Sharky Games: Some developers may find their jobs hectic, but you carry the titles of Vice President and Lead 2d artist. Can you describe these in terms of job roles'? What specific things do you do?

Rich Fleider: Basically, as Lead 2d artist, I make sure that all of the artists working on concept drawings, model skins, environmental textures, and interface designs are communicating with the other departments and maintaining a cohesive artistic look throughout the entire project. My experiences in 2d art give me a good perspective on the challenges each artist faces. I prefer to let the artists work without me constantly looming over their shoulder and telling them how to do their job. We've hand picked a great team of skilled professionals and I can trust them to give their all on every project. Also, I recruit, interview, and review submissions from any applicants for artist positions in addition to doing historical research whenever appropriate.

As V.P., I (along with Jim, Steve, and our CEO, Barrett Alexander) help direct Rogue's future business growth and maintain it's current focus. I am occasionally called upon to assist Jim and Bear (Barrett Alexander) in the day-to-day operations too. Every person here is involved in the decision making process to one extent or another. We try to give everyone enough direction so that they can concentrate on their job while at the same time keeping the hierarchy as flat as possible to avoid a rift between management and employees. There are a lot of issues that the management team tackles every day so that the individual employee at Rogue can do their work in a comfortable and friendly environment without worrying about the business direction of the company. Their well-being is always our first concern.

In addition to all of that, I'm still responsible for producing my share of artwork. At one time or another I've handled every facet of 2d art production from concepts to textures to menu design to skins, even font creation and box artwork layout in a pinch. I've even dabbled in 3d art but I'm nowhere near as skilled in that department as our Lead 3d artist, John Turner. We are starting to specialize a lot more now that we have enough people to cover all the bases but it still comes in handy to know multiple disciplines. On the "Alice" project for instance, I started out on textures but now I'm working primarily on skins.

Sharky Games: Is being a VP of a gaming company as cool as one might think, or is it actually a stressful job?

Rich Fleider: Mostly I'm just here in case Jim takes a bullet. ;-) Actually, at times it is very stressful. There have been days when we weren't sure what our next project was going to be or even if we were going to get paid that week.

Luckily we've been able to weather through those lean times and we are finally able to reap some of the rewards for all of our years of hard work. I'm just glad to be a part of it all. "Vice President" does look pretty cool on a business card too.