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How to Wrangle Nerds (ft. Lianne Papp - EP, Turtle Rock Studios) | Dev Heads
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This week, the Dev Heads crew are joined by Lianne Papp, an executive producer who worked on Aliens Colonial Marines, Evolve, and Back 4 Blood.
Second Wind is fully independent, employee-owned and fan-funded. Consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as $1/month at patreon.com/SecondWindGroupSecond Wind is fully independent, employee-owned and fan-funded. Consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as $1/month at patreon.com/SecondWindGroup
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Transcript
Introduction & Support Request
00:00:00
Speaker
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Meet the Hosts & Guest Introduction
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome back to Dev Has. My name is Nick Calandra, the creative director at Second Wind, joined by Tina Mikey. And today our special guest is Lian Papp, executive producer of Turtle Rock Studios. And today we'll be talking all about what an executive producer does at Turtle Rock and what she's been up to at Turtle Rock and a bunch of other game dev stuff like Wrangling Nerds, because that's the title that Mikey gave me.
00:00:56
Speaker
I was very happy with this title. I think Wrangling Nerds is a perfect way to describe production. But let's see what Leanne thinks before I pontificate on that. Leanne, does that sound accurate? It is.
Role of Executive Producer
00:01:10
Speaker
It's fair. I think I've also described it as being a kindergarten teacher or wrangling chaos or um wrangling cats. um I know Tina used wrangling chaos as well, which I think is like very astute, very correct.
00:01:23
Speaker
um But ah honestly, the way that I view production is we are facilitators and communicators. So I tell people, if all y'all could communicate, I wouldn't have a job, but you can't. So here I am. So I do a lot of translating for people, whether that's like expectations or making sure that goals are clear between multiple groups. And so, yeah, I think translator is another like really good term for that.
00:01:49
Speaker
um i wanted do her Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Gina. I just wanted to back up a little bit and say that I am a huge admirer because one, like, let's make it
Journey to Turtle Rock Studios
00:01:59
Speaker
very clear. You're an executive producer at Turtle Rock. And he's been there for 11 years. That's right. Yeah. 11 years last September. So and between and nut for those that might not know Turtle Rock, what games have you guys worked on?
00:02:15
Speaker
Well, you might have heard of Left 4 Dead. ah But after Left 4 Dead, we did some VR titles as well. We did Evolve. um So that was ah an awesome project. That was actually the project I joined Turtle Walk during. They were mid-development when I joined. And ah then we just recently did Back 4 Blood. And then I can't talk about what we're doing right now.
00:02:37
Speaker
he said When you joined, what what level were you when you joined Turtle Rock at Evolve? When I joined Turtle Rock, they were a little over 50 employees and they weren't really big into like title, seniority, there weren't really leads. like It was a small studio that was on a rapid growth trajectory.
00:02:57
Speaker
And it's really funny because I was actually looking for a job at the time because Timegate Studios, where I was at before, had gone bankrupt. And so I was looking for a job, and I think, Tina, you know how hard it is to look for a job in production. Turtle Rock Studios was my 47th job application, and I actually applied for the position Outsource Manager.
00:03:19
Speaker
Because at that point I was just like, I need a job. And so I did this interview and I was talking to a programmer and a producer and they were digging into my background because my I went to school for engineering. I worked as a software engineer for a little bit, but then I found my passion in project management. I just really loved seeing the pieces fitting together and working with people.
00:03:41
Speaker
And so they were like, OK, we want we want to chat with you. We want to bring you in. And I interviewed with a ton of different people. And like a week later, I got ah a job offer, which is really cool. And I actually had to say to them, ah what's my title? I had no idea if I was coming in as an outsource manager or producer. Yeah. And the response I got was game producer. We don't really care about titles here. If I had it my way, we'd just be called game developer.
00:04:07
Speaker
So I started as a producer and my initial um focus was to work with the engineering team because the engineer I interviewed with was acting like both lead programmer and producer. So he's trying to do all this project management. He was trying to interact with 2K, our publisher at the time, and it was just, it was too much. and So I was kind of thrown directly into the fire. I had to ramp up super quick. um But I started as an engineering producer and then just shy of the two year mark is when they made me EP.
