Dev to Dev S03 E07 - Harvard Bonin

speaker-1: Well hello good friends and fine patrons. Welcome to another episode of DevToDev, the podcast about everyday video game developers and why they do what they do every day. This week an episode with someone I have worked with before, Harvard Bonin, who was kind enough to spend some time with me. Harvard and I worked together for a while at Sony Santa Monica, and then we're also both in the Xenemax family for for a few years. Both unfortunately caught up in the recent layoffs at different times. But it was really good to reconnect with Harvard. Harvard and I spent a lot of time together in Crunch, in carpools, at various projects at Sony Santa Monica. So there was a good amount of of his history that I did know, but a lot that I didn't. And I think the important thing about this episode is it brings a perspective I've not previously had on this podcast. We've had producers and folks in a similar role to Harvard, but Harvard brings a more heuristic project vision. To the conversation and talks a lot about some really interesting aspects of the publisher versus developer relationship and frameworks and ways to help development teams be successful in what can sometimes be a somewhat hostile environment between developer and production, the people making the game and the people trying to get it shipped. So I really enjoy this perspective. You know, we we talk about this in the podcast at one point where most people think about video game development as the developers, the artists, the designers, the creators that build the game. But there's a whole army of people, especially in these big publishers, around these operations around the developer that help to manufacture it, market it, get it shipped, bring the community in. Right, there's a large portion of that part of the industry that people don't think of and Honestly, a lot of developers forget about at times and they have needs and they have wants and they have ways that they can help bring the game to life. So I Harvard brings this great perspective, as well as some really good introspection on himself, on his earlier years in his career, how he is now. And I really appreciate him sharing that. Again, this podcast is very much about that human side and hearing people talk about times when maybe they weren't their best self and how they've grown from there. I think Harvard's really open about that and and I love that part of this conversation. I love the whole thing. So yeah, hope you enjoy. Plug time. Patreon, all of season one, two, videos of season three, socials go out every week. Please like and share those as you can. Thank you to those that do. Please continue to do so. If you know someone who you think should be on the pod, please reach out to me. I've had a couple of folks do that recently, and I appreciate that. Continue to build up a roster of folks for season three, which is great. And if you would consider becoming a patron, I'd really appreciate it. I have two tiers that will help keep the podcast going. Any support you can spare, I'd really appreciate. If you could leave reviews on your podcast platform of choice, that helps. And just, yeah, if you could share the the podcast as much as possible, help with discoverability, that would be rad. But anyway, enough waffle. Let's sit back and listen in to another episode of Dead to Dev with Harvard Bonin. Great to you again. It's been a while. excited to dig into your history. We have worked together in the past, a couple of times, sort of directly and indirectly. but I I always kick this conversation off with my favourite first question What first inspired you about video games?
speaker-0: Wow. you can probably tell from my history that I've I was there at the beginning, or at least close to it. I'd always been a lover of video games. I mean I shoot, I have that my f my real first system was the Atari fifty two hundred. I think the funny thing about that is is that I think it was like three hundred bucks at the time. My dad went to the horse track, won a little bit of money, said, What do you want to do with this? And I said, I want that system and he he got it for me. And I've been through it ever since. I've been a player all my life. I still play. in fact the Witcher Three has got its mitts into me right now, especially with the rematch. What are you playing these days?
speaker-1: I just started Control Resonant. I'm a big remedy remedy fan, remedy nerd. So I p I picked it up a couple of days ago and I've been falling in love with it over the last couple of weeks, so or the last couple of days.
speaker-0: Are you gonna post a review here?
speaker-1: I d I don't know. I don't tend to do public reviews very much, to be honest. but I definitely am pulling a lot of reference from it. It's you know, seeing a studio pivot in the way that that you know they have a studio that I love pivot into a genre that I'm very familiar with, melee games, is fascinating and what they've done I think is really good. So
speaker-0: Very talented.
speaker-1: Very talented studio, yeah. I've I've loved everything they've made and continue to. yeah, I'm I'm fascinated, Harvard, to sort of dig into, you know, where you got started. You know, the fifty two hundred kind of inspired you and you know, f you know, kicked off the love of of video games. What was it that sort of really attracted you to the experience of of video games and and can you know and continued to attract you over the following years?
speaker-0: It's funny, I've never really actually thought about why it was so appealing to me. I mean it's a game. Games are fun. I always like the challenge. I think the the the part about just adventuring into another world where you can have interactivity was a big deal. I spanned genres, you know, like I I nowadays I I pretty much focus on adventure RPGs kind of thing. But back then it was whatever whatever looked fun. I used to go to the arcade. I mean, back when arcades were a thing. it was always just I I mean it I didn't really have any other friends that, you know, there wasn't a social kind of appeal to it like there is now. So it was me in my own world and I think just adventuring through and and discovering what was gonna be around the corner. but man, you know, it It it's a really interesting thing. I've never really thought about the psychology about what what did it for me. I was an only child, maybe that's it. So it was like t it was a way to have a a a playmate without having one. What about yeah, what about you?
speaker-1: Yeah, very much
speaker-0: We are we are we are only childs together.
speaker-1: Both only child together, yeah. and and I I I think yeah, I think for me there was definitely an element of I think competition, right? Competition with myself. especially as an only child, I'm not great at competition with anyone else. So competition with myself, was fun. And and yeah, I think just that I mean, I've always been drawn to the interactivity, right? Just the ability to you know, just that feel and that experience. I mean, that's what I love. So that that I think that's always what's pulled me in. Arcade you know, the arcade games and the action games were always what you know, what I was drawn to.
speaker-0: What did you start with?
speaker-1: I well I started with computers. the the ZX Spectrum 'cause you know, obviously you had the crash in the eighties in in the US, but that didn't really affect us here. so sort of early eighties I got a ZX Spectrum because my dad convinced my mum that I really wanted one. I didn't even know what it was, he wanted it. and that's sort of what at like six years old, that's sort of what kicked me off.
speaker-0: Well, I was telling you like my dad went to the track and won some money and got me at fifty two hundred and they would always tell me, you know, as I started working through the industry, that was like the best investment they ever had, they ever did. And they had no idea why. They thought I was, you know, throwing away money at the time. But man, talk about a a a path.
speaker-1: Yeah. Set you on a path that's you know, that's turned into a career and that's exactly what we're here to talk about today. So so you know, you see you c where where did you grow up?
speaker-0: I grew up in Maine and then California to Fullerton for college, Chapman for MBA, stuff like that. But my formative years, you know, precause I moved when I was a sophomore. I don't recommend that on anybody, by the way, in sophomore and high school. but yeah, when I was a child, I was growing up in Maine. And yeah. Where what about you? Where'd you grow up?
speaker-1: I mean, I grew up in a in a little village, you know. So I think sounds like somewhat similar, right? You know, maybe grew up, you know, small t small small location, you know, maybe not a huge amount of friends that gamed. A lot of it was my cousin, was you a lot of the reason why I was into games, he would send me games and we'd swap games all the time. I had a couple of friends that were gamers, but you know, and there was definitely some kids in school that I was drawn to, but I think it you know, maybe the similar eras, right? Video games were not quite as as you know everywhere as they are now and they were still a little bit technical and a little bit fiddly to kind of get your head around. So I think you know maybe we both had a similar kind of genesis of video games are this opportunity to do something that I wouldn't get to do anywhere else and you know a thing that takes me somewhere where I don't get to go, you know, and lets me, you know, you know, almost have your own friend, like you say, and have your own challenge. So and and and when when was there a point when video games felt like a a potential career or was it were they always just games?
