KEY
Bold:		Interviewer
Regular:		Respondent
[ ]:		Uncertain word(s)

First of all, you do know you are audio recorded?
Yeah.
Great.  Can you see in the screen I’m sharing?
Yeah.
Great.  I will explain to you how this interview works and what we are interested in.  As I said in the email, we’re interested in your experience with things and what you think the influence gaming has on society.  We have these PowerPoint slides I am sharing to guide our conversation on the topics we’re interested in.  I will share some keywords with you during our interview but you are not required to use them or to touch on every topic we are presenting.  You can just use them as cues to share your thoughts about gaming.  Okay?
Okay.
So we will begin from your experience with gaming.  If you can tell me how you use games, how often, which kind of games?
Sure.  I’ll just touch upon how often.  Probably most every day I would say, at least in some capacity.  I usually play with my friend in some capacity most every day whom he lives close to me so it’s not the only interaction we have but it helps keep in touch when we’re not seeing each other in person.  How much time?  Probably about maybe three to four hours a day average.  It’s not every day, sometimes I play a couple of hours, sometimes I play a little more if I have nothing else going on. 
Which games?  Recently at least I play Overwatch, Dota 2.  We got Borderlands: The Pre-sequel and Humble Bundle, we’ve been playing that, it’s okay.  Personally I bought a Nintendo Switch somewhat recently so been playing some Zelda and Disgaea 5 which is a game I hadn’t heard of before.  So platforms is a PC and Switch.  I also have a 3DS I got also somewhat recently so I’ve been playing Fire Emblem.  
So you play both single player and multi player games?
Yeah.  Typically when my friend is free I’ll play with him and when he’s at work or something or he’s busy I’ll play single player games.  Sometimes I’ll play by myself even when he’s available, if he wants to play a specific game that maybe he doesn’t want to play with me at the time.  Typically stuff like that.
If I may ask, you may not respond, how much do you spend on games typically?
Like per month, per year?  Just a general—
Yeah, whatever comes easier to you.
I don’t buy games a tonne, I typically try to be picky with games.  There’s games that I want but I can't play them now so there’s no purpose for me to buy them because I tend to stick with like three to four games and complete them fully at a time.  I probably buy maybe five games a year.  Sometimes maybe upwards of ten if a particularly numerous amount of games that resonate with me come out.  But I would say like around five games a year.  This past year, because I got two new consoles, I got the 3DS and the Switch, I’ve been buying slightly more games just to fill up the library.  It would still be around ten I would say in total.
Since when have you been a player?  From how long?
Sure.  I mean, the first time I played video games when I was three or four I played the Mario Duck Hunt combo on the NES.  But I don’t know if I’d consider myself at that time, I was a little too young.  But I would say I’d started regularly playing games – I had a Game Boy as a young kid, but to get a little more serious I would say probably when I was between ten and twelve.  I got a Game Cube and then like Diablo 2 on the PC, I was big into that.  And then Guild Wars 1 was when I was like fourteen. I had an XBox 360 so I played a lot of that when that came out, what was that, 2006 I think.  And then after that some PC and then more recently I built a computer a couple of years ago so got more into that.
Thank you.  We’ll move to our next topic.  I forgot to ask, how old are you now?
I’m twenty-five.
So it’s a little more than ten years you’ve been playing games?
Yeah, for sure, I would say maybe around seventeen for real.
I will move to our next topic now that I understand how much you have been playing and which kind of games.  I’m interested in what you believe the influence of games are on people.  So if you see any influence that games has on you and if you believe they have an influence on other people.
At least personally it’s a good – for lack of a better word – excuse to kind of keep in touch with people who you might not in another capacity.  I do have my friend, I see him every week anyway, but to talk to him every day bolsters our relationship.  Then I have a few friends who I met online who live in different states and you can bolster a relationship with them through games as a medium.  And it kind of builds – especially for like a cooperative multi player game or something, it helps build your relationship.  For a co-op experience you have to have teamwork and you kind of understand the nuances in their personality and how they might approach things.  So you kind of get to know them and their thought processes better in a way that you wouldn’t maybe normally experience through dialogue in person.  So to kind of foster relationships, I think it’s a good tool, at least for me.
