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

For the sake of the camera, could you just say your name and summarise what you do in the games industry, please?
My name’s [anon].  I have a small studio in Iowa, in Colorado, and we make narrative video games.  The first project that we worked on as a studio was called [anon] and it was an autobiographical video game about the loss of our third son, [anon], to cancer.
Thank you. Now obviously that’s an unusual market to have got into, to start off with, but I suppose market considerations were in there somewhere.  What would your games be like if they were entirely free of market constraints and considerations?  How would that change your development process, do you think?
Well if they were free of market constraints, I’m not sure they’d ever get done.  There is something to developing within constraints and often, like even money is a constraint for us.  I can think of one example where we spent – I spent probably six months on the second to final scene in the game, making many different revisions of it.  So part of it was (pause) – what I appreciated was the ability that we had to explore different ways of expressing something that was deeply personal to us and so like, I think what I appreciated about – let me say it this way.  
We were able to finance the game, without going into a profound amount of debt and because of that, we were able to explore our expression of going through this process with [anon] at a pace that didn’t feel constraining, you know?  Like we could – because we weren't profit-driven, we could take our time and so I think having the constraint of having to produce something and having to release it was good for us, and being accountable to somebody else.  So we did that through a mix of grants and almost angel funders and stuff like that.  So I think that constraint helped us but also the fact that it wasn’t direct debt.  It was [very helpful to us 0:03:20].
So I don’t know, I think for us had we not – I think had we not had any commercial constraints, I think we could have experimented more.  I think some of the ways that we kind of maybe failed in our game is where it didn’t have the polish that it needed and that was because we ran out of time and ran out of resources or just had to – it had to be done.  So I don’t know, it’s like it’s a difficult balance.  I don’t know if I’m answering your question or not.
These things are to be discussed, rather than – my job here is to ask the question and hopefully just let you keep on [0:04:11].  
So we’ve got about four or five topics to get through.  Obviously you addressed a serious topic of grief and cancer, especially cancer in children, in your game.  Do you think players have their social views or behaviour changed by playing games in general or by playing your games in particular?  So do their social views or behaviour change?
Are social views changed?  I think in our culture, at least in our culture here in America, there is a great fear of death and an unwillingness to place ourselves in proximity to pain, and so – or it’s kind of a morbid curiosity but it’s always just kind of at arm’s length, you know, and I think that we see in our social media, when we’ve just kind of – and I do it to, you know, when you scroll past that person that’s suffering, I think that one benefit of [anon]is it caused people to stop and look at a topic that most people, especially parents, it’s their greatest fear.  So their willingness to stop and grieve with us, I think, I hope, it’s transformative because it transformed us and I think that by doing that, I’m hoping that people will then be willing to get in closer proximity to those people around them that are suffering and so there is a certain amount of hoping they’re receiving comfort and then using that to comfort others, and I’ve seen a few examples. 
What’s amazing to me, is that even as young as ten years old, through the YouTube culture, there’s a lot of – so there’s this sense that there’s the work that you have, and that’s the work that you produce and put out there and people consume it, but then there’s the cultural wake around it.  I think a lot of times with video games, what’s underestimated in the video game culture is the cultural wake around the games that are made, that’s broader than the work itself.  It’s kind of like how many people have seen the Mona Lisa in person, but we all know what the Mona Lisa is and I think we can look at those cultural artefacts and see how they have a profound effect.
So like for us, we sold very few copies of our game, compared to most commercial – I mean, it’s a lot for an indie, but it’s not a lot, on the scale of broad commercially successful games.  However, the amount of people that have seen our game through YouTube videos and things like that are equivalent to games that are much more financially successful.  So in that regard, we are still having a cultural impact of millions of people being able to consume what you’ve created and talk about that.  
So like we’ve seen where in the streaming culture and YouTube culture, you just see how people, young and old, are affected by it and I’ve seen tweets where like a 16 year old girl is showing her mom [anon]and playing it for her and parents are having conversations with their kids and they’re surprised by the things that their kids are consuming because most of it, they think that it’s just time-wasting, you know, but we’re finding that it’s not just the adults and parents that are looking for culturally meaningful stuff in video games.  It’s also students, so I think it runs the full gamut. 
I think the younger kids are willing to sit there and listen to something poetic, and listen to something painful and I find that teenagers and kids are very, what would you call it?  They’re very mature in their ability to handle grief and handle pain and I don’t think we give them a lot of credit for that.  So I think there’s a desire for them to engage with meaningful content, like emotionally meaningful, emotionally significant content, and they’re looking for that in the media that they’re most comfortable with, the one that they grew up consuming and the one that shapes their view of pop culture and everything else.