speaker-0: I kind of fell into it and that was true of a lot of people, I think, back in those days. There was no real track, there was no schooling. I went to school for advertising communications, which I did nothing with, though I did get out of I got out of school, worked for a small direct marketing firm. I got laid off from there. that was a true layoff, at about three months. It was very tiny. And I just happened to be have friends at Virgin Interactive. And I went to breakfast with a guy named Neil Young at the time. And it was the very next day after I got laid off. And it was for this position that my friend Julie had turned me on to. And at the end of the breakfast I had a job. And that was in production. And it was I mean, it was amazing then. And I was like, How did this even happen? I I remember it at the end of the breakfast, he started you know, we talked all we did was talk about games. So I had always been a Enthusiast, you know, I looking at the old game pros and electronic games monthly and all those things. so I knew what was going on in the games, well, at least the consumer business. I don't I didn't know anything about the business of the business. But I was pretty well versed and we had all that's all we did was talk about that sort of thing. And then at the end of the breakfast, it took about an hour, and he said, well, you know, you're gonna get paid this and this and this, and this is when you start everything. I like I had to talk I like, so I'm hired? Am I hired really? And he's yeah, didn't I tell you? And and I started a couple weeks later as my first real job in the games business as a production coordinator and just kind of went through the the various incarnations through producer, senior producer, production director, all that kind of stuff. Which has changed a lot over time. You know, back in those days, we didn't know what the hell we were doing. I mean, barely anybody did. We certainly had no real structure around what a producer was. And it was really, you know, people were just kind of relying on their their experience and what had happened and what did they learn over time. But there was no real intentional track for well, how do you actually manage a software project? And a lot of that actually was just it was around, but it wasn't it wasn't part of the games business. So it was around 2012 I started to go on that journey and started, you know, looking at project management, software project management. There's the PMI Institute, PMPs, and the there's all sorts of agile certifications you can get and train it. There's r actual training now. And we started to apply some of that early on in God of War. So if you remember, the reboot of God of War actually had a reboot before the reboot. And it was about a year. Ariel, who's now directing the latest one, she was associate, I think associate producer on that with me. And she's fantastic and I Wish them all the best with this latest one. It looks pretty cool. So how she I I gotta talk to her to see how she made that transition. But it's where you got how do you go from production to creative director, but good on her. but we'd tried to with a very small team, I think it was about fifteen people, tried to reboot God of War. That was pre Corey, before Corey was at the studio and then he left and then he came back. So we were trying to reboot it before then, if I remember right. you know, that's all fuzzy. But in those we had just started try introduce kind of agile practices back then. We were doing the stand ups and retrospectives and all the stuff. Prior to that, that wasn't really being done in that studio. So yeah, we we were trying and and if you remember, there's another title that was going on on the side. You know, there's the the Ascension was going on. And then what was it called? What was the title?
speaker-1: Oxide. In seven.
speaker-0: And I don't know if you've ever thought about that approach. So I when I look at and and it didn't come out, obviously, but and there were repercussions and then I wound up as a Bethesda. So they and and then they ended up regoing into or redoing God of War again. but a lot of the core ideas that were there at the very first initial reboot that were there. It was still Norse. I remember they had some pretty great art direction that didn't quite make it into the game, but they were really experimenting. the new, you know, behind the back and all that kind of stuff and the axe, that was all there from the beginning. but yeah, Dark Side, they tried to do everything new. And I don't recommend that to anyone. When I look at when I look at what Naughty Dog did going from Uncharted to Last of Us, it's almost like they had these pillars or underneath the s or the legs underneath the chair and they said, Well we're gonna take this one out. And then we're gonna replace it, and now you've got a whole new experience. So it was still third person, it was still shooting, and it was still but they trended toward the stealth, they changed the fiction, and that's kinda it, really. If you really as a game designer, would you would you agree with that that that they didn't pivot all that much and really did a a great big change?
speaker-1: I I mean I think I think the the devil's in the details, right? I think there's a lot of nuance in the systemic changes they made to the type of game, the pacing, the you know, the complexity of the systems, the you know, I I think there's a lot that they changed, even if on the surface it was familiar in you know, I think that's a smart move, right? Is don't like you say, don't do everything new, right? What do you what do you keep, what do you improve and what do you iterate on? I think those are those are they d there was a smart smart shift I think they did.
speaker-0: This is the difference between production and, you know, a real game designer, 'cause I look at it from a very macro, you know, simplistic standpoint. You've got a far more educated detail on it. If you look at what that God of War t that that side shoot God of war, which I think was run by Stig as a game director, and he went on to what, Apex Legends, I think and
speaker-1: Well you wanted to respawn and did the Jedi games and yeah, then he's running giant skull now. Yeah.
speaker-0: I mean doing some great stuff. but that dark side game wanted to change it all. So if I remember right, it wanted to be a sci fi the sci-fi shooter melee with a totally new face.
speaker-1: Yeah, with a vehicle, everything.
speaker-0: It's like if you're gonna try to challenge yourself and then if you're gonna do it, do it with that team 'cause they were very capable. But I think it was it was too much. That's why I always love the the elegant the elegance of what Last of Us did to try to be you know, like sometimes you just have to step away from the buffet table, you know, and and have some discipline and allow yourself to be successful in a space that is more likely to be successful. Yes.
