How to Build a Great Reputation in the Game Industry, with Gordon Bellamy

Jordan: 00:00

You're listening to Playmakers. I'm your host, Jordan Blackman. And every episode, I interview a game industry expert to suss out insights that you can take away to become a better operator, developer, whatever it is you're doing in the industry. Get better by listening to the show. This week, we've got Gordon Bellamy, game biz dude, extraordinaire. His energy, his knowledge—it's awesome. We dive in this episode. Stay tuned.

Jordan: 00:36

You probably know Gordon Bellamy, at least if you work in the industry, because I feel like everybody knows Gordon. I do not have the best memory for events—I have a very good memory for ideas, but not for events—but I remember the first time I met Gordon because he made me feel so important. And I had not been a producer for that long when I met him, and the warmth and the respect that he gave me was something I did not forget. And I think that, along with a lot of other things, is part of Gordon's rather incredible success. So he started at EA, and you're going to hear about how he became, I think it was contributor of the year, designer of the year—he got incredible recognition at EA quickly rising up through the ranks.

Jordan: 01:29

Gordon started in QA and has become one of the top industry executives. He’s worked at companies like Tencent and EA, and was the Executive Director for the IGDA. He was a Director of Business Development for Tencent and has advised many startups. He’s currently advising for The Wave VR and co-founding Hangry Studios, which does curation and automation for studios. And that's really just the tip of the iceberg with Gordon—his experience is incredible. And again, like I said, it feels like almost everybody knows Gordon.

Jordan: 02:10

In this interview, we talk about his career, but we also talk about a lot of the guiding principles that have made him so successful and so well-loved in the industry. His enthusiasm really comes through. I have some people who helped me with the podcast, and they were commenting on just how contagious Gordon’s excitement is. And it’s true, so I’m sure you’re going to catch that. We cover a ton of different things and we sort of bounce around—we talk about his story and how he rose up through the ranks and what allowed him to do that. We also talk about the companies he's advising and working with now. Oh, and I forgot to mention that, in addition to everything else he does and is doing, he’s also an instructor at USC. So, he’s a visiting scholar teaching a course at USC, and he’s actually looking for people to come give guest lectures. So, if you think that’s something you’d like to do and that’s something you could offer a great lecture for those students, you can reach out to Gordon. I think he gives his address in the talk, but you can also find ways to reach him at playmakerspodcast.com, as well as all the links and episode notes.

Jordan: 03:22

Something that was incredibly valuable to me in this episode was a framework he gives for giving feedback called, "I like, I wish, what if?" And we’re going to go into it in detail, but I just want to say that when we first did the interview—which was some months ago—I immediately started using it. And then I stopped using it somewhere along the way, but then when preparing the episode, I ran into it again and immediately started using it again because it's so great. So, look out for that and a lot of other good stuff, and let's dive in and hear from Gordon.

Jordan: 03:56

Now, you're a guy who's done a lot of different things. When I was researching you, it looked like you actually got started in the game industry doing design. Is that right?

Gordon: 04:03

Well, my origin, origin story...

Jordan: 04:05

Give me the origin story.

Gordon: 04:06

I throw my H bomb. There I was at Harvard studying engineering. And, I was an environmental and systems engineering major. We took a trip to the water treatment plant to learn how you made dirty water into clean drinking water. And I realized that that was not my fate. I have the utmost respect and hold in the highest regard the hydrologists of our nation, but I just wasn't meant to be one of them. So, I decided to sort of look toward my passions, and I thought that was the reason to go to college—was to follow your passion. Mine was sports, and I decided I was going to work for ESPN or EA Sports. At the time, I had the well-read column "In Gord We Trust" in the Crimson, and I thought that I had a significant contribution to make to the world of sports.

Jordan: 04:57

What's "In Gord We Trust"? That was your column in the paper?

Gordon: 05:00

Yes.

Jordan: 05:01

Oh, okay. And what kind of stuff did you write about?

Gordon: 05:04

Oh, everything. I mean, this is back in the day. So, my finest hour was my preview of the World League of American Football. But I covered on-campus sports like basketball, wrestling, lacrosse. I was a beat reporter for the Crimson sports section.

Jordan: 05:21

You covered sports for Harvard. Okay, got it.

Gordon: 05:23

Absolutely. And I played a lot of Sega Genesis. A lot. A lot, a lot. A lot of Super Tennis.

Jordan: 05:29

A lot of Madden 94?

