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

Okay, so the recorder is running.  Could you say your name and spell it for me, please?
Does it need to be my full name or is my—?
[anon] is—
[anon], good.  My name is [anon].
Okay, and just to confirm for the recording, you have signed the consent form, haven’t you?
Yes, I have.
Awesome.  Okay, so can you tell me a little bit about what you do in video games?
Currently I am both a video game – oh.  I’m a video game student.  I am also doing a project where I’ve taken a scope project and we’re actually now developing it further.  And I don’t know how relevant it is, but I like to go to a lot of expose – conventions and such or like game developer events.
Sure.
So, you know.
Yeah, that’s good.  So are you a designer, artist, programmer?
Right, so I’m a designer, but I did start as indie, so I have a big interest in all areas.
Okay, and those conventions and conferences and things, those are more indie in their focus, are they?
They’re mainly indie in their focus, yeah.
Yeah, and that’s within the Netherlands or is that across Europe?
Most of them have been in the Netherlands.  One has been in Belgium, one have – has been in Prague.
Yeah.  And those – are those focused on conferences for developers or conferences for kind of the – the players?
It’s been a bit of a mix.  Most of them have been for developers or really sort of hard-core gamers that are so interested that they actually go to such conventions.
Okay.
Recently we went to Anime Con, which was interesting ‘cause it was very much not that.  It was – it was not focused on gaming and then, yeah, you get some very interesting different views.
Yeah, yeah, so Anime Con is like looking at the comic book culture from Japan?
Yeah.
Yeah, cool.  What’s your background?  What have – what’s – what’s led you to be an indie games developer or designer or both?
That’s a – that’s a good question.  I think it’s – I mean I’m – I’m straight out of high school, but from very early on I really loved anything creative to do with either drawing or writing or trying to create little worlds and such, and then I figured out that I really enjoyed structuring levels in such a way that they were fun to play, so then I ended up really, really liking things like level design and – and figuring out what sort of mechanics to use.  And then in one of my high school years I had a very, very small course on this super-basic simplistic game engine called Scratch, which is like so easy that, yeah, I – I should have been able to do it when I was like eight.  But I made something and I thought that was really cool.  And then, yeah, I basically realised that game development is pretty much the thing I like most.
Cool, and so how long have you been making games now?
I would say actual games, since I started this – this – this university, so that’s about three years.
And before that you were—?
Before that it was mainly like using some – some very bad level editors in like Flash games and such.
Sure, but that’s – that’s games, so how – how—?
Yeah, no, board games as well, by the way, so then I would say since I was like probab – well, probably around seven, eight years.  That’s a – that’s a guess, but…
So you’ve made board games along the way as well?
Yeah, yeah, a lot of – a lot of my first sort of ideas, I wanted to work them out in some way that they were fun to play.  And we had a couple of board games, like Colonist of Catan, I don’t know, yeah, that one that allowed you to sort of reorganise things to make your own version of it and then I also started making my actual own games.  And at some point I found a – I found a – a board game but I just found the board and I had no idea how to play it so I made my own way how to play it and I played with my cousin, and it was one of the – that was – that was the first game that I am still actually pretty proud of.  Like I’m like, “Hey, that was actually kind of fun to play.”
Cool.  How would you characterise games developers as people?  Is there anything that in particular that jumps out when you think of the people that you’ve worked with or people you’ve met or – or the people you admire in the industry?
I would say driven.  I think the main thing, I – I don’t know if I have to kind of refrain from getting too personal, but the – the main thing is that when I – in high school it was all basically we have to do this thing to pass the course, and then you got to this – this spot and it’s like we do this because we really want to make games.  This is what we love.  This is what we want to do.  
Yeah.
And I’ve sort of had the same feeling with most of the developers I’ve met at conferences or conventions that just view like doing – and really get excited for what other people are doing and what – what they’re – they’re working on themselves, and that just really – yeah, really awesome to hear.
Would you say then that community is a big thing for games developers?
Yeah, I would say.  It – I mean there’s of course a lot of – of – of smaller communities within that whole thing.  One thing that I have talked about with a couple of others is that we do tend to – I think you were there, we do tend to sort of, at least in – in the Netherlands, stick to our own cities and not go too much outside of that, but yeah, it is – I do think that the community aspect of it, I mean you learn a lot from each other and from seeing what others are trying and – yeah.
