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

Okay, so we’re recording now.  Just to, yeah, to start off with, can you say your name, please?
My name is [anon]
Okay.  Do you want to put surname in as well?
Yeah, my name is [anon]
Okay, could you spell your surname, please?
[anon]
Thank you.  And you’ve seen the consent form and you’ve signed the consent form?
Yes, I did.
Cool.  Thank you very much.  So, we’ve talked a little bit about what the sort of general goal of this is.  We’re just gonna have an interview for about half an hour, go through a variety of topics.  We might stray away from these but I might pull it back occasionally.
Sure, that’s fine.
So, how would you describe yourself at the moment within the video game development community?  Are you more of a player or are you more of a developer?
Well, I definitely was a player a few years ago.  I’m transitioning into a developer, of course, which is why I’m studying at the NHTV, and it’s been going rather well so far.  I mean having a few setbacks, but, yeah.
Yeah, cool.  When you were playing, what sort of games were you playing the most?
Usually I am a bit of a mechanics-focused kind of player, so I mostly enjoy things that give me an enjoyable experience, although it has not been outside of my experience to play games such as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, which have a very heavy focus on narrative instead, and I do play a wide variety of things, I would say so.
Cool, okay.  Why is – why is playing games important to you?
I feel like playing games is, well, games is – it’s obviously a rather new media – form of media.  It’s been around since – for – half a century, maybe less.  And I honestly think video games is probably one of the best ways you can convey a story or give experiences to people because I really, really enjoy the interactive aspects.  I do not like gen – generally I’m not much for movies or series.  I don’t really enjoy being passively taking in experiences and such, so I feel like video games is quite – quite important that – in that aspect.
Do you think there’s particular games that are pushing kind of that – that interactive media forwards more?  Is there – are there particular genres which are more – where there’s more innovation at the moment?
I couldn’t tell you exactly what genre, but I definitely think there’s some outliers.  I’m gonna go back to it because it’s one of my favourite in that aspect, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.  I think married narrative and interactive experience extremely well, to a point where just playing the game, like that makes you take part into the narrative.
Yeah, okay.  What sort of impacts do you think games have in general on – on – on their players in like positive or negative impacts?
Well, one can argue there are some – possibly some negative impacts.  I mean this is quite blurry.  Obviously there’s a whole video games make people violent going around, which has, at least from what I’ve seen, never really been proven or debunked properly, although I lean more towards the latter.  But of – as of how it affected people, I would say it’s – gaming industry has had undeniably a positive aspect overall.  I mean when we look at things like what happened with Pokémon Go, for example, I think that’s one of – a – a good example in a positive change a game can bring to a society, just getting people outside, actually getting people outside, meeting new people, interacting with each other.  I mean you had completely different cultures and age groups just mixing together, joined through a game.  So, yeah, I’m not sure if that answered the question, but that would be my…
Yeah, that’s cool.  Thanks.  What do you think of serious and applied games?
Of, sorry, what?
Of serious games or applied games?
Serious games?  To be clear, when we talk about serious games, we also take – talk about games that train like for surgeons, for example?
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Okay, then those definitely have a place.  Obviously it wouldn’t be for – for everyone, wouldn’t be for just the random consumer, I suppose, but serious games definitely have a – how do I say that?  I wouldn’t say future since they’re already kind of here, but not super-developed, I guess.  Basically I feel like there’s a lot of applications you can have through games.  You can have especially a lot of learning experiences for people, for example, teaching people to read or something like that.  This is – I actually worked on a project that tried to do that.  Not sure where it is right now, but – I – I definitely feel  like serious games have their own place in the market, maybe not just for regular consumers, but there’s definitely an interest for it.
Do you feel that some of the benefits, so you mentioned reading, for example, do you feel…
Yes.
…that those benefits can come from other games that might be very text-heavy?
Yes, actually.  Maybe not intentionally.  I’ve seen – I’ve met – I’ve known people that learnt the entire English language through Pokémon.  Well, maybe didn’t – they didn’t learn the entire language, but it certainly kick-started it.  I mean they would – they would play a game.  They would really, really enjoy it and then they would try to learn it.  Obviously this – this is obviously unintended, but it’s definitely proved that it can help in that aspect.