Gordon: 05:31

Yeah, a lot of 94, 93, NHL, all of it. And I played a lot in the arcades. I always have. Gosh, even as a kid, I was... Obsessed is the wrong word. I identified so strongly with a game called Electric Football—with the metal board, and it vibrates, and the players move around.

Jordan: 05:49

Like the actual...?

Gordon: 05:50

Oh, it's a physical game. It's a physical board game. Yes, that was my jam. I had every team, home and away—four sets of home and away Cowboys—so I could have every player in this game and a vivid imagination. We'd play snow games where I’d put snow on my electric board, wind games where I’d turn the fan on.

Jordan: 06:13

No way. Okay.

Gordon: 06:14

Oh, I was deep, deep, deep into my imagination in Electric Football. Long story short, I sent my resume off to ESPN and to Electronic Arts, and through some confusion, I didn’t get a job. And I was confused. I called HR. I said, "There must be a clerical error because clearly you’ve received my resume, but I’ve not received back any response that would move us forward."

Jordan: 06:42

Have you read my column?

Gordon: 06:44

Yeah, I called, I called. And so I didn’t get a job. Another year passed, and my college eligibility was running out. I really needed to find a job. And they say pressure makes diamonds, so in this particular case, I called every single person in the credits for NHL Hockey at their desk.

Jordan: 07:04

Oh my god.

Gordon: 07:05

Cold call.

Jordan: 07:06

That's amazing.

Gordon: 07:07

Every last one. And I called and called and called and called. "Hi, I'm Gordon." Click. "Hi, I'm an engineer from Harvard." Click. "Hi, I really love your game." Click. "Hi, please let me work with you." Click. "Hi." Click. "Hi." Click.

Jordan: 07:20

Because you know they were all talking about you.

Gordon: 07:22

Oh, I was called up and down the hallway.

Jordan: 07:24

And there was some dude who was like, "Why hasn’t he called me yet?"

Gordon: 07:27

So true. So it turns out they had a, special thanks. They had a Jim Simmons, who was an external developer who had helped originate the franchise. And back then, I had no concept of what an external developer was. So I called him just like anyone else. And lo and behold, Jim Simmons picked up the phone at Electronic Arts and said, "You know what? No promises, but you’re passionate. If you can get out here to take the introductory tester test, then you can have a shot."

Gordon: 07:57

Now, the true story is that EA actually had two Jim Simmons. And so I actually reached a Jim Simmons in a different building who didn’t know about Gordon calling everyone up and down the hallways of NHL Hockey. So that’s how I got my shot. I went over spring break to Electronic Arts in San Mateo. I passed the tester test and earned a summer internship there. And I ended up being the global Rookie of the Year for Electronic Arts, and that moved my career path towards design and production. And specifically, my particular passion, which was Madden Football.

Jordan: 08:38

Did you have to draw a telephone for your EA tester test?

Gordon: 08:43

What do you mean?

Jordan: 08:44

I... cause I also took the EA tester test, and that’s what I remember having to do.

Gordon: 08:49

Draw a telephone?

Jordan: 08:50

Yeah, they asked me to draw a telephone from memory.

Gordon: 08:52

Interesting. No. So, I was put in a room with a yellow pad. And EA had a wide variety of games back then, like... I’m going to say Populous and, not Syndicate, but like RPGs, action-adventures, and sports games. And I was really a, a sportsy sports guy. They put me in there with Bulls versus Blazers—or sorry, Bulls versus Lakers—and it was really home sweet home for me to find bugs in an unfinished version, an alpha version of Bulls versus Lakers. It was...

Jordan: 09:24

That was a much more relevant test.

Gordon: 09:27

Yes, that was a much more relevant test. Yeah, I thought so. So yeah, no, there was no experience drawing a phone. That seems very... robust, as I’m trying to think about it. And it’s funny because obviously today a young person would just draw a rectangle.

Jordan: 09:40

Right. I drew a horrible phone, and I did not get the position.

Gordon: 09:44

Well, that’s, that’s their loss.

Jordan: 09:46

Yeah, it all worked out in the end. What did you do to earn that Rookie of the Year at EA award?

Gordon: 09:52

You know what? A lot of people work very hard. I think it was fair to say I am uniquely dedicated to games. And I really did make Electronic Arts my life. I’d sleep in the office sometimes. I was really focused on elevating the player experience in games, and I think that I was able to combine that passion with execution and with a clear lens for how we should best use our finite developer time and how to communicate internally in a way that moved things forward to drive the best game.