Do you think if – if you were trying to think of kind of players, do you think there are any kind of common groups within players or is very much a mixed group or—?
That’s really difficult.  It’s a – it’s sort of a similar – maybe not entirely, but it feels like sort of a similar question as – as like game genres, which is like well you can call them that, but they’re also this, and then there are 20 different things and makes no sense to properly like, I don’t know, like I – trying to classify things makes a lot of sense because then you can figure out, “Oh, this is one of those.  I’ve played one of those, I like these.”  But, yeah, they’re – they’re – everything is different in terms of both players in terms…
I think – I think also the – the – the – the difference – difference between casual and hard-core is very difficult because – I mean if you just play a – a phone game, a – a mobile game once in a while then, yeah, I guess you might not be too interested in what’s going on on PC and console and whatnot, but then you’ve also got quite big differences between someone that plays World of Warcraft for most of their day every day and someone that, you know, plays – well, plays every – every once in a while at their friend’s place because, I don’t know.  I don’t know, I think there’s just a lot of – of – of difference.  That’s very difficult to classify.
So I – to – to summarise the sum of this is it’s – there are a lot of different people playing games?
Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah.  I mean that’s – that’s – that’s an absolutely fine answer because I mean we – that’s – that’s a lot of kind of what we investigate is – is like are there – are there easy groupings that we can make or are there – is it just everybody?
I think you could maybe classify the – the way people or – well, yeah, I guess you can call them players as much, but the way people see games, ‘cause I mean some people – the – the – the con – the – the idea of – the concept of games is very different in a couple of people’s minds, as in some people see them as they’re a waste of time.  They’re just, you know, they’re some way that kids spend their time trying to not make homework, and some people see them as really sort of beautiful experiences.  And,  yeah, that’s a – and everything in between, of course. 
Yeah.
But I think those are maybe easier ways to – well, I don’t know.
It’s quite a difficult area really, isn’t it?  If you were to look back at the last ten years or so, do you think – do you think that people have changed in their relationships to games or do they play games more?  Do they – and – and have games really replaced other ways of entertaining themselves?
I’m not sure I’m fit to comment on about ten years, but from what I – from what I understand and from what I’ve seen in – in the representation especially of gamers, it has – generally that representation has improved a lot with, for example, also the – the – the YouTuber part of things, where people that play games are now actually also celebrities and such, which is interesting.  But at least it – it very much breaks that sort of – that – that sort of idea of they’re – they’re, you know, basement-dwellers.  They’re – they’re actually all sorts of different people and I think that that’s starting to get recognised.
And, yeah, I think in general the – it – it’s become a lot more clear that – that a lot of different kinds of people play games and not just this very specific sort of – well, both target audience and – and – and demographic.
Okay.  You’re familiar with the terms serious and applied games?
Yeah.
Yeah.  Do you have any general thoughts about those?
In the – it depends a bit on – on what exactly, because I mean there’s – even in there are of course a lot of variety.  I think for educational purposes, there should be a lot more focus on the mix between fun and – and serious because literally the term serious game sort of makes it sound like it is not fun…
Yeah.
…which is kind of like why would you make a game that is not fun?  But in the – when – when looking at it for, for example, medical training and such, that is amazing that they can actually, you know, train using – I don’t – I don’t know enough about it, but I’m assuming like they have – they have really nice devices, console-ish, things that just, yeah, really help them train for that without, you know, having to actually then go kill somebody.
Yeah.  They do have VR simulations of – of – of—
Yeah.
Of surgery, but I also found that surgeons that play one – one hour of first-person shooters per week have less – less deaths in the surgical room.
Right.
So just – just the – the – the – the increase in cognitive awareness of kind of spatial relationships, fast reactions, hand-eye coordination…
Yeah.
…was improved enough by one hour first-person shooter per week, so that obviously playing a simulation is good for learning stuff.
The actual thing, yeah, yeah.
But—
But some skills from gaming really transfer well into… that’s cool.