It’s also a good destressor, a time syncher or something like that, it’s not like you go home and be bored all day, you get home after work and you have dinner and then you might play games until you want to go to bed or something just because you have nothing else to do.  It makes time kind of fly by pretty fast.  I find it’s good to kind of get out of the world for a little bit and just focus on one thing.  So it’s kind of nice like that.  I don’t experience too much stress in my life, so I can't attest to how good of a destressor it is, but I reckon that for some people it probably works pretty good in that capacity.  Because you have to focus on the game and for some games you can get really invested in it and you forget what’s happening all round you, which can be good for your mental health and stuff like that.  What else influences me?  Those are the two major points.  I’m sure there’s finer details that I could really think about.
I put the key words we were thinking about when looking at this topic.  One you have already touched upon, collaboration and competition in gaming, you touched on collaboration and how for instance your social groups.
Problem solving is interesting.  I think there’s some games where it can stimulate your mind in a way that you don’t experience on a regular basis with puzzles and such.  For example, in say Breath of the Wild there are some interesting puzzles in there that really I hadn’t experienced in a while.  They weren’t terribly difficult but they made me think in a way I wasn’t accustomed to and it was a good experience, so I wish games did that more.  
So like for say Overwatch, I think your kind of tactical sense, in a way of trying to understand – at least the way I play the game, I try to think of how the opposing team understands where I am.  So I think from their perspective to try and navigate within the map that I don’t think that they will expect, does that make sense?
Yeah. 
So I kind of have to think about how the enemy perceives the game and adjust my playing according to that.  I have to have an empathetic reading on how they might perceive the flow of the game.
So you are trying to get into their mind.
Yeah.  Addiction, I’m sure some people are addicted for various reasons.  I don’t know quite what the border of addiction and frequent hobby is.  I think it would be if you have trouble not playing a game for a few days, that might be addiction.  But at least personally I don’t mind not playing for a few days.  Physical activity.  It’s a mostly sedentary activity.  I’m sure for some motion games there’s various amount of physical activity but I don’t think it’s anything strenuous or anything like that.  So it’s probably not great if you want to get in shape.  But as long as you have a good diet and some physical exercise I don’t think it’s too bad.  
It compounds where it takes a lot of time and some games you are tempted to complete it so you might have less time to be mindful of your body or something like that.  But that’s only conjecture, I can't attest to that personally.  I don’t know if there any other point you want me to give my opinion on?
That’s okay.  What I would like to know from you, you said you are training in a way practical thinking and solving puzzles in games.  
Yeah.
And you have been playing for a long time, I was wondering if you feel you got better over time at these kind of tasks?
Yeah.  So especially for games, like a puzzle game, at first you might – or for any game, you don’t know the rules of the game, the rules of the world.  You know the loose rules but maybe how the AI interacts with things or how it expects you to use mechanics.  When you first start the game you don’t know but over time you learn the quirks of the game.  Like maybe you kind of know how the AI might react to certain situations because you learn it over time.  Or how combining mechanics, you know how to expect them to interact with one another.  So I think every game has its – and you might not even do it consciously, but every game has a learning curve of the intricacies of the mechanics of the game and the more familiar you are with those little nuances the more easily you can adapt to situations or solve puzzles or use the mechanics to your benefit in a way that you can better predict over time.
Thank you.  Moving on to our third topic, which is do you know or can you think of practical applications of games?  So games used not only for the entertainment value but for some other kind of purposes?
Sure.  I mean, the first thing that comes to mind, for a little while the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, it doesn’t teach you guitar but it kind of helps people that might not have an instrument improve their hand/eye coordination in regards to timing and rhythm and get used to moving their hand muscles in new ways.  I personally do play guitar but it kind of helps strengthen muscles in your fingers that you wouldn’t use otherwise, or for Rock Band playing drums, that virtually is kind of close to playing drums rhythm wise, so it’s a good way to experience those things without maybe the money investment of buying a full instrument.  But those games are kind of out of favour.  I’m trying to think of other more recent examples.
Handheld puzzle games and stuff like that are probably good for children just to – their minds are growing, so experiencing puzzles and having them have to think in ways they haven't had to are probably good for children.  Because they have school but game puzzles are slightly different, you don’t really do puzzles in school, it’s more academic curriculum.  So it’s probably good for children, general puzzle games.  Beyond that maybe there’s games like dance games that might help improve how you perceive the space of your body and you can maybe have better movement or something like that.  But I’m not sure, that’s the only other thing that comes to my mind.