Women in Gaming Leadership
00:04:43
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. please Hold on. Hold on. You were there for two years yeah and then you became the executive producer?
00:04:50
Speaker
Yes, that is correct. She was doing the executive producer stuff, like working with the publisher. It's exactly that, Tina. I think that a lot of people ask like, well, how do I get the promotion? Or sometimes I hear people say, well, when I become a senior, I'll do that. And I'm like, we give promotions to people who are already doing the job. So when I was at Turtle Rock, I was working with 2K very closely. i I was communicating with publishing all the time.
00:05:19
Speaker
I had helped kind of wrangle the internal tracking. They were in both Hansoft and Jira, which oh yeah is enough to be in two different systems. And so part of what I i had tackled was kind of consolidating into one system.
00:05:37
Speaker
and People on other teams, art teams, started coming up to me and being like, hey, what you did for the engineers? can you do that for Can you do that for us? And so it was very quickly that I had like the backlog for the whole project and was able to start communicating like what was remaining and how quickly we were going and and things like that. So it kind of hit this point where I was talking to them and they were like,
00:06:00
Speaker
You're doing the job, so we're going to give you the title in a payback. And you're probably doing it for a reason, right? Like you stepped in, you stepped up and the team needs to go, oh, wait, this makes sense. If she's cool with it, let's just give her the title. I actually feel like I understand the philosophy of like, let's just all say we're developers, like we all wear so many hats.
00:06:21
Speaker
We don't want to create. We don't want to encourage or create politics. But there is something to be said for like clarity internally and externally when you say like, well, this is what this person focuses on. So it makes sense to me. And I think it's that I think it's clarity in communicating with someone like, hey, knowing if you're an audio designer, a character artist, a producer, QA tester, that helps kind of frame the conversation.
Game Production Insights
00:06:43
Speaker
Right. I understand what you're interested in. I understand what you're after. If we all had game developer A team of 10 to 15, no problem. You guys can fairly easily share information, but the more you grow. So when I joined Turtle Rock, we were 50 some. By the end of Evolve, we were 126, if I remember correctly. Oh wow, it's like more than double.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, so we grew quite a bit and we're actually 193 now. So wow we we kind of just keep growing. And and as you grow, you have to change your structure. You have to have more clarity and you also have to introduce people who are professionally accountable for aspects of the game and the team. And that's when you have to start introducing leads, directors like that. You kind of need that because it's easy to say, hey, we're all on the hook.
00:07:33
Speaker
If the ball drops, one of us will catch it. No. If there's not one person responsible, that ball's going to drop. Yeah. No. That's amazing. I just wanted to say how rare it is to see someone like you at the top. I can probably count on one hand how many executive producers I know that are That look like us, you know, I know it's a bummer. It's very rare. Yeah. Maybe you should clarify for the audience. Do you know what you mean?
00:08:04
Speaker
okay ah Leanne's son is is an awful spot. Most likely. It's okay. You look great. You look. Oh, ah actually, it's like it's right. You look like this way. here such and solidarity It's OK. Making video games is an extremely vulnerable process. I just want all the listeners to know that.
00:08:29
Speaker
And when you're dealing with a group of men that's have to be vulnerable day to day, there's always going to be emotions flying. You know, this is this is par for the course, ah man or woman, you're going to have some sort of emotional investment in what you're working on in a video game. Now, when you introduce a producer, I've been to a couple of different studios where production is viewed very differently.
00:08:56
Speaker
And in most cases, it's underappreciated. Not only that, but it's very rare to be in a room ah for a AAA game and see if a woman director, lead, executive producer at the very top.
00:09:15
Speaker
in important meetings. And I just wanted to stress how fascinating it is to talk to you because, yeah, like I said, that you could count on one hand, at least I can count on one hand how many people I know in your position. So a lot of what I've done in this position too is like, so when you work at a third party developer,
00:09:38
Speaker
You're chasing contract to contract. right You're looking for a publisher to work with you. And this isn't just true at AAA. It's true at every level. like You're looking for somebody to support you, to foot the bill of actually pushing your game out and marketing it. And if you can't find that, you're in trouble. So it it is also a very high stress.