Yeah, yeah.  Do you have any – do you have – do you have any – any experience with the term gamification?
Yeah, from what I understand it is basically having a concept that may not be as exciting and then me putting like game elements into it to make people more eager to try it out, which is both fun and terrifying.
Could you – could you describe why it’s both fun and terrifying?
Well, the fun thing is if you make, for example, a – an education, like a, let’s say, high school, you add in some game elements that actually motivate people to try and, you know, be – be the best at this because, I don’t know, they might get some fancy trophy or something, I don’t know.  Maybe not the best example because that’s also kind of part of the terrifying thing because you can – ah, I forgot what it was.  It was, I think, a year or two ago and I heard something about I don’t know if it was China or where, something where they were really trying to gamify being a good citizen, which is terrifying.  It’s like, “Hey, you’re – you get like points for being a good citizen and like not searching for bad things on the internet and – and doing these sort of things.”  And I’ve no idea how – how like true that – that whole thing was, but the thought of it is terrifying. 
Yeah, and – so I mean that – that comes to a – sort of towards into one of the later questions a little bit, like the – do you think that the psychological principles used to design entertainment games or artistic games are similar to the ones used to drive serious and applied games, or gamification?
Well, they – they should be.  I mean if they’re not then – then something I think is – it – it depends a little bit because if you’re making games then you – there – there – there’s such a big difference between trying to make games for profit and trying to make the thing you want, because if you want to make something that people are going to just give a lot of money to, then you can really apply so many sort of small psychological things to make them want to buy this – this thing or – or – or spend their – you know, spend their time and money into it.  But if you make something that you – that you love, of course you will still want to make it that people play it and like it and everything, but you will be less likely to consciously implement psychological aspects that make people, well, lose all of their money to your game. 
And the – the weird thing is that I – those – those psychological factors that you can use are super-interesting, also especially for gamification I guess that’s one of the main reasons why you would want to do gamification, to make things more appealing or more, yeah, people interact with them more.  But yeah, that’s kind of both the – the fun and the terrifying part, the whole psychological aspect of it, where you can actually  manipulate people to do things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there’s a statement here which I think you probably have already answered in some ways, but it says games are powerful tools to change behaviours and attitudes for the better.  Do you agree with that?
Yes, with sort of the subtext or worse.
Yeah, so there – that’s also one of the follow-up questions, is there a flip side to that argument that they can—
Yeah, definitely.
They can make people worse?  Do you think that entertainment games, which are – you know, obviously serious and applied games do this deliberately, do you think entertainment games have similar effects or artistic games have similar effects?
Yes, but often less – I think often less intentional, as in they haven’t designed it to make sure that you will – well, I don’t know, be – be able to operate on someone.  I guess that’s not really the – the cert – the psychological aspect, but it’s – I think they definitely help a lot of important elements, such as I’ve read this thing on how Journey really helped someone through, I don’t know, their – I think it was their – their father was dying of – of cancer and both of them were sort of playing Journey and watching the other play and interacting with people and they were just enjoying their – their sort of last time together, and that is amazing.
And the – I – I – I think that Journey was made with,  you know, keeping in mind that this was gonna be this great experience, but not exactly sort of the, “Hey, we want people that are dying to feel, you know, to – to spend their last hours feeling – feeling very good with this.”  So it’s – I think it has a lot of impact in a lot of different ways, but, yeah, I think they’re less designed to exactly do this one thing or this specific.
Do you think there’s currently sufficient knowledge about how entertainment games or artistic games, we could say Journey is an artistic game really…
Yeah, right.
…do – do you think there’s sufficient research or knowledge into how that functions at the moment?
At the moment I would definitely say no. I mean there should be more general understanding of how this influences people and – and how that works.  On the other hand, as a – as a game designer, I sometimes don’t want to know – I – I don’t want to have all these research papers and be like, “Oh, no, but if I do this one thing then maybe that makes players, I don’t know, feel – feel bad about themselves two hours later.”  I don’t know, it – it – it – I – I definitely think there should be more research into it.  But it’s a very creative area and,  yeah, I think that there’s a lot of – a lot of things that it – it – it’s so much about the context and the specific case and the – yeah, it’s – it’s very difficult to get a full sort of understanding of how all of this works and – and then apply that to the next game.