You said about puzzle games for helping children learn, and you said they can be complementary in a way to school, because in school they have more academic approach.  But do you actually think that games could be used in school?
I think they could, because also kids – or many kids like games but don’t like school, does that make sense?
Yeah.
So it kind of makes them interested and invested in the activity if it’s a game.  If it’s properly created then kids would look forward to doing stuff like that and also learn.  I don’t know if it’d be as good as straight curriculum learning, but as maybe a complementary thing it probably has some pretty good merit in that regard.
Something that interests me in what you said, you said that if they’re properly created, what do you mean by that?  How could a game be properly created for school?  What does it have to have or do?
Probably the most important thing is whether or not the activities in the game or what you get out of the game is directly relevant to something.  You can make a fun game but if they don’t really get anything out of it relevant to – I mean, in a school setting, then it’s just a game, it’s not really a learning game.  Maybe they’ll learn different things but in a school setting it probably should be focussed on the curriculum. So as long as it shows some kind of tangible improvement in some sense, maybe their memory of vocabulary or something or the speed at which they solve maths problems or remember words, I don't know exactly the metrics of how you would measure it, it would depend on the game.  
As long as there’s some kind of tangible improvement that would probably be the first priority.  And beyond that the game has to work, the mechanics need to work together, it probably should be fun, (laughs) if it’s not fun then it’ll become a chore.  As long as it finds a way to make a fun game that also in some way aids the children with whatever subject matter is at hand then I’d say it would be successful. 
Another thing I wanted to ask is are you familiar with the terms serious games and gamification?
I know about gamification.  Serious games, I mean, I know games which are serious in tone but I don’t know if there’s a definition beyond that, could you—?
What we mean actually by serious games are games that are not created for entertainment.  That are for example created for school.
I know about gamification where you’d take a concept and apply a game over it or give it gaming properties, that’s what I assume gamification is.
We formally define it as the use of game elements in a context that is not a game, so for that purpose.
Yeah, that makes sense. 
Do you have any experience with gamification?
I feel like I have but I can't think of the exact – I remember when I was in maybe fourth to sixth grade we had some kind of computer class.  And I remember doing some kind of game on the computer, but I can't recall – it was maybe a Sudoku kind of thing, something like that, where it was like a mathy logic thing, but I can't recall the exact example.  I apologise for that.  I’m trying to think of something I can remember.  I mean, I’ve done some psychology experiments through school that were kind of gamified where – for like say reaction time or something like that.  It kind of had a gamey sense but not quite.  I did do a study for gaming feedback, but that kind of is a game anyway.  Yeah, I don’t have that much personal, unless you maybe have examples that could job my memory, but that’s kind of risky.
An example of gamification that a lot of people use are those kind of apps that track for example how much you run or how much you exercise and they give points and make it something of a competition between your friends.
I get that.  I don’t personally use anything like that.  I know people that do.  And I guess, yeah, it’s kind of like you have your number, say you want to do ten thousand steps or something and you see you have eight thousand and it’s the middle of the day, you kind of feel like you want to hit that goal.  So you might end up doing a walk where you otherwise wouldn’t because you don’t have that tangible goal in front of you.  
I will move to the next topic which is about ethical issues.  What kind of ethical issues you see with gaming and games and maybe then the message that games can give.  
So just general ethics?
Whatever comes to your mind.
I think it would be hard for a game to become unethical.  They can tell any story they want, as long as – I mean, they’re not affecting anything directly.  Maybe an example, people might be opposed to games like Grand Theft Auto or something like this because of the themes and you’re capable of harming MPCs or what have you.  But some people say video games cause violence or whatever, but I think there’s a distinct area where your mind makes, you understand it’s a game and it doesn’t have real consequences beyond wasting your time.  Obviously there are cases where maybe people don’t have that barrier but I would say those are outlying cases, but for a general person, killing somebody in a game doesn’t make them want to kill someone in real life.  It might be an outlet for feelings or whatever, but I don’t think that it’ll make them do anything in real life any more than before.  