Gordon: 10:38

So, and I like to think I’m likable. Maybe they liked me. They really liked me.

Jordan: 10:43

Well, I can hear your excitement about it now.

Gordon: 10:47

Oh, yeah. No, I know. And it’s a lifetime ago, right? This is 20, geez, 23 years ago. Yeah, it was, it’s always a magical time when your passion and identity meet with your craft.

Gordon: 11:00

And that was definitely one of those roles where really, I was just being who I am for a living, and there happened to be a paycheck that came every two weeks.

Jordan: 11:11

Well, I’ll tell you, and we’ve only had a few interactions, but you always make me feel good.

Gordon: 11:17

Well, thank you.

Jordan: 11:18

I’m feeling good just talking to you right now, and I think that’s, that’s one of your amazing gifts.

Gordon: 11:23

Oh, well, that’s, well, that’s very, still very kind of you to say, but I’m glad to give it. That’s, wow, what a great, what a great gift to have. Awesome. Okay, I’ll take it. Thank you.

Jordan: 11:33

Sure.

Gordon: 11:33

I’ll do more.

Jordan: 11:34

Now let’s get back to some business here. So, you’re doing design. And one of the things I wanted to ask you about is this transition from designer to business person, business developer. I think that’s a transition that a lot of people never end up making, even some who probably would love to. How did that happen? And what’s your advice as far as that goes? And was it a good transition for you?

Gordon: 11:59

Oh, sure. Let’s see. So, I think part of that transition is what we call the curse of GAP, right? The ability to communicate effectively internally and externally. I had the good fortune to be creative director at a studio called Z-Axis, which we started with a pal of mine from boarding school and college. We grew that studio up and out, and ultimately it was acquired by Activision. But that’s the end. Along the way, you do a lot of pitching, and at EA too, there was a lot of internal pitching and communicating about why things matter and what’s at stake in the game experience that you’re creating.

Gordon: 12:38

And I think that experience gave me a great deal of empathy for my fellow developers and thus made me effective when I was on the other side of the table doing business development, where you're trying to have developers trust and partner with you as a publisher to create content. So, the way the transition happened, in a LinkedIn sense, is I got the job as director of business development, North America at THQ. And so that moved me and my family down to LA, and essentially, once again, I was on the other side of the table.

Gordon: 13:16

So instead of being a developer and pitching ideas and trying to develop and execute them, I was on the other side, hearing ideas and pitches, curating them, running green light processes, and advocating for the developers inside our publishing structure. So I guess that was the transition: because I was a dev, I was able to authentically advocate for developer interests in a publishing environment. And I love devs. I do. It’s one of those things—once again, passion, right? So I know that I love game development, and that’s a great trait to have, I feel, in the business development of games.

Jordan: 13:54

Right, because the developers, they know that you understand them and are sympathetic to their needs and just who they are.

Gordon: 14:00

Well, I’d like to be more than sympathetic. I’d like to be respectful.

Jordan: 14:03

Hmm.

Gordon: 14:04

And I think that maybe 95% of problems that occur in the workplace, or at least in the games workplace that I know, come down to a lack of respect or value for the work someone else has to do. I find that if you come from a place of trust and respect, maybe a little loyalty, that you tend to drive better results, one, because when things get bumpy, you’re in a place of trust, but two, yeah, people just work harder for people that trust them. I think everyone is like that.

Jordan: 14:39

Do you think there are some lessons that the game industry in general often misses or people who are just kind of new? Let’s say I have a startup and I’m listening to this show, what am I probably missing?

Gordon: 14:51

What are you probably missing if you have a startup? Well, it’s not for me to say what you’re missing. I don’t know your life, but I would say some things are useful. So I’ll talk about where we start. So where we start is, I’m a big fan of taxonomy, of lingua franca for everyone—curse of gab. So like first week, we start off with the IDEO from Stanford critique method, which is that I like, I wish, what if, which is a good way of communicating with people about challenges as you navigate them.

Jordan: 15:28

I love it. So you sort of do sentences for each of those?

Gordon: 15:32

Yes. And so, yeah, so if we had something with this podcast, right? I’d be like, gosh, I like this podcast and what you’re putting together here, Jordan. I wish we were a videocast.

Jordan: 15:44

I do too. That’s a great idea.