Yeah.  Do – is part of your hesitation there to do with the – so – so I suppose some of it is you’re – you’re saying that the – even if they did a really good study of this, you’re not sure how effective it would be because the complexity of the problem of how to the game – how to design a game better is too context-based, is that what you mean or—?
I think it’s – I think the – the – the problem is that if you start to design a game, you don’t – well, you often don’t design it with all of these research papers in mind.  You don’t – you don’t go, “Oh, this is…” you – you might base it off of one but then there might be ten others that sort of have this.  And I think that it is most important to have especially the dangerous parts of it examined and – and – and, well, widely known throughout the gaming industry so that they can be – so that they can be avoided, so that they can be pointed out if you’re, you know, moving towards one of them.  
But, yeah, it’s – I mean this is – this is really just – just knowing all the psychological areas of it again and that is not always – I don’t know, I find it difficult to have – ‘cause you can – you can be – be more or – or focus your creativity maybe more through the research but, I don’t know, I – I’m afraid it would be too restricted if you’ve got these sort of these are the things that work, that we know work and these are the things that we know that don’t work, and then you have to sort of adjust what you want to make to that.  But I have no idea whether that is actually true.  This is – I’m – I’m not sure if this answers the most.
That’s fine.  Yeah, it is – no, it’s – it’s one of those things, like oil painting, you know, you can teach a person how to use oil paints, but the inspiration and the creativity of it, the thing that makes their painting – their use of oil paints different from somebody else, it comes from inside them as well, so just trying to help people understand how to use the – the tool of game development effectively but letting them have their own creative freedom within that tool usage I think is—
Thinking a bit more about it, because I actually really quite like that metaphor, I think there should be a lot more research because then you can sort of have the theory.  I mean with oil painting, I mean you’ve got like colour theory and those sort of things that can very much influence you or help you understand why your painting works or why it might not.  And then you can figure out, “Oh, I’m using too much red.  Maybe this is feeling more like it’s a – it’s an aggressive thing when I’m trying to make this really tranquil scene.”  I think in that – if you’re – if you’re looking at it in that aspect, it might be useful to have a lot more knowledge about – about how games influence people, not necessarily to follow them to the letter, but more sort of, “Hey, if you do this, you’ll probably have this effect.”
Yeah, cool.  Looking forward to your future career…
Yes, I am.
Good.  I’m glad to hear that.  What do you think are some of the pressures that you’re gonna face in the workplace?
I think for me personally or in general?  I think for me personally, it is the work/life balance.  I think that’s going to be one of my main struggles.  I am having a pretty good time communicating with everyone, so I don’t think that will be the main – the main issue.  But, yeah, I think the sort of the really wanting to make the perfect best thing ever while having limited time and then trying to create more time by, I don’t know, sleeping less or that sort of stuff, like trying to sort of balance that is probably going to be my biggest – biggest issue.
Yeah, do you expect to be working for indie companies or triple-A or something mid-size?
So my – I – I’ve heard this is very Dutch, but my initial sort of feeling was, “Hey I want to start my own company.”  After being in – in this education for a little while now, I feel like it might be best if I first join another company for a couple of years, see how that goes, what their practices are, how, you know, if I – if I then do end up doing my own company, maybe I can apply that.  Maybe I can use it in some way.  And then after that, start my own company with a lot more knowledge and experience.
Yeah, I think – I think that’s sensible.  Yeah, definitely.  Okay, so let’s move on to kind of one of the – the – the last couple of big issues we’ve got here.  While working on games, do you recall intentionally addressing issues such as gender, minority representation, political culture or other serious or socially educational topics in your work?
Yes.  And it’s a very weird – it’s a very weird thing because I think one of the first times I consciously did it, it was after a lecture which – I don’t know if it was by you or prob – I don’t know, it was by somebody explaining about just – I think at that point it was really just diversity in general, and then I – my sort of initial reflex was, “But this is my story,” which is, you know, I though like, you know, “This is my story, I’ve – I’ve made this and – and – and you have no input on this.  This is my thing.”  And then I – I looked at my story and like I’m pretty sure all my characters were white, and I was like, “Why are they?”  They could also not be.  That could actually make them both more identifiable, more interesting characters and, yeah, I mean if someone feels more like they are – they’re represented in this game because of that, that’s – that’s great.