For the average person it would do it less, for outliers it might make them want to do it more but then that’s probably a symptom of some kind of mental condition, it wouldn’t be a regular person.  But for ethics like – what was that game that came out in 2014, it was some game where you basically go on a killing rampage or something.  It was a big news deal at the time because it was banned on Steam or something.
I remember the title, it was something like Hatred for the title, I don’t remember the exact title, but it was something like that.
Yeah.  So something like that, that’s controversial.  And the tone of the game is quite dark.  In Grand Theft Auto the objective is not to kill random people but for that game it is.  And I see the trailer for that and I think, oh, that’s kind of odd, but it’s maybe not for me.  But for some people it might be for them.  If it’s a good game it’s a good game.  I think the controversy of that was how gory and detailed it is and the objective of the game is basically to solely kill innocent people.  But again, it is a game and there’s kind of the mental barrier where it kind of, you know—
So you wouldn’t say it’s a big ethical issue, the presence of violence in games, because there is a strong barrier?
I don’t think it’s unethical.  I think there’s probably some line but I don’t think it’s been crossed.  Or at least not in my experience.  To kill someone in real life is unethical, to kill someone in a game I don’t think that’s unethical.  Or to depict violence against say children, I don’t think it’s unethical in a game because it isn't real, it’s just data and it’s pixels, it’s not living people or real peoples’ emotions and feelings and stuff like that.
It is the assumption that most games shy away from depicting or permitting hurting a fictional child.
Yeah, that’s kind of a taboo thing, where most games don’t let you do anything with children.  But again, I think if they let you do something to adults and not children, it kind of makes you feel it’s more of a game, does that make sense?  It kind of takes you out of the realism of the game.  There’s ways around it.  I think the reason they don’t do it is mainly due to possible public outlash.  I don’t think it’s due to their own personal beliefs.  I can't say.  But I think the fear of public outlash is maybe the motivator.  Say for Bethesda game, there’s children in the game and you can't kill them, you can kill adults.  But then there’s mods where you can kill children.  So are those mods unethical?  I don’t think so.
You think it’s more of a marketing thing?
Yeah.  I haven't played it, but the game Spec Ops: The Line, it’s a shooting game that tackles serious issues of like nuclear fallout and genocide and children are involved in that.  You’re not personally killing children but it’s more you might feel more emotionally invested in it because of its realistic depiction of a hypothetical scenario of violence.  So it might elicit more emotional response but I think that’s perfectly ethical.  And I think you have more leeway with games.  Like if you don’t sensor yourself in the story you want to tell you have more leeway to kind of elicit maybe ethical questions that the viewer might ask.  Yeah, so that’s a good example.  
I think games are a good medium to present ethical questions to gamers in the same way maybe like a hypothetical ethics college course might, where you present an example and say, if someone did this would it be ethical?  I think it presents a good way for you to kind of firsthand experience it in not just in your mind kind of thing, because you kind of have to do actions one way or the other.  So it can kind of present ethical conundrums in a way that’s more tangible to a person and makes them think about it more.  If that’s what the game wants to be, some games are just games for games.  But I think it’s a good medium to present ethical questions to players in a way that might impact them more.
Yeah, in a way that there are consequences but not in the real world, I see what you mean.
Kind of like a sudo consequence but it’s not real life consequences.
I’d still like you to say a little bit more on this topic of ethical issues and ask for example what do you think about the portrayals of gender and race in games?
I think the climate right now is a little up in the air I guess.  
What do you mean by that?
Right now people – so I don't know, this might be a little – I’m just thinking the most recent thing I’ve seen is – so Far Cry 5 I believe the initial reveal without information shows what people perceive to be white rednecks or something of that sort.  And people were thrilled – I will be careful with what I say because I don’t know personally these people – some people were enthused that finally they were able to kill white rednecks or something like that.  I think that’s a little – and then when it revealed that it’s not all white rednecks, they were angry about it, that it wasn’t a white killing simulator.  So most games, say Call of Duty, you’re in a different country and your enemies are primarily members of that country who might be of a different race.  
