Game On: Exclusive talk with Double Dagger founder Matt Wood

For this special edition of “Game On,” The Fly spoke with Matt T. Wood, founder and lead developer at independent video game studio Double Dagger, which recently released “Little Kitty, Big City” on Steam, Xbox (MSFT), and Nintendo Switch (NTDOY). In the exclusive interview, Wood discusses the game’s successful launch, what it’s like to release a game on Xbox Game Pass, his thoughts on cloud gaming, and more.

‘LITTLE KITTY, BIG CITY’: Seattle-based Double Dagger released its debut game “Little Kitty, Big City” on May 9, 2024 to mostly positive reviews. “The reception is better than I could have hoped,” Wood told The Fly. “I think it’s found its audience in areas that I was hoping it would find its audience, it found the people I was hoping it would find, and in that way, I’m happy. But I feel like it’s broadened to areas I did not expect, which is great. It has more of a mass appeal than I was expecting it to. So, I’m over the moon on how it’s doing so far.”

“It’s also doing much better (financially) than I anticipated,” he added. “I kind of had a conservative projection for what I was hoping it would do by the end of this year, and I’ve already surpassed that (projection). So I’m pretty hopeful that (success) will continue, and I’m looking forward to building it up even more.”

“When you build an IP, when you build a brand, you want it to do well, and you want it to have a future,” he said. “Obviously, you never know if it’s going to work out, and you mentally prepare for either spending a bunch of time on it immediately after shipping, or you just cut the cord and move on to the next thing. In this case, (‘Little Kitty, Big City’) has every indication it’s worth spending more time on.”

‘CUTE’ GAMES: “Little Kitty, Big City” is the latest in a trend of indie games with cuter, more family-friendly aesthetics and mechanics. When asked why he thinks games like “Little Kitty” can be especially popular now, Matt T. Wood speculated that video games have historically focused on “arcade action, masculine-driven” titles, and that there were underserved markets as a result.

“I’m in my late 40s, and I started on Atari and NES,” he said. “It felt like there was a wide variety of genres back then, but there was still a focus on arcade action, masculine-driven games, games that were marketed towards young boys. I think that stereotype and focus from game makers themselves continued on for a long time. Most people 10-20 years ago would still think of games like ‘Call of Duty,’ or ‘NBA 2K,’ or ‘DOOM.’ They still think of games that were action-based and very masculine-oriented. They wouldn’t be wrong at that time, but there was definitely a market or an interest in games from folks who wouldn’t be interested in that type of game.”

“Over the years, what has happened is that as time goes on, video games become more mainstream. Those of us who grew up with video games, many of us have families,” Wood continued. “Many of us play games with our kids, and I think it’s an activity that’s a valuable one. Because of that, we have more oversight as parents, and we see games as a collaborative, bonding-type experience, and not what it used to be, where parents would just let their kids play whatever. As a parent, I want to be able to play games with my kids that are enriching for them. I also don’t need them to play games that are rooted in conflict or aggression. There’s nothing wrong with games like that, but I’d like for there to be more games not focused on that.”

GAME PASS: “Little Kitty, Big City” launched day one on Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s video game subscription platform. When asked what the process for putting the game on that platform was like, Wood said that Microsoft “has been great to work with” and that he has a “pretty good relationship” with people there. “The process for ‘Little Kitty’ was an iterative one, including the business side of things,” he said. “My goal was, originally, to release on one platform, because my team is so small. Releasing on a lot of different platforms creates a lot more work, so I was trying to keep things small. But as development went on and I started releasing more stuff, people started reaching out to me about different things. Microsoft did reach out to me and asked if I wanted to be on Game Pass.”

“We made a deal (with Microsoft), and now it’s on Game Pass,” he continued. “I’m very happy I put it on Game Pass. Right now, we have over 3M player hours on Game Pass right now, which is insane. The fact that it’s been on Game Pass has put (‘Little Kitty, Big City’) in front of so many more people, so that value in and of itself is worth doing.”

In particular, Wood noted that putting his game on Game Pass has helped expand the title’s reach to players he previously thought might not be interested. “Different consoles have their own niche markets,” he said. “The Xbox market has mostly revolved ‘the Halo crowd.’ Not everyone of course, but it leans more in that direction. Seeing reviews and messages and emails from people saying they only play ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and ‘Halo’ telling me they loved playing ‘Little Kitty’ on Game Pass is really cool! (The service) is allowing other people who may not ever think to pick up a game like this to give it a shot. They’re really enjoying it, so that’s good.”

CLOUD GAMING: As of the time of writing, gamers are able to play “Little Kitty, Big City” via two cloud streaming services: Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce NOW (NVDA). While the Double Dagger founder was happy to have more players and broader access because of these services, he said that a number of fundamental challenges associated with streaming technology remain. “There are fundamental challenges involved in that type of technology,” he said. “The problem is that, especially in the U.S. (where there is bad internet infrastructure), we can only get so fast (with game streaming). There are certain games you can’t really play when you have an input delay. So this is the challenge: if you’re playing on another machine, assuming that machine is blazing fast, the time that it takes to send that visual input down, and then your input…that all takes time. As game developers, we strive to make things feel as tight and sharp as possible. All that work goes out the window when you’ve introduced 30 more milliseconds of delay.”

When asked if he believes “Little Kitty, Big City” suffers from the streaming experience, he said the game runs “well” via cloud and that he notices the input lag more than others probably do. “I’m going to notice it because I’m super sensitive to it, but it doesn’t impact the game enough to make it a bad experience,” he said. “The reason I was okay with doing this is because it’s still playable. It still works well (on the cloud). Most people aren’t even going to notice.”

SWITCH: Though Nintendo has not officially unveiled the successor to its popular Switch console, the company has said that new hardware is on the way, meaning the next year of the Switch will probably be its last with active support. When asked how he feels about releasing a game on Switch as the next Nintendo console looms, Wood said the studio is “lucky” to have released its first game on a platform with such a large install base.

“My perspective on releasing a game on Switch is that it’s such a mature console,” he said. “It’s similar to the PlayStation 2 (SONY) era, where before the PlayStation 3 shipped, so many people owned a PS2 that many new games were still coming to the PS2 even after the PS3 was released. There were just so many people who owned that console, and they weren’t going to pick up the new one right away.”

“So many people own the Switch, and it’s a great console,” he added. “Even if the Switch 2 releases next year, but probably less than 20% of Switch owners will pick up the new Switch in its first year.”

“Game On” is The Fly’s weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.