Giant Bombcast 03-03-2011 (GDC 2011)

Everyone, This is Jeff Gersman from giant bomb dot com and you're listening to

our GDC podcast. This is the second of our two podcasts recorded at Game Developers Conference twenty eleven, back in our office, back in the bar, and this was originally recorded on Thursday, that's March third, the second, March second, twenty eleven, and again we packed the bar full of guests, probably even more than we had the night before, more people off Mike than they were on, I think, and he'll probably hear a fair amount of that as the night goes on. This is a noisy, noisy podcast.

I spent some time cleaning it up, eqing it, compressing it, trying to gate out some of that background noise, but I think you'll hear as the time wears on, as we get closer and closer to the end, the guys in the background get more and more restless and threatened to overtake the actual discussion, So expect some of that and it'll get a little a little noisy. Probably hard to make out some of that stuff, but there you have it. It was a very rowdy evening and I hope you enjoy

it. Hereat Hey, what's up? Everybody. It's Jeff Gersman. This is Giant Bombs g DC Podcast, Day two of two. Let's let's get that right out of the way here. This will be our final g DC podcast. We've got a new cavalcade of superstars here. And while we start all the wait at the what you introduce yourself? Say your name? What you do? My name is Jeremi s Alaska. I'm the CEO and creer director of fisel Awesome. Yes, I've been wondering how to pronounce that.

My name is Ben Gilbert and I am a writer for Joyce Dick dot Com. Yeah you are. Yeah, I'm Brad and I work here. I'm John Bellamy or Cowboy as many people know. I'm programmer at Naughty Dog Adam Boys, president of Beefy Media. Oh president, Yes, and ceo. Do you miss your name of the credits? Like nine times, I put myself first ahead of anyone else, like somebody Wade. You don't know what Jack? Okay, I would do great? Next. Uh, Hey, my name is John and I worked for Disney's Funny. I'm John. I'm

a cabin barn. I'm also John and I and I worked for Harmonics. Yeah, okay, I'm Jeff I work here. Yeah, sweet in this base. By the way, you missed it. I set it up, tee, these things up. So we're back, another day of GDC, another set of guests here. You know the thing that we keep asking people we're out the fields. You know, what are people really getting out of GDC this year? You know, Jeremiah, you've been showing off a game

most of the time. Right, Yeah, that's right. Hybrid our new title, which is a shooter, and people are really kind of weirded out that it's a shooter because you know, we know for scribble knots isn't do you hit why and then have to enter words like head shot exactly head shot. We're not doing it there. A lot of people don't know there's more guns and scribt nuts than there is a Hybrid, Right, it's true. So have you have you been basically like up in a sweet kind of down

again? It's kind of This is actually the first DDC I haven't seen a panel. I've been literally in a room, locked and changed to death. It's it's been kind of the same for us. I haven't gotten to see any panels at all. Yeah, it sucks, but it's good. It's good. Yeah. I mean it's for hybrid, so it's we're cool, that's cool, and hybrid songs like it's really cool. Yeah, yeah,

yeah, Hybrid. It's it's a different kind of shoot. It's a third person shooter, but instead of actually controlling where you move, you have this thing called combat focused movement. That's our that's our buzzword for tonight. Remember

that sponsored by the letter A. No, I don't know. And the whole point is that it's like, when we kind of worked on it, we were kind of looking at how real soldiers work, right, and we're saying, you know, real soldiers really don't do the whole circle straight for the shotgun, you know, the way that we do a multiplayer and so we're like, well, how can we kind of mimic that and uh,

you know, do that in our game in a multiplayer mode. So we basically said, well, screw just moving with the left stick, let's just actually just select cover and press A, just go there, right, So that's kind of how it is. It's kind of kind of point and click thing almost, and you basically like just flick the stick, press A and you go there. And so while you're going there, you can actually you know, look in any direction and still shooting stuff. That's why it's called

combat focus movement because you're focused on the combat. So a lot of people, you know, I mean, this is the first time we've showing it off, and a lot of people are really digging it. So they're like at first, before they're like, really, you know, you got to fist sale on my generic shooter. I don't. I don't get this, you know what I mean, And and and after they're like, oh,

okay, this, this is this is innovative and different. It's very different because you know, I mean a lot of people are like, oh, I've seen a million shooters. Yeah exact. I mean when you would come out and said ahead of time like yeah, we're working on this game hybrid and it's a shooter, I think a lot of people were like, I do I draw the guns? There's myself like, like where does they say?

We're saying it's innovator and I do, like connect, I don't you know, I'm like no, no, no, if we can be innovative, you can. You know. It's like why why challenge? Why not challenge you know, the you know, the tropes that are in video games, like and I say, well, why does why do you have to left stick the move? Like? Why who says you have to? Just

because you've never tried it before doesn't mean it's not awesome. Right. I played the game, and I can vouch for everything that he's saying, But there was definitely a record scrash moment when he was demoing it of like, wait a minute, you don't move your guy? But yeah, I mean you sit down and play it. And it's very intuitive because you guys have given a nice snappiness to the contents. Cool. How about you, Ben, you've been on on the panel beat, like looking at stuff all all

day or are you in sweet seeing actual games? Yes, yes to both of those things. All of those things are happening. So what's what's been the standout stuff for you the past few days? Well, everything was was pretty good. I like Hybrid a lot. I saw that, and uh, I think the biggest standout was probably where John and I just came from. Right before this was was Sweary's Deadly Premonition panel, Yeah, which was just batshit crazy like you would expect, totally. I think John's got a

pretty great story for you coming up about the panel cool. I think Patrick over there and just walked in. Was that the panel as well? Which I didn't get the email in time, but we got an email from Tad who's been translating for for swear around the trip. He wanted to borrow the deer Head with the he wanted to borrow Lucadier here to have a panel does not leave the premacy. Yeah, luc and he gets violent when you get him out there, It gets it gets bad. It would have fitted.

It would have fitted perfectly with that panel, though with a video came post war. He did end up taking some pictures with it and posting those, which which was pretty cool. Brad, I was with you most of the day. What what part of hanging out with me was the coolest? Sandwiches was pretty good in those chairs for another like hour and a half. That

was probably the best. I can't I can't remember again, Like just like last night, what we can talk about because everything's got some kind of bargo on it, but we can talk about all that same stuff from Batman that we've already seen. It's kind of Batman about podcast. Last week, Batman continues to look good and Yeah, there's like ten seconds at the end of it in the show that was different, and that's the part we can't talk about until next week some time. But we shot an interview for that and

that'll be up. Uh. Played some Mortal Kombat. I continue to enjoy playing Mortal Kombat. I know you're fucking shocked drop across. It's just yeah, what else that's Uh, that was a full day. Yeah, so you can see why we're exhausted. It's been rough. It's been sandwich. It wasn't really spoiled. It was bacon on it and there was something else on it and I said no onion relish, but then you know, then they added LSD instead. Yeah, so you can see three giant mom stars.

Yes, Cowboy, how's your day been? Now? You gave your talk today? Right? Yeah. I flew up to just talk shop gave a programming talk on our animation system. Were on charted one and charted two, So that was really cool. Uh, just got to sort of really open about like the technology we do. We're not really secretive about any particular approach we have, and so we were afforded these nice opportunities just to come up and just like no, just totally how we do it? Like what

do you think? Like what do you feedback? So the best part of my day is right after the talking, everyone comes out. They have questions like what about this and how do you do this? And like will we do this? And just being able to meet talk those other developers. It's great. Do you find it? Was it a lot of developers from like

other established companies or like students looking to get in. It was like a fifty fifty split, like an even mix of like you know, I like I got to talk to a guy who worked at HAVOC and then I talked to like like a student who just wanted to break in, and they you know, both had questions. Both wanted them to know, like you know, more detail about what. So how bad resumes did you get? At the end of the right to be fair, I solicited resumes? We are

hiring? Okay, So like I got like all cards from everybody. It's like feel free, Like like I said, if people want to know, like you know, well, do you have like a job for like you know this kind of position or like like I do this kind of program? Do you have anything? And really what now you aall cares about it is like, just step up to the plate if you feel you're ready for it.

If we like you, we will find a job for you. And so that makes working at the company really cool because we really like all our programmers, and if we like you, we'll make room. I'm really good at smiling into a camera at eating sandwiches. Is that I that we got a sandwich character with your name on it? Sandwich? I imagine when you know you're you're revealing details about the process of a game like Uncharted or chart to like, people probably come out of the woodwork are like, okay,

wait a minute. That game was a huge seller, like was reviewed really well and was awesome. Yes, so I'm going to find out everything I possible. I don't. I think last year we even went to some of the postmortem talks about some of that stuff and had that kind of glazed over like this is way too technical for many lines of code and any of your slides or I had a LISP code in my slides, and I think that

might have scared some people off. But we gotta get to get the guys that shouldn't be there out early on, right, you put those up front the city The other thing is like when we start talking about like our technical processes and our technical implementations, people find that they're not actually that complicated. They're not they're not we're not doing anything that's special or that really crazier off the beat were really I think sets us apart when we go to make a

game like I Charged Too. It's just the fact that we're willing to take a technical risk and like if we think a system will be cool, we'll go ahead and implement. So we just do more. We do more implementations. And I don't even know what lifts code is, so don't you guys language, But I don't know's that's incredible, very real, nicely and you know, keep the hood. Seventy eight thousand people like life. That's what I want to say. What's the problem? List? List? What exactly?

Thank you for saying it for Adam. What have you been doing for the past two days other than drinking in the lobby abomself. That's kind of what we do now. No, it's been different for me because it's the first time in the last three years. Apparently I did find out that when you don't work at a publisher, it's very difficult to get a talk approved. So the talk that we submitted, I mean the talk that we did submit, the subject wasn't Johnny the story hours. Yeah, you had me

on that. Yeah, that's gonna get christ They want to know all the crazy stories, the backstories, and that got tonight. I don't know he would be no takeaways. No, he was just a slide of him sweating or shirtless. Bad thank you. No, it's been good. A lot of meetings this time. So at Dice three weeks back, we met mostly with publishers. We've got a couple of games in development right now that we'd

love to talk about camp right now. So this time was more talking with the different external outsource partners and developers because we do working with a bunch of ips. We're looking to make games, and so she can't shop with everyone. I mean, it's been a while since I was a cap competing with developers, so it's great to see what everyone's been doing, especially with all the mobile and social stuff going on. So, and my voice is almost

shot. You can total they talk about this stuff, they'll they'll edit it out. Just yeah, I mean I can just talk about it. Yeah, that's Jeff. Jeff shadowy for day life. Why don't you explain? The tron glove that everyone finds so intimidating was busted out last night in our suite and it helps me consume my alcohol. The colder it is, the better, the more power I get. And it looks really effeminate too.