Do you think that games have taught you anything from playing them?
Hmm, I’ve never really thought of that, to be honest.  Well, I could think maybe a particular game that’s called Path of Exile.  This may be a bit – a bit of – of a stretch, but the game encourages a lot of thinking and planning, which I mean I’ve been doing for a long time now.  I’ve several thousands of hours sank into the game through four years, so I – I – I don’t know, it’s hard to prove, right?  But I do feel like it’s stimulating my – well, I wouldn’t say my brain, but, you know, it’s stimulating this creativity and planning and for – and not scheduling, but it’s like trying to see ahead of the time and see like if I’m gonna do that in a specific game, like you have a huge massive tree where you can – a very complex massive tree and like sim – a simple difference can make a whole night and day difference in the long run.  So I feel like maybe – well, there’s – that’s – that’s for the – for that aspect.
But I would also say that games definitely help with stuff like hand-eye coordination and reaction times and such like.  I mean there’s – have been studies that demonstrated that people who usually play games have faster reaction times or can track more objects on the screen and such, so again, I can’t prove and taught – they have taught me anything, but there definitely have been games that also made me think about my spots and like specific philosophical questions, I guess, specifically narrative-focused games or [article 0:08:17] RPGs, setting up conundrums and then conundrums about conflict and then forcing a new player for them to solve does help try to – how do I say that?  Feel empathy as in try to understand where both sides come from so you can reach a conclusion.  I feel like they may – might have contributed to how I treat these kind of things today.
Cool.  For – so for the sake of the recording there, you’re also wearing a Path of Exile T-shirt at the moment, so…
Yes, actually I am.  That was unintended but, yes, guilty as charged.
So it’s – so it’s not just affected you, I think, as a game play thing but obviously it’s also what you’re choosing to wear and present yourself with…
Yes.
…is related to that game, so it’s a brand you’re happy to be associated with.
I am, yes, I am quite involved in it so I – I would say so.  I actually had a key chain as well but it fell off, so I have to – I have to fix that.
Okay.  What are the main differences between kind of entertainment-focused games and serious games – games – games for learning, for education and stuff like that?  What do you think are the main differences in the approaches between the entertainment side and the educational side?
Well, I mean it’s – it’s in – it’s in the wording, right?  One – one of them is trying to do – to give entertainment to the players and, like I said, it can have some side benefits in – in improving certain aspects of the player, whereas a serious game or educational game will have a very specific objective.  For example, a game trying to train surgeons, that will have a very, very applicable goal, but it will be limited to that, I think.  I mean it’s there to teach them how to react, what would happen if they made that mistake there, their – their reaction?  What kind of decision-making would they have to make?  But it won’t teach them to speak English, for example, or – or – or anything of the sort.  As in, yeah, that – that would be my – my – my answer.
Do you think there’s – there’s a big difference in the mechanics of the game between those two different types?
It’s a good one actually.  I would say that the more serious games actually borrow from the entertainment games.  I’ve seen – I’m not sure where I’ve seen this, or probably actually here at IGAD, but there was a plan to make some kind of like grand strategy game but have educational purposes for, ah, it’s – it’s slipping my mind right now, but it was something of a particular nature, of course, putting you in the shoes of a nation or something like that.  So, they definitely like borrow concepts and mechanics and design ideas from those entertainment games that have originally been made – created to, well, entertain players and keep them happy or whatever reaction they’re going for and then apply it to whatever goal they have for their serious game.
Do you think there are kind of game play mechanics from the entertainment field that could never be taken across into an educational game?
Hmm, honestly, that’s a – I would say no on the sole basis that you can use entertainment games as a link between the game and the – the – the serious game and the – and the players to drag them into it, so you can basically game – gamify anything.  I think that’s the term.  You can gamify a – a certain concept and – by taking obviously mechanics.  If there’s a mechanic you can’t use?  Oh, it’s hard to prove a negative, isn’t it?
Yeah, I – for – for example, I don’t know, a – a – a beat-'em-up game, you know, like…
Yeah.
…Tekken or something like that.