speaker-1: Absolutely. y you mentioned kind of, you know, almost stumbling into a a production role. Yeah. you know, at a very interesting era of the industry. What do you how did you take to production? I mean obviously you were a video game fan, right? But you had no idea how they were made, presumably, or not really. how did you sort of transition into that production role? Well
speaker-0: I don't want to belabor this too much, but when I was a kid, I would send in game ideas to Atari. And this is the twelve year old version of me. Yeah, I sent it to Kathy Stahl, I still remember her name. And and they rejected both of them. One was like a a Joust Metroid hybrid. Jo Metroid hadn't been invented yet, so that's what it was. I didn't know it. And then I was doing like a a first person three D scramble before three D existed. So I I all I did was Do some drawings and you know, here's what it is, you know, you like give here's a three pager. And when I got into the games business, I didn't want to be a producer. I wanted to make games. And that was it. What that did though back then, because the roles weren't all that defined and they didn't get defined for even I mean, I fell into the trap even as in as as recent as 2005, 2006-ish, where I felt like I had To have some sort of voice in the game design. Because that's what the fun part was. It wasn't about management and project management, it wasn't that. And you can imagine because the roles are weren't all that defined, that could cause friction. in fact, I just had a call with my friend Dustin Browder, who was the lead designer on Riddler 2, went on to StarCraft 2, and among other things. And I said, you know, man, I'm I'm really sorry, that wasn't probably like the best version of Eno. I stepped into your your world a little bit too much, and that caused, you know, friction. over the years, I just kind of realized like, go where your lane is. Where what are you what's your purpose on the team in the dynamic? And that's how I got over that. And how about you? Like, people have always asked me, like, what's your dream game to make? I'm like, I made those already. I don't that's not what does it for me. I'd like to see seen teams be successful. I'd like to see and figure out how we're gonna navigate the next few years. is gonna be bumpy. It is bumpy. But yeah, it I I I think that the the piece about making video games and having a a hand in that was what the original want was for me. And that's still true, actually, but not in the same way. Like for instance, periodically at Bethesda I'd get like airdropped into certain projects to help them out because I was like one of the only people that had worked on development teams. And the last one was to help out Indiana Jones and the Great Circle wrap up. I didn't have a giant impact on that, but what I did get to see was a day-to-day working on the team together with the development studio. and man, that is a rush. It's so much fun when you can And and I was playing the game all the time. You know, I really felt like I was back in the trenches like the old days. And I I think that that's what really keeps me going nowadays. And it's it's the same thing back in back in the olden days, you know, I just wanted to make a thing. It's so much fun. And you probably felt this, Rush, like when you go to your family or nephews and everything, like, try this out. You know, I work on this. It's exciting.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I just had that a couple of days ago. I forgot that my voice was in one of the games that I worked on years ago and I was replaying it again for fun and I was like, Wait, that's me like I totally forgot and then I told my kid and his friend and they were like, What really? I was like, Yeah, that's me from like twenty years ago Making silly cocky zombie voices. yeah, it's always a rush to to to have been involved. But I'm I'm really interested in that angle, Harvard, right? I think that's a really interesting thing just to zero in on is you know, clearly you are a gamer, right? You're passionate about games, you're passionate about playing them, you have ideas and creative, you know, i inspiration about them. and and the production track and the project management track, you know, doesn't necessarily allow for that. And Depending on the team, right? Depending on some teams are very excited about, hey, who's got ideas? You know, in my opinion, design should be the shepherd of the best idea, it doesn't matter where it comes from. That doesn't suit every team. But how do you and it sounds like you've struggled with this? How do you find the right way of interjecting or contributing in a creative fashion when it is outside your lane? Right? How do you you know, 'cause I it looks like, you know You worked on Generals, right? You know, and and the Lord of the Rings series. Yeah, I can see the s sign up there. And I distinctly remember, you know, you mentioned on your LinkedIn that some of those ideas for a first person game ended up going into Starhawk, which I remember you being a big part of and I remember how you know, playtesting and us having sessions playing it in the studio. like how how do you shepherd those ideas in a way that allows people to be creative but still allows you to have input?
speaker-0: well my my drive for that sort of thing is diminished over the years because I think that the the real success is having a successful game and I don't think that the production role should be outsized by any other opinion on the team, when it comes to what you're making. You know, stay in your lane. No, there's the dog, sorry. I think people have to understand where their role is and it should be intentional and they should stay and do the thing they're supposed to. That said though, like you said, like Collect the ideas wherever the great ideas come from. All I'm saying is that back in those days, because our role was because producers were basically managers then. And I think with that, especially as a young buck like I was then, I just said, that means I can I can contribute into this game design of which that I have no expertise except for I've been a player. but I I don't I don't participate that anymore. It's not that you can't participate creatively. Like everybody's got some ideas. You can give them to the whoever you want to. I think it's just back then the production role wasn't as defined as it is now. So because you felt like you're a leader or a manager on the team, you had more sway than others. And that's just that was the mistake that I made. but when it comes now, like Indiana Jones, I could talk to the team, they're like, I'm playing this here and it's It's not working, what what are we doing to fix it? Or I here's an idea. And my idea would just be as valuable as anybody's valuable idea. not outsized at all. And I think that was the main point.
speaker-1: Interesting. And and when you were at EA, you you sort of at EA for about four years, EA has has at times blurred that line between production and design, right? Was that like that when you were there or had that already started to splinter away into no production is production and design is design?
speaker-0: Around well, I don't know. I've I've been a part of a lot of ac acquisition companies. So Westwood Virgin was acquired by EA. So went through a lot of transition there. Sorry, that diverges a little bit. But anyway, when I was there, the the issue wasn't necessarily design, but I see your point. That was the same sort of thing. They had introduced the notion of separation of executive producer and development director. And it was blurry. And I remember I had issues with it issues meaning trying to work with it that model for a long time. Because at the time producers were kind of that role all in one. Then they separated it. And I was like, I don't know I don't know what I'm how how does this work? You know, I was looking in working with schedules before and now I'm not. And what w and so admittedly I had a challenge with with that. nowadays, I asked to actually there's this Friend of mine, Patrick, I asked him years ago when I started on my kind of project management journey, what's the difference between a producer and a development director? And he said, producers are the ones that help decide where the value is on decisions. And development directors are more about managing the scope of the work and you know, all the trade-offs that come with that. It's like, okay, that that kind of makes sense now. When I went to Bethesda, it was at a director level, so it was working with a lot more like frameworks and things like that to help guide the the milestone processes for that that have never re they they had been they existed at EA. I think they had a development structure there. I've come to Jesus on on those things for for many year over over the years and arrived in my own Inclusions. But the the design part you mentioned, you know, like that combination. it doesn't mean you can't have a executive producer that's heavy in design. In fact, they're they're they're kind of architecting what the the business in the franchise is about. I just think you need to be intentional about it. You know, don't have I I always like to say, you know, like when you're on a team, one of the first things you should do is set down your rules of play. How how are we going to interact? What do you do? What do I do? Let's not let it just kind of like fester out there as a question and not let the sometimes people just rely on the title as y that's not good enough. You have to face to face with somebody, especially if you have a lead designer, game director, executive producer, who's doing what? And if we come into conflicts or whatever the right word for conflict is, maybe disagreements or something like that. like that or we feel like we're stepping on each other's toes, let's have a rule that kind of dictates how we behave in those situations. I just think it's about intentionality more than anything and just being clear. What are you have you run into that where you've felt like people were in your sandbox?
speaker-1: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Diff in different calibers, right? I've been a you know, a designer working on a system and suddenly some suddenly somebody decides to change something underneath me without having a conversation. I've been a liege, you know, trying to help guide a s feature and suddenly somebody builds a prototype in the background that I ne didn't know anything about and then pitches it to someone else and you know, so I I've I've sort of seen that, you know, we've we've all seen interesting moments where things shift in a way that you can't anticipate and those are very tough, right? Because especially when ultimately, you know, what are we, right? We're creatives, right? We're trying to build something that is just really just opinion, right? Ultimately, what what is a creative endeavor? It's just a bunch of opinions on, you know, on what this thing should be. And to your point, how you validate whose opinion is more important, right? It can't everyone's opinion can't be important 'cause then it you won't get anything done. There has to be some kind of hierarchy, but that doesn't mean there aren't periods where you can, you know, be open. There's you you can't be too precious about an idea because somebody could take it in a direction you would never would have. so yeah, I think those are some of the moments. And I and I'm interested in in sort of you, you know, understanding you know, getting to this point where you now understand you you like to set these boundaries and help understand who does what when. How did you come to that? Like how did you grow into that understanding?