It really just transports you right to the grid. Yeah, speaking of the grid, Johnny, Oh shit, what have you been up to months? First of all, let's do an employment check up. Yes, I'm so funny actually asking us. It was so funny because that Dizzy people. People were like, it's so funny, Like there's this message about how propaganda closed down, and the comments are like, it's just John still have a job. So yes I do, fortunately, but I imagine all the guys are

propaganda were stoked. No, those guys all my buddy. So all right, so what have I been doing here? I came into town and my initial intention was just to you know, hang out and see all my old friends and everything. That sounds like and you the company's paying for you coming now, see Adam Needly has satias, right, that's that's the problem. So right, So Dizzy was like I went and talk to Seropia. I'm

like, hey, so GBC, what are we doing? And he's like, I think that ship has sailed, right, Like okay, right exactly. So I paid for my I paid for my own way out here, and then once all these media requests are coming in, I was like, so I'm getting medi request, you know what am I gonna do? And they're like's expense? That's fine. So anyway, that wasn't very funny. But as I as I move on and talk about what I've seen, I was as you guys seen this, and I was just what your trying to?

Yeah, exactly right, a little bit of my talent dramatics to it. The I was on the phone actually with Craig was one of our good friends, and I'm walking around the show floor and all of a sudden, I'm like what is this? And I'm like, Craig, I have to call you back right down. And it's like, someone has Jerry Rice Dog game. What have you guys seen? It's got booth, it's got both, it's got booth and so it's Jerry Rice, but the logo for it

is like Jerry Rice and the Golden Retriever. Where is that going to a Golden retriever in here. So that is my you know, game of the show right there, I mean, amazing. Take the microphone away from I saw a guy talking about dog football. Yeah, so I went to I went to two talks today. I went to Cliff Cliffy Be's talk, which was interesting. He was entertaining as always. And the guy who is apparently behind Jerry Rice Football. I don't know, is that the name with the

game or is that just a description. It's a working title, Jerry Rice Football twenty two eleven. It's gonna be huge. Uh the is he? Uh? He got up and asked a question a Cliff. At the end of Cliffs talk, which was his talk, was fine. He was basically talking about owning your IP and being a power creative, which sounded a little bit too much like power bottomed to take it over and over. I've always

wanted to be a power creative and really get the hips behind. But he he But it was actually a really good talk, and he made a lot of sense about a lot of things. He had, you know, his

quips and his press quotes. But then this guy came and asked him, you know, so we've he started talking about this company that he founded, and how he really agreed with him about owning his IP, and he went he sort of I think he got a little nervous to start of talking, sort of a long, forced question coming out of the mouth and hopefully question, and then at someone he switched over to just describing his game, which was I believe Jared Wright. It was it was no one's ever taken a

chance on doc's playing football before, believe that. And he said, you know, no publisher wanted to give us money up front, so we raised own money and made the game, and now publishers interested, and it was like, actually a really nice story and a really nice question for me. But in the middle of it just goes, no publishers wanted to take a chance on dogs playing football, because he just goes, I can sort of

under stay in that. But the guy was super Sweeteney, and there were a bunch of really good questions, and then we one saw Sweari's talk from Deadly Premonition, which was the most surreal, bizarre post more I don't even really know what was going on. He brought a coffee pot and had it brewing coffee on the table of the conversation. And occasionally pausitive look into his coffee like he was waiting for it to tell him what to do next. Well, so that's from the game. Yeah, no, it was.

Yes. So the two best stories from that though, I believe, are one he said. Uh. Someone asked the question, so, if you had in the middle of making Deadly Premission one, if you had a million dollars all the time, you had to add one more, one more, two more features, what would you do? And he said without missing a beat in one in Japanese, and then the translator said, uh, I would have had the hero ride a bicycle, of course, and I would

have had him able to wear cologne naturally. I mean that's really all that game needed. Yeah, and then a perfect But since he said two things, he sort of like let it hang there, and everyone was like, is there gonna be like or at a level? Or I would have had key way or maybe polished. What the hell is going on. I'm more into the idea that it would take a million dollars and time celevision, and it's not easy to do there. With the game Skunk, that's happens it

looks like a pencil sharpener. But then there's a hole in the front that just emits misty exactly, and there are flavor cartridges in it, then will spit out rose scent or nobody should be interested because if somebody hacks that Pirates makes Pirates smells, yeh, smell. I accidentally bought an unlicensed game. It's not like it's one of the game junior game Sharpen. It might break your nest. It's like I bought an unlicensed smell cartridge and I can't see

the Yeah, uh, the the others modern warfare. He's going to support it, and that'll be exactly up. It's gonna totally get you. The other sweary slide that I thought was pretty pretty amazing was that he was talking about how he wants to make his character is good but also have a little bit of a downside to them, and this title and so he had like this girl is like a mother who would care for you, but also she

can't cook. That was like one of his examples. Uh, And he of the slide was was you take the good, you take the bad? And I immediately turned to Abby Abby who was his me, and went, is he gonna talk about the facts of life? And then that was a good beat. He said, it's like poisons. You know, every rose has its thorn and every cowboy has watched the Facts of Life and that pretty

much exactly. And it was and the whole and everyone of the panels started turning around looking at each other, was like, I did he I guess that's he meant it. He was talking about Tooty. I mean, like guess, and I'm guessing that his transitor might be the greatest chiefe on Earth and swear he's just like super serious the whole time. Checker like actually like a ben Jo you know there just double checker. He was. He was

giving sales figures right, and then translation has got completely lost. Yeah, but everyone a big smile on their face, and that dude's a totally badass. So it was. It was a fun, fun talk. Yeah. Is that? I mean that seems like like a great example of game design that can only happen in Japan. It seems like where you're you're going to deliberately make something totally crazy and and and find a way to make it work.

What do you guys think about Japanese game development these days? You know, as kind of people that are that are making here's a loaded question. Quarter of miles. I think, I think we all grew up in Japanese game but some people did PC. Right, Oh yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. I guess I was kind of straddling the line even

then. But it seems like, you know, if you if you look at the popular games here in North America now, it almost seems like the PC developers won in a sense where it's you're seeing a lot of that that Western design is really kind of risen and and taking control, where all these PC developers that are now making you know, games on Xbox and consoles and stuff like that, are are the games that people want to play, whereas

Japanese design feels often a step behind, especially when when they're trying to do shooters and things like that, where it just there, it seems like there's usually something missing. All right, So I'm gonna argue with you real quick and just tell you that I didn't think Vanquish was a step behind. Actually

think that that was really dope and that amazing example. Amazing You can you can't get discounting Nintendo either, right, I Mean, they're Japanese, but nobody they're just you know, so dominant, but at the same time it's like they're super dominant, but in a sense they're kind of just off doing their own things, you know, and Nintendo is always going to beat Nintendo regardless of what country they're building games in and all that stuff. That.

Yeah, I guess I'm we're talking about. You know, it's like Feel Plus is putting out third person shooters that are ridiculous. You're like, why isn't you know one thing, I mean, the budgets. There's a huge discrepancy between the budgets of Western games of Japanese games, you know, like Triple budgets thirty million dollars twenty million dollars Japanese budgets Triple I think Vengas was like five million or something like that. I don't call I'm not one hundred

percent sure, but I think it's around there right now. I don't know what guys vengus. I just I think I heard that publicly, so I can avoud it firm. I mean, working for Capcom that the internal budgets were from Japanese internal development was in line with the US ones for Triple games. I mean, they were in the tens of millions of dollars for sure, but I mean, you know when they go when they I mean,

the other thing about it is the salaries of Japanese are very low. Yeah, when especially when the independent, I think there's a lot of overhead with the internal stuff. So I would imagine with an independent developer probably Well, those were world those were intended to be worldwide titles, not games that were made for Japan. And then people on the team, which is a different thing than again, like I mean, I think that the games I end

up joining the most, they're coming from there. It seemed like the games that were maybe more intended for Japanese audience and brought over because it really captures a very different feel and a very different flavor, whereas when you know, if it's trying to kind of mimic games that are that are big here already. Yeah, I want Japan to be Japan. I want jaman to be fucking crazy. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I want that to be a thing that can be huge like it was, and I want their industry to

be able to support that. Because I've read interviews where like the the the sort of culture of you pick a company, you work there for life in Japan, it's sort of bogging down the whole process. There's this great interview with a development guy at Capcom who was complaining about this, I got all these great ideas, but you're punished for taking risks. Right that said,

well, that's a guy I want to make a game with. I want to see like what kind of crazy stuff he's got, and I would love to like just make a game with him, and and and to that point, actually just found out the one big Japanese publisher. They basically because they're worried about people leaving, especially now, because the West and the East are very different when it comes to you know, over here, we stayed with companies for two to five years and then we move on. Right is Japan,

Right, it's a lifetime thing. So it's so paranoid about people leaving that they force everyone in Japan to change your email address every six months. They do an out automated system where they give them a new email address so they can be plucked from the which my I mean, Western philosophy just says, why don't you just make the working, you know, make it better to work there, make the it wos no one's attached, But what about

level five. I mean they're they're great to do it, and they've made it over to the West pretty well with LA still retain their identity identifiable. Yeah, when we try the West, when we try to emulate the Japanese, we just always get it off, kind of like when they try to

emulate Western development, they get it a bit off. And you want that there, I mean it's a culture thing, yeah, and you you want that that ofteness feels genuine and from working cap On for three years and meeting Infusan and Takuchis on those guys, I mean you just feel that they're sometimes they don't care. They want to be a reb and they want to make their own things and it just feels comfortable in a weird way. That's comfort.

It's like a je computation that just makes your species better as a whole. Right, So, do you guys feel that there are ways to bridge that gap? You know, by having developers overseas working with and immutations and yeah, like like actually getting kind of a best of both worlds or are they completely incompatible. I mean, again, back from my experience of Capcom, I think there's certain developers out there that get the Japanese sort of tendencies.