Again, it’s not just about the kids, I’m just saying it’s been interesting to me to see the range of people affected by what we do.
Obviously, you were inspired by your own life to create something which is outside of the average.  A lot of games are set in warzones and very fantastical situations.  Why did you choose games as a medium to express this personal story?  Is it something that you felt was needed in the medium or was it something you felt was needed by you and Amy?
It wasn’t the first kind of meaningful game that I did.  When my business partner and I met, we shared a desire to create meaningful experiences in video games because we saw the potential for it, but I wasn’t thinking like, let’s make a meaningful game about cancer.  The first thing I did was just something about relationships.  I think that the thing that inspired the game was a night that I spent in the hospital with my son, when he was very dehydrated and I felt helpless, and it stuck with me as this idea of like, that feels kind of like a game mechanic, where I’m trying to do the right thing and I can’t, but the level is broken.  How would that feel to share it with somebody else that way?  So it stuck in my head as a mechanic.
I think that a lot of times in the desire to make meaningful experiences that are commercially viable, they have to kind of centre around certain situations.  Like if you think of first person shooters, it has to be within the context of this grander narrative where you’re the hero and you’re fighting and you’re going through war with each other and there’s a lot of one-liners and there’s – sure there’s emotion and things like that, and there’s moments of reflection, but it’s mostly within the context of battle and that’s something that not very many people have gone through, personally, and that I would wager a guess that a lot of people that are making those games are also not veterans.  So there becomes this kind of romanticism of certain things or certain topics and not stuff that really connects with you at a personal level.  
So I’m a believer in testimony-based art, you know, if you tell your story, or if you tell a story that’s very close to you, then you understand the nuance and you’re able to share those touchstones with other people because people that have gone through similar situations almost always have similar experiences and common touchstones; but people outside of that don’t see it and so when you see emotional narrative kind of bolted on to something that’s more commercially viable, without enabling artists to share their own experiences, I don’t think we’re going to get the kind of meaning experiences we see in other mediums. 
Like I see that – how much are novels autobiographical, how much are [0:12:13] and it’s common to see those emotional personal themes expressed there, but for some reason it’s uncommon in games and I think it’s in part because even if you’re a single artist or tour, and you’re sharing your own story, it’s still profoundly expensive and so without enabling those finances, I don’t think we’re going to see the personal story encoded into video games.
So the next topic I’ve got to address is things like ethical considerations but I think in some ways, we’ve talked about this quite a lot.  The thing about representation of women or minority cultures, political cultures, things like that.  
With the deeply personal topic, obviously you have a personal stake in that.  If in future you step outside of a personal story, how much consideration are you going to give to representations of gender and issues such as that?
That’s something we think about a lot.  There’s a few things there.  One way that we’ve been criticised with [anon]is that we expressed a traditionally, heteronormative gender perspective, religious perspective, on loss and I couldn’t tell any other story.  That’s the story that I could tell because it’s my experience, right?  But there was a certain desire to that, like I remember an interview with somebody that was frustrated because she was a non-religious person who had experienced loss of a child, and I wasn’t her world.  So what we did ended up – it didn’t comfort her, it actually made her angry because it opened up wounds, from our perspective, that people like us, religious, well-meaning people, may have harmed.  
So there’s a hard thing there because I think the thing with games that you have to consider, more than anything, is that the player’s bringing themselves into the world that you’ve created.  They’re bringing their work views, they’re bringing their pain, they’re bringing their biases and that filter is highly present in a video game experience because so often you say, ‘I did this’.
So the fact that I am there and that I am inviting you to sit here, I have to consider you, so it’s a hard balance.  So like the safe thing for me is to tell it from my perspective, as a storyteller, and I think that it’s safe but it’s also justifiable.  If I can tell my story, then I’m not projecting anything on you.  I’m just sharing myself, and I think that that’s important.  I think if there is a dearth of grief-based games from multiple views, then it’s probably but I can’t fill that gap.  So just like we had help getting there, you need other organisations that can help other people get there, to fill that gap and be able to provide those multiple perspectives.
I think that, for us going into the future, it’s something that I’m very interested in.  I’m interested in telling the story of somebody that I disagree with.  Like I’m interested in basically kind of reaching across the political and religious aisle to tell your story, which means that I have to understand you to be able to tell that story.  I think if we did those kind of projects, I just think it could be interesting.  
