Hive Media. They we’re utilizing a very similar approach. At the time, FPG was focusing on web based casual games, and Hive Media was doing a large scale 3D game. It was Hive Media’s approach to charity that ultimately inspired FPG’s philanthropy.

Since then though, FPG’s structure has changed quite a bit. Most significantly is the fact that we offer the service to all developers now, the deep integration with Google Friend Connect, user created pages, and the use of tools like Google Wave. I’ve not found any sites, game related or otherwise, matching our current setup. Send me links if you find some.
Q: How has Google Friend Connect affected your strategy and/or ideas in regards to Faceplant Games?
A: I wouldn’t say GFC has affected my strategy as much as it has ENABLED my strategy. I knew what I wanted the site to be, and GFC provided the means to accomplish it. It provided the perfect social infrastructure. It’s open and distributed approach gives FPG a far greater reach across the web than an in-house solution could have done. Don’t discount the importance of tools like Google Wave though. GFC provides the social aspect, but Wave is the powerhouse for collaboration.
Q: Do you have any plans to develop any games with Google Friend Connect integration, or wrapped around the way GFC works?
A: You never know. . .
Q: Who (from Google) would you like to see in the Faceplant Games community?
A: I’m not sure I would, or could, pick any one person from Google. It would be nice to see some of the GFC and Wave developers. If I’m setting my sights high though, why not shoot for the top. If I can just get the next Lego game showcased on the site, maybe Larry and Sergey will drop by.
Q: Where do you see Faceplant games going in the future?
A: I see it becoming a thriving social community. A place where developers and gamers can collaborate, resulting in some outstanding games being produced. I see the site growing and expanding, with new features being added frequently. I also hope the site can serve as an example of what is possible when utilizing an open and distributed social infrastructure.

Thank you so much for you time, Justin. And for insulting me on a regular basis.

So what do you all think about the idea behind Faceplant Games? Do you think it will work? Do you like the integration and use of social media to assist in game development and design? Comment below!