I think Bluecastle did a great job with that RUS two. I played through that. I'm like, this feels like our guys in Capcom Japan made it. Yeah, it really did. It was kind of like Broken in the same Canada and except for the access to food right up on the roof. But I think other teams though that don't get it. I think that's when you have a big clash and it just can't work. So we actually worked with Konami doing Scribble Nuts over in Japan, so that did really well

and a lot of Japanese people really loved it. For me too, gave us thirty eight out of forty ors. I'm like, yeah, a lot of people really were and said snake made it into the right old snake and a bunch of stuff. That's pretty all. That was pol Actually that was And the producer actually was why am I blanking the Castlevania guy like you got you got? And he was the product so he was like, dude, I love in the West, like I want to get this game over in

Japan. So and he was a producer on the title it was, so then does that mean it has like better like hat and whip technology the hat. I mean that was the most important part. He was like, gotta get that right, gotta get how is that? How is the localization process of a game? Like I didn't work on that side. It was just

like can you enter these characters? Absolutely both Actually was as an English teaching tool that was like a big thing with one bill words that would actually make a lot of sense though, I mean, yeah, no, totally. It's like it's sweets, yeah, ghosts. You know, so what everyone

doesn't understand, that's that's watching right now. Said, we had been you know, here since about six o'clock and then we told multiple stories and now here we are and everyone's been prefaced with all the retarded stories that we've done prior to retarded Yeah I did. Oh anyway, anyway makes a lot of sense. Well, no jokes Seattle, all right, guys, no jokes about me. I'm from Seattle. That's why let's where you would now, Jeremiah know, your time here as short. You've got to get back out

onto the scene. But thanks for having me. Yeahs leaving right now? Are you? I can we can we not talk a little bit about your games and everything that you've done. But what's what's it like working on a

downloadiple game was supposed to handheld game? Is It's interesting. A lot of people assume that hybrid is harder to make than scriptnots, but it's exactly the opposite because script n we had no idea what we're doing right, where it's like, well, let's look at other games and see how they did it. We did it that way right with a shooter, right, Like, there's so many you know, kind of benchmarks you can go after, right,

and the camera and the field of shooting and stuff. So there's a lot more that we could do. So even though it's three D and bigger budget and all that stuff, it's way easier compared to SCRIPTA. A lot of people don't think that cool awesome. Well I guess, well you go, I would say I really enjoyed your talking dice. Yes, oh thanks, I thought I thought it was really useful. I mean even just you

know, it's like we're a you know, not making games. We're riding by the but you know, it's like a small company that's like looking to grow and continue to grow, and that's sort of stuff. It's like some of that stuff applying. Yeah, well we knew that, Like, you

know, a lot of publishers go to dice and stuff. So the kind of the big message was just like, hey, make great games, don't worry about the other stuff, right, Like a lot of publishers like, I need the power points and I need this beau the beautiful design docs,

and that's cool and all. But you know, if you do that, do that on the publishers side, right, don't don't like bog down the developer with that kind of stuff, because you know, the consumer doesn't see your schedule, the consumer doesn't see your power points, the consumer doesn't see your beautiful design docs. I mean, yes, the design docs have to be written well, right, I mean you have to convey your idea, but you don't need to like have an artist work on it, right,

you know what I mean. So it's like that's really really important, and so some publishers kind of put a little more emphasis than they should on that. So that was part of our talk, was like, hey, you know, make sure that you know, make it getting good, because that's all that matters, right, that's really all the better. You goos don't matter, you know, nothing like us, It doesn't matter because they're not playing us. They're playing what we made. That's all that matters at the

end of the day. See what's so funny is that all the means that we've had, it's been like, you know, all promised circumstances, and I've been like, you know, I just actually want to play a game, right, no trailer, don't even like don't control exactly, Like don't even want Yeah, And and I think that like especially at just like the

funniest thing in the entire world is when you're showing it to people. It's like the people that grab on the controller are the ones that like you're actually talking to and connecting to because those are those are gamers, right, And so I think that's really really important, you know, from a publishing perspective, like when developers come in, you have to play the game just because that's if you're not a gamer, then why are you in this industry?

And it seems like that's that's a dying greed. Sometimes seems like there's a lot of it is a lot of damn suits because there's so much money, right, I mean that's a big thing. Yeah, No, I do that because that's that's Johnny B. But like I don't think how the programmer look at it. It's like some Joseph of Bood. I mean, right, sport jacket brands. I'll say combine, thanks again for we'll let you get night and Dave Lange the camera give him away now a little fact.

Jeremiah has got the best sneaker collection in the gaming industry. I want to see him and suit A fifty one go up again. So we've got another program was wrong, it's a good man. I just want to go. You want for all the edit points for later on when you're trying to chop this down? What do you get chopped down? Statuta? If I cut it down, people end up cut all good stuff. This is life, Dave Lang Iron Galaxy Studios for now, that's a that's a company that people

might not be familiar with. You know, you're not necessarily at their peril, sir, Yeah, what what's you tell us? What is Iron Galaxy all about? So we split off a midway before the whole Warnbler swoop didn't kind of saved the day there, group of us kind of broke out started doing just like technical outsourcing stuff, basically like you know this project the business guy's getting room and they're like, oh, this game it's in trouble hastor

ship Q three. Uh so that's when they hire us and we kind of go in there and do our thing. Thank you very thank you, sir. What we've worked on some hot bangers and it into that Jeff, let me tell the story, let me tell them so. Uh then we've slowly been transitioning into full game development. We have like really good relationships with some people we work with and plan it's X blaps and stuff. We recently just

shipped you don't know Jack with Jelly Vision and THHQ. We wrote all the jokes, we did all the fun stuff and no the Jelly Vish guys were in there banging and keyboards making programming happen, and we wrote all it's a little known fact about the game. And Mike Builder, your name's Mike Bill. Is that your pseudonym? Pseudonym pseudonym fifty? What what I'll do this

all day? What do you fun? But yeah, so we just that basically just tried to get at their way, let them be funny, you know, gave them the platform to do that, and we've got a bunch of really cool stuff that once again we can't talk about yet, but it'll all be out this year, so it'll be really cool later this year. From what you've demonstrated so far, I don't know why you wanted to get out of their way to let them be funny. Isn't it taking You might

want to change the angle of your seat. They're seen your profile. It's not that becoming. We profile off right now. So now I'm gonna say to stay there just to spite me. Eat. Now, what are you doing your GDC other than your chest drink? Alright? So yeah, so it's basically like business drunk. I'm like, let me start you kind of wake up and just vot the Tonics all day long. So we redesigned the Heisman Trophy last night. It's me giving stiff around to a high indie developer

with the five to Tonic in my hand, like this hand help? Like, are you developer? Was like putting a boot to his head? Layer at it or something? You know clearly, Jeff, you don't know theyhing about the Hisman trophy. You have to raise one foot that the figured who boot is going to his skull? So why are you smashing developers? Are

you saying you hate into developers. No, I am an indie developer, so you gotta hate all the other into developers so you can have indian The only way to stop on the only way it will succeed is by keeping others down. That's actually yeah, it actually doesn't have internet in the office. He doesn't want anyone on, no job searches, nothing like that. What's up, bunny, I'm drinking it up on So other than being business drug, have you got to any talks? It's basically that a lot of pitch

meetings, stuffy hoping. Yeah, it's basically just meeting, meeting, meeting. The couple of guys are here and they said they saw some really cool stuff. I think they liked the remedy talk today. But that's one. Oh yo, that's I'll tell you about everybody. Sorry, I'm like, I'm freaking out, Steven Great. Has anyone have you heard about this vers No? What is it? This game? No? The twelve right where these guys got up and we're like, where's my credit? Where starting questions?

Definitely heard about versus y, Yeah, like the publishing versus developments just the sky right, I'm not I'm not going to actually be the no hell no, because it'll get quoted. I'm not gonna be the guy that like retells that story, but you could actually go and read ahead and read that what's what is that story to say? That story has to say? It was that the guy, like you said, the physics engine guy basically got up during the QA and asked what physics engine they used, and he said,

oh, well this one. He's like, so you're gonna give them credit, and there's just an awkward moment of silence, and then the dudes from Rovio We're like, we'll talk after this is over. Well on the CEO of that physical right right, Yeah, he definitely called himself out forgot that. Sorry, I'm sorry that No, no, no, that's it. That's the end of the Story's old thirty million on Android or something like that. Like I'm not it was like ad supported on ant or something,

but they have thirty million downloads. That okay, but that's probably the most thing. Yeah, I don't know, truths, I am Android. Crediting in games actually seems like it is. It is uh kind of crazy. It's weird people that people leave companies and then they don't end up getting credits and as more and more games get outsourced. Uh do you want to speak about that, Adam, Well, I mean we have a big we haven't talk often about at what point at the project if you you he's an okay

to take you out of the credits. Yeah, well so the day Dave Lang would love if the credits roll was blank for everyone, he's very much So that's absolutely not true. But you don't like when people stuff that drives me double credit Like a year before the game is shipping, people are like, oh, so what's my title gonna be? That drives me absolutely bonkers, Like just do your work, we'll roll the names, you'll be in there and a story. Right that's credits are simple, should be the simplest

thing in the freaking game. So yeah, it drives me bonkers. But actually a lot of times, like even if developers want to leave people in like legal publisher legal, like no, you've got to yank come out right, like they might have claim against us, fraudulent or not. And so a lot of times people get a bad rap for that. But sometimes it's just like, you know, this game is not coming out unless these people are removed. So okay, was still in the credits for our games.

A while after he came back here, he was in Rockman three, but yeah, I don't think he was in because yeah, it was gone. And I think that we did somewhere like two thirds of the dev cycle or like that he had someone in the studio had like substantive work on part of the project that like basically made it possible to ship. Not like they were in a meeting where someone was like, we should totally have that character. I have red hair. It's like, yeah, red hair and the dancing,

right. I got it that he's game creating centrally. Yes, it's fair because like you don't want to get sort of been on shoot about it. But like when BCR two came out and I'm like, oh, our old guys that were there when we signed it and worked halfway on and aren't in the credits. And I was like and like, but you don't want to get too worked out because so many of approvals I know actually met create

system credits. What's up? No one's react No, no, I mean it's a nice pride point, it's right, but you can't it doesn't matter if it's because I still saw my rest or whatever. It's like it'sn't matter. Yeah, but there's just that weird, you know, internal thing that you're like, ah yeah, because I mean they had the whole entire Grin staff when Grin went under, they had them all in the credit whatever your life working on something? Yeah yeah, how about were Naughty Dog is there?