So people might perceive that as being racist, but I think there’s a level of accuracy that you should probably expect.  Or for say old war games, so for World War 1 or Battlefield 1 there weren’t – historically there weren’t black fighters for the US, for other countries I believe there were some.  But not for the US.  So when you depict soldiers in the US army people might be mad that there aren’t black soldiers.  Again, sure they could add them, if they want to be historically I don’t think it should be expected for them to twist history.  Again, it’s the developer’s choice whether or not they can do that.  Violence against women or – what’s the word for it, [extra fan 0:37:38] service or something.  Honestly, it’s the developer’s prerogative whether they feel it’s okay.  Because I think the developer should be able to make the game they want to make.  
If you don’t agree with that game then you don’t need to buy that game.  I don’t think that developers should – so a developer fears that if they don’t do something with race or gender that their sales might be severely impacted, then by all means they should maybe consider making the game in a way that’s more marketable to those people.  But again, I think if you make the game that you desire to make and it’s a good game, people will buy it.  And if people don’t agree with how something is treated then they’re welcome not to buy the game.  I don’t think that they should be forced to appeal to a demographic that they don’t feel like aligns with their vision of the game.
Another thing I wanted to ask, you have been a gamer for a long time.  Once, I mean, the marketing of games was really easy, you bought the game and from then on you had the game and you could play it at any time.  More recently there have been other ways of buying games, from subscriptions to free to play games in which you can buy some kind of advantage inside the game, but the game itself is free.  And there are more and more DLCs.  Do you think something about that, have you experienced games with these kind of selling strategies?
Yeah.  So Dota 2 is free to play.  I reckon it’s probably the best iteration of a free to play game, in that all of the game content is unlocked.  You don’t need to unlock the heroes individually, they’re all available.  The only thing that you do buy are cosmetics or voice announcers, stuff that does not impact the game or the metagame in any way, shape or form.  For like say League of Legends or what have you, you can use real life currency but you can unlock whatever in game currency.  The statistics on how long it takes to actually unlock everything in the game is two to three years.  I think that’s okay.  I mean, it is a free game and you can play it.  You’re slowly unlocking more which kind of gives it a sense of progression and carrot and stick kind of sensation that gamers like.  In Dota 2 your motivation for playing the game is playing the game, it’s not unlocking more things.  I think they kind of appeal to different people.  
Say for mobile games, for that one it’s usually the game is free but it’s paid to speed up things.  It makes it like the free version may be quite slow and say, this task will take an hour or twelve hours or you can pay a dollar to do it right now, so you don’t have to wait.  Or the difficulty might amp up in such a way where it might be hard if not impossible to progress after a certain point without paying to get upgrades or something like that.  And then there’s the games where they [rely on the whales 0:42:06], where you can spend a thousand dollars to get something.  I think that’s kind of— I think that crosses the ethical line where they’re praying on people who might be predisposed to addiction.  It’s almost gambling.  So I think that’s probably not good.  For the League of Legends model, I think it’s okay, it’s not great.  I prefer the Dota model because I think it’s the best because it’s the most fair to gamers.
Yeah, it doesn’t change your chance of winning.
Because they get the game in its entirety and everything else is cosmetic.  I think Smite has where if you pay thirty dollars for the game, the game is free and you can unlock heroes with the game currency or you can pay thirty dollars and get all the heroes forever, you never have to buy another hero.  So you have that option.  I think that’s a fair trade.  Thirty dollars is less expensive than what it would be to buy everything in League of Legends with real money, it would be like ten thousand dollars or something crazy.  I’m not that familiar with League of Legends, I played it a long time ago but I don’t know what it is about now.  Those examples were the ones who came into my mind.  Was there something I missed?  Sorry, I’m a little rambling.
Don’t worry (laughs).  We’ll move to the next topic, we’re nearing the end of the interview.  I wanted to ask how do you see that games influence society?
Sorry, you just cut out for a few seconds there.
Sorry. I wanted to ask you how do you see that games influences society or how do you think that they influence society?  So in your experience or more in general.  It’s a very abstract question.
Yeah (laughs).  So I think at least for the younger generations, I mean, I know some people in older generations have got into gaming in some way or another, but I think it’s becoming more and more culturally accepted to play games in America.  I know in other regions of the world, like say for South Korea, it’s very accepted and they have PC cafés everywhere and gaming is—
What do you mean by culturally accepted?
