KEY
Bold:	Interviewer
Italic:		 Camera/Sound Operator
Regular:	Respondent
[ ]:	Uncertain word(s)

Hello.  Could you, for the sake of the video, please say your name and summarise in a sentence or two what you do in the games industry? 
Sure, my name’s [anon], I teach here at [anon], I’m a physics scholar.  I’m also part of a VR start-up, called the Way-VR, I’m doing live music in VR, and that’s twenty-five years in the industry, creating games, running studios, I run both trade organisations for the game industry, for the world.  
Cool, thank you.  
So you’ve obviously worked on quite a few games over the years, along with obviously doing a start-up at the moment.  What would your games be like if they were free from market restraints, or market considerations were a really low priority?
Oh, selling, if audience was low priority?
Yeah. 
Ha, how would I express myself different?  I think that now there’s a slider bar between sort of authorship and service we have to consider when making anything interactive.  I think that free of market constraints, I think I’d probably explore some very specific narratives of very specific stories and try to resonate maybe with a greater amplitude, rather than like a sort of broader reach.  
So you’d like go in deeper. 
Absolutely, yeah.  I mean we think about discourse, right, but the sort of public, personal, intimate discourse, I think I’d probably explore more personal intimate stories versus more sort of public narratives.  
So that’d be quite different from some of the games you’ve worked on so far?
Absolutely, yeah.  Primarily sort of mainstream, how can it be a sort of inclusive, into the experience versus how deep can this really go.  
Looking at games in society, do you think players have their social views or behaviour changed by playing games in general, or by your games in particular? 
Is that an or question?
Yeah, so you think players have their social views or behaviour changed by games?
Absolutely, I think that games are one of the primary ways in which people engage with each other now.  I think the play, whether it be through games in the computer game sense or the play, which is a big part of how we engage with society from like early childhood, right?  It’s one of the first things we do with anyone, is play. 
How would you characterise those changes then?
Well I think the first lesson people learn is sharing in playing any game, there’s usually a finite number of resources of some kind, even if it’s just time, and games are one of the first places where you learn, I’m going to share a ruleset with you, we’re going to have to agree on that ruleset as we spend this time.  
Do you think the changes are usually looked at as educational or more pro-social, you’re saying sharing’s a pro-social significant─
I think that, well I guess sort of separate educational and social, so social I’ll just sort of define as how you deal with everyone in the world [0:03:08] and educational maybe how you level up yourself to navigate the world.  So I think that they can be both, it depends on the game, it depends on the experience. 
Do you think that games are more impactful by the nature of their interactions than perhaps some of the other media out there?
Oh like linear media versus non-linear media; I think that they’re differently impactful.  I think that games and going down a, of what’s going to – like linear games have an ability to impact.  I think that interactivity is a different kind of impact.  I think that virtual reality is yet a third kind of impact that people are just beginning to experience now, that feeling of thereness, and how do I navigate a ruleset when I’m actually relocated somewhere?  Super-interesting.  
Yeah, spatial immersion is the whole big thing.  
Spatial immersion. 
So most games use fantastical or extreme social settings, so either fantasy like elves and dwarfs or extreme social settings, such as war zones and things like that, in your professional practice have you or your friends created mechanics or things which are non-violent?
Sure, oh non-violent, okay, gosh I guess when you say ‘violence’ I guess in the sense that your impact on someone is permanent, I’ll say.  Sure, I’ve made sports games.  We’re making a music experience now which is about a shared live music experience, definitely not violent, really more loving.  
What inspired you to make that game?
Well for me personally it’s – so I’ve gone to lots of live concerts and it’s a unique social experience if you’ve ever been to a festival where people are physically closer to each other in a way they’re not, I’m going to say, anywhere else in society for that amount of time.  I was like, wow, this interesting, right, that that, no, there’s no place like this where the crowd is the destination, where people are so comfortable being together.  Wouldn’t it be great to bring that experience to more people?  
Cool, so it’s about trying to share a crowd experience through a VR medium?
Yeah, and also about being enough.  I think that, through that project the, being enough, for an amount of time and maybe overcoming some of the barriers that keep us apart, whether that be money or distance, or fear of crowds.  We created a place where you can eliminate all three of those and be enough. 
So that’s your goal for social VR?
That is my goal for social VR.
Awesome.  We were there for the day viewing that project weren’t we?
Yeah, you were yes. 
So while working on games, do you recall intentionally addressing issues such as gender, minority representation…
Oh my gosh, yeah.  
…political culture?
Oh my gosh, yes.  Oh wow, so, and all those issues are not topical for me, they’re identity.  So feel different when I address ‘them’ I’m actually addressing my existence on earth.  