Gordon: 15:45

What if we high five the video and just sort of see how it works, right? And that sort of critique versus just like, “Why ain’t this video?”

Jordan: 15:55

Right.

Gordon: 15:55

It’s much more constructive and gives you a way into it. And, if you’re preparing to lead a studio and to treat people well, or maybe you don’t necessarily know their expertise, well, it sets you up to start off from a point of respect.

Jordan: 16:10

I like, I wish, what if?

Gordon: 16:12

Yes.

Jordan: 16:13

Fantastic. I’m going to use that today.

Gordon: 16:16

Excellent. I try to use it every day. So we do that. We look at Bartle types—I don’t know if you’re familiar with Bartle.

Jordan: 16:25

Sure.

Gordon: 16:26

Bartle types of multi-user game players.

Jordan: 16:30

Killers, socializer, achiever, explorer.

Gordon: 16:35

Yeah. Have the students thinking about their own identities and the other identities they may need to be serving in the products that they create and how they communicate it. We spend a lot of early time talking about the narrative journey, and by that, I mean the journey of someone who is coming across them as a professional, the narrative journey of someone coming across their product.

Gordon: 16:53

Because it's a very different narrative journey, for example, if your goal is to exhibit at Indiecade, which is awesome, right? But essentially you have this 5 to 10-minute narrative journey of someone coming, discovering your game, hopefully playing it, having a good experience, maybe signing up for your mailing list or what have you, versus a professional narrative journey of having products that people are going to own, consume, subscribe to for days, weeks, months, right? Of pre-discovery, discovery, hopefully acquisition, play, monetization, and so forth. Oh my gosh, I'm a big fan of the MDA paper from Robin Honecke.

Jordan: 17:30

Mechanics Dynamics Aesthetics.

Gordon: 17:33

Yes, oh my—are we—look at us. Where have you been, Jordan? Where have you been in my life? You should come to class.

Jordan: 17:37

I would love to.

Gordon: 17:39

So yes, so, getting people who internally have spent a lot of time learning about mechanics to communicate their games as aesthetics so that others can understand and be engaged with them and the wonk of game mechanics.

Jordan: 17:55

Right, what are the mechanics serving?

Gordon: 17:57

Yes, what are the mechanics serving, but when you're in game development school, right, there’s a lot of time talking about mechanics, you're talking to other mechanics about mechanics, versus communicating outward to people who are not going to make a game with you, but just want to experience it, see the value of it, see the value of investing in you—investing time, talent, whatever—that need to understand the aesthetics, need to understand your intent.

Gordon: 18:22

So that would be, if I was going to set a groundwork universally of if I had a startup, right, thinking about those things, figuring out how to make those part of your culture would be where I would start.

Jordan: 18:34

I wanted to ask you if there's any type of lecture you're looking for, feel free to, to let the audience know.

Gordon: 18:41

Oh, sure. Well, can I give my email? I don’t know. So sure. If you write me, I’m at gbellamy@gmail.com and I'm always looking for a diverse range of lectures from across our craft that expose students to how you navigate the challenges of your day, the challenges that they may experience in the future.

Gordon: 19:03

Like, the class's point is to have them aim high. So you can aim high in so many different ways in our craft. So I love it. I think it's really more on people who have a passion around giving back. If you have a passion for student development and a passion for USC, there's no sort of wrong reason.

Gordon: 19:25

I mean, we have had audio lectures. We have had obviously business and legal lectures. We’ve had gameplay lectures, pitching your game to publishers lectures, pitching your game for Kickstarter or Indiegogo lectures, and a lot of Q&A, because what you'll find with these young people is that they have this wonderful new perspective that is unfettered by our own history.

Gordon: 19:49

So they have these really interesting questions that can sometimes benefit a lecturer just to hear what these fresh voices are asking about and what matters to them. So it’s a two-way street. So if someone’s interested, yeah, feel free to email me, Facebook me, tweet at me, whatever you're comfortable with—Instagram, it’s all good.

Jordan: 20:09

Yeah, it's super invigorating to interact with students and, and also it's pretty invigorating to interact with Gordon. So take Gordon up on that.

Gordon: 20:17

Yeah, no, for sure. And no, and I'm super serious because people like, there's sometimes people feel buried entry. Like, what do I need to prepare? What do I do? We can reduce the friction of preparation time. It's really more substance, right? Are you willing to give yourself for an hour to help elevate the craft with some young people? And they're super smart. I just assure you. Yeah, I enjoy every hour that I get to spend with the students learning from what they're passionate about. And then giving them some more information really sort of moves the furniture of life out of the way for them to be successful.