I mean, there’s this stigma of playing games is wasting your time or you don’t get anything out of it.  Go outside or why don’t you do stuff with your friends in person.  Stuff like that is somewhat common criticism, it’s kind of died down now.  Games is another media, it’s television, it’s movies, but I think it can kind of for some people maybe be more gratifying because the experience is typically longer, you have direct control over actions, say for a story driven RPG you can kind of answer how you see fit and potentially drive the story in a different way.  You can't do that with a movie, the movie is already what it is.  I think as a media it’s becoming more acceptable to tell stories through games and have them be accepted as almost like a movie or a book or something.  
It kind of has the same – it’s a story they want to tell and the medium they use is games instead of a movie or a book or a television show.  It’s another way to tell a story.  Some games are just games for the sake of being games.  But I think as the idea that games can be thought provoking or something like that, the society has become more in tune with that idea, that games might have merit – they have merit and you do talk with friends and you can make friends or become better friends with people who you might not otherwise as that’s becoming more—
You said you have been seeing a change in how games are considered in the US you are saying they are becoming more accepted over time?
Yeah, you know, eSports, the tournaments are getting bigger and bigger around the US and around the world.  In general more people, with the advent of streaming services like Twitch and whatever, watching games.  That’s become a new thing instead of like where they might play games or watch TV they might just watch games.  The more that people are exposed to that, so say for a parent who might not play games, seeing that behaviour might seem odd but the more they’re exposed to it the more they can kind of reconcile the idea that the culture is becoming more – I don’t want to say game centric, but games have become more and more popular, viewing and playing games, streaming games.  
So the more they’re exposed to that the more they have to accept that that’s the way things have been going recently in the climate.  So I think it’s becoming more acceptable to be a gamer and have a gamer identity.  And there’s cons and what not.  It’s big marketing and investments and stuff, people are becoming more and more invested into gaming companies and stuff like that and they’re becoming overall more accepted over time.  It’s a slow process but I think it’s speeding up somewhat.
There is something I want to ask you.  Because you talked about the gamer identity and also before when you were recounting your experience with games you began by saying that I was already playing games when I was eleven, twelve, but I wasn’t yet a gamer, I wouldn't consider a gamer.  What do you mean by a gamer identity?  I’m trying to understand.
I got you.  So when I was younger and I played NES and Game Boy I played them because they were there but after I was done with the game I was kind of done with the game and I kind of just went into limbo until another game came out because I was young and I didn’t have agency.  What does it mean to be a gamer?  I think if you regularly play games and seek out new games and experiences consistently, like there’s little to no downtime.  Of course you could be a gamer with having downtime but I think the desire to consume games as a media and games resonate with you I think would be enough to consider yourself “gamer”.  
Is someone that plays mobile games sometimes on their phone a gamer?  I’d say loosely, I wouldn’t consider them a gamer though.  I think there needs to be some kind of commitment to – I don't know, I can't bash mobile games that way because I can't speak for people.  If someone plays like Bejewelled all the time I probably wouldn’t consider them a gamer, but maybe that’s a little elitist, I don't know.  I think the gamer carries a certain stigma where you have to kind of – maybe like a breadth of games, maybe not across genres but maybe more seriously time committed games and have a serious commitment.  Like if you’re seriously committed to Tetrus only I’d say you’re a gamer, because there’s some kind of competition in it, but I don't know.  
So I guess the same could be applied to Candy Crush, but can it?  I don't know, those are questions I hadn’t really thought about.  There’s some kind of line, I don’t know where it stands.  But I think if you like gaming culture and you maybe watch games or you play games regularly yourself, by yourself or with friends, and you talk about games, especially the latter, I think that would be more than enough to qualify yourself as a gamer, yeah.
I see what you mean.  Which is a little different from what you said in the first place.  You said about time commitment to games, but now you’re defining it more as thinking about games and talking about games and watching games, so—
I think they probably go—
Taking the games outside from the time in which you are gaming.
I think they kind of go hand in hand.  I think the more you play a game the more you’re inclined to talk about it and be able to talk about it.  I think it would be more difficult if you did not play games to be able to have – to even express a desire to talk about the games because you don’t really play them.  You know what I mean?  So I think they kind of go hand in hand.  But I think one is a symptom of the other and vice versa.  I think if you talk about games a lot you’re more inclined to play them and if you play a lot of games you’re more inclined to talk about them.  Yeah, I think that just that mentality is maybe what pushes over to say you’re a gamer.  I think you can play games and not be like – have that gamer identity, if you just play—  
But that’s just the nomenclature of the word gamer, of what it’s been defined as.  I mean, yeah, so I think if you’re invested enough into playing games where they come up in dialogue or you think about them in your spare time – yeah, if you play enough games where that becomes a common occurrence I think that’s when you can probably say you have the gamer identity because it becomes part of your identity, it’s part of how you think of things and how you talk about things.  So I think when it becomes part of your identity in that sense you have the gamer identity.  