So yes, from the very beginning of my career I have actively taken the opportunity to address what, I guess others call ‘inclusiveness’ but I’ll just call ‘me-clusiveness’.  In the things that I create I feel as though [0:06:40] for that, begins with me and if I don’t take a leadership role, well then, whoops, what a wasted opportunity.  So yes, continuously.  
How did those considerations turn into your game?  
Sure, I’ll give a great example, so on Madden Football back in the day, the players could only be one colour, and so as you can imagine it’s a very diverse league.  So I as lead designer chose to make them 001, they’re dark, deliciously wonderful, but what that meant was that some players were not represented as they looked in real life, but many were for the first time.  
That was a choice that I made, and that’s a choice that I’ll support my company with and it was wonderful when I think, empowering for people to see a reflection of themselves in the game.  
I never even noticed, and I played that game quite a lot.  It’s cool, I like that.  I like that I didn’t notice.  Did you notice any clear response to these themes from your players?
Oh sure, of course.  I think that identity, like people value being represented.  I think that’s a very powerful thing to be the default and so I think the reaction was one of empowerment for people who were the default for the first time, and there was one of, curiosity for people who weren’t the default for the first time.  Like, uh, why would you make this choice not to make me the default.
Have you ever been deliberately antisocial in a games’ themes?
Antisocial?
So basically obviously we talk about sensitivity towards minorities for example, have you ever been deliberately not that way?
No.  No, no, no, I’ve not.  Yeah, I – once again, not a personal luxury, just not a choice on my creative journey, do people do on creative journeys, but yeah, not so much mine.  
I tend to think about motive.  So when you ask about being intentionally antisocial, there’s a journey that you go through as a gamer, I feel, which is a discovery, like a discovery of something, experience, identity and sharing.  And if you tell me like be antisocial, okay you’re asking me to discover it, okay.  Experience it, at some level, identify with it, at some level, share it and me, I go, I’m not sure that that’s a, something that I want to push for.  
Sure.  I was always questioning like, am I okay with making people rip other peoples’ heads off and stuff like that, it was one of those weird kind of, it’s very ultraviolent at the moment, and you have that question of like, am I okay with making this thing, it’s kind of strange. 
Oh yeah, [0:09:42] the journey, once again the journey right, so that’s─
Yeah, definitely.  So you say that you were very much supported in your choices about representation in John Madden and stuff like that. 
Sure. 
Where did those conversations happen?  Were they happening among the design team, or was it-?
Oh in a corporate level, because it’s about sales right, so when you make commercial products all these things are a marketing and sales concern.  So there’s a number of stakeholders who need a decision that you make like that, and who are acting as advocates for the audience that you’re trying to reach.  So at the highest levels. 
These topics were brought up by yourself?  Is it typically individuals, or is it a marketing department that brings this in?
Well our marketing department is individuals, I mean it’s always people, everyone has their own journey and has their own, you know, observations.  So yeah, individuals might bring up in a group context, you know, like what do we think about this.  
How much of your personal views on society do you think could be read from the games you make?
My personal views on society from the games that I make; well I think that my personal views influence them, but games are a collective thing.  So it’s a bit like a Ouija board where, yeah, there’s directions that you as a team sort of reach, and I guess maybe the games I’ve worked on are a reflection of sort of our feelings at the time, and if I could think of a set of people who are collectively that team, yeah, they’re pretty much, that’s where we were in that moment in time. 
Moving a little bit across to academic and research stuff now.  Are you aware of any research of academic, or otherwise, of market for research or anything like that, on video games that has influenced your development directly?
Okay, well so for me personally, Richard Bartle, Bartle types; everything I do now I think through this lens of types of players and how people who are different than me will experience the journeys inside the games that I work on.  
So definitely his work, definitely like Mick-
(Interruption)
You’ll have to go back.  I’ve said it with, do not turn off after thirty minutes, and it’s just done it.  
Okay, we’re recording.  
Let’s start again.  Right, let’s go back on that again.  So are you aware of any academic or market research on video games that’s influenced your games development directly?
A couple of things come into mind, working with Richard Bartle, Bartle types do absolutely influence how I think about how the products and games that I work on will be experienced by different kinds of players.  
Then mechanics and aesthetics, the Hunicke/Zubek paper, oh my gosh, like the – once again, this thing, you have the fundamentals of authorship as a service, like how will your creation be played, how will it be absorbed and are you designing with that in mind, powerfully affected me.  
As far as user research, I mean I think that, like I like to be research informed, not research directed.  
Were you looking at those things when you making games?  So from John Madden onwards?
Oh no, no, this is later in life, I was like mature and I started to, you know, how do you get smarter, better, how do you feed them; to work out, right, if you want to stay in shape you’ve got to work out.  