Jordan: 20:50

And I would guess that they're willing to challenge in a way that can be refreshing as well.

Gordon: 20:56

You mean the students?

Jordan: 20:57

Yeah.

Gordon: 20:58

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re, they’re—I tend to get a polite class maybe because of the critique methodology. I value their questions. I think it’s sort of like we used to say back at EA, like, “If you're too busy to go to the arcade, you shouldn’t be here.”

Jordan: 21:14

Right.

Gordon: 21:14

I sort of think that if you are, if you have literally no time to listen to the future of our craft—well, ah, opinions—it should be a source of concern.

Jordan: 21:24

Right, right, right. Totally. So, you have a lot of, a lot of things going on, probably all the time. But certainly now, I want to ask you a little bit about some of these other pieces. Hangry Studios.

Gordon: 21:37

Hangry Studios, as seen in People Magazine. So Hangry Studios is a venture I have with Chris Wright, who's a former Blizzard and Twilio engineer. And we're focusing on providing QA and automation services for developers and studios. Most studios don’t want to have great QA as do we, and we're super passionate about it. Obviously, that's where I started my career, that's where Chris has spent most of his career. And so what we like to provide are cost-effective services so that development studios can have top-quality QA, QA guidance, QA strategy, and hopefully, prevent some of the challenges as they scale and grow and give it to them sort of à la carte as they need it, as their product grows—whether it be for internal communication, for pitching, for the game itself, for customers, for alpha, beta, whatever they need. So, once again, it’s a way—it’s a business—and it’s, once again, a passionate way of giving back to making games better, which supremely motivates me.

Jordan: 22:38

What's the automation piece and how big of a kind of slice of what Hangry does is, is the automation side of QA?

Gordon: 22:46

Gotcha. Well, without getting out of my depth, Chris is a foremost expert in creating automation tools for QA. So oftentimes, like testing isn’t like back in our day when you might have to draw a phone or click on every single button by hand. There are now a host of fantastic QA automation techniques that can be integrated into your QA process to make it more efficient and drive better results. So that’s what the automation piece is. And, and it’s à la carte. It depends sort of case by case. It sort of depends on the type of game and the type of needs of what needs to be explored.

Jordan: 23:23

Like, you might simulate users to hit the database for a product. Like, hey, what if there's 5 million users?

Gordon: 23:31

Absolutely.

Jordan: 23:32

Got it. Okay.

Gordon: 23:32

That's a great example.

Jordan: 23:33

And The Wave VR?

Gordon: 23:35

Yes, I mean, wow, you know what? The Wave, that’s amazing. So, super excited.

Jordan: 23:40

I know it exists, but I'm not sure if I understand what it is.

Gordon: 23:42

It’s a good fortune to be an advisor and a colleague of CEO Adam Arrigo, who's an awesome person and a former Harmonix, and he also worked on Diddy, if you ever had that on your Facebook Messenger. But what The Wave is—The Wave is a social platform that democratizes musical performance and concert-going. So it’s a place where music lovers congregate in VR.

Jordan: 24:08

Okay.

Gordon: 24:09

Right. So in VR, imagine you’re in Vive and the performer or creator of music, or you, Jordan, could be mixing tunes right in VR. So you’re there, the tracks are in front of you. You can grab them. They’re like these 3D spheres that are color-coded for beat matching.

And if you don’t know what beat matching is, basically, musical dance songs have a beat, like 140 beats per minute or 135 or 145, and if they have the same beat, like two 140s mix well together. So imagine that like the 135s are blue and the 140s are green and the 145s are purple.

Gordon: 24:48

You can take two green tracks, just like if you’ve ever seen a DJ on their wheels, right? And place them in VR, and then proceed to mix them in VR. Okay? Now, this VR experience, where I can see you, can be networked. So you can be at home, right, in downtown LA. My friend can be in Austin, and I can be mixing tunes for both of you.

Jordan: 25:12

So it's like a musician, DJ, club experience.

Gordon: 25:16

Yes. And we can do whatever music we like. We can mix EDM, we can mix Garth Brooks, right? We can mix Rolling Stones, you can mix Coldplay—mix whatever you like.

Jordan: 25:27

I need to try this.