I mean I could probably see someone doing a creative interpretation of it, but that would be quite a stretch, I think, so…
So – so there might be some limits there?
There – there might, yeah.  There’s possibly some limits.  I mean it’s – it’s hard to prove that there’s not, but…
But it’s hard to think that what those limits could be.
Yeah, I guess only time will tell.  I mean people come up with new crazy ideas very often.
Okay.  So let’s look at – at kind of the world of games development.  This is – this is the area you’re training to join at the moment.
Yes.
What do you think are – what are – what are kind of your expectations of what the pressures will be on you in the job there?
The pressures?
Yeah.
Hmm.
So as a worker in an office or running your own company maybe.
Well, running my own company is not something I plan to do so I can’t say I’ve put a lot of thought into it unfortunately.
Okay.
But as for my expectations out of me, I mean beyond the normal, you know, work schedule and everything, the delivery of the product itself.  I mean there’s quite a – quite a high expectation when it comes to delivery of a product.  I mean we’ve seen – we’ve all seen what happens when a game gets released and it’s in a broken state or has issues.  I guess we can say the game community is quite vindictive when it comes to that, but beyond that there’s also recently more of a move – move – movement towards more of a culturally sensitive games, for example.  I mean if – if a triple-A company would be releasing a game where you have – let’s think of something offensive, a – a white man killing, you know, the most basic thing, a lot of black people for seemingly no reason, that’s probably going – well probably there is going to be outcry from groups of gamers because, well, first of all there’s no real – unless there’s a really good reason narrative-wise, it makes no – no sense to portray that.
And second of all, it is – it is – it is a bit weird to portray something like that.  That’s what I’m just trying to say, sorry.
Yeah, that’s fine.
But, yeah, that – I feel like compared to before, when I was just a gamer, there is more of a cultural sensitivity kind of expect – expectation for – at least for big game names.  Maybe a bit less for independent and smaller games, but still, that’s something I’ve been like discovered in the past three years.
Okay.  Do you think that’s growth in the industry and awareness of this or do you think this is more your personal awareness of it, or is it a little bit of both?
No, it’s definitely growth in the industry.  I think that’s not just me.  I’m pretty sure – I mean after the whole gamergate thing exploded, I’m pretty sure a lot of people took a whole – at least I’d like to think that a lot of game developers took a look at themselves and what they want to do.
Okay, cool.  Do you think – do you think games should be used as educational tools, for example, Minecraft is used in a lot of young – schools to teach people various things?
Yes.
Do you think that’s a good idea to use entertainment-packaged games in a different context?
Yes, yes, like I said, I think that a lot of the entertainment games can voluntarily or involuntarily give – have educational purposes so if, of course, if you modify the experience of it then I’m pret – I’m – I’m certain that you can have a good educational tool with certain educational – entertainment games.
Cool.  Obviously you’ve only been working on games for a few years yourself and developing them at the moment, but you mentioned kind of awareness of cultural issues, such as gender or racism – sort of racial awareness, political culture, these kind of things.  What – the games that you’ve worked on, have they been largely entertainment-focused?
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, there have been actually one, like I said, the one that we worked on that was trying to teach kids to – to read.  So – but it was kind of – kind of an odd thing because I joined in as a scripting – a scripter, like programming, but that – I had no experience in that and it kind of spiralled out of control, so I can’t say I contributed much in that respect.  I – I did try, but…
When you were working on those games, did you – did you intentionally address issues of things like gender representation or race in your entertainment games as well as that serious one?
Let me think.  Mmm, it’s hard to tell – for me to tell because we’ve not really had any characters with an actual face.  A lot of games I worked on were very abstract in that idea.  I mean I suppose it has to do with the fact that limited resources so we can’t go and have a full rig and everything, so I can’t say I – I can’t say I did since it – the opportunity never really came up.
Okay.  How about things like violence?  Were – did that feature in the game or those games?