speaker-0: it was on a I I mean I've always a lot of these ideas I've had over the years that have just come from just doing things and you know touching the hot stove one too many times. in the last few years, I think it was my friend Jasmine turned me on to the concept of intention out intentionality and being purposeful with the things you're doing. And I have come to just really love that. whatever we're doing. on a team has to be done with intent. And if you couple that with transparency of intent and communication, the when I worked on teams, I think this is 100% of the time, I'd like to hear what you have to say about this, but people always ask, you know, what's the hardest thing about working on teams? And it said, well it's people. It's always people. And look, what about technology? And what about this and what about that? No, it's people. It working with people is is a challenge. And I know that sounds kind of general, but that that stems into communication. And that stems into the intentionality and transparency. So I know you've probably seen this on teams where you there's siloed communication, people aren't being clear with what they're doing, there's backdoor channeling, there's you know, you you just have to kind of try to kill that. I I think that face to face communication is always best in and video games. FidCon nowadays, but you know, you know, that's whatever you're gonna use. But face-to-face communication is most effective and you have to get people to say yes. Yes, I agree, and I'm on board. I confirm that. And when they do that, that gets a confirmation bias in their heads. It's a little bit of an influence tool, but it's just an honest way to do it. So if you go to I think that if you are just being clear with your communications and intentionality of purpose, you will get the most out of your team. And it'll it'll allow people to be on the up and up. Like and then, you know, in the situation she said, well, you know, somebody was doing a what did you say, a demo underneath the or prototype or something like that and didn't tell you. It's like you can start off from the beginning at the project. I think setting out those rules and say, and this is the behavior we don't want to have. If you want to do this, let's talk about it. Let's collaborate. Let's work together. it's not about like going around you and saying, I'm gonna go to the lead and I'm gonna just pitch this thing and whatever it might be. It's like, no, you you you gotta be together. That's the challenge of working with people. But if you put together intentionality of communication and rules of play about how you should work together as a team, I think that you can get in front of a lot of that stuff. So when you do come at at conflict because everybody's gonna I mean teams are it's messy. It's a messy business. But you can you can work with a team to say and this is how we do things. Have you ever had a players only meeting in in your on your teams?
speaker-1: A p a pla I mean kinda if if I what do you mean by players only meeting?
speaker-0: Well, like in the I don't know, NFL or MLB or whatever you get. They the players get together. Yes. Not the not the game players. Like where they go, you know, let's get rid of all the mana let's work out our own together. And I've always liked that concept as well. Like if if you can set up those sorts of mores that I was mentioning earlier, I think you help develop a team that can independently figure out their their stuff without having some management layer dealing with it.
speaker-1: Yeah, I completely agree. I think I I phrase it slightly differently. I phrase it fr primarily around trust. Right? Trust is the glue that keeps a complicated, messy team, which you know, which is a bunch of humans trying to be creative and solve a nebulous set of problems.
speaker-0: In a in an area that they're passionate about.
speaker-1: Exactly. Yeah. A and and which, you know, in many instances have all all have great ideas on and great opinions on. Trust is the most important thing. That's what I've learned. And whenever trust breaks down, right, why did that prototype get made? Because there was a lack of trust. There was a lack of trust. There was a lack of you know, and like you say, lack of clarity, although, you know, you could say that we were being clear enough, we obviously won't. Right. You know, and and and so trust trust is really what, you know I've heard plenty of companies say they run on trust. but there is, you know, without the the corporate side of that, there is an element of you have to build, maintain, and show up for trust because the team needs to feel empowered. You need to feel empowered, your teammates need to be able, the whole team needs to feel empowered to try and push and go for it and fail and succeed. And all of that depends on a fundamental, you know. level of trust between each between us and that comes from the top down. We've all, you know, worked on teams and projects where there's not enough trust from the top down. And guess what happens? There's loads of infighting, there's loads of disruption, you know, blah blah blah. So yeah, you're right. People are the the trickiest part and I think trust is the hardest part of that to get, maintain and to foster.
speaker-0: A friend of mine was recently, and this is a just happens to be a timely example, because I was talking to him the other day, he's running ahead of production over at another video game publisher. And I said to him, you know, like I always appreciated that you allowed me to talk directly to the team. And because when the publisher talks directly to a team member, any number of things can happen, and none of them are usually good. Because if the publisher who is paying the bills goes to talk to say designer X and says, I really wish it would do this. Designer X might just overindex and go, well, the publisher wants that. I better do it. You know, and then that flows up to say the game or the game director and all that kind of and just messes it all up. But he said he still follows up philosophy and it's because they have the rules of play in place. So they have the rules that say if if designer X, if you get asked or told or in you know, influenced to do Something to the game that you find is like, I don't know, out of out of left field or whatever, and you get upset by it, here's how you handle it. So it's really being intentional about that communication that allows for the trust to happen between the publisher and the the the studio and still still allow for the things that could come out of it that may be detrimental to be handled.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's smart. I like I like that and you know that it it's it's good to have these these rules and these these structures set up that help with the navigating the tricky challenge of trying to, you know, build what is a very hard thing, right? Video games are very hard to make and they're very hard to make well.
speaker-0: I think it's like containers, you know, like they're they're frameworks around how you're making the game because it's already chaos. It's already really especially early on where you're like, I don't know what we're making, and you're going through prototyping and all that kind of stuff. And if you insert other influences like problems with team communication or problems with publisher studio relationship, all that kind of stuff, just makes it super hard. The the chaos should be happening about the creativity. You know, as they're spiraling into certainty about what their the team is making creatively. the other stuff, there are ways to handle that and they've been established. And be back in those days, in the olden days, I was ignorant of all those things. And some people watching this, some people that I've worked with will be like, Yeah, I remember when you did that and I remember you did this. And like to those people who I say, I'm sorry, I was learning to continue to learn. But you know 'Cause 'cause it's easy to come off Beck, you know, you've been in this business for a while. it's easy to come off as some sort of with wisdom. And it's not. It's it's just through touching the hot stove too many times and going, I guess I'm not gonna do that anymore.
speaker-1: It's learned behaviors and scars, that's what it is. Yeah. so so you so you mentioned Westwood, right? You were you're a big part of kind of Westwood standing up a new studio, you know, Westwood Pacific. And that was taken over by, you know, or purchased by EA. Like what was that transition like? I mean you'd been at Hart you'd been at Westwood for a a a while before that happened. Yeah.
speaker-0: Well I was at Virgin and
speaker-1: Virgin Westwood, yeah, yeah. Got it.