Uh? Well, depending on how far into the project you leave, you might get very special thanks or maybe just special thanks, different special babies, special game babies. Right, yeah, so how far? Like what what is the rule? Uh, it's all by seniority, and we sort of group by discipline, sort sciplined by alphabet, I believe, and then inside eachipsmen it's like programmers. It's just all by like when you re hired

on and that's it. But no joke. Every every game that we are finishing, it becomes like every time like we are not going to have a credits fight about like Howard in the credits and who is in like what category and that. Every year it's like another round of will make my departments and people who didn't work on this game will work on the other game won't be in the credits, And it's like a huge discussion like as there's more and

more outsourcing and you know just like different localization teams and something. You know, some credit scrolls. I mean five hundred people go watch a Sassin's Creed two credits. Yeah, even the rock Beatles credits, it goes on forever. Well, the Blackouts credits they were like three songs. Yeah, like the Modern Warfare two credits where it gets to the publisher side credits and the

scroll speeds up. Like it's like, I will say one of the next things about Naughty Dog is because we are so flat, Uh, it'll just be like lead programmer and programmers. There's not like the lead you I assistant programmer then like an adjunct programmer to the main networking. It was a really hard thing for us trying to build this database and and give proper credits to people, and it sounds like there's just no proper crediting guidelines for the industry

out there. It's also you know when when like who's in charge is it the producer? Is it like the programmer, and when that one person is like giving like you're in charge of credits. Also, there's this whole like I have to make sure every person that's ever touched this game ever gets in there and feels like a right because they're gonna have that same feeling when they watch it. That's my act. I really respects working out great for them,

Yeah exactly. I respect them for doing that right because it's like, all right, open call. How many of you guys actually touched this games? And I wanted to be like, yeah, I did, I did the haircut on the chest, I decided impression on them. I thought it was interesting that there's like a check boxes on the website about you know,

like what division of this game did you maybe work on? And there was one for press, and it was like, you know, were you submitted your own significant like, and I was like, well, I just talked about that game once. I didn't actually submit my own you did? No, No, it's it's actually I actually the only game I've ever been credited in is a guitar here too, And what my name is misspelled? It's like a thank suarts. Johnny still calls you that. I don't mean he's

just doing a Jeff Keely impression. Jam, did you know that I'm not tron Iron Galaxy is credited as mo Cap Talent shut Out of this series were credited is capt talent and trona, well you were in the suit for a while. I'm not gonna we word. Yeah, but no, so thanks for that good look up. Are you serious? Yes, I ain't even fucking around right now. You look at story joining No, I tell you want to tell a story, Okay, tell story about the threesome story.

Yeah. I don't trom threesome story all right, so I'll tell it real quick, real quick. It is, so I go back to Shytown. I'm hanging out having a great time, and uh, I'm hanging out with the Hiring Galaxy dudes. And my fiance rolls up with one of her good friends and she sees me, and I'm like, gomed right, and she's like, we gotta get you out of here, right, this is all being told to me like later on, right, And so then I get

in a cab we go and then apparently went to seven to eleven. And then at the seven to eleven it was like there's some booze there, and then the guy's like always stop selling booze at two o'clock and it was two fifteen, and then my fiance was like, oh, he's gonna have a three sum tonight. It's me and this other chick, right, it was there, So we're all excited. And then only if you buy, only if you sell the booth, right, and so the guys like yeah,

Greg Goose like puts it down. Adrian throws down like a pack of magnums. And then we so we go back to friends and see why now, why you were hesitant to so that I can't believe It'll tell you sirt right now. So then we get back to the girls place and this girl's like best friends with Adrian whatever. Right, So they go outside and they're like

doaneah. Doorman's like hey, like he like tries to stop me, and I'm like and he's goes like he's gonna have a three some tonight, and I'm like yeah, in the doormans like all right, buddy, go upstairs, right, So I go upstairs. The girls go outside in the balcony to have a cigarette, and there's like one of those big like leather like real big, you know, like the double leather the like a high chair like you're a babe high chair chair, right, and then deep coaches.

Yeah it so it's so funny. So I got all excited, right, and I sat down in the chair and then no, yeah, I did disrupt and then I was just in my amies and the girls are outside smoking, and so then I was like, oh shit, like he was missing from this right now. So music, So I pulled out I on my fucking phone, which is like this little piece of shit, right, and I went to YouTube and I was like, John, like to see end

of line club theme? And I hit it right and it it's like dinner n Then like I put it down and I sat here right all same, and the girls walked in and like, the fuck is wrong? Like you didn't think you're really gonna have a three some day, do you? I mean, I was like ah, and they sat up for two and half minutes and left in my face. Why why that sounds highly erotic? Yeah, it was because I think I think deeply passionate soul social music track.

Yes, definitely. So Tron is weighing heavy on your brain then since the release of all this all the time, Yeah, Tron's Tron is awesome. Yeah. Do you guys see the Tron Jeremy thing? Yes, I actually did see that. Yeah, it's like you and me right, it's like mister hands. Tron Jeremy like shit, yeah, yeah, right, definitely anyway that story, here's my wagon and mister hands we all end up dead. All right with that, We're gonna take a quick breath. We'll be

back in a little bit. But you know there's a bar behind this camera. We got to visit it for a little while, so, uh, stay tuned. We'll be back. Yeah, we are back. Man is getting a little reckless reckless here, thanks Jesus Christ. So I thought, you know, I was looking around the room and I realized, like all you guys are from or worked in Chicago, which you know, you don't necessarily hear a ton about as a as a big game development mecca these days.

But I know you you three Johnny, Adam, Dave, y'all had the time midway and you drink. I'm good you just you guys. I think the three of us, especially Sank, I think the three of us three are the reason someone said that on the comments made me so set. No. Yeah, I called you about this, like, did Johnny does not do well with ready? Did you grow freaky Flyer and sport volets?

What are your guys? What are your guys? Is like? Yeah, everything that like Vinyaki judges like it's a complete disaster, a bankruptcy and ship someone connected the docks, and so I'm like I'm reading this and it's like, like, dude, was it Midway Midway crash guy with the boaster that crash, And it's like, I'm like, now I'm at the largest entertainment company in the world. Just you just needing a new challenge, man, know everything? This was too easy, even on right that tur mode.

So I was mortified. I would to Chicago for the first time, I think in nineteen ninety one, and it was for CS I was six. Yeah, they went up two c Yes, this year when I was like seventeen, I mean you want you started going to trade shows, we were like sixteen or sixty fourteen. Yeah, I just turned eighteen. So yeah, it was the same time. Deal. I was too bad. I was trying to meet dudes in the game industry, trying to Yes, that

came out exactly right, exactly. You look at Jeffer, he met a lot of dude, this is this second is this is going to be in position. Chicago past is going just the way it should. Yeah, And I remember going to the Battle Tech Center. Yea so good. Yeah, yeah, and uh, you know, and then they eventually added Red Planet and suck the whole thing up. But like location based entertainment, how many you guys working on can't flick that? That's the real stus good world topic

starter. You guys all into that, and you're gonna start it's good at we all and don't respond, right, just quiet, totally disting for the audio versus called Disney World. Never heard of it. I thought it was called Freesome World in your world God, and I'm so upset about that. Ahead so exciting ratings. So the Chicago game industry, I mean obviously you know, another realm was still there, kind of as like the one of the last you know, remnists of Midway. I guess I would I would

call it. I was this. I was talking to somebody from another on last night. They said They're like, I'm like, I have no idea how big there. It's there, one fifty star, so many people still there, it's crazy awesome. They just kind of working on MK, right, I don't who be Yeah that's true. Yeah, I mean we we know they have an MGP dep kid, so that probably we don't all that official. Nobody any board Watts watching the kid that making sure makes touches it.

So we're talking about it now that you guys have you know, kind of seen except Dave, who is still reving Chicago. But now you guys, have I seen the world as it were? Uh? I brought Dave fire for the first time. It was like watching the small Child discover the Earth. It's like, yeah, it's a place you've only ever seen on TV. It's like it's magic land. It doesn't it might as well been like the fucking Grin. To me, it's like, you go this place,

like this really exists. Holy shit. Weird Exit they have acts Weird's tagline when Patrick gets the city that was taken down by fire, so wherever Dave was, The first thing he does is looks for the fire exits, making sure everything is safe. Speaking strange tongues, what's different about Chicago in terms of like it's development scene and stuff compared to them? You know, you're in LA and obviously you're out here now. Uh, Is there some

then unique about Chica? Why do the people in Chicago stay in Chicago? It doesn't seem like there are a ton of developers out there. It's just heavy, you know, like low cost of living, and that's not something I first understand either because like, uh, you know, born and raised there or whatever. I got my first job out in Salt Lake, did a bunch of stuff out there, and came back stake. Yeah, were you in Iguana? I was in Sculpture. They turned into Iguana then yeah.

Then Microsoft out there, well was the Access guys who became Microsoft. H the indie build then they turned into indie Billy there form three. No, I was there, so I was in and am two and links for the first one for Xbox drops and uh, they're so busy then yeah, anyway, there really been making mad Cat. It's so awesome money. You've seen the robot arm, You've seen it. It's fa anyway. But yeah, it's what is it about Chicago that attracts that number of game developers?

Like I know obviously that wait, Drake is gonna speak. So the thing about Chicago, and the thing about the Midwest in general, is that, like many sitcoms on CBS, there are hot women willie to bed large pasty men. You want to make fun of me right now? I got the John was the commentary that you know, really got you upset. I've just been following your career trying to stop the little Ton man. Aside from Patrick on his panel, Yeah, I know where you're coming with, take it

down. But it's uh, it's I mean, it's it's a nice place to live. It's a well planned city. You got good colored trace Chicago, well planned city. Hey, I live I live in Boston and it snows like a foot and it all traffic just stops because the roads sucking curve and I'll get into terrible playing the wind west of the Midwest. You know, everything was great Buck Boston. Fuh god, I did not see anything from here popping out. No, I just mean as a poorly plant city,

try to playing Buck Boston fight or something. I don't know it, Frinch, and I think it's I think you know it. Say Actually, it seems true about Vancouver is that people don't like to leave, like when the family in layers and families, they don't want to leave, right And Canadians just are allergic to America usually. So I took a lot of injections before it came down here. That explains a lot. See, yeah, for for our side of things, you know, I mean, obviously you

know, you you got gaming former out in Minnesota. There's some stuff down in LA and you have kind of like bloggers kind of spread out in whatever weird parts of the world that they can uh work on a blogger salary, but the bulk of it is here in San Francisco, you know, So it's always interesting to me to see. It's just like, you know, there are different scenes of you know, it's like the Austin scene and like Vancouver and stuff like that. So you know, just like what was it

like what was Midway like? I mean, you guys were there as they were transitioning like out of arcades into the home market, right, that used to be like a crazy time. I think. Me being from small town Canada, I'm moving to Chicago as my first like I'd lived in Ireland for a bit, but moving to Chicago working for Midway. I'd worked at EA before, so it was used to very corporate, sort of regimented thing. And I remember it was week number two and we were having a company wide

conference call. And what happened was we're all dialing out of the time, and they screwed up the dial in so everyone so everyone could hear everyone else so there's like and be like, oh I canna hear how I can hear it? And all of a sudden, I hear this accent. Hello, this is Neil. I own your fucking dreams. And I'm like and me just like I'm literally pooping my pants and like somebody sucking fire, I should

leave? Right? Was what what is this a about? And so they finally figured out like everyone's joining and leaving the like leaving the conference call. Afterwards, I'm like, what was that when you're fucking dreams? And like that's pretty good story at him. Three years ago, Neil the Castro was the old CEO of the time. It's holding a company meeting. Now. Apparently a lot of people had wanted to ask questions at the company meetings,

but he was never really comfortable addressing the whole the whole company. So finally said, okay, hr get it. I'll answer questions. This one guy, you know, he's okay. So he's in the meeting and he always used to hold this car, used to smoke it before they meet them. For that was not good. No, I mean I didn't work there with him, so it was all added to he got Johnny could probably gout more. But so he's so he's got his cigar in his mouth. He's like,