Let’s see.  Out of the games I worked, the one I’m working on right now is actually, well, you know, the typical violence-themed video game.  A lot of the other ones featured non-violence actually.  And what I can tell in that aspect, it’s the – I’m sorry to say, but it’s a whole lot more interesting to design a game that has combat because I mean it might be because that’s the kind of things I’m interested in, mechanics-focused and everything, so in that sense it – it’s – it’s – I – mmm, it makes sense for me to be more interested in that but I might be biased in that case.  Hmm, yeah.  Not – not really sure what to say to that.
Okay.  So your current game has characters and violence and – and things like that?
Yes, it’s – it’s fine if I say the name of the game, right?
Yes, we can always anonymise that later.
Okay, well I’ve been working on Boltstorm currently, so it’s involving a lot of armed people with a lot of weapons, and yes, it involves fighting your way through dungeon quite literally.  So it is – it is combat-centric, that’s the – the whole point of the game and all – although the characters themselves are not very expressive, like they’re people in armour; that’s about it.  You don’t see what’s behind it.  For all I – for all – for all we care, they could be empty suits of armour, for example, but…
If – if you had the facilities or the – the capacity to make those realistically rendered people, would you choose to do that?
Mmm, I mean it would – they’d certainly look better visually and more interesting, I think, because right now they all – they all look the same.  So probably, yes.  Of course, in that case issues with like cultural – cultural – cultural-related issues might pop up, for example if you make all the certain enemies a certain type of person and all your allies a certain type of person, it might make people think we’re trying to convey a message, although I’m sure that 90% of the time this is involuntary in video game development, but that’s definitely something that would be at the back of my head.
When you say things are involuntary, could you talk a bit – little bit more about – about that, so maybe could—?
Well, one thing I notice is that a lot of the times people will try to look too hard into it.  Basically they will find something and they will make assumptions out of it and conclusions, even though when people are making games, they might be focused on something completely different.  When you’re making a game, it’s hard to take a step back and look at the game as a whole most of the time.  This is something a lot of people struggle with.  And sometimes you just go, “Oh, I’ll make that person a women and I’ll make that person a man,” unless it’s – like if it’s not narratively-driven, sometimes those decisions are completely made randomly and that’s why I think involuntarily sometimes this creates scenarios where it looks like there’s a message trying to be conveyed so that’s less than respectable, but it is to my belief that it was not on purpose.
Okay.  Where do you think the future lies for video games?  So do you think that – what – what sort of challenges do we have coming up in the future in terms of kind of social or cultural relevance?
Hmm, just can you rephrase that question a bit?
Sure.  Okay, so – so obviously the film industry has got a – a lot of wide – widespread respect as well as, you know, quite a lot of disdain sometimes for the Hollywood kind of blockbuster type stuff.
Yeah.
Where do you think – do you think games are going to progress or stay where they are?  Do you think the – where do you think the future lies in terms of kind of cultural respect?
Well, I definitely think there’s progress to be made.  I think it would be foolish to say that we’ve solved all our – all our issues.  There’s definitely more things to consider.  I mean it’s maybe not just the gaming industry in that sense, but it’s hard for me to tell.  Like an example I saw recently actually was with Far Cry 5 and, you know, being – the setting being in the United States and Far Cry is a game that involves a lot of violence, a lot of going around, blowing things up, you know, the usual.  What I’m seeing is a lot of people are having an outcry that it’s going on in the United States and claiming that it’s like a misrepresentation, which it is, and basically complaining about it now.  What I don’t understand is that the last two games, while I think they were in fictive countries, were still kind of based on some real notions. 
Now, what I don’t understand is like where was the outcry for those last two games?  So it – it’s hard to tell where we’re going to go at this point, I think, but there’s definitely – there’s definitely progress to be made in that sense.  And I think it’s – the industry as a whole has to accept that a game can be inappropriate culturally if it has a good reason for – for it to be so, narrative, most preferably, but yeah.
So in the – yeah, Far Cry 5 is an interesting example there because, as you say, it’s got a real-world setting now and suddenly there’s an outcry.
Yeah.
Do you think that that was expected by the developers?
Ooh, hard to tell what’s going on in Ubisoft’s mind, to be honest.  I don’t know.  I mean they probably expected it.  I mean I believe it was set in Montana, right?
Mmm, I think so, yeah.