speaker-0: CNC was the Virgin was the house that CNC and Seventh Guest built. So I don't want to overstate my my I you know I didn't participate in the first CNC in the Red Alert, and that those were huge successes, and those teams were fantastic and have continued gone on to make games even even now. so we got I forget the actual transition, but you know, EA bought Virgin for Westwood and those properties. We I don't forg you'd have to ask some of my old colleagues, but I forget how we got the opportunity to work on I I think is because Tiberian Sun was still going on and I think that was running late. there was this window where we could go, yeah, and we can use that engine and make Red Alert too. so EA was pretty hands off as we transitioned out of that. It was only after we started to work on like generals and stuff like that and they wanted to consolidate the studios between us, the Medal of Honor studio. We went we ended up moving our gosh, we moved from Westwood Pacific in the old Virgin area to another studio. We made generals there, and then when we worked on Zero Hour, we were up in LA in the Medal of Honor studio. EA was big in consolidation there. You it was funny too. I remember we showed Don Matrick was the CEO of I think it was CEO or president one or the other of EA at the time when we showed him off generals. And I swear to God, we showed him the demo of generals, and back then 3D, certainly an RTS, is all brand new. So 3D and RTS games, there were very few that had existed before then. And we did this demo of a dam breaking and things like that. And he fell out of his chair out of excitement. I was like, that was so much fun. And we had a lot of like a lot of the EA part, I mean some of the founders are still there. So we Bing Gordon was instrumental in helping us, you know, find the fun on the all those things. we had access to a lot of the I Rigatello was there. A lot of those guys went on to Zynga. Mark Skaggs was my boss at the time. We had we just had a whole bunch of people that went on to stuff and they're still doing things right now. And not just like StarCraft 2 is not not terrible. So I hear. So I think they they outdid themselves. And from that team, like I remember I think it was Phil Robb, Mike Booth, Chris Ashton, John Height went on to Wizards of the Coast as president of Warcraft for a long time as a head of Warcraft. And those other three guys I mentioned went on for Left For Dead. That was that was cool. I remember we John said, Hey, we're gonna go over to see Turtle Rock and Chris and they they set up that studio. And we I remember playing Left For Dead, you know, well before it was out on that is just make more of this. This is awesome. So it's funny, you know, like I'm not trying to name drop at all. I just it you know, this helps me reminisce a little bit about like all the the great talent that have had the privilege of just learning from and all those contributed to like where I wound up.
speaker-1: I think that's a great angle. I completely agree, Harvard, right? It's it's about being feeling lucky that you got to work with people that have proven to be great talents. You know, I feel like that about a lot of the places I've worked, right? It's less about what I did and more about what I learned, you know, and how I was how it helped me grow. And yeah, that's a big part of it. And like you say, y you know, Westwood, a storage studio and and and many successful people, you know, including yourself, came out of it. And and and so When you when you left EA and move o moved over to to Sony America where we well Santa Monica where we worked to t together, what what triggered that transition?
speaker-0: yeah, I didn't want me there anymore. That's what happened. I you know, I th th that actually this is a a relevant topic given, you know, the latest rounds. I think a game g what is it, GDC, whoever reported like a third of the game developers in the US have been laid off. Mm-hmm. Restructured in the last two years. I've gone through those transitions myself. The first one was at the one I mentioned to you about you know the marketing company. that was a tiny little thing. I mean I didn't know what the hell I was doing, I was right out of college. And then EA, I think I I fell into the I don't know where my role is anymore when they did that transition. We were so when that happened, that was in two thousand seven, it was kind of the first real one. And I think you do especially when you're younger in the business, you go like what what did I do wrong? Why is it me? why was I picked over that one over this person over there? And I realized in the subsequent one that happened when God of War, you remember Sony Santa Monica halved itself. I was distraught for the EA one for a while. but when the God of War happened, I said, Okay, well, I'm gonna mourn for a day and then I'm getting on my saddle. And I did it and I I started writing articles and some of those are hilarious note to look back on it.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: I wrote an article about my layoff. and the recent impacts into the business. and I, you know, I I was part of the restructuring at at Xbox in in Bethesda recently. And it's been the best summer I've had in such a long time. Now part of that is because I have the ability, you know just in a spot in my life where it's like, okay, we'll do our What do I want to retire? What do I want to do? What do I want to do? That's how you get into these things like you know, the the capability is it might been ChatGPT Astra is ridiculous. the things he can do and toy around with, but I always felt like I this is an opportunity for personal growth. And it's been a fantastic summer. Now talk to me in a year and maybe I'll feel differently. And I still have a a lot of things I wanna do. but the industry is changing so quickly. It's just how do we navigate this? But I will tell, you know, people that have been impacted, and that's a lot of people that have been impacted, and it isn't gonna be it ain't stopping soon. it will be okay. You know, you will figure it out and use the opportunity to not just sharpen your axe. You know, and if I'm busier now than I was at work.
speaker-1: Ha ha.
speaker-0: I'm making a I I I I'm using Astra to make a Roblox game for my kid. I don't know how to code. I'm certainly not an artist. I mean a producer. A producer's the the jack of no trade, you know.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And but I sit down here at night and I'll just work with Astra and then I'll run a build through studio, Roblox Studio, and then at the end of the night I call my kid down. From on high up in her bedroom and said, She's she's twelve. Come on down, we're gonna do a game review. And I'll play through the level, she'll give me feedback and off she goes. So it's a it's it's like you're making a a real game with a key, you know, and it's a pretty good bonding experience. But the the things you can do, I I've used and I recommend this to anyone that's looking for jobs and things like that. You know, use the opportunity to, you know, train yourself. use I use Claude for prepping for interviews. I've used I've used AI for this is a funny one. This is a I don't know I'm gonna put the I'm gonna I don't usually post on LinkedIn, but I'm gonna do this next week because I thought it was pretty cool. I had Chat GPT pretend it was a moderator, and I went back and I I had my twenty fourteen article I wrote on frameworks. And I went back and reread that recently. I'm like, man. I wish I'd known how what I or then what I know now. And I go, wouldn't it be cool if I could have Chat GPT be the moderator of a discussion between me now and it would play the role as me then.
speaker-1: Ha ha ha.
speaker-0: And I've got this whole thing set up. I'm gonna put it on a as LinkedIn post, but it's a real discussion that happens. Like you said this, you know, what do you and then the moderator will go like, Well, twenty fourteen you said this. What do you think now? And it's it's so fun.
speaker-1: Yeah. I no no no. I think you're right that, you know, there's n nothing stopping you continuing to sharpen your skills and especially right now, you know, I just I just built an app for my my wife, you know, I make a compilation album for my wife every year.
speaker-0: You mean like a like w you mean like a a a mixtape?
speaker-1: A mixtape, yeah, I make a mixtape for every year. S to celebrate her remission birthday, 'cause she had cancer like twenty three years ago. So since we've been together I've made her a mixtape every year. And I always try and change it up. And this year I was like, hey, I wonder if I could make an app that would allow her to have access to every album, 'cause every album has custom artwork and track listings and everything, in one place. And so I used Claude to build an app that I gave to her on the on the twenty seventh of September, which is her second birthday as we call it. and now she's got a portable version of the entire album. And I could never have done that, you know, myself. I mean I could've I I think if I'd sat down I could have learned code in you know, learned enough code to do it, but I could not have done it in that time. No way. And
speaker-0: I made a web s I made a web I ne I never made a website in my life. I made one in three hours.
speaker-1: Yeah, and it's slick, man. It looks good.