But even from a gameplay reason, like have – making them have different – making them look very different is extremely useful because you can identify them.  So, that’s when I – I think that was still in the first year somewhere, that’s when I started doing that a bit more consciously.  And I do – I do often have the – I don’t know if it’s a struggle, but the sort of tendency to make a – a whale – whale – a white male figure whenever I create a character or a – a – a white female figure, and then – and then realise, “Wait, but this might fit better,” or, “This might be a more interesting way to – to do it.”  And I don’t know if that’s bad that I – that I sort of start out with that, but I do think it’s good to be aware of that.
Yeah.  Thank you.
Sure.
Have you – ‘cause obviously you’ve now made a few games along the way using this kind of idea, how have – has the – has the audience who’ve played your games, have they ever commented on any of the stuff or is it just they’ve just accepted it?
Well, to be quite honest, in most of the games that I’ve made, and this is – this is maybe a different aspect of it, but the characters have not been identifiable as female or male, which means that, you know, there – there wasn’t really that much of a, “Oh, hey, this – I’m – I’m playing as a girl,” or, “I’m playing as a guy,” because they were playing as a rock or they were playing as like (laughs) – like you can’t really go, “Hey, I don’t feel represented by this,” because nobody feels represented by it; it’s a rock.  But I – one thing that was very interesting, but just in a sort of kind of a terrible way is that in the first game, the project that I – that I did, which went really well, we had a female protagonist, and she had an incredibly awkward sound when she was in pain, which is just – yes, that was commented on, but also within the development team, we were like, “This is a terrible sound.  We should not do this.”  But yeah.
To – to – to hazard a guess, was that a – a sound that – sound was almost sexual in  nature?
It was – yeah, it sounded not entirely PG13.
Okay.
No, it was – I mean it – it was just a – a weird—
Gasp.
Yeah, I mean it’s not like it’s – it’s a new thing in games, but it’s – yeah, it was – it was – it was odd.  Like you – you would know – you would think about it when you hear it.  Like, “Hey, that doesn’t sound like she’s in pain.”
So – so why was that audio clip in there rather than finding another one?
I think anything that is partially – I think this is why a lot of games end up seeming sexist or racist in some way.  I’m pretty sure it was just a joke.  Like one of the developers was like, “Hey, we need a – we need a sound effect for this,” and they found this, and they were like, “Well, that’s probably fine,” and then they put it in and then we sort of treated it as an in-house joke, but we never really got rid of it.  And then, you know, that’s sort of a – that’s kind of a – a dangerous thing.  And I think that that’s – yeah, I’m – I’m seeing that as potentially one of the reasons why a lot of games have those sort of things in there.
Possibly.  Possibly, yeah.  Have you been more careful in the future after that game?
Yeah.  The weird thing is, I mean you do keep making – you do keep making jokes, not necessarily – not – I mean preferably not in any sort of way to negatively impact a specific group or – or – or whatever, but you do keep making jokes and – and placing, you know, those sort of – things like to – to talk about one of the most recent examples, one of my – one of the people I work with made a logo that was terrible.  It was a really bad logo.  And we refer to it as nice logo, and it is now like in a lot of different areas of our game, you can find a nice logo, which is that terrible picture.  I mean it doesn’t affect anybody negatively, other than maybe the person that made it, but those kind of jokes.  And I think that that’s – that’s very much the same – like for the developer, that feels the same as making a joke that might be affecting a – a group or a – something like that.
But yeah, I have not seen – I have not had anything after that first project where I – I consciously noticed, “Oh, shit, this joke we’re making is actually really bad.  We should not.”
So, do you think that the – now there’s – there’s a lot of discussion that slowly the number of women are increasing within games development teams.  Do you think that might have an impact on the nature of the jokes that are told in the games or the content that’s referenced, because – ‘cause I mean that – that kind of thing, as you say, it’s – it’s an unintentional joke.  Well, it’s a joke which was un – unintentionally a little bit sexist.