I think I got it.
Yeah, if you need me maybe to rephrase things I can.
Another thing you touched upon that I wanted to focus a little more on, you said that games are becoming more accepted as a medium to tell stories, like movies and like books, right?
Right.
Would you even consider them as a way of expressing art, of making art?
Yeah, there are sure some artistic games.  Some art styles on the part of game development and just overall, and stylisation, so some games are just visually breathtaking even, or interesting.  There are some games where it’s more about the visuals than it is about the game.  Like a walking simulator or something like that, where they’re just trying to convey an experience and it has a loose game feeling.  Because there’s no – you just walk around, you might interact with a few things but beyond that there’s no peril, there’s no combat, puzzles or story, it’s just walking around.  But it’s still art, it has artistic merit because of how the art is presented to itself.  
I mean, you can put – if an artist paints a painting to put in a game – not paint a painting but creates an image of a painting in a game, they still made that painting and it’s still in the game.  So that can apply to the whole landscape or vistas that might be in open world games can be visually stunning.  Or a game like Ori and the Blind Forest or whatever, that has a visually stylised take on things.  
For someone to say that isn't art in its own way because you can interact with it, I think that’s not true.  Just because you can interact with it and maybe change the shape of things, I think it is a good medium to express art.  And it’s even becoming – like some VR, I know there’s some art that’s just VR art, that’s it.  You just look at it, it’s just like three dimensional or something like that.  I definitely think that obviously not all games are art but I think a lot of art is in games, a lot of games are, yeah.
Another thing I wanted to ask before moving to the last topic is about the regulation of games.  You were talking before about how you see that violent games are not a problem, because you see a clear divide between the game and the real world.  But of course that’s a hotly debated topic, you know.
Yeah.
For example, that there is a lot of regulation, especially in the US, about who you can sell games to, so at which age you can begin playing a particular game.  Parents also can limit what games their children are playing.  What do you think about that?
I think it exists for a reason.  Whether or not the numbers of when you can buy – the age when you can buy certain games might be up for debate.  So a game like Grand Theft Auto, you probably shouldn’t have a five year old playing that game because they haven't developed maybe the mental capacity to separate it.  So what is it, it’s seventeen or eighteen, in Europe it’s PEGI, so PEGI sixteen right?
I think so, I’m not that sure actually. (Laughs)  I think it’s sixteen or eighteen.
Yeah.  Parents can bypass it, the parents can buy the game and give it to the children if they choose.  I think there should be some kind of rating regulation which there is, the kids can play the game if the parent buys it for them.  I guess they could also just buy it online, no one’s going to ask them for their age, but I guess they have to have a way to pay for it in that case so probably the parent’s credit card.  They’re not prohibited from playing the game, they’re prohibited from buying the game.  
So I guess for Grand Theft Auto, I would presume a sixteen year old could play that game and be fine.  Maybe lower than that I would say, but you can't buy it yourself until you’re eighteen say in the US.  I think that’s kind of weird.  It’s the same with movies, where it’s like PG, thirteen and rated R, where if it’s rated R if you’re under seventeen you can't see it.  I don't know, I think it’s a little too high but not by much, I think it’s close.  I think PEGIs are about two years shorter, I think that’s a little more accurate.  
Then there’s some cases where you need to be even older, but there’s only a few games in that category where it’s like – I don't know what the PEGI is, but there’s like a beyond R rating, but I think that’s only reserved for very, very few games.  I think it exists for a reason.  I think there are developmental milestones you probably should reach before being exposed to particular types of games.  But the time at which a person experiences those milestones varies.  So I think parents using their best judgement is probably the best system and the hard ratings kind of just put hard numbers and facilitates that to some extent.  But I could probably be shortened a few years.  It’s up in the air, there are probably some studies that have to be done before, I don't know, I can't tell you.  Does that answer your question, sorry?