speaker-0: The so it's just funny, you know, like people when they're on their AI journey and you know, it I don't want to tatter too much because especially for this crowd, the your audience, there are pressure points that are you have to be careful with and probably rightfully so. But for me as a player just a user of things, the the freedom to just discover what it can do is amazing. And and the only thing I and I don't want to go down to the AI rabbit hole. This isn't what this calls for, but you just have to go do it. Try it out and do it. And when you run into problems, go, hey, like I'll say the last example. Like I have a newsletter I send to myself every day, like it scours websites and a minute, you know, the standard stuff. And I had to go in and figure out how scheduler works, and I was into like PowerShell and all these kinds of things. How to automate that. And every time I ran into like I don't know how to do this, I just ask it and it would say, go and send me a screenshot and it would say, click that button and do these. Thanks. So
speaker-1: It's it's very satisfying when you could feel like you can turn around stuff that you would normally i in many ways the app building experience reminded me a lot of my early days in an engine, right? When I'm building part of a game, I'm like, there's so much potential, like all all my brain is on fire. I'm like, what can I build? How can I I want to add this, I wanna change that, I wanna play and you just sort of get that infectious and it's it's fascinating, Harvard, to hear someone that, you know, has had a very production and very program, you know, project management kind of role. clearly have that fire in you, right? You've clear not all producers and you know, and and and have that, right? They don't they they're they're great organizers, they're great, you know, schedulers, they're great at that part of the role and they're not as creative. And some are very creative and clearly you have that creative fire, even if you have, as you said, kind of put it to one side over time.
speaker-0: But it changed it just manifests in different ways. So you you don't ha when it comes to making frameworks for games and you know, you know when I say framework for those that are not indoctrinated, you're talking about like what is the milestone structure and what are the requirements within the milestone structure of the lifetime of the cycle of a project. there's standards, you know, a lot of people do, you know, there's gonna be a green light, there's probably a first playable, a vertical slice, any variant of those things. All teams develop differently, yet they kind of all do it the same way too. but in terms of creation and maintaining of that, that itself is building something. And that's a great point. I I I love doing that. I mean it's fantastic. And and then I think that the learning over time when it comes to frameworks, you've dealt with them too, I know w when term let's just use alpha as an example. Or vertical slice, that's probably better because everybody's got some version of what they think that should be. I just learned over the years like the collaboration that you have to have and the trust going back to your trust point with the team, the team is never going to respond well to something that's imposed upon them. they have to be in the room collaborating with it. And I learned that over time with the frameworks. Like we would give, I don't know, one of the developers like, okay, here's your here's your roadmap. For you have match these up. You know, here's your, you've got to have an alpha and it's got to, here's a criteria. And they might say, okay, but it was always performative. It was never like we agree this is the right thing to do because that's how we make games. Thank you. It's never gonna happen. in one of the recent machine games ones, we worked with them to go, okay, let's reset this. Instead of us saying, like, here's what you have to perform to in terms of a framework. Let's look at it together and define what it is. And we're going to have guardrails as a publisher that, you know, you're going to have X spend, it has to be within this timeframe, you know. But we are going to be much more lenient when it comes to like, well, we if you say a vertical slice should do these things, we'll say nine times out of ten, if that's the way you think it's going to be the best way to make the game, let's do that. Mm. You get away from these performative, like, we'll just we're gonna paint by numbers and you know, wink wink, we're gonna but we're really gonna do it this way. And then, you know, publishing gets this weird, you know, build that comes in that's supposed to do the thing, but it doesn't. And you go, What happened? I thought we'd agreed on that. It's like, No, you gave us that, and we were never gonna do that. We just told you that. Anyway.
speaker-1: T well that that's a that's something again I want to zero in a little bit 'cause we haven't s you know, on the so far on the podcast I haven't spoken to a lot of, you know, project managers and and sort of that that at that at that level of of the or with that focus of a project. And, you know, the frameworks you're talking about, right, yeah, project management kind of tends to have a very broad view of the right a wide view of the project from what phase it's at, how those phases are gonna play out, etcetera. You know, like you're talking about, you know, shippables and and alphas and golds and all that. that in a very creative field where video games are not a science is an incredibly difficult relationship to navigate, both internally, right, when you're part of the same team, but also externally, even harder I would imagine, externally. Like what's your sort of experience with trying to like, you know, I think that what you've just given is a great way you've sort of learned to bridge the gap between hey, the creative knows what they what they can do and And you, you know, as the project manager or your production house knows what you need. but how do you navigate that with creatives who often don't want to tell you when they're going to be done? They often don't want to tell you because it's hard to know.
speaker-0: And they they view as like you no many no matter how many times you ask like somebody, you go like, so when do you think you're gonna be done with that? And they will go, Well, you know, if this happens and then this happens, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So and they end up not giving you an answer because they either truly don't know or they think that even an estimate is a commitment.
speaker-1: Yes, exactly.
speaker-0: And you got you just have to have that communication layer. And it goes back to that original thing I was you talked about building of trust and things like that. I think that having clarity about like this is how we work. I need some version of this that gives me an idea about where we're going to land and to what quality we're going to land at. So that I can set the lens for everyone. They look at the thing that you're going to deliver with because people come in, you've seen this before, I'm sure, like other departments that are not even in development. So people look at project management or production as the management layer around a developer. So there is continually that view. Like they are not they just don't know my plight or how this actually works for me as I'm creating this great piece of art. Well, that's fine, but they're on a team. Now take that and go, what about marketing? What about ops? And what about it legal and all these kinds of things that genuinely haven't worked on a dev team? so when they come in to look at something, they're gonna come at it with their lens. When I say lens, I mean like do they think it's intended to be more dumb than it is? Yeah. Are they gonna be giving me critiques on things I never had in any intention of them having had to look at? I I've had you've had work, I'm sure you've done it like you think it's a prototype, and somebody looks at it like, well, that clearly doesn't look like it's market ready. You know, and you're like, but that's not what it was for. sorry for the tangent, but you know, you're talking about that level of trust. So I think that it has to be working with people day to day. And you build that level of trust. And if they're they if you're trying to get an estimate out of them, you also can't use the same information they gave you at was clearly, say, a best estimate, and hit it on hit them on the head with that and as punishment later. The other part of it is I call it like taste of soup along the way. Like there's never a version of getting a milestone or any sort of feature where it suddenly comes in on you say it's gonna take you 30 days to do a thing. It's one sprint. And you get to the end of thirty and say to whoever's gonna review it looks at it, that's far too late in the process. You have to taste the soup soup along the way and make sure that it's as it works through the sprint, you're progressing it. now you you're giving feedback along the way. it's the same principle for milestones. People think, I've heard in people's in studios or Companies still do this today where they call them gates. And I used to be underneath that same thinking until I realized like, so what we're gonna do is deliver a milestone and then it's gonna go off into the ether somewhere where somebody's gonna review it, they're gonna give us feedback, and while that's happening, we're just gonna wait and not move forward. And that is that's not the way it works. So I always I started like it's not Christmas Day, it's Christmas season. If you don't know what present you're getting at the end of that milestone or the end of that sprint, Then you did it wrong. You should know exactly what you're getting for Christmas. that just implies that the I think of milestones more nowadays like easy pass. You know the easy pass where you ride through the toll booths? Yeah. You don't need to stop. He's just like boop. And because not everything comes in on the project at the same time. Everything is at a level of doneess, at different phases, different departments come in. It's it's a rocky road. And the I think the the notion of milestones as gates gives a gives a notion that, this is a this is a stopping checkpoint. Like that's not what happens.
speaker-1: No. No, I love I love that, you know, that mentality of you know, when you do get to the date, whatever that day is, nothing should be a surprise. It should almost be yeah, no, we're good. We've already seen it, we've already had this conversation, we've already been in engaged in the closing of this milestone, this this you know, and and so actually passing that day is almost a formality at that point because we've already had the conversations throughout. Yeah, I love that approach. And and I'm also curious if you know, in some ways the project management, you know, role has a really good handle on, you know, scope, right, and feasibility, right? And we've all us creatives, you know, have all sat there and gone, yeah, there's a lot, but we'll get it done, right? Don't worry. You yeah, I know there's yeah.