Yeah.
Do you think—
But it was also kind of funny because it was sexist.  Like you – you heard – like no, no, but the thing is, the – in that first project, at some point the person that we modelling the character, because we actually had a character.  We were like, “Oh, shit, first game.”  But anyway, they were – they were making a female character and somewhere throughout sculpting, her boobs were like balloons, because that was funny.
Yeah.
Not because it was – yeah, well obviously that didn’t go into the game, but I mean those sort of things – and I mean it’s the same thing when you make a guy character and then you make the – him have a giant pelvis.  It’s like it’s funny for like a few seconds, and then it’s like, “Okay, I’m done with it now.” 
Yeah.
But some of the – some of those things do tend to – I mean it’s kind of the same thing as just having a completely distorted model and being like, “Hey, look at this great art I made,” but then it has this – this – this sexist aspect to it and that both makes it slightly – in – in – in some cases it makes it slightly more funny because it’s like this kind of thing you’re not supposed to do, and in some cases it just makes it really terrible because it – because you’re not – you’re – well, you’re – it’s not that you’re – you can’t do it; it’s just that if you do it, there will be people offended by it, which is why you could, you know, decide not to.
It’s interesting.
But anyway, I kind of forgot what you…
No, it’s fine.  It’s – it’s – it’s a – it’s an interesting example to go into, ‘cause obviously one – one of the questions actually we follow up here is of have you ever deliberately been antisocial in your game’s themes, and as – that – the answer is not deliberately, but – but – but kind of yes, which is very interesting because it – sort of it – it – you’re diving into how this happens.  Do you think that is going – because obviously human beings are sexual, you know.  The – the – sex is part of our – our nature as a species and as individuals, the majority of us are sexual beings.  So it’s healthy that that’s reflected in games in some ways, but trying to find that right borderline is tricky.
Yes, yeah.  If – if you’re intentionally putting it in your game, it needs to be a very both conscious thing and consciously thought out, like, “Hey, this is – this is what we’re trying to do with this part,” and not like, “Hey, we’re putting in a sex scene because that will give us – that will make people want to buy it,” or something.
Oh, I expect that happens as well.
Or – or we’ll give this character very little clothes because, well, she breathes through her skin.  No, no, no, not trying to – but – but on that aspect, yeah, like sexuality is very much a thing and there’s – I do think that – ‘cause – ‘cause I just remembered the actual initial question was that there are more women in the games industry now or getting to be and whether that influences it, I think that that definitely will influence it because I – I really don’t like seeing people in groups, but it is very logical that because, you know, the difference in – in literally the anatomy of – of – of a – of a woman versus a man, they have different thoughts about, for example, sexuality.  And so their sort of perspective will – yeah, will bring – bring along different types of jokes and – and – and that combination of having, I guess, the dream would be a 50-50 split in the company of – of – of – well, I mean…
Maybe.
Yeah, I don’t know if it’s a dream, but like having a good – having a lot of different perspectives does, I think, very much change the jokes because you’ll be – you’re both – you – you keep each other in mind.  You don’t go, “Hey, let’s make this – this joke about this ethnic group,” when one of those ethnic – when someone from that group is in your team or you do and they endorse and then you’re – you’re probably even more – you mess it up a bit more.  But – but, yeah, I do think that having more women in the – in the games industry is going to affect those sort of in-jokes and sort of how that is. 
And I – I think the – the – in terms of how – how funny they are, not necessarily for the better or the worse, but I think in what – whether they are considered – I think also whether they’re considered offensive or not, not necessarily for the better or the worse, I mean everybody’s very different and I know that – I – I know a couple of women that make some very sexist jokes, but it’s – it’s – it’s a very different perspective and I think that’s very interesting.
Yeah.  You mentioned an example of a – a character that can breathe through their skin.  Could you – could you talk a little bit more about what you were referencing there?
I’m referencing if – if – not to name any – any – any names…
Please – please name things.  We’ve had loads of things…
Oh, God.
…named in these – in these – in these – and you – to just remind you, you will be safe; it’s anonymous.