Gordon: 25:29

Yeah, you can come—well, I have it here at the house. You can come by. Come by today.

Jordan: 25:33

Sweet.

Gordon: 25:34

Yeah. So once you do it, it's so amazing because obviously in VR, there is that fairness, right? And having this shared experience encapsulated in music, which is something we love. It's this wonderful—well, picture there's three dimensions essentially, but not the three dimensions just of space that we think of, but think of music as a dimension, right? And we might share tunes, and we might share music. And now think of video as the second dimension.

Gordon: 26:05

And the way we always used to share music videos—how exciting MTV was when we had that experience. Now think about interactive, where we are not only able to interact with each other, we're able to interact with the music. The music actually can change the environment that you're in. So imagine now you're not in the rave—the music is the rave.

Jordan: 26:25

You're in the music.

Gordon: 26:26

You're in the music. Because the environment is being affected by the music, and that's all there is, right? Because you're in VR. And we are also communicating inside of it.

Gordon: 26:38

It's The Wave VR. And you go to thewavevr.com to sort of check it out for yourself. But you should totally come over and just do it. Because for you, Jordan—yeah, when you do it, you'll see why it's a platform and why it's a big deal. They just had the good fortune to raise a 2.5 million dollar round from a host of wonderful investors.

Jordan: 26:59

Congratulations.

Gordon: 27:00

Yeah, no, it's great. They've got offices now in LA and Austin, and a lot of the leading EDM DJs are trying it now and having their first—no pun intended—wave of experiences. Yeah, I'm very passionate about it. The team is great. I think, as important to me, the team—sort of going back to trust and loyalty—is a team I really believe in at an executive level to get it done.

Gordon: 27:23

It's more than a great idea. It's so exciting when a great idea meets great people, meets this great opportunity, which is this new world of virtual reality for customers, right? I think we're moving a little bit from the first—gosh, I keep saying "wave"—the first generation of VR experiences, which were very much about authorship and like, "Let me show you what I can do for you in VR," right? "This is what VR is."

Gordon: 27:52

And now we're starting to move into the first generation of services, where the VR is there to serve you and to serve your experience of interacting with each other, of connecting with people—connecting with music as an example. And yeah, this is part of that exciting generation of platforms that are coming to VR. So yeah, that'll be on the Vive and then the Oculus—all the different platforms. It's platform-agnostic in the future. They just had the first VR rave at the VRLA event a few weeks ago. So yeah, super passionate about it, super passionate about the team, and yeah, this is just great things. I hope everyone who's hearing this gets to experience it.

Jordan: 28:35

I would love to try it. I checked out a YouTube video and it looked very psychedelic, which I love. Like, for me, that's very attractive. And that's also something that I find very, very cool about VR, is the potential to create just new, far-out experiences. Yeah, I want to try it.

Gordon: 28:53

Psychedelic is an art style, right? So it can be whatever your vision is.

Jordan: 28:59

Psychedelic—I don't think psychedelic is an art style. To me, the art style that people associate with psychedelic is like the most culturally acceptable form of it. But anything that—originally, it was something that was an experience kind of beyond what you could encapsulate in some sort of social container.

Gordon: 29:20

Oh, well then, yes. Let me embrace your definition and say, yes, Jordan, it equals psychedelic.

Jordan: 29:25

All right. Cool.

Gordon: 29:27

And it also delights my mind, so good.

Jordan: 29:30

This is a bit of a turn, but I'm curious for you, as someone who has been in the game industry for what, twenty years?

Gordon: 29:38

Twenty-three, half my life.

Jordan: 29:39

Wow.

Gordon: 29:40

Half my life.

Jordan: 29:41

What, what do you think is unique about games? About the game industry?

Gordon: 29:47

Wait, you mean the industry that we work in or games as a medium?

Jordan: 29:50

The industry that we work in.

Gordon: 29:52

Oh. Well, I think that the struggle we have is to balance valuing and respecting our history with the celebration and constant creation of new value. Because our technology and platforms, the mediums, have evolved so fast, like during our lifetime.

Jordan: 30:12

Right

Gordon: 30:12

So there aren't a lot of mediums that have evolved so much in the last 20 years.

Jordan: 30:17

The level of innovation and nostalgia is extremely high.

Gordon: 30:21

Yes. And so, so I think it's unique trying to reconcile those. I think... you know what actually has evolved as rapidly? Phones.

Jordan: 30:31

Sure. But we get to be a part of that. We get to be right in there.