speaker-0: Our secrets off the theme.
speaker-1: Yes. Yes. That we know that X percent is not gonna get done. So who says that first, right? Do devo do the developers say it? Probably not. Do you say it? Probably have to. Like ha that must be a very tricky, you know, thing to navigate as well.
speaker-0: No, I don't say that. This is why. typically the the product owner says that. But the role of the production I think is there are a number of different roles for producers. protection of the team is kind of the paramount part. Protect protection and that just simply means don't let all the things that aren't about so so if you have a designer and the designer's skill set is to make really cool stuff and features and work with the L team. You need to make sure that that person is protected to do that, not doing anything else. and for instance, you've seen experiences where like other departments may operations particularly, and the many different operations, there's like twenty, twenty-two different operations for a triple eight title, have a fire that comes up up. You know, their emergency is now your emergency, causing that designer to go. Go do work on that thing that could easily have been planned for. Most of the operations things you need to do on a title, about ninety percent of them can be known from day one. You it's just rinse and repeat.
speaker-1: Just sorry, d just what just outline operations. I'm not sure that's everyone will quite grok what that means.
speaker-0: So I think of it like if the development teen is the earth, right? That's where all the game making thing, that's the thing that you buy. That's the thing that excites and surprises you as a player. And that's where the blood, sweat, and tears of creativity come from. There's satellites around that that support that whole thing. And they are legal, QA, customer service, marketing. Go down the many community. The you go down the the many, many finance. All of those have real needs that have to be accommodated. let's just say compliance, for instance, especially in this day and age when you know player communication is so tricky depending on the country and all that kind stuff. That's not something that the there is gonna be dev work around that somehow. it's not right for the dev team to suddenly be asked for some of these things right at the tail end when they have no time to and When we say operations, most of those things, I don't know, let's say player to player player player to player communication requires certain div dev support. you knew that from day one. Is as long as you knew you're gonna have that feature, that's not a surprise. So there's no excuse for some other department to come in at the end and suddenly give that developer work that they have to put above all else. And it goes back to the protection of the team. So one of the things we did over at Zenny Max, we introduced this, you probably had a version of this up at Zoss. so end-to-end readiness. And that simply means for all those things that are in operations, especially marketing falls into that, all the requests they're going to have, map those to the development schedule now. And then curate that over time. So you say, you know, I got a vertical slice coming up. Well, you said legal that you need these things by then. How are we doing with those? Is there pre work that needs to be done so that the dev team can know that it's coming and it can be planned into the process? Mm-hmm. That's a long winded operations explanation. Probably went over even my head.
speaker-1: No, no, no. That I think I think that's a really good just quickly, I think that's a really good synopsis of the areas that people often don't think about, right? People are often like, the dev teams that's making the game and building the engine and designing the thing and drawing that and artist right, but you've but it's easy to forget all of the the machine that needs to get that thing from on a server somewhere in you know, a studio out in a format that is compliant and you know, shippable and blah blah you know. There's so much that goes into making it and to your point, much of that is similar now, especially now that we're mostly digital, though yeah we still do some physical, so much is digital. A lot of that is pretty rote, you know, it's pretty f rote's the wrong word. It's pretty consistent across projects.
speaker-0: You're gonna get stuff out of left field or you some regulation or something anywhere but or you're gonna introduce it into new market, you know, or something like that. But I I think generally it y it's the n it's the known known what is it? Known unknowns, whatever.
speaker-1: Mostly known, unknown, known.
speaker-0: Yes. But what was the original question you we were talking about like that
speaker-1: Who who yeah, we we I I was sort of I I we were zeroing a bit on on operations, but the the original question was, you know, you were talking about protecting the team and not being the people that say you have to cut scope, right? That you are you know sort of you you're not the person that does that.
speaker-0: So the the production role to me, and maybe it's true the cause the EP role straddles a little bit of this, but from a production standpoint, I always thought that my role, at least in these later years, wasn't to make calls on what should be on the backlog and what should not be in the backlog. But the person that is, say it's the product owner, if you're gonna run into trade offs, how many times have you been on a a a sprint where like, well, we didn't do that, we're just gonna put it in the next one? Mm hmm. And I think that is the be some of the abuse and the misuse of agile procedures. there is nothing free. If you're gonna have feature and feature slips, then something comes off the backlog. Yeah. And you should be trimming the backlog along along as you go. The faith that and that's you know, we talk about crunch. Crunch has inevitably been a been a subject, less so in the recent years, but certainly was when we were more I mean I was in Sony Santa Monica. So And I I is that yay. So
speaker-1: We've eaten we've eaten a lot of pizza together, Harvard. Yeah.
speaker-0: I think it just has to be a core discipline of like the produ the producer has to be making sure that it is known about the repercussions of the act. If you're gonna say you're gonna have to slip something, then and it has to be clear about what that means to the team. Because you might be saying, or so you're accepting that we're inevitably gonna go in a crunch because you've not pruned the backlog or the feature set of the game is hasn't moved or shifted because the The option for the team to kind of like hold the publisher hostage for, well, you're just gonna have to move the date. I mean, that stuff happens, of course, but you can't be kind of hijacked into that role. You have to be responsibly trimming that backlog. And I think that goes down to the product owner. Yeah. It depends on the team, though. You know, we we said this earlier where I mean my perspective is typically gonna be tilted toward AAA development. And we should talk about that in a minute, but we're what the state that's in. But the you know, mob what who on a mobile team or who on a indie team? What if you got like 10 people? What if you have one person? Yeah. You know, who's making those decisions? The We were talking about the dark side game earlier. And I don't know if this is this is a little bit of like h hindsight and looking from the outside in, because I wasn't on that team. They just come off God of War Three and had been given a lot of got you know, I think freedom and trust because holy what a great game that was. but I think also some of the best creative this is where I need hear what you have to say. I think the best creative decisions come from come from limitations and guardrails and can
speaker-1: Hundred percent. They come from constraints.