okay, so apparently we want to answer some questions. So anyone got a question that the like cheapest artist guy in the back, like, I have a question the Actually it was the cat that claimed he invented the week. Oh, they better hold up his hand, and he was like, okay, what's your questions? Like, so, you know in our contract says that you know, you guys own the IP that we create, but you know, I've been working on singing at home and with my friends,

but not in the office, just at home. And he starts explaining that he's been creating this thing question like this eight minutes into it, and Neil's just pasting like Neil's just some canoe dude. He's just like a side ship, like put people in the drink, you know, that's what So finally, finally, right, So these guys, so, so would you is that something that I would have to get a clear unsapproval from my manager to own that or what? And he's like, you know what, we own

your fucking dreams. Meetings adjourn and he fucking walks out of the room. I thought I thought maybe he'd threw his cigar. At that point. He was sho never waits, So I mean for me to hear these stories, being from a small time can, I was like, I think I'm in the wrong town. I need to go. But the food is really good, because that was the one thing you always hurt like when you weren't in Midway, always hurt ude. They're run by the mob. They're run by

the mob or whatever. That's what we always And then Captain salt Lake shows up. He's like, they're run by the mob. Dude, I remember my first week. This is crazy. So there's this weird SNS Delhi is like right around the corner, right and I'm sitting there like I don't know anybody. No one wants to go to lunch, but I'm the new guy. Everyone's like, fucking you guys, whatever. That lanky motherfucker I was

lanky then not fat. We'll get there. You'll get there. And so when I go to the IY, just walk in this SENS Delhi and I'm like, yeah, I just give me a sandwich or whatever. And he's like, you guys. The guy's like, do you work at Midway? And I'm like Yeah, he's like nice family organization. And I'm like, oh my god, it's I'm starting to freak out ship and he's like, yeah, my kids love some of those games they make. I'm okay then

till you die in Yeah. So it was where you always heard those rumors and then when you get there nothing like I never that in our time anyway. Yeah. I mean the thing that we would always hear is that a claim it was the company that was run by the Mob, and that that was always you guys hear anything about well, I mean, Johnny was there during the Mob bears en midway. One is a made man and the other the other thing. I you know, remember hearing about the other days you

bring up Neil to Castro like that was the name. Remember fat Babies? Yeah yeah, hell side help us we want to ever ask for a read? It was becoming no Neil g Yeah. But you would see Neil the Castro's name on there like every other day, just with some horrific story. And I never I'd never met him. I didn't. I would never have thought of him as being like cigars smoking that kind of crazy. He seemed like fucking out of his mind from all these stories it would appear. It's

like, okay, it was the game clearly run by fucking craze. It wasn't the mob. It's the fucking criminally insane, like who would run a company this way? And reading that stuff and obviously it's two sides everything, but that that's the beauty of fat What was with the concept of Neil came up with would sell Moon's units? Was that which ny I don't know, I don't remember. It's the rest sponse everyone's hoping for us so about Catholic school girls on a bus with a gun. Yeah, I remember, Actually

Neil, Neil was a good guy. No, Neil was a good guy. It seemed like it just kind of maybe guts sidetracked more and more in the years after that. I mean, what, what was what were the first games that you worked on at Midway twenty you guys when you were shipping back are you were there earlier than any of us. You were there for

like eight nine years. Yeah, we're working on Blitz. We were working on yeah two thousand two talking I'm sorry, uh, Blitz twenty o two and Red Card Soccer and we had a lot of things going on at that

point. But what was crazy is that there was a division between Arcade and Home Council developm Right, And what's funny And I look back at it now and I think that, you know, if if Midway hadn't made a forty million dollar investment in this is vase, and if we had actually held on to everything, right, what's funny is that all the old school guys were brilliant about taking fifty cents for two minutes, right, Yeah, And so

now we look back and we laugh at how crazy everything was. Right, But if iOS and everything was happening with iPhone right now and all those old school Midway guys are still there, Midway would be killing it. I mean, I mean that I actually saw talking with somebody said the original micro transaction

once twenty five cents was a quarter, and those guys master. And actually one of the biggest things I learned from Mark and Ed and Brian and all those guys was how to draw on the small compulsion loop of drawing that next quarter, like it has to be great and compelling, but you have to want to continue at the end of that. And that was definitely one of the when Mark Serni talked it at Dice was one of the things that he kind of drew out of that talk, kind of talking about, you know,

just the whole legacy of games starting back at arcades. You know you work on Morrible Madness and all that stuff back in the day. Was that exact thing. I'm just like, like, look at today's look at the Facebook games where the micro transactions fit, Like look at the iPhone games and my Android games and kind of how those work that. Yeah, it really is this return to to arcade days. Yeah, it blows my mind again, Like if maybe was still around, I mean, there would be the

most crazy apps out there and just like legendary. Right. It's like that's the weirdest thing about like working there. As you start off and it's like, oh, I'm a lead programmer on slugfestor blitz Er whatever. Oh, Mark Turmeil has got some feedback for you. It's like Mark fucking Turmel right, doing is right? Just incredible game. It's an incredible game. It's incredible game. It's like, what I guess I'll just say yes and thank

you. It's like, what are you gonna do? It's like I'm like, I'm really gonna say anything to saund or those guys, they're just like they invented that stuff and so you just gotta listen. It made for some awkward times though, because like you know, she like progressives. Like eventually I was the studio TV there and ostensibly like in charge of like all the

projects, technical direction on all the projects. But like the MK guys have been making that game since like before I was in the industry, Like what am I really going to tell them about making them k just like just get the get out of their way, let them do their thing. So it made stuff like that ats like you know, like at something they wouldn't listen,

like, and those guys were super good about all that stuff. It's just made the titles weird at that company because like these guys have been there forever. Everyone knows you're not going to tell them boom because they've earned it, right, Yeah, And it just made stuff like that really weird, but just so much you could learn and yeah, really smart dudes. I remember rolling into George Gomanz's office once and we had office rip show and I'm

like, George, I got a question for you. So the original Spy Enter when you guys outsourced the motorcycle models to China. How many people did that take? And what was the rough cause he just loved the whole outsourcing things like back in my day with four guys in a weekend, you know, and to work walk, you know, work with all those guys. It was, it was, it was humbling, it was I mean, Johnny spend the most time with all those old guys that that did the fantastic

job. And it's great interact with him in joke bustuff because they just thought the new stuff. They're like crazy one hundred and twenty person teams back in my day six guys. But that's that's what's so charming about all of the like iOS, development, Android, all that kind of stuff. Right,

it's back because it's still same cats. Right, so if you could imagine like they're not even being you know these platforms, right, I mean, these are the guys that like are pioneering everything, and so it's it's so super cool. I mean I remember gigging out all the time with George like, so is there a helicopter? And s my hunts we made it up, like is there is there a twelfth key terminil to get into the pleasure

though He's like, no, actually we put that in. Then we never put the key actually in the game, so people keep putting more money in, you know, like you know, like that kind of stuff was hot Scoops, Hot Scoops. You just blew my fucking mind. Right, there's going to take that to the grave. It wasn't even like that. I mean, but like those were like the pioneers of our industry, you know,

for for you know, the most part. And it's like, you know, and Eugene Jarvis, Robotromp, right, I mean talk about brilliant and addictive at the same time, right, I mean, just and that spawn Smash TV and like I just actually, you know, uh, admittedly and stupidly finished Black Ops. Right. I'm like months and months and months late, which is why it's stupid. But I did Dead Ops, right, and I'm like, damn, this is like Smash TV. This is

dope as fuck. Right, And then I was talking to people at Disney about it and they're like, oh, Dead Ops is so cool. I'm like, it's just like Smash TV. And they're like, what Smash TV. And I'm like, it's zombies. Like it's like people, it's people, don't you know, like you have to know your history in order to

innovate, you know, moving forward. So I mean, you know that's look back at you know, my time, like my misspent youth in r K. Well I misspent maybe maybe not considering how it all ended up for me, but spend all that time in arcades like you know, Midway and Atari, who you know like would later go on to kind of fall under

the Midway umbrella. Like those were the guys that were were making the games that mattered to me growing up. So it was always really interesting to like kind of follow the Midway name through the years and and even even as it started to go really even as Freaky Flyers was coming out and they were like, well we're gonna remake Defender, and I said, well good luck with that. Uh you know, you kind of stood by and watched it all unfold, like hoping like, oh, these these guys are totally inna turn

around because it's a fucking Midway. They own all these great names. It's like in and you with especially with all the uh, all the Mopeda stuff, like all the all the Atari stuff come falling under that umbrella. At one point, a Midway owned the rights to RBI Baseball that's true. So

yeah, exactly. So I recently fell down this horrible hole when I so I realized that Namco was putting out a baseball game on the three DS, and it's you know, they've been continuing that series that was getting translated over here as RBI Baseball for years and years and years, and I was like, man, someone needs to just localize this game. Put it out as

RBI Baseball. And then I just fell into this like horrible research hole of like it's RBI Baseball xpla game that was announced by some company that's not even made games two years. I think. Actually, I think what's most exciting is that there was a little bit of I think you actually broke a story Jeff about Blitz. Yeah. Yeah, so it sounds it sounds like that. I mean obviously he has picked up the rights of that stuff with JAM coming back, and yeah, it sounds it sounds like that they are working

on them. Yeah, I mean so quietly. All I had heard was that like they went in and got all the sports licenses out of Midway when it was in bankruptcy, right and and so yeah, like JAM, I think was great and it's it's great to see Jam being translated all these different

platforms, and Blitz would be awesome too. I mean it's really exciting that like Termelo is over there and to like shepherd these projects can and and really do that stuff like that's it's heartwarming in a way, you know, it's I mean, it's like I think it's more heartwarming now that Jams came out. It was really good. Yeah, because when we first heard this, we're all like, oh, the table and being next, I'm like to destroy everything. Jamin kind of get it. That's awesome, and Mark's there

sort of. It was definitely one of those things. We're talking to Trey Smith, who who was I guess the producer, yeah, JAM, Like, as soon as I started talking to him, he very clearly got it. And you there's something about games like NBA. I mean, we have a fucking NBA jam sheet here exactly right that as soon as you are talking to someone who gets who gets that, like you can tell them medialy He's

like, you should actually come see that. You like started to like okay at lea show you actually the stuff that is really cool about this game. As Mosis people are just walking up and we're like, yeah, I remember actually he donally the game for me and I was such a huge NBA JAM fan, and I actually he demoted the game for me, and I was like sweet. And there was always a moment when someone was coming down for a dunk where you could push them, and so I actually tested it to

see if it was still in there, and it was yeah. And I was like, you know, I am like probably the most hardcore you can get with JAM and with Showtime at hang Time and all those games, and I'm like, that's still in there. And he's like, you know, we still have a nod for all the even like old school hardcore fans of it. And so that like made me feel really great because they were honoring, you know, the guys that I looked at to as mentors. Yeah,

it's I think one of the favorite things like those games. One of the things that's such some part is like the attention to the tiniest details and what those those one can care in the crafts and ship like we got put in Like I remember I was helping in between it must have been Let's one and Let's two. I was helping balls two out and they put that two on two mode in their full court and termel. He's like talking, He's

like the care this to be like Showtime. I'm like, okay, cool whatever, and I cod it up when I do the thing, and he's like this is no, this is not even Next day when I get the office, there's a fucking Showtime cabinet in my office and he comes over. He was just like you look at it here and you game yeah, playing

game, Yeah, come see me on my couch. Yeah. It was just stuff like that was crazy, Like you want to big like Showtime and here's the cabinet, right, sounds crazy, Well, the sorted said for when you're making these games now next next gen sort of reports of old games and sort of want to polish all the not glitches because they weren't glitches. They were sort of like what made the game, like the Nixon dents that made it like a big yeah waiting big game and not like not like a

super revival experience. And it's I think there's high really strong desire for people who maybe didn't grow up with that game. When you're look at human and to be like, well, if you can't really shove a dude, he's about to dunk on your face. If you did that in real life, Like you get a knee and the a knee and the nose and you'd be dead. Yeah, it's like well no, but like you could do it.