Gordon: 30:36

Yeah, we get to be a part of that. But the point being, though, that it is a unique opportunity to figure out how do we elevate that upon which our industry was built versus sort of Pompeii-ing it and just paving over the past. New, new game history: VR. New game history: PlayStation 4. New game— I mean, like, how do we, how do we build, how do we create value for each other, right, in this craft to which we've devoted ourselves?

Jordan: 31:11

We all know we need to innovate, that's on our minds.

Gordon: 31:14

That's part of who we are, right? And that's part of who people who are in the game industry—it's part of the covenant, part of what you accept when you, when you get into it and hopefully celebrate and hopefully identify with. Once again, though, I just think it is important for us to value that innovation, right? And the value of the history of innovation and value each other, right? Not commoditize each other as an industry.

Gordon: 31:38

So I think that in other industries that are more perhaps technologically stagnant, or have been around a lot longer, they have lots more institutions in place that are respected or held in some regard or treated with some reverence. I think that we are still figuring that out. I think also we've come of age and become public-facing fairly recently. Like, I'd say that was probably the newest frontier—this direct interaction between creators of games and the public. That is very much a part of the discussion now.

Gordon: 32:18

The 360 discussion. It is no longer a world of, "Oh, I'm going to market this game, and I'm going to run a television commercial against it. And if I run a big enough commercial that's clever enough, then there will be sales." And good for those people with their sales, right? Versus now, where there is a very robust, multidimensional discussion going on between players, creators, marketers, community leaders, bloggers, podcasters, like a tapestry, right? And that is unique—to have us coming of age with all of that ongoing evolution and innovation. But not just innovation in the specific craft of making games, but innovation in how we discuss, how we distribute and share games, how we monetize games—there's innovation on every front.

Gordon: 33:13

So, often in my class—or bringing it back to school—I’ll talk about these four pillars: which are community, player customization of experience, monetization, and design. And how functionally, you need to have an A in all four, or you're gonna ultimately lose. It's a little bit like... do you ever play a lot of Risk?

Jordan: 33:36

I've played a moderate amount of Risk.

Gordon: 33:39

Okay. But you can picture the map—it's sort of like having all your armies in Central America and up in Iceland, but having nobody in Kamchatka or Alaska. If you don't defend your fronts, like, if you just don't, then you'll be disrupted. And so, it's so interesting to see our industry have to evolve in all those dimensions at the same time.

Jordan: 34:03

We're becoming a service industry.

Gordon: 34:06

We are becoming—we are a service industry.

Jordan: 34:08

Yeah.

Gordon: 34:09

The train of authorship where it's like more like a book, like a digital book. Or even like a film—because that used to be the big thing, to compare games, like "We may or may not have made more money than the film industry." Right? Maybe, maybe not, depending how you measure it... Dot, dot, dot. I feel as though that, that analog is, is no longer relevant.

Jordan: 34:31

It's over, yeah.

Gordon: 34:33

And which is great. Which is great for the medium. And great for film, which should be respected and is its own powerful, important way of communicating. But films aren't games. Games aren't film. Games aren't digital interactive films. Films aren't linear games.

Jordan: 34:48

And you know what's interesting is, is books are actually becoming more of a service industry too, because the authors are having a lot of direct connection to their readers, and they're changing the book, and you can get the updated book on the fly, and they're, they're having those conversations.

Gordon: 35:00

How exciting, right? I mean, that's some, that's some Harry Potter type stuff going on in our lifetime, right? It's a magical book that edits itself, that changes with you, that learns with you, whatever, right? That is, that is what's so exciting. I think we were joking a little bit before about how even this communication, right, is a little Star Trek-like.

Gordon: 35:22

Well, yes, mediums are rapidly catching up with and exceeding the imaginations of some of the great linear media of the past, and some of the great people—great imagineers of the past—are now having their dreams powered by technology.

Jordan: 35:40

What I'm hearing from you, Gordon, is that we need to listen to each other, to our audience, and to the past.

Gordon: 35:45

Three great things to do—and just be respectful. I think it's sort of a tonal thing. I think, I remember, I was young and people would be like, "You got two ears and one mouth. For a reason." When you're younger and you think more of what you have to say is everything that needs to be said, you aren't able to maybe contextualize sayings like that in the same way. But yeah, with a few more years you go, "Oh, 'cause there's a lot going on. Maybe it could be helpful."