speaker-0: You give people all the time and all the money and everything like that from a creative standpoint and they're just gonna take it. And you might not get anything. But I think forcing decision points are where like the best creative decisions come from.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, no, I I completely agree. And in many ways the structure, you know, that framework that you're talking about is a forcing function, right? In a in a hel you know, in in the in the best version of that, it is a positive forcing function. It forces you as a creative to go, This is the deadline. This you know, we have to deliver XYZ. You know, what does that mean? We have to start looking at priorities and what's important. and I think you to your point It would be very difficult to make especially the scope scope and scale of many, you know, large budget, you know, big team games these days without that structure because they would go on forever. Like they would be ridiculously inflated and they would probably collapse under their own weight because they would just get too bloated. So, you know, that that format is in
speaker-0: There are some fun facts that I find if we talk about the business a little bit about where we're at. So we had a pandemic. I think we were I forget one eighty one hundred and eighty billion in twenty twenty-one, something like that. We're up to about two hundred and fourteen billion. in the pandemic there was a lot of hiring. You know, looking at that that number was one of the highest numbers and highest engagement of people at the time. So one of the puzzling things that I've been tracking down is like, well we're making we're making fifty billion more than we were then. And we're not hiring, we're contracting. Why? That I mean we're I think it's like 3.7 billion players globally. I mean the industry one thing I've I I heard was that in record revenue growth doesn't necessarily mean health. and especially in the Western markets. I mean US, Canada, Western Europe, where budgets for game I I mean, they've gone crazy. I mean a triple A product usually for a lot of them is around three hundred million right now. Yeah. that's not sustainable. It's just not. And you look at some of the success that China's had, what Blood of the Don Walker I think they did for forty million, and that doesn't need to sell fifteen million units. But when you're a Sony Santa Monica, God knows what the budget on the God of War games will be in the most expensive literally, well, maybe not downtown San Francisco, I don't know. But one of the most expensive markets in the whole world. It's just not, I don't know how you do that. coupled with the fact that you we talk about or I don't know, the enthusiast market is gonna be, I mean, if you're talking about a plus thousand dollar console. Sony itself has isn't gonna be on PC, so they're limiting their market there. I just don't know how it's doable within the structures we have until we get these budgets under control. They're three to five year three three years was a long time. Now some of these are up to five years. Yeah. You're talking about four hundred people team a person teams. Until you get the budgets under control, it's it's not gonna be sustainable and you're gonna get like just what's happening where you know the it's it's always been this way, like the top game gets, you know, twice as much as the one underneath, but man, that's true now. And then you couple in the forever games into that where people are stuck to them. Yeah. it's just gonna be an interesting ride for this studios. In publishers. What are your thoughts on these things?
speaker-1: yeah, I mean I I I think my my big issue is we're making ga we're making too many games that are too big and we're giving away too many games as well. I think a combination of giant games that, you know, like you say, can be played for hundreds and hundreds of hours without without flinching, combined with a bunch of game Yeah, with their friends, combined with a bunch of games that are given away for free now, which in many ways is devalued, in my opinion, devalued a chunk of what mate, you know the smaller, less, you know, middle tier. I think that's where the B tier games have gone away, right? Because why buy them? By the time you get around to buying them, they're free on at Games for Gold or PlayStation Plus
speaker-0: On sale, theme is trained everybody to buy things on sale.
speaker-1: My my summary is we're a snake eating our own tail and it needs to correct. But I do I am conscious of time. So I I do a couple of a couple of things I I'd love to understand, Harvard, is you know, your journey through, you know, production into project management and you know, the where you are where you are now. Has it changed you as a as a human and has it changed you as a gamer?
speaker-0: I think Probably. Well certainly yes, I would say. I think just as a human, it wasn't the the journey of the games, it was the journey of the teams and the people I worked with. And I think I'd encourage anyone to be just as self-reflective as you can. and recognize like nobody's perfect and everybody's got a something to learn. And I certainly am at the top of that list. My I've said this before She's few places before, but like back in the olden days, I was kind of a taskmaster. I've and I was very gung-ho and wanting to, you know, do it for the team and that kind of thing. And when you only have a hammer, everything's a nail. So I I that's the way I'd approach it. And just over the course of my journey and, you know, through a variety of different ways, you know, working with people and training and things like that, I'd like to think that my toolbox is a lot more. Very i I it's more of a Swiss Army knife now. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I think the ability to recognize the situation that you're in, and which tool is appropriate is is a quality to have that people still you know, I I wouldn't say that I'm great at it, but at least I'm conscious of it nowadays. Mm-hmm.
speaker-1: Yeah. And w what about as a gamer? Has it affected the way you play games or?
speaker-0: Like like did it l did it lose the magic, you know, when you see inside when you see behind the curtain, you know, does it lose the magic?
speaker-1: I mean, if that's how you wanna it that's a very open ended question, you know, how how would you interpret it?
speaker-0: I guess not. I mean I think I've learned over the years which games I like more and which you know, like I've never been a racing I I've well sports games, racing game I mean, I just gravitate toward a particular genre and I think it happens to kind of dovetail into what I you asked in the original question was, you know, what is it about games? And it's that adventure of discovery. And I know other people get different motivations for games and I I get it, you know, but I think we all gravitate toward certain I I can't wait to play the new wow. You know? Mm-hmm. So I'm so super looking forward to that. but you mean games have been such a defining point in my life. I mean, it's I do it when I'm having fun and I do it for work. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And how many people get to say that bes besides, you know, musicians and rock stars and stuff. That's so that's pretty cool. And I would give it people always say, like, how do you get into v making video games? I'm Are you sure you want to do that right now? But they would you you you've had this experience, I'm sure, where you know, like your nephew comes up to you go like, I got this a great idea for a game. I can't wait to tell you about it. You're like, Okay, yeah, you know, tell me about it and you're heard some derivative idea that you've heard a thousand times. And nowadays I just advise people like you can just go make. It's there. Not only were the tools free anyway, Unreal Five is free. all of this is free. And the democratization of how using AI to s what I'm doing with Roblox, I never would have been able to do that. That took me that immediately took me back to when I was sending games into Atari as just write-ups on ideas. And now I can go do it. That is so awesome. And anybody can do it. Anybody can do it.
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that full circle moment. Yeah, that full circle moment of like writing sending those stories and out and everybody don't do it. And and sort of last question if you weren't making games, Harvard, what would you do?
speaker-0: Probably nothing.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Nothing at all. I know I've always been a I I can't sit still. So even nowadays when I'm and I mean I don't know what career I would do. I I don't think I'd do well as I'd want to build things. You know? Whatever however manifest that. And that doesn't mean like a spreadsheet or something. Like I can imagine being a a woodworker or a carpenter or something like that.
speaker-1: Something practical.
speaker-0: But that's in retrospect. Like I didn't know that then. Maybe when I retire. but I do, you know, I keep looking at the woodworking and I'm like, that looks like it's fun and really challenging. But but I think building the Roblox thing, building the website, building procedures, building, building, building is where I get my excitement from. Fra in something as simple as frameworks. I don't think people really view those as building things, but I think building things that are durable that can outlast you for a company to and they're doing it now. I mean, I'm not there. They're still using that stuff.
speaker-1: And just quickly, sorry, just quickly, where do you think that building instinct comes from? Is that has that always been in you or is that sort of a learned skill?
speaker-0: it probably evolved over time. I think it's just being underst I mean, as you get older you kind of realize who you actually are, you know. when you're younger, you know, like I my parents always instilled a work ethic in me, the mowing lawns and you know, doing all that kind of stuff. I think a lot of it comes from just your upbringing and and parents, and then maybe, you know, sometimes just people are built that way. Born or bred, I don't know. I don't know.
speaker-1: I suspect it's in your DNA, Harvard. I suspect it comes from somewhere and it's it's such a clearly such a driving part of you that it you know, it's not I don't think it's happened by chance.
speaker-0: Well, I might as well credit my parents then since they'll probably see this. It's unfortunate.
speaker-1: Love it. All right. Well thank you, Harvard. Great conversation, really interesting, you know, exploration of some topics we haven't really covered on the on the podcast so far. So I really appreciate you sharing and opening up. And yeah, great to see you again and thanks for the conversation.
speaker-0: It's always good to see ya, Alex. Let's do it again. I'm available anytime you're you feel wanna chat, even off camera.
speaker-1: Love that. Love that.