And from what I heard, that’s like if you want to portray like a redneck kind of super-religious extremist kind of setting, that’s not the right state, like there are more farmers.  So I – I don’t know if it’s something like if it was a mistake on their behalf or if something – like they expected or they were looking for it, it’s – it’s kind of hard to tell.  I wouldn’t say it’s due to incompetence.  I mean they are – they are a major game studio so I’m sure they – they know more or less what they’re doing, but I feel like, mmm…
Do – do you think games that are set with real-world locations are gonna become more common in the future?
Well it’s – yeah, that’s – that’s a good one actually.  Well, I mean there’s obviously the advantage of making a fictive world and then just ignoring a lot of the cultural aspects obviously, not all of them, of course.  No, I don’t think – I don’t think the gaming industry will be focused more on the real world simply because it – entertainment-wise it might be more interesting to have your own world narrative-wise as well.  Even – even for serious games, they might want to have more of a fictive – fictive nature to it.
But we – we have seen quite a few games already based – actually, besides big games like Call of Duty, have we had like first-person shooters, stuff like that, based on – on the real world?  That’s not a question I’ve asked myself before?  Yeah.
When we have, I think they’ve mostly been first-person shooters and usually had historical settings…
Yeah.
…so the Total War series, obviously the Call of Duty series.  There’s been a lot of games set in the First and Second World War, for example.  We’ve had a few films – a – a few games, smaller ones, like Revolution 1979, things like that, which are talking about different social movements through history, so there – there are some, but often these are more recent.  Now, obviously when we look at the film industry, pretty much every film is set in a real place.  
Yeah.
New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, wherever.  Often English-speaking countries.
Yeah, you wonder why.
Yeah.  Do you think we’ll ever reach a point where – where the games by default go to a real-world location?
No.  No, I don’t think so.  I think a lot of people value – like we’ve seen this with what we call fandoms.  I mean we have – we have people extremely invested in a game world that’s been created by the game developers, which is completely and utterly fictive.  I mean I myself have obviously with a game like Battle of Exile, I would not see that work at all in a real scenario, of course, and I probably would be less interested since it’s the world I live in.  I mean if – a lot of people use games as an escape, you know, not just entertainment.  They use it as an escape to get out of the real – the real world, all – all the problems they have there.  So I think games will continue to have – a lot of them have completely imaginary worlds with their own settings, their own rules and – and such.  I think there’s definitely going to be a market for that.
So some of the best-selling games are things like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty.  Would – would you say that those are in fictional settings?
Hmm, well, I mean obviously this is not an actual representation of – of how the – like it – it is based on the real world, of course, all the laws of physics are more or less respected, and – and then some story in what’s happening in the world that’s – that’s taking a – a fictitious turn.  But I actually hadn’t thought of that, that most of the best-selling games are actually based on the real world, so I guess that whether or not you’re based on the real world matters only a little for the escape – escape – escapism part because as long as it doesn’t feel like it’s just simply the – the same thing.  As in, in the game world I can go out and drive a car off a cliff and then just restart or do crazy things with like ride animals or I’m not sure exactly what’s going on in all those games; I haven’t played them all, but I can definitely see the point, but I think there’s space for both.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.  I – I think so.
Yeah, I don’t think – I don’t think we’re gonna be leaning in any – in either direction.  I mean obviously maybe the more best-selling games will be still focused on what’s easily relatable, I guess.
Yeah.  Just the last kind of few questions here.  I’ve got a statement here, which is games are powerful tools for change – to change behaviours and attitudes for the better.  Do you agree with that?  So games are powerful tools to change behaviours and attitudes for the better.
Mmm, are – are powerful tools?
Mmm.
I would – I would agree if the statement said games can be powerful tools to change behaviour for the better because I mean there’s obviously been, well, maybe they’re just outliers, but there’s been cases where games very negatively affected people, where they might completely destroy their life just like investing themselves completely into it or whatever.  So, yeah, that’s – I would – I would just make that – add that and like can be powerful tools.
Do you – what – you – you mentioned kind of different behaviours have changed.  Do you also think they can be (phone ringing) – excuse me.  I’ll cancel that.  Do you think it also works the other way that they can be powerful tools for making people’s behaviour worse, or their attitudes worse?