Yeah, yeah, no.  No, but I mean in the – in the – in the Metal Gear games, I haven’t played it, but I’ve heard and seen enough about it to sort of think, “Hey, this is slightly weird.”  The – the character Quiet in – in one of the latest Metal Gear games seems like an extremely interesting character who is – who has this very strong personality and this very – yeah, she’s just generally a major bad-ass from what I’ve – from what I’ve seen.  And then she’s pretty much wearing a bikini-ish, as in that’s about as much as it covers.  And I mean having—
And the other characters in the game are fully clothed, aren’t they?
Yeah, and the charac – other characters in the game are fully clothed.  From what I know, Metal Gear does tend to have its sort of parts where it doesn’t take itself too seriously, for example, with – I think they make Snake sometimes also not wear too much, which I think in – you know, in that aspect that’s kind of – that’s kind of a bit more balanced in a way, but yeah, both – both that aspect of it, the sort of, “Hey, this – this female character that we have is wearing extremely little while all these other characters that we have are just fully clothed,” it’s – it’s a little weird.  And I think it’s also – another aspect of it is games that have sort of the skins where all of a sudden this character that you were just, you know, that was just fully clothed but now you bought a skin and now she’s half-naked and like that is very clearly sort of using their sexuality in a way that might not at all even fit their character, and that’s just kind of awkward.
Yeah.  I did see a recent study where the person was looking at that re-skins in Res – the Resident Evil games.
Yeah.
And she hasn’t published yet; she’s doing a PhD about it, but she – she did a study of – of the appearance of competence, the – the – the – the impressions of competence.  And she basically got people to randomly play characters, either with their kind of bikini outfit or short – tiny short-shorts, hot-pants outfit or their kind of combat gear, and for people who played the character in the hot-pants rated the character as less effective, less believable, less interesting.  And now there’s – there’s debate about whether this is to do with her being overly sexualised or whether just her clothing is inappropriate for the moment.  Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no, I think it’s like that last one is especially, I think, because if you’re running around in a zombie apocalypse in your underwear, then it’s like, “Why?”  I mean they’re – that zombie just now had a jacket; please grab it.  That would be like be – that would be better to actually put on, but…
Yeah.  Oh, yeah, so – so just to finish up on the thing, so – so what was the reason that Quiet was wearing so little clothing?
Yeah, no, the – the reason was that apparently she breathes through her skin, which is why she needs a lot of it to be exposed…
Yeah.
…which is very, very lame reason kind of.
Yeah.  It – it does sound like she was naked for the sake of it, or nearly naked for the sake of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.  Moving on anyway, we’ve talked about that for quite a bit.  The – if we’re to look back at the last ten years, what would you say were the major things that happened in the games industry or major innovations or major events or anything like that?
That’s not one I’m sure I can comment on as much.
Okay.
Yeah.
That’s fine.  No problem.  If I were to ask you that in ten years’ time, so where – where do you think we’re going?  What’s gonna happen…
Right.
…in the next ten years?
Are you specifically talking about like a single event or sort of like movements in the game industry or—?
Movements, changes, technology, culture, do you think…?
In the – in – in the sense of diversity or just in general?
Yeah, absolutely in general.  It can be – if – if diversity is where you think the biggest change is gonna happen then by all means, but if you think it’s something else.
Yeah, well I mean right now, of course, there’s the – kind of the big thing of the – the push on the technological side for graphics, which, as a game designer, I don’t find as interesting, but which is one major thing that a lot of triple-A companies are pushing for.  But then on the other hand you see that even the things they announce on E3 in some cases kind of stopped going for that whole, “Hey, hyperrealism is… we – we want this to be the most hyperrealistic thing we want – that – that we can get.”  Of course, some – some games, some projects still go for that, but I think it’s – I think once you sort of reach that level and it’s not very interesting any more.  It’s – it’s I think also why – why some people went back to like pixel art and whatnot, because they’re kind of tired of this – this thing that we’ve already been trying to do for so long.  And even if we perfected at some point, it’s like we – we can already see real life.  We don’t really need that to be – we can…
Yeah.
…just record it.
Yeah.