So I think that the main thing is that especially when it comes to divisive issues like faith and issues of faith and spirituality, are often divisive issues, that I can’t tell you what you believe.  I can only tell you what I believe and I should be careful of that, and put it in a context that makes that clear because just as if I was yelling in your face, you should believe this, I wouldn’t do that to you.  Like if we’re at a table, we’re going to speak differently.  If we’re sitting next to each other the couch, we’re going to speak differently and I think that video games offer that intimacy of an invitation to sit with me, sit with me in my grief or sit with me in my perspective.  Come and see something like I’ve seen it, or I could also acknowledge you and I can, as a creator, broadcast an intimacy that acknowledges you, what you care about, what you’re frustrated about, what you’re fearful of and I just think that that’s a beautiful thing.
So the more we do video games, the more I feel like it’s not a question of empathy as much as it’s a question of intimacy.  If we can promote intimacy with players, then I feel like we can have understanding because intimacy, not just empathy but intimacy means that I have to acknowledge your pain, and you have to acknowledge my pain.  So it’s not just about understanding but it’s also about being kind.
I heard the term rational compassion in an article I read a couple of days ago.  Rational compassion is not just about empathy, feeling like them, it’s about understanding where it comes from, with your heart and with your head.  It was an interesting thought.  
Okay, moving onto the next big topic, really, final one, really.  Are you aware of any research, academic research or any other research on video games, specifically, that’s influenced your games development style directly or indirectly?
I’m the wrong one to ask because I didn’t go through academia.
No that’s fine.  It’s one of the interesting topics, actually.  What would it take for an academic paper to get your attention?  How would that happen?
I’m trying to think.  One of the academic papers I read was how to average [0:19:02] (laughs), so that we could control our camera better.  So that was awesome and we applied that directly.  I think the easy answer is code, but on the emotional front, I think where I’m interested is in exploration of narrative, but not from AI researchers.  Like I would prefer to get a bunch of writers together and explore storytelling from a bespoke perspective. 
I think there’s like this desire to run towards AI but I feel like we’re under-utilising other disciplines outside of video games.  So one of the things that I hope to do in our work is look for opportunities to – how do we embrace the humanities?  How do we embrace the arts?  How do we teach them how to express themselves in digital and interactive because they’re going to come up with new ways to do it and I think that we’ve kind of – we’ve tested, we have tried and true things, but it’s mostly from an engineering perspective and not as much on a literacy or literary value perspective.  I would love to bring the humanities into what we’re doing more.  I would read papers where novelists are (laughs) – where they’re experimenting with storytelling.
Why do you attend conferences like GDC?  Do you present at these often or what do you expect to get from conferences?
Sure.  Well I think conferences offer the ability for – it’s where the financing is, frankly.  It’s the place that you can come and meet people and find platforms and publishers, and meet face to face and so much of – I’m finding so much in this industry is about relationship and about building those relationships and about finding people within these larger companies, that can act almost as patrons of the arts, and I think that that’s something we’ve lost – you know, we’re losing – in America, we’re losing federal funding of the arts.  Again, it’s not very important.  So then we have to go to the commercial sources for that.  Unfortunately the commercial sources are also – they’re not always driven by profit, which is amazing, so I think there are a small amount of video games that don’t have to be profit-driven; but I think there’s always that tension there.
So that leads us to the last question, which is actually kind of the first question again, in some ways.  With all these considerations in mind, with perhaps exposure to academia or with thoughts about trying to create intimacy with the players, if there was no money, you didn’t have to sell, you just were making a thing entirely, just to make a thing, how would your next game be different, do you think?
How many people would I get to work with?
How many do you want?
I want like at least four, up to eight, because video games are hard and you need people specialised in certain disciplines.  However, it’s small enough that you can all experiment.  I would…
Would you get anybody from the arts and humanities and research involved in that, are you thinking?
I was just thinking I would love to – like for instance, I was watching a Netflix documentary about design and there was a stage designer that creates these amazing malleable stages with projections and it’s [0:23:26].  Anyway, I was watching and this stage designer was creating these inspired stages for pop music and for theatre.  I would love to pull in a theatre designer, I’d like to pull in a playwright, and stage something within VR.  I think that VR is the closest thing to theatre that we have and so I think if I were to do another experimental narrative, I think I would want to go that direction, or even do live theatre in VR.  
What would that look like?  I think that could be really interesting.  You could bring multiple – I think one thing that we’re seeing experimental-wise is – no it’s not [0:24:28].  I don’t remember what it’s called, but there is a show where you kind of go into this – in New York, where you go into this hotel and the theatre is happening live around you, and it’s changing obviously because of your presence.  So I think that I would love [0:24:42].
Thank you so much for talking to us, it’s been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you.