You know, it’s really hard to tell.  A lot of the people I interact with from the gaming community that I think have been negatively affected, as in people, they become very expectant or, you know, toxic or, you know, their behaviour is very, you know, the typical toxic kind of player we can encounter online, this is only online.  Like it’s hard for me to tell since I’ve not met these people in the real world.  Yeah, this – this is a bit of a hard question to say because I think it’s – it’s – it changes.  It depends on people from different – from people to people obviously.  But…
I mean how much do you think online behaviour reflect – oh, I suppose reflects the real-world person or influences the real-world person?
I think what we see online is complete lack – complete lack of inhibition from people, as in they just say whatever they can think of that they want to say that they would not necessarily say in a real-world scenario if they were face to face with that person, whether it would be for consequences or whether they will get punished or whatever, I’m not sure, but… I don’t – I don’t think it would reflect exactly who that person is.  I mean there’s different – there’s too many variables to take into account.  I mean if that person starts getting very angry and being extremely toxic, it might be because they had a bad day and combined with the anonymity they can get online removes any inhibition, so it’s like just an open vent into how stressful they’ve been.  Obviously there’s some cases where people are just mean for the sake of being mean, but what I’m trying to say, I guess, is that we come to a point where it’s hard to tell one from the other.
So it could reflect on that person’s personality, but from my experience, meeting people after having seen them online, there’s sometimes some night and day differences, maybe because it’s just I see the surface of that person that I don’t know them intimately enough, but we do have different faces online and offline.
Yeah.  I mean that – that kind of stress response of going home and – and being angry online, do you – do you think that actually could potentially help people in – in a way that it’s a stress relief?
Yes, actually, yeah.  I do view games as an excellent stress relief in that sense.  I mean I am – I do believe that it’s better to kind of vent frequently rather than bottle it up and then explode whenever that comes because that could be – could have some direct consequences.  So I think it’s both a problem when people are, you know, being toxic to each other online, but it’s also helpful for those people to, you know, to vent.  I mean I – I was talking about that escapism a – aspect of games and I suppose this is one of the aspects.
The – just kind of a last one there, obviously we’ve – we’ve kind of tended towards talking about the kind of the negative side of people venting online, but do – do you think there’s also a positive side, where people being anonymous can try a new identity or be perhaps more open than they are in the everyday life?
Yeah.  I – I could definitely see that.  I mean can I think of any examples for this?  Well, I mean you – you see that in maybe role playing – role playing games massively online preferably.  I mean there’s been tons of stories in games like World of Warcraft where there have been complete strangers helping each other out for not – not any expected rewards or anything.  And people going beyond what’s expected out of them to have a positive impact on someone.  I mean like I said, again, like stories of like people finding a player that’s obviously less experienced or lost and turns out it was a – a younger person and actually helping them out in the game and everything.  I mean obviously this is in the game, but there’s been cases as well like where they helped them outside of the game.  I can’t think of any examples right now, but definitely some of them around.
So, yes, the – there definitely is, but I don’t think this is the case – I don’t think this is the same in the sense where if you have negative aspects because your complete lack of inhibition, I think this is more of a case of like people who are actually genuinely nice already, I guess.  Hmm, I’m not sure where I’m going with this, I guess, but…
So you’re just sort of saying that the game world is almost a – a less filtered version of the – of the true self?
Yeah.
Is that what you mean or—?
Yeah, I – I would—
Feel free to disagree (laughs).
Well, because I’m trying to – to – to actually think what I – what I – what I believe at this point because it’s whether or not the game amplifies what they are or if it – if it’s a filtered version.  I feel like there’s obviously – it’s one a case-by-case basis, but in the vast majority, I would say in the – in – when it comes to like being – when it comes to being negatively, this is the kind of thing that people will do less readily in the – in the – in the real world, most of the time at least, while being positive is, I suppose, easier to do for these people since it’s something they take from real world into the – into the games, game world.
Cool.  Right, I think we should probably wrap it up there.  Thank you very much for the interview.
My pleasure.
Cool, thank you.