Jordan: 36:13

I've definitely had to make that transition in my life, and for me, actually, this, this show is part of the purpose—it's for me to listen to others, and to spend more time listening to others.

Gordon: 36:24

Well, have you told people the origin, and tell me it's on a past episode, because I don't want to backtrack, but what is the origin story of this show?

Jordan: 36:30

It's not on a past episode, and I've never even constructed such a story. But it's something that I've wanted to do for a really long time, about, about four, three to four years. I've, and I, and I talked about it, and I had recorded a couple of interviews a long time ago, and I put it on hold because, running your own business, sometimes other things come first, and I had to really make it a priority. And, and I've done that, and I've hired help, and I'm making it happen. But, yeah, I'm really excited about it. It's been an amazing experience already, and we're just getting started.

Gordon: 37:09

It's funny the way that you describe it. So I had a similar experience. So, personal milestones today. Today I found on my phone, I've lost 50 pounds since like a year ago, summer.

Jordan: 37:21

That's amazing.

Gordon: 37:22

Right, which is less than a pound a week. So, whatever, but, but it happened, and it came across my little Withings scale thing. And I realized, I can remember—vividly, 'cause it's not that long ago—not being able to, like, run to the end of my block. Could not do it—pant, pant, right? And, I intellectualized it 'cause I, I play sports, I just didn't run around. Right? And, like, even this morning, I ran like four and a half miles—just cutting my run short 'cause there's stuff to do today.

Gordon: 37:53

My point being that drawing from your story, there were times when I used to be like, "Oh, there's every excuse in the world not to run," right? "I've got a meeting, something's on TV that I haven't binge-watched yet, I'm hungry, I'm tired"—always a reason. And at some point though, I just sort of flipped the switch and was like, "Well, you know what? I'm going to prioritize this and make it happen." Like, every other day, I can go one mile, I can go six miles, or whatever it's going to be, but I'm going to go somewhere. And it's been transformative. And it feels to me, just hearing your voice, like maybe doing this show is a little transformative for you.

Jordan: 38:32

It has been, and I do think that metaphor of flipping the switch is what it is. 'Cause you just, at some point you realize that if you don't go, it's obviously not going to happen by itself. And, and what I found is that conversations like this, they inspire me, and they feed me. And I really think that they're going to feed others too. I mean, this is my way of giving back.

Gordon: 38:53

And I'm sorry to get back to sort of the takeaway that everyone has, I mean, out there who's listening to the podcast. I think little things prove big things. It's another one of those things, right? And I know that sometimes, especially in a startup environment, things can seem a little bit adrift, and where there's any number of challenges going on all at one time—they're multivariate. And sometimes just taking control of one of them and really mastering it can be sort of the window to getting all the other ones under control because the confidence and methodology that comes with that is something you can apply to the list of problems or the growing list of challenge opportunities in front of you.

Jordan: 39:36

Right. Sometimes if you just, if you get one thing fixed, then you can kind of organize around that principle.

Gordon: 39:42

Exactly. Organize around that confidence and not be just in the rut of recognizing how many problems you have, but now on the path of how many solutions you have.

Jordan: 39:53

Gordon, those are some amazing words of wisdom.

Gordon: 39:56

Thank you.

Jordan: 39:56

Thanks for coming on the show. It's been fantastic.

Gordon: 40:00

I appreciate you taking time with me. I look forward to hearing all the other episodes. Sounds like you've had a lot of great guests, so that's super cool. Thank you for including me as a part of it.

Jordan: 40:08

My pleasure. Have a good one.

Gordon: 40:09

All right. You too.

Jordan: 40:11

Had a great time chatting with Gordon, and I hope that you had a good time listening to it and getting some of that great energy and wisdom from one of the industry's greats. He really has his own way of doing it. And I know that for me, he's someone that I'm able to learn from and have learned from, and I hope that's true for you too.

Jordan: 40:29

Something really specific was that "I like, I wish, what if" framework. So I just want to encourage you to try it. I've had great luck using that specifically. And if you are getting value out of the show, I would really appreciate it if you would go on to iTunes or your podcatcher of choice and leave us a rating and a review. It makes a huge difference to the show to get those. It's how we get exposure and also how I get feedback. Please do that if you can. 'Game design dude' said he's learning a ton and it's fun to listen to, so I very much appreciate that, 'game design dude.' And with that, I will leave it until the next episode. I'll see you then. Thanks for listening to Playmakers.