Academic research the ways that different people engage with our craft, I mean that’s sort of happened in my lifetime, like ludology, wasn’t even a word back then, but now there’s a number of people who are devoted the craft of understanding games and understanding how people interact with them.  I think it’s really valuable, I think it’s awesome that our craft is relevant enough to, or valuable enough that people invest in understanding it.  
When you’re looking for new academic research, so you’ve named a couple like Bartle and Hunicke’s work. 
Sure, yes. 
When you’re looking for new research how do you find it, how does it come to you?
It’s a good question, you have to sort of self-look.  I think for me I look for, hmm, well those that are sort of guiding principles, sort of frameworks, I love frameworks because they help you communicate with other people what your intention is.  
I also love people who are pursuing specific audiences and understanding them, and communicating with people that I just don’t have the opportunity to communicate with.  Whether that be different parts of the world, or different sort of psychographics of people.  I’m sort of open-minded to, but it’s those three things that interest me. 
Have you ever been involved, either directly or indirectly in academic research?
I have not been involved in academic research. 
Okay.  Why do you think knowledge sharing like that is not part of your work?
Ha, I think that for me research is a specific craft and people focus on it, that’s what they’re doing, that just happens to not be, you know, the dice I rolled for the RPG character, who is me, at this point.  I hold it in high regard, but part of respecting something is knowing when it’s not you. 
So obviously you were at GDC last week, do you attend other conferences as well?
In games, sure, well I’m the Chair of a virtual reality, the largest virtual reality conference in the world.  I’ll be at VRX Europe, I go to, oh gosh, Dice SXSW, I go to conferences all year round.  So yes, would be the long answer. 
Do you often talk or present at them?
I often talk and present at them.
What sort of things do you talk about?
A lot about best practices, a lot now about the bridge between academia and the professional game craft, and a lot about virtual reality.  Now people want to understand what that means to them, you know, outside of the virtual reality experience. 
Cool.  Yeah, then it feels like there should be some academic output there. 
For sure. 
It fits, it fits. 
It does.  It really does.  I think it’s very funny, with virtual reality the narrative has moved from, I think, the fear of people getting ill.  Right, it’s very basic, like will it make me ill, to now, how can it actually enhance my life and I think something so exciting to me, once again that slider bar is offers of the service.  There’s lots of offered VR experiences now, like look how cool I’ve made X, but people are starting to move towards, look how your life can be better for spending Y amount of time in VR.  
So I’m hoping to be part of that narrative.  I think that’s what’s going to make the medium sort of matter.  It’s no different to say like 3D movies, like 3D movies were cool looking but ultimately for the mainstream didn’t make movies better or more rewarding [0:17:22] in a way that they became the main.  I think VR has a different opportunity to provide, well not only like co-presence that we were talking about, but different types of engagement that actually makes peoples’ lives better. 
So for you social VR is the way forward in VR?
Absolutely, for me personally, social VR will become like travel.  Now you might think travel’s important, but I think travel is important, not everyone gets to do it, because of constraints; money, time, dot, dot, dot, and I think to be able to provide travel and connection to people that would be otherwise impenetrable to folks, is going to be powerfully important and the more friction we can reduce to that.  I mean in the fact the better world at the minute, think about all the feelings you’ll have about people with whom they never have interacted, and if you have to give them just basic experiences together where I did X, I did Z with this person, right.  I mean, bah, right, like it’s so exciting what’s possible. 
Cool, yes, agree.  Why do you go to GDC?
Wow, so it’s funny, I’ve been going to GDC now for half my life, so it is not, it is actually a matter of identity, not a matter of specific end result.  I think that for me now; one it’s a privilege, you know some small percentage of our craft, one-percent, two-percent, get the privilege of being a part of it. 
I think for me now, as an industry leader, it’s important to go to give back, like to set an example for my craft, which I’ve devoted my life to create safe spaces for people of diversity.  To be, not only included, but to have, given the opportunity to be inclusive.  So I’m very into that.  
I think there’s some very basic things, I think that, something I’ve noticed in the past two years, which has probably gone on forever, is that people talk to people of different genders last in conversations.  They’ll actually talk to males and then wait and then hopefully, possibly, include females in the conversation.  So me personally, one of the reasons that I go to GDC is to talk to female people first, and for that to be at least one data point that’s experienced and shared as part of the GDC narrative.  
Do you think we’re seeing different, well like having different viewpoints to your games development knowledge is part of why people go?  Or is it skills, networking, why do people go?
I think different people have their own journey.  I think that those are all great reasons to go, those are all great reasons to go.  I think that, yeah, whether it be the knowledge sharing as an aesthetic for our craft, I think it’s sort of like, if I go back to social VR, there’s a difference between sharing your talent and sharing your time and your talent, and I think that’s what GDC is about, like people are sharing their time and their talent together and that’s very powerful. 