You'll gains if it's not even you're the anyone who was buying this part of styles purposes and we're like, well, fuck these guys they rooted to be at gym. I don't want to play this game. So was that something like but grow up? Did you guess that they grew up in Chicago?

Were you like very aware that Midway was there kind of making games that there was a By the time I was in like high school, I was pretty aware of but it like grow I mean like when I was like in like arcade times, I sort of had no like history context for was three. It was like yeah so I wasn't born. Yeah, but like you didn't have an awareness of the brand stuff. It was just you went to the arcades, you enjoyed the games, and I like, you know,

the brand was NBA Jam. Not necessarily that Midway made NBA Jam, but you knew they made NFL Blitz. You knew they they they had that sports pedigree, and so the moment you saw another game like in that line your friends had probably told you about it, and then well there wasn't like arcade. I mean, there wasn't arcade criticism in the way there was that we now had like no metacritics, and so you know, like it was a

stand up. It was the cerbat it because we're not going to be because you didn't have to watch them to start slotting in sixty dollars putting twenty five cents you hate it, boom I walk. It was still fun, you know, so the but I mean like it was the stamp of credibility that wasn't necessarily stand of the game would be awesome, like you we would give it a couple of horns, you would give it that it was there, right, yeah, and then you find out that it's actually like, oh,

it's like the major games company in the town that you're from. It's a let's sort of fun out there really close dag I said, everyone's in some warehouse in la you know, get these things cranked out of there.

I mean there was like a while there for me when when more combat was really getting big, like m K one MK two, you always hear about an arcade called diversions oh yeah, they would do the tests because that was ho was in Chicago, so we would get like the different arcades in the Chicago suburbs stuff like would get those versions updated regularly, but like I would get there's no texts or anything back so then but sold just be like your

friends would tell you, Like, dude, like Chuck and Cheese has got like they haven't they have a test version of Mortal Combat three. It's like you shut the folk ups. It's six. Would get on my mike. It's like back before there was no way to like verify rumors and stuff like

that. Like the biggest thing was in Mortal Kombats either two or three, but it was that when the one more Sonja and like is chained up in the in the back like shop and they're like that there's a there's a there's a way to break her out, right, And I remember like the people at the arcade telling us, oh, yeah, you know, we got another version coming, so day you're gonna goble the break her out. But

like that was not true. But those versions you didn't know, like there was always so many roots like that was one of my favorite parts of going to the arcade was seeing like the new test version something news that ended up being like the most devious part of of like Midways corner sucking strategy because you think about like m K two, like, after all, you know,

this was the rise of the Internet was happening at the same time. Ye people, you're absolutely posting like here's all the fatalities or you know, like I was at this point. I was still in high school, but I just wasn't going all that much. Uh there was a K two machine and the pizza hut, so I would just like get on usenet, like look at these lists of moons, but like I'm gonna check all this shit out,

print it out. Actually knew you would. You would go, what character am I going to go to the arcade with and play as and no, memorize all their moves that I can when I finally beat somebody, do the fatality, do the compos whatever. And then they went and in one of the revision updates changed all the fatalities right because they had all gotten out there. I was like, I was like ed John's big like we're this is what we're doing. Yeah, I remember it just being heartbreaking. It

was like the worst of you're just like why would you do that? Diversions. Diversions was like for me in the time, like that was like when you're ready actually to like step your game up, that's where you go.

And so there's actually a couple of cats and still work on World Combat to this day that we're like the pros at Diversions, right, Brian le Baron, Paula Garcia and Eddie Fair and the and Lex too, and I don't know Lex's last name is, excuse me, right, but those cats were the pros, right, and those guys actually we're playing arcade games and we're the best, right, Like you step up the machine, you play against one of those guys, and it was like it's almost like Tron, like

I hate too, right, It's like you're playing against those guys. Yeah, full circles and yeah, and like if you play against one of those just needs your ass kicks, right, And those guys were the ultimate. And you know what's so great is that Ed and John right when they were doing that stuff, they brought those guys into the Midway family, you know. And so those guys still to this day, you know, work on

Mortal Kombat. And that's actually what makes you know Chicago game development for me at least, like so still heartwarming, right, It's like those cats still contribute to the game and are still a part of it and still care and have heart into one. There's a lot of loyalty. Yeah, what Mortal Kombat is as a brand as a franchise, right, Well, how did

you get your tram there midway playing jam? I mean that was my big thing, right, So, but that was one of the last cats that like, yeah, I called Mark Tamel like twenty six times on the phone number back then. Actually it was it was one when they would roll the credits eventually, right, and it was like lead Programmer was the first credit Mark Tamel And like so I like, you know, I knew they were

in Chicago because the little commas. It's like four on one Midway, right, And they gave me the number, and so I called, and I called, and they call it. I called twenty six times and finally I got a phone call back. Like I was just I just want to do an internship, right, I know, right, like old school stalker style, right, like kind of weird. Exactly, this is yeah pre like you start six nine pre anyway, Yeah, exactly, you earn. You earned it, like you you were going. You filled up it. You

filled up the tape in the answering machine exactly. And I remember the guy that brought me in. He looked at me and he's like, you've worked in an arcade. Uh, you have run a small video game fa hu sie you know, pre game e FAQs and all that kind of stuff. Right, He's like, you're completely unqualified to work here. And he's like, but rips up my resume in front of my face him a little suite.

I feel good. He's like he's like, he's like, Markamal wants you to work here because you've been persistent about it, and so we're gonna give you shot. And that to me was like the same thing with like Brian Paulo and Eddie and lets right, it was like I will do anything. I absolutely possibly come in. It's an amazing story. Who knew that faithful decision would eventually close midway down right right, say some Jersey, Hi Pop, that's gonna let the plague in. It's just like into the India

time. Everyone talking to him. It was a hard warming story. I mean, it's like that made that. That was amazing. And then that was amazing. You brought that down real I'm so pissed. You want to out, no, fuck you come on out. But yeah, I mean, you know, when I was kind of first getting started on my first year, like I started in a print magazine, the kind of went nowhere.

Which print magazine it's called Blaster, last about three issues and then I guess the same story, yeah, kind of the story was which I was only able to verify. Someone allegedly that the the guys that started the magazine who had gotten a bunch of investment from the Sound Blaster people, ran off with a Blaster sixteen. Remember, So you know, I learned to be bitter when I was about nineteen, I got out my first magazine job.

I was a man fun this business and and I ended up I was in school for a little bit, which I needed because I was the worst writer in the world. Where I was writing this magazine. It is just like

I've just had no business even having a job at that point. But then there was an arcade show in Reno, and I heard that Mortal Kombat three was going to be there, and I was like, I'm dropping out of this class and this school stuff and going to play MK three and hang out with the game and former guys and we're going to drink and reno and play MK three. So yeah, it was a super early test version. It was like that. It was like the first, you know, it wasn't

it was the first. It was like the first time I like saw like

Ed kind of get him and talk like actually back and see. Yes in the day they had Ed and John signing autographs at the midway, but yeah, and it was it was like the only and also like they had like Dan Possina like like some of the characters from Mortal Kombat there like in costume doing stuff, and you know, it's just like this is pardiculous, like like even then, like even as much of like an MK fan as I was back then, I couldn't pull the trigger on I'm gonna wait in line

and get some autographs, right, It was just it was too it was too far gone. But you'll do it now. Yeah, now you know we're email address and home phone, you guys. Weirdly enough, they actually sent out an autograph to lit the graph for like MK Deadly Alliance. That's like a Ed Boon signed frame thing and it's totally like the first thing I've moved into my house, like hanging above the fireplace like cool. It's like it's kind of kind of like a joke of time, but it's totally still

there five years later. It's so funny because like all those all those cats, it's like whenever you're around them, it's like, you know, it's a weird thing. I don't think a lot of people get in the industry because, at least for me, right, you look up to these guys, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's just like these are the game gods, you know, Eugene Jarvis, Smarts from out Ed Boone, John Tobias. I mean, these guys are the game gods, you know.