Yes, thank you.  I will move to the last theme of the interview which is what suggestions would you make to different figures that are involved with games to better use them or better create them?  I don't know if the question is clear?
Like what – so what advice would I maybe give to game developers to make a better game more or less?
Yeah.
Sure.  I think if you have a vision, I think number one you need to be passionate about the game you want to make and the vision you have for it.  And I think you should strive to create that vision, maybe don’t compromise a tonne, unless obviously someone says, this is bad.  But I think you also need to be open to ideas.  Say you want to make a story game.  Tell the story that you want to tell, don’t try and tell the story that you want people to like.
You think [1:04:29]?
Yeah.  I think that some – it’s a little difficult.  I think some games, not all games, try to kind of dip their fingers in too many pies, they’ll try and do too much and it kind of takes away from the whole experience where doing a few things good leads to a better experience than doing a lot of things kind of mediocre.  I think you need to be realistic in the vision and I think—  So for developers that are contractually obligated or they’re being funded by EA or something, they’re more pressured to adhere to a timeline and not delay a game.  But I think, what’s the saying, like a delayed game is eventually good but a bad game now is forever bad.  I think that’s pretty apt.  
I think that if you feel that a game is poor or it’s not quite where it needs to be in your vision, if you can, I would delay the game and work on it.  But then again, if you’re under a producer and they say, we don’t want to pay you – because delaying a game costs a lot of money.  So obviously there’s a lot of pressure not to do that and to just push it out.  But I think that if the game isn't where you want it to be and there’s no way for you to fix it afterward, then don’t – try your best to delay the game and try to get it to the play where you want it to be.  Because games move fast and if your game comes out and it’s bad it might as well not have ever come out.  Because even if it becomes good, people aren’t going to pay credence to it.  Because new games are coming out and they’ve got other things to play.  You basically have one shot.  
The release reception is – in most cases, there’s some exceptions – the release reception is the only public perception that your game is going to get.  So if your game comes out and it gets good reviews, like it’s going to have good reviews for ever.  That’s where it is on Metacritic or whatever, because those are permanent, they don’t get updated depending on how the game does.  I think that being…
It should be good from the start.
…sale oriented and making sure that the game is how you want it to be when you release it I think is important.  Obviously there are some cases where it’s just irredeemable and you don’t have enough time in the world to fix it.  But I think if you can manage your time properly to make—  Also, I’m pretty sure a lot of bad games are a result of poor management and poor communication.  So that’s kind of a small point, but I think that’s probably one of the most important things.  Because all of the back interviews that I’ve heard about poor games have been a result of poor management and communication.  
So I think game managers probably should make sure that they want to be doing what they’re doing and to have an understanding of how the whole process should be done.  Make sure the game’s fun, the game needs to be fun first and foremost.  A game has to be fun.  Or maybe not fun but compelling or – if you want to make a game for fun sake it needs to be fun.  If you want to make a game that’s compelling you need to make it compelling, like first and foremost.  If you want to make a game that’s art you need to make sure it’s artistic first and foremost.  Make sure your game ends up being what your vision wants it to be, don’t get sidetracked and try and add a bunch of things that take away from your vision.
Don’t try to compromise too much, right.
Yeah.  So there’s a fine line between taking criticism and being collaborative and compromise and not compromising.  I think that if you’re confident in your vision enough and you try and strive to make your vision.  If your vision’s bad and you’re confident in your bad vision then that’s probably not going to be a good result because you’re not going to compromise, and sometimes compromising can make a bad vision into a good vision.  I think you need to be self aware and just be mindful of the level of compromise that you need to achieve and the level of – you have to be stalwart in making sure that if you believe your vision is good and people want to experience it, then make sure that’s what gets into the gamers’ hands.
Is there anything else you want to add, even on something we have not touched on?
Nothing immediately comes to mind.  I don't know if you have any miscellaneous things?
I don’t think so.  So I will end the interview.
Yeah, sure.
Thank you a lot for your time.  I will keep in contact and send you the output of our research if you’re interested?
Oh yeah, I’m definitely interested in that.
Thank you very much.
Let me know if you need anything else for some reason, if I didn’t fill out the form right or if you have any other questions or anything like that, just shoot me an email.
Okay, thank you.