I think that’s the thing.  I – I think it’s – and this is completely speculation because I don’t – I don’t speculate like this often, but I think that it is going to move away from that.  I think there’s gonna always stay the couple of games that – that do it, but I think not necessarily stop doing it, but more like become more diverse in – in – in what they use, like whether it’s gonna be – but yeah, one thing that I’m very curious about is whether VR is going to be a thing because—
What – what – what do you think?  Do you think it’s gonna catch on?
So I worked on two VR projects by now and spent like three-quarters of a year working in VR, and before that I was like VR’s gonna flop.  This is gonna be terrible.  Nobody’s gonna buy this.  I mean this – this stuff is way too expensive.  It’s not – it’s not all that interesting.  It – it’s cool to see everything around you, but then you’re like, “Cool, I can also do that when I’m on a PC and sort of…”
Yeah, keep going.  That’s fine.
I can also do that when I’m on a PC with, you know, first person controls.  It’s – it’s cool but it – it seems very gimmicky.  Having played with [Broom Skill 0:43:06] VR, it is very – it is very different.  It’s a very different way of interacting with things that – it does feel very different from general video games you play on a console or PC, so I don’t know how – how much they are going to sort of affect each other, because it does very much feel like you’re sort in a – in a – in a more arcade setting because you’ve got this big setup.  You’ve got this whole – I don’t know, it feels kind of like buying one of those games where you need a giant gun to, you know, in – in the arcade hall and then just buying one of those machines and then putting it in your own home and then – I don’t know.
I – I – I find it very difficult to see whether it will take off or not because I think if it takes off, it’s because there’s so many people pushing it, because it’s right now such a thing.  Like Microsoft didn’t have any VR for their – for their E3, but Sony was like, “Hey, VR everywhere.”
Well, they had a few anyway.
Well, at the beginning.
Yeah.
They kind of started off with a bunch of it.
Yeah, there were – there were a few titles.
But – but yeah, yeah, I think in general I’m not convinced.
You’re not convinced.  Okay, fair enough.  Okay, is there any other things that you think might be coming up in the next ten years that you think are gonna grow perhaps or change or surprise us?
The – ooh, the one thing I find interesting is that I think indie companies are becoming bigger and bigger, so sort of – well, this has been a thing the last year or years, but they’re becoming more like A studios.  And the – the – the term indie is now kind of weird because it’s like, “Hey, you’re this indie company,” or your – your 2 people now are actually like 50 or something and it’s like, “Oh, okay.”  And so the only thing that an – an indie, independent game developer has is just we don’t have a publisher, which is interesting, but,  yeah, sometimes it’s good to have a publisher so it’s not really…
Yeah.
Yeah, it depends, it depends.  I don’t know if you – if – if the more interesting things would be in terms of the diversity, the – the changes in terms of diversity, I think – the thing is, I just hope it to – to become more diverse, but I don’t know.  I – I think that the trend of more women getting into the industry is great and I hope that it – that it keeps going.
Do you see any reasons why it wouldn’t?
Not really.
Okay.
I mean one of the reasons why it wouldn’t is just because it hasn’t been working for a non – number of years.  I mean, for example, in art education there’s way too little female programmers.  There’s – in our year, in the first year there was one and she left.  She was the only female programmer.  I mean that’s – that’s kind of an awkward, well, position, I’m assuming, to be in.
Why do you think there are so few pro – programmers that are women?
So,  yeah, so I really – as I said, I don’t like defining people as groups, but I think that – and this is – this is just from what I’ve heard; this is not from what I have personally sort of theorised as much, but it’s just that they have been – the – the stereotype of a programmer has been so portrayed as – as this, well, anything but a woman.  It’s like that’s been the – the – the stereotype that – that programmers are these – these IT guys that are, you know, kind of like gamers have – have been portrayed a bit.  And I think that the reason that there are more artists is because in general in the sort of the more art side, the art industry, there is more diversity in terms of gender.  And in the whole IT side of things, there isn’t as much.  I think the entire IT side needs to sort of bring up their – their recruitment of women and that will help out for games programming as well.
Okay, cool.  Thank you very much for your answers.
You’re very welcome.
Yeah.
I hope it was helpful in some way.
I’m sure it will be.  Thank you.
Great.
Cheers.