And and to be around them, listen to them talk and then be friends with them and everything, it's like you just learned so much, you know. And and just like every single day to be able to work with all those guys and hear them say everything from like a funny joke to actually like a good nugget for game design is is just priceless. Yeah, you know, and it's something that you don't get nowadays. In Gada, I was gonna say, like like so, I mean, obviously those guys were

of a generation. Yeah, but who are the who are the George Gomans is a guy Actually I should throw in there as well. I didn't, but I should. Yeah, who are the new game guys? Like? Like who matters? I mean like everyone kind of looks to the guys that are getting a lot of a lot of attention from the press and stuff like

that. You know, guys like political Zenski Shaper. It was like, do you think that they fill that same role or has a game development changed so much that they're they're really you can't just go to one guy, I think I think for that for that decade, Like I would say, each decade, it's a new group, Like I think this decade probably not Jnomy blow. You know the twist of pixel guys. I mean there's a new

school sort of you know, decade of people that are inspirational. Now can they well, I mean the real important thing about the guys in mid was that they kept doing it. They kept killing it for years and years and years and decades. And so if the new guys continue on, clipy Be is a perfect example, like, so as it keeps cranking up fantastic games and people will Yeah, he'll he'll still be notable and buddy of the new guys. I think the thing then is that they were making I mean,

like in terms of game design and innovation. At that point, making blockbuster games was a design innovation. It's over like making games and a pee of the basses and can speak to everybody and being compelling both in a quarter based way and also in the home based way. It was like was its own seat of sort of platform based innovation. And now the question is are people making blockbusters the innovators and the game gods or is it Jonathan Blows and people

making Indian games by themselves and small teams of five? Is it the fucking angry birds physics engine? Dude? Like? Who is you know, who is the guy? Really? Who's right? It's so it's so funny now because it's like it all comes down to who's making the money, right, And that's what's getting like, you know, because the video industry is blown up so much, right, it's like, all right, so who's making the money? Honestly, dude, down like and those guys like bam bam

bam. Right. But at the same time, I mean, like back in the day when we were doing it. It's like those guys with the game Gods was still small enough that you actually cared and and they could give you a lot of those very multifunctional right, you know, persons like the guys that were kind of looking up to now as these game gods, like in a lot of cases, aren't they just really good managers or are the true visionary? That's that's why they being the classic game track they've had a

GDC. This series has been so fascinating to watch because you get people like Jordan mcner breaking down making Prince of Persia and how her rotascoped, the animation, shooting his brother jumping right, spending eleven thousand dollars on a camera and then immediately sending it back because there was a thirty day guarantee because he couldn't afford you and that and that stuff, and watching that contrasted with you know, a talk with Clue with Lazinski, It's all changed so much, and

it's not even the fault of those guys. These teams have scoped out to such a degree it's become a team sport, right, and likes become full and it's always been a team effort but it's not become a thing where you're looking at you're looking for Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan, right, you're looking for the guy who's coaching a crew of people nice Chicago. So it's right, don't leave me. Hang, I didn't know. I thought you're gonna

punch me in the face. But at this point, But it doesn't mean they're not visionaries, because it's probably guys who were in that first meeting and then they're in the last meeting where the ship in the game and that guidance along the process isn't important. It's what keeps in the street going and with

things being as there, every game is thirty million dollars. It's the guys who you're willing to bet on, right, it's the guys who you're gonna bet the pharm on every That's why like the guys that do it like cross Eras are amazing because it's like you gotta get like so they when it was like just three people on a team and all was was mechanics and controls and they can do it then and then you got guys like Ed Boone. We're

leading now a team of just huge team just getting it done. Still and that whole f and time, right, he goes from just programming, like doing code, like picking out frames of animation years, so now we're just drecting a team of hundreds of people or however big it is to deliver the same the division the same way he wants it done. That's why he's like super amazing and all this group of like superstars. It's like, I think the small the small guys, I think are the ones who are making huge

innovations and games. I think that the guys that we're talking about, these sort of team leader guys, are making huge innovations in entertainment. Those are the guys who we're seeing as the leaders of making experiences a speak to anyone, but the guys behind fucking connect It's like, what that's not that's not really like a huge game exactly, Like that's a crazy that's a crazy year

exactly. But but you know, but the guy's making these the you know, an iPhone game like the thirty that like fourteen year old kid who finally toppled uh and took over the top of the iPhone chart with his like physics gaming he made. That's pretty sure, And so that's the thing where it's like that kid's making a cool little game that he's not making necessarily, he's entertainment experience can become a movie in two years. At the same time,

though, they're really freaking me out of it. Yeah, I'm not fourteen and I'm not one that like that. It's like, is it that much the Wild West that exactly zero experience can do that? And then a certain platforms. Absolutely, I think. I think it's awesome to get me wrong. Right. At the same time, it's also scary, right because it's like, you know, here, I am and everybody right that, like have worked in the game industry for a very long time, and a fourteen

year old kid comes along. It's like, hey, yo, I just make yes and that's awesome, due and get him to make the next Tronta. I mean, I think that's I think that's I think I think that's what a Watta was talking about right where he was like, it's about quality, and I think that what he was saying got misconstrued and probably like twisted the way they wanted to be. But I think he was like, don't

forget that it's really important to make high quality entertainment. That's what makes people like and have I have liked and has expanded our industry the way it is.

It's it's all about high quality entertainment. So don't forget that. Yeah, I think it was like all same, like even though the ninety nine cent games are seeming like them and the freemium and freedom Lay and Austin like, don't forget you should be able to charge for things that you're proud of, Like don't people will pay for good entertainment that you're proud and but also

they have to be you know, polished to the max. That's the Japanese Montrose, you know, like they spend all that time making sure that you know, everything is covered. And I think that was kind of his thing, was like you should be able to charge good money for good entertainment. But that's such a platform agnostic argument, right, That's that's the weird thing now is And Cliff had a slap the day and his talk where he was showing I think he stole it from he credited he stole it from somebody.

Slabe was like, you know, in nineteen ninety two, here are the platforms people are competing on. It. It was like share, I mean like it was like three or four platforms just like you see, here's what's going on now, And it was like seventy different platforms where you had like Microsoft, and Microsoft was Xbox, Xbox from sixty connect and it was like

all these branches. And he says, basically, at the end of the day, the problem we have is that the while West, because a game like Angry Birds can come out on the iPhone, everyone in the concentrators like, well, fuck that, we don't need to worry about that. Shit, that's its own, like sort of segregated, right, And then it's just like but now and now we all rushed towards that, and goes, so what is that doing? We should make that Everyone jumps all right,

But it's different. It's not supposed to be the same thing. And what I think of water I was talking about is like, you should be able to charge sixty dollars for a console game that's twenty hours, but it doesn't mean you have to make it forty hours to push away from Yeah, you're a two second experience over again, it's just a different thing, like,

embrace what you're making for the medium you're making it for. I think that like for me, personally, the thing that I'm most excited about all mobile and social because everyone's sorry about that and like, oh social's big bubble,

Like oh mobile, this mooble that right. The thing that I'm most excited about with everyone that's doing mobile and social is that, whether they realize it or not, they're driving people into the video and so like exactly, That's what I'm saying, Like, so people are so threatened or like should we

be doing this? Should be mean? And that, like, please let everyone do what they're doing, because you know what, like it's eventually those guys are just getting into mobile and they're just getting into like social, They're gonna get into what the a lot of us are making right where like the twenty thirty hour experiences. So I'm like a huge fan of all mobile and social. Please grab everyone in the entire world and bring them into buying video

game buying councils. Like absolutely, I completely embrace that. What people get I think gonna get freaked out. No one wants. The thing is that the first publishing is gonna stop and just stay back and take a really holistic approach. It's gonna be the one of the wins, because right now they're all like being very reactive, like, ya, this is making so much. Let's there if we if we don't have a Dragon Age Facebook game, this whole thing's umed. Yeah, And then they're doing they're like that cost

us four million dollars. Yeah, like what are we getting back from nobody building? And you know, are they really looking at it in terms of like we're making a game, or they're looking at it in terms we're building awareness. And that's honestly one of the big big Facebook stuff or like mobile

stuff, iPhone stuff and things like that. I remember there's some sort of like rock Bands rock Icons game, which is in no way similar to the jewel It was sort of like an outsource thing that MTV Games was putting together. That's some that's some nice thing for that was actually it had rock Band Network tracks some of like undiscovered bands as the background audio, so as you were matching icons, you kirk some music and could fight out about some groups.

But it was it was just sort of like, oh, there's always some rockman udicons coming on the screen and match them off. You think about the game Rap Band, same thing with the you know, we did the thing with Pepsi where We're on the caps of a bunch of Pepsi bottles across

the country. It's like that is good brand awareness, but it doesn't mean that you can develop a shitty game with good brand awareness and have to be a compelling experience that people want to play for more than five minutes, which is the danger, which is the danger when people start the gig. Well, Facebook games are something to need to worry about because they're in a different area where it's like yeah, but they have the hook mechanic where people are

coming to them. And I play the Ship out of every pop Got game, Like I don't want to play Zula Revenge all the way at the end, but I played it all the way Yeah, and even though I had to take a sick down or to finish it on like cold Medicine, and I just played it till it was done. But it's like that game as Hookie, as Ship, I played the I played until I was finished.

Yeah. But like PopCap is different from and their games are different from like wood Zingers totally yeah, you know, like Cityville, right, like it finally took someone to like Adam or Days slap me across the face is like why are you playing this game as much as you are, And I'm like, I don't know, compulsion, you know, it's I was. I interviewed drag the dragon Us creator Jujihori a couple of weeks ago, and I asked him, you know, what are you playing right now? Like O?

Then you know, drag Us kind of consumes your life and doing anything else. It's like I'm addicted to Cityville. Yeah, And he was like, I'm not going to tell you that what my Facebook and name is because I don't want everyone to add any but I he was, you know, but I think I think the thing is like the gamers and some developers get scared because they think, well that's where everyone's going, we should go that way, and we're not gonna be able to make the games that we want

to make anymore. But every you know, if people come in, they will maybe they'll play the games that we talk about in their passion about but maybe they won't. But it's not like it's not all going to disappear. Just because it was doing really well Farmans doing well, for tear Bells doing

well doesn't mean that dragon Age and Massive Fat are going to disappear. And I think that's that's the knee jrik reaction is thinking because of those games are getting popular in the attention that the games that you grew up on are going to exist. I mean again, I'll say this right, Like the huge divide is that there are so many people intimidate and scared it scared scared it scared by yeah sorry yea, these like Ioax, Android and Facebook is like,

oh, what are we gonna do? And the entire industy is gonna change? Like, no, you don't realize that for everyone that's actually playing your game, they're also playing console games, and you know what, you should look at it as a blessing that everyone else that they're bringing in. If you only get a small fraction, that's great. I don't know, because eventually it's like watching YouTube videos and then watching a movie, right,

and it's like, eventually these guys are gonna getting into the news. Seeing it really is kind of the beau of thing about how all the stuff is changing, and it's you know, it's it's It's been interesting for me over the years because as mobile rose as trip Hawkins and digital Chocolate kind of got out there back you know, pre iPhone and started spending all this money on on just mobile development, and you know brew and all this plug J two and me and all that stuff. Uh, you know, you have a

businessman come to you someday ago. Why aren't we covering this stuff? Right? And you say, well, because the audience that we're currently catering to is not necessarily interested in this stuff. And also the audience that's playing this stuff doesn't read our side. But yeah, exactly, it's like you know, who who who out there wants to read reviews of ninety nine cent black at games? You know, it's like do you want to you know,

I'm gonna come to time, you gonna spend doing a round up. It's like, here's the best five card stud poker on your it's gonna make Yeah, that's that's the game off phone. I mean, thank thank on the phone? Yeah now yeah, has the same two phones and and then that's

less of a problem now. But it's it's uh, it's definitely you know, because I had to get up to speed on a lot of the pre iPhone mobile stuff as a result of that stuff, and it was a really interesting study in terms of just like, well, this is not something we should cover, but I'm glad that I at least went through this because you know, went then when the iPhone kind of broke and got really big, I was in more of a position to kind of see how that stuff was

changing. But in terms of that platform going from a wild west there down to like, you know, two or three dominant platform holders, which isn't that different than console game where we have two or three dominant platform holders. I don't. I mean, from my perspective, I think that for traditional console game developers who are scared about this space, it's scared about making titanic games versus a ninety nine cent you know, one second mechanical and over again.