I think that, yeah, learning best practices objectively is important, the ability to learn what’s going on in your craft and in a very condensed, efficient way.  It’s very powerful; what’s the process of that, there’s no other place to do it, truth; and there’s no GDC Europe anymore.  So in fact as a global citizen it’s super-critical, both from a USA, like respect the world point of view, or from anyone who’s not from America.  
Now if you want to learn the best of what’s going on in the craft, you’ve got to go to GDC San Francisco, unfortunately.  
Yeah, that was frustrating.  So we started off with a conversation about what would you personally do if your games were free of market constraints.  Do you think your answer would apply to everybody in games?
Okay, do you think that everyone’s answer will be the same as me?
Yeah. 
No, I think that different people are motivated by different things and far be it from me to speak to their hearts, and their motivations for expressing themselves.  I think that free of market constraints, then more than we thought discovery constraints, right?  And so I think that there would be more people devoted to discovery of all the art which is being created, and that I would hope, yeah, more people were into like the preservation and the organisation of it, so that, yeah people could discover it if there weren’t such a hard market to sell, to advertise. 
I’m trying to think of another medium that’s free of market constraints and how it’s affected by it.  I guess it’d be something very expensive with a very niche audience, like polo horses or something.  Well there’s not market constraints, it’s not the price, it’s either you have it or you don’t.  
I think that giving audience agency in play is a value, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that sort of dialogue between creator and audience.  I think that now in fact the discourse between audience and audience is as much part of the game experience as the discourse between creator and audience.  
If you were to remove all that and just have creation, hmm, interesting, I don’t know, I don’t know what happens if you put someone in a room by themselves and say, make a game, except that was most of my childhood, so I know.  
No, I remember, before I had an audience and I sat by myself and I made games to please myself, they were to transformative places, like VR.  You’d have more VR games, that is what would happen; now I know exactly what would happen without market constraints you’d have more VR games, because people would want to transport themselves to whatever the experience was vis-à-vis their games, and that’d be the best tool. 
Damn it. 
Well we got enough there.  
Yeah it cut off halfway through ‘vis-à-vis’. 
Okay.  Well press play again, and just round it up for about another five minutes.  
Right we are recording.
So one of the things you just said, just before we cut off, you emphasised to begin curatorship and findability, do you think that’s kind of a key challenge that we have going forwards?
Absolutely.  I mean there’s so much creativity and across so many mediums, across so many journeys that people want to take on that, yeah, the discovery – even having like a taxonomy, people don’t understand what it is that they may or may not be experiencing does not exist.  The first taxonomy was created round like ratings to keep people from playing games.  
So to have a taxonomy of discovery, to move people forwards towards content, that still needs to exist.  That’d be a great academic paper, that would be great, like sort of like what the mechanics and aesthetics paper, right, like what is fun and then try to break that down so people could pursue the fun that they wanted.  Like more of that would be fantastic for people, for games.  
There is one of those being funded in Denmark at the moment actually. 
Awesome.  
Yeah. 
Awesome, that’s great, and now discovery, how do you discovery research in Denmark for it to be shared around the world, that’s something I’d be curious about. 
This is a challenge, findability of academic research is, I think, a challenge that a lot of people brought up here.  So it’s interesting that, yeah, I mean how do you find something?  Is it literally people tell you stuff or-?
Yeah, I think, or you meet the people who do the research and you look them up.  I’m trying to think how I found things I found.  Let me think about it.  Gosh, sort of lucky.  
I think that it isn’t coming upon academic research to synthesise up, there’s no cannon.  Academic research is a lot like games, where there’s no cannon, that the people who study games need to have played.  So if it was me, like Metal Gear Solid 5, everyone has to play the first thirty-minutes, it’s fact.  In any other craft, there is cannon, like films that you’ve seen, books that you have read, that is shared amongst people who know that craft, right.  
I think that games need to start to find cannon, or the game-play experiences, but also the research that matters and it might not be right or wrong, but it’d be something.  It’d be a foundation upon which we could all build, globally and if the research from Denmark or from India, or from Indiana, no matter; cannon, right.  That’s what has to happen. 
So you feel that’s lacking at the moment?
Absolutely.  
Okay. 
I think it’s absolutely lacking and I don’t know, I haven’t seen a programme yet, and I haven’t seen every programme, where there is simply cannon work, everyone who is in that programme says, this is our shared experience, these are facts that we’ve shared for having been through this programme.  And then we did our own individual journey off of that.   
Cool.  Thank you so much for talking to us. 
Thank you for including me.  
Absolute pleasure, thank you.