It's like, isn't that what XPLA and PSN or four like? Isn't like isn't that what Double Fine is doing right now? Which is that you know, the last game I finished Bulletstorm before I came out here, But the last two games I finished were stacking and you know, constant questions in a weekend, in a day, and I felt like I had a really good time and good experience with it. I didn't feel like, well, if I you know, end up, I haven't getting swamped with work and

I can't dedicate forty hours of this. I'm not really gonna get my sixty dollars, so why would I pay for it? But it's like you're at least accomplishing something. I spent fifteen dollars for five hours, which isn't actually the same breakdown, but I was much happier with that. Yeah, what was your first thirty hours of going through the intro stacking? Like, uh,

it was? It was. It was a little a little confused until I found that character could identify everybody that was I was laughing because like I call Adam on the phone or actually, no, you call me on the phone, and I was like, he's like, what you do. I'm like, I'm playing a second and he's like, what's going on? Like it's still the opening. I'm still trying to find why this guy's talking.

It was it was like the opening. Yeah, it's very deliberately paced, you know, to like achieve that silent film look like they had to they had to kind of do work, you know. It's a definitely like I

found myself going like can I just skip through this stuff? Like I've become very impatient as a players terrible that the same way the like, like the breakout competition that no one really expected was the Packman Championship, and yeah, yeah they came to like Furious x X plus Live Friends List Flight Between like everyone a Giant Bomb and the Universe, And I played the share that game. It was and it was not just pacmanpoorted over XBLA. It was like,

actually some cool design decisions that were made. But yeah, and it's spent money on that. It's another one of the things that's really exciting to just see, like the rise of the download game and also the return of the small team game as a result. Well, you know, one of the things that kind of ties back to our kame. These guys can have a vision and execute on it, and it's not always great obviously, you know, there's playing of download games that just come out looking like joke.

The interesting thing about this week at g DC has been the theme that I found talking to all the publishers is like a big sort of sad trombone. I mean they're all like stuff and guys and then everyone else I'm finding, Yeah, they're like what do we do? Do we do social? Do we do mobile? How much of each do we do? Were we moving and all the people like my company in the independent developments, like I love this. This is the rock solid stuff because it's it is kind of world

West, which we're defining what the future is going to be. And publishers just aren't built to be able to handle the digital content and so they're frustrated. But they independent movies and blockbuster movies right like brothers, and they can't publish. I mean they and they have like any movie arms maybe, but you're not gonna get a breakout. It's but it's a chicken and the egg thing too, because a lot of that was like, oh, the markets

change and consumers are getting different games or whatever. But I think a lot of that has to do with that. It's not so much. I mean, that's obviously part of it, but developers have changed. Like when I grew up, I'd buy Encounter Seas four games, the archon and buy all the stuff with like the record album covers kind of hang the ship in my wall I had, like the EA we see farther post on my wall with Bill Budge and Westball and all that, and like I'm like, my goal

is to work at THEA. Like now do you think like I don't know the Superman Boy guys at all, but do you think they want to fucking work at easing the small groups. It's so identifiable when you say notch in Minecraft, it's like, I want to be notch, Like do I want to me Clifford me running this whole big, huge team Aroundy Pitchford and running

the whole company. You know, it's like can identify with the guy that has says I want to be notch, like he in the talk to Its like he was a lot of the streams like which it was kind of funny because you know his whole thing, and you know, you ask him like, hey, would you ever think about doing a new jazz Jack Rabbit or

something like that. I returned to like a smaller download walking about that we're not saying we don't need to talk about that Billy ber again where you saw he was there for the witness of the conversation, but yeah, this is before that stuff. And he would say no, fuck no, like we're making these big games, like it was kind of Xblas coming up. He's like, these big blockbuster games, this is what I want to make.

And to hear him kind of changes his tune a little bit. I think probably speaks to like how crazy he Well, someone said back and be an Indian and make a team, make a game with ten people, and he or like, would you go down that path and have more control and be a power creative really drive that vision. He's like, fuck no, because I get to work with these people who balance down a team or so into my and actually check my crazy vision. But it means we need to make

these bigger experiences that millions of people enjoy. And that's important too. It's part of the industry. It's part of what those games forward to make it. You know, the Mind Trip Gears three being on fucking it wasn't our coner of Fallon, the Jimmy Fallon. Yeah, it was like, Jimmy found video trailer is just cooled it in the middle of the late night show, they'll show a video game trailer for a minute. That's that's pretty rape,

that's pretty way. Chicago was pretty cool too. People should go. Yeah. Yeah, Chicot's Tourism Bureau as Chicago was still off. I remember going to CS and I we were at an EA Sports party when the Bulls won. Uh which of the three pet one? Yeah? Which I mean it would have been first three, second three peat. It would have been

early nineties. It would have been like some time between first three two three, and we were on Rush Street getting out of this party and it was like even flipping cars though, like me and it's Randy and Paul from Game and Former and like roymcdonald who was who was? It was like, shoe, where's all the e GM guys because they're all on Lombard. I don't think any of those guys like they were, right, I mean, you know, it's yeah, but that's how I got my start with It was

like MS working my way over to the lumbard our empe. So this is I think this is like kind of pre shoot. This is more like Steve Harris ed Samuraid sort of like this is sushi x Ken William. So yeah, and I remember like going to see us and having a guy like point out, there's a guy playing a street fighter machine and so I'm going to and you look at it like never was You're telling me this pudgy white dude

is fucking it turn up right? Like I totally was. It was like it was like, em so let's see this, Let's go around the table, right, what was the one arcade game that was like the big one for you Smash TV. So that's a little late but all like Gallagha and Blaxie and and all that stuff. But but yeah, that one and also watching my dad played dragons Layer. We would go to the arcade on weekends

and stuff. That was the first game I ever played. I could never I was fucking terrible at it, but he got to a point where he was beating dragons Layer. And we would play a lot of Gauntlet and Cary Warriors together, So yeah, I would. I was a younger brother. So the first game that I'm always I've always be more of a co op guy, Like I'm I'm much more a fan of say, Left for Dead than yeah, yeah co op you but we uh the first game that we

both sort of recognized characters that have played together. It was actually, this is gonna be a little weird, but the Simpsons game Simponsky Cabinet, my

brother, my brother, I will be Bart Simpson right now. I'm I'm six years old, and I'll put the ship out of this and we would just put a course in that hall like Aladdin's Castle in the Mall's Castle I remember because yeah, so Drake and I are from the same hometown literally, right, And it made me laughed so hard because yeah, I remember Letten's Castle had because Canalis in Buffalo Grove at the time, and Canami had all

these different arcade uh cabinets on tests and Lenn's Castle's own, So yeah, that was what that was? What was it for you? It was a jam? Fuck well it's jam of course, But actually the one that actually really hooked me that big time was Killer Instinct. And I know a lot. What did you think? What terrible killer inst You didn't like killer You're fucking kidding me? Killer like fighting games where you actually had to play them,

not where you just like Dial of Combos. See that, That to me says that I'm not exactly Yeah, killer instinct for me because I was a huge, rare fan, right, I mean like Dunkey Kong Country, everything I was doing, like did you kill Killer cuts the c D?

Yeah I did, and we've been dancing on stage. There's actually there's actually a buddy that that I went to grade school with, Georgia Pree, right, who's like, I remember when you were in grade school, you had a killer in Stinc Medallion, Like, I totally like bit that pole. I was into, Like Killer in Sinc was like was it because it was like Midway and it was rare. It was a Nintendo so it was a

huge fan of Killer Instinct for me. There was no actually our kid in my hometown, so Birch Bay, Washington State, we had to go, and we would go there twice year. I would say about all my money, I would play Gauntlet in seven twenty, like literally thirty bucks on each. I would just be like, dad dropped out in twenty the n sixty four game. No the skateboarding, Oh yeah, sorry, I skate on that game. I called up my local arcade once and asked them how much

it would cost to buy a seven twenty mission. Dude, I didn't give you an answer. Yeah, it was like five thousand dollars, right. I actually asked for for my birthday one year store once and asked how much it would be to buy a chimpanzee. So I understand, Yeah, no seven twenty chimpanzee, seven twenty last forever ships in his pants, in your mouth, in your mouth, on your head, all right, sorry, damning Track and Field. I remember the Let's cast up at my house.

They had the bottery. Yeah, they in the track and field and all so by us. It was everyone had the comb in their fingers. Yeah, and they would use that to like lover the buttons. I see people bring spoons or pencils were big too. But then I remember they were also junkies, so they it was then like there's the year I fell in love

with it and we wanted this family vacation. I remember where we're driving and we're at this like four Seasons resort or something, and we get there they have an arcade, and naturally go to the arcade to check it out, and they had a fucking track ball track and field. Blew in my fucking mind, didn't know what existed. But it's like, instead of like this, it's just spitting the things fashkin and yeah. Then basically it's like I wasn't yeah, and I just did that all that. It was incredible.

It was like sacrilege. But I'm still so awesome. I'm so crazy. Yeah, and to this day, you're still really good at furiously passing your hand over knobs. Next for a job, the one for me actually actually turned out to be NBA jam because I had the fondest memories of Uh, my parents owned a rent this lake house in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, just

snore to the Illinois border, and uh there was this NBAB. She had this bar, this like family bar that everyone kind of go to, and we would spend the entire fall collecting change into these giant of those giant crams, you boys, I do. So my parents got that for us and they were like, so we're tired of having to give you so much money to play NBA Jam. So just you guys, spend the fall in the winter putting coins into this crayon and then that's what you get to spend on

NBA Jam. And we would we would cash it it. We'd take this giant cran ticket to the bank, get hundreds of quarters and that we would spend. I mean a dam was a quarter per quarter, so that added up pretty quick. But because we had the giant cran, that's what I would spend my our entire summer's doing awesome. Well, I think that's gonna do it for us. I know it seems the most boring bombast, It's like weird nostalgia. Just cut it off after the threesome story. It's done.

If you want, if you must want to tell some horrible Midway story, now is the time. That's a good horrible it's right exactly. Thank you. But that's been a g DC from us here. Thanks for watching or listening. If you're listening. If you're not listening, then you're not even hearing me. Thank you for watching, so I guess thank you for watching and or listening talking All right, Yes, that's GDC. We'll be back with regular podcasts on Tuesday and then Packs East. Don't forget Friday night

of Pack East. We've got our panel. Thursday Night of Pack East will be judging the Harmonics rock band Radel Theater in Harvard Square. Come on later to see heavy metal screen on the big screen. Weird as Yeah, I don't think we're gonna we're flying in that day, so you're not gonna be there, all right, Well he'll be there, heavy Metal, heavy Metal the sefentefifty fifty sixty TI