00:09:57
Speaker
Situation and position to be in and a lot of what we would have to do is we would have a pitch for a game We would create a budget for it and you had to make that competitive enough that the publisher is interested but like high enough that you're actually able to do what you need to do hire the people that you need outsource what you need and then you go into a meeting room with a bunch of execs at another company and I can count on one, maybe two hands on the number of times where I was not the only woman in the room. And that was very intimidating at first because I, I think, you know, you look for common ground with people in the meeting that you're in. You look for like the connection that you make, the person's that that's nodding to you and kind of smiling to help build you up. And you didn't always find that in those rooms.
00:10:47
Speaker
And so a lot of what I learned is to kind of look to myself for that strength or my team. And I have, I love the people that I work with. It's why I've been at the studio for 11 years. I always say if I were to play um fantasy game dev, I would put a lot of the people from my team on that ah game dev team, by o but was just so rare. And actually really often if you did see women in those positions, they were in marketing.
00:11:15
Speaker
or PR, and that's normally where you see them. And that's actually what I get when I go to industry events and they're like, oh, you're in games. Are you in HR? Are you in recruiting? Are you in marketing? And I'm like, like don't assume what team somebody is a part of.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah, because it started as an engineer, I guess, which is not in games, to be fair. um I did software development, but um I did have an engineering background and I did something Tina said earlier was, sometimes you join a team and the attitude towards production is maybe not.
00:11:48
Speaker
the greatest. And that might be because they've had bad experiences. They think that you're a glorified note taker and Jira pusher. And so i I have dealt with a lot of people who are like, why are you here? Why are you talking to me? And it took a lot of work to convince them what the value of a producer can be. Yeah.
00:12:07
Speaker
I mean, yeah even even on the games media side, you know, I do a lot of basically producing on the back end. And even back at our previous corporate company were out there, you know, just looked at me as ah a nanny or a paper pusher. And then when they got rid of me, they're like, oh, shit, he did a lot of stuff behind the scenes. Like, I think people just don't realize, like, how much stuff you do day to day as a producer.
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah. And then let's add being not just a producer, but a female producer who did the dinner orders, who like set up a meeting room or something, not a turtle rock, yeah got a turtle but at my previous company, it was kind of assumes like, Hey, you're going to do this. Or can, can you do this? And and you kind of become like, it's almost like the default parent in games.
00:12:53
Speaker
Because I was like the backbone of the studio that people just kind of forget. I always kind of. Good. You know, I was going to say like that's I'm you know, somebody that is working on something and and and is in a producer role. I'm curious in game dev now. I'm curious like what is your.
00:13:13
Speaker
How has your day to day evolved as you went from producer? It is so different. Yeah. I think when I explain my job to people outside of games, I like to say that I'm a project manager of project managers. um So a lot of what I do is is like before you would come in, you would look and see if like Keyway reported any like ASAP blockers that you had to communicate to the team. You were maybe checking up on how the goals of the team that you were producing or doing for them next milestone or next sprint or whatever structure that you're using. um A lot of chatting with people. I was in office before. were We're primarily remote now. So back then it was like walking around the office just trying to hear if there's any conversations you can jump in and and help correct things or or or lower any kind of panic or misunderstanding.
00:14:01
Speaker
Now it's, ah do I have communications from Tencent that I have to address? So we are a Tencent company. So that's one of the first things I'll kind of look at. um
Live Service Game Challenges
00:14:09
Speaker
It'll be, are there any milestone approvals I need to do? So as an EP at Turtle Rock, at least. and EPs at different companies it varies drastically, just like being a producer varies quite a bit at them. So I can only really speak for Turok. It's like being an internal publisher. So are there milestone deliverables ready for us to review that I then bring to our senior directors and go, hey, did this meet the spirit of what we're looking for or what we wrote out? Can we approve this so they can move on? ah It'll be
00:14:40
Speaker
reading ah reports or things from the production team to see if there's anything I have to dig into. Something that I try to watch for is like producers spending a lot of time with a given person or a problem area trying to see, OK, I actually don't want them spending that much time there. How do I try to resolve this situation? So ah my ah my boss, our our general manager, had given me really good advice like four or five years ago where Once you move into like being a director, an AP, a production director, it's less about doing and it's more about thinking. You have to be looking at what's going on, understanding, trying to look ahead, coming up with things that have to happen and then delegating them. If you're diving down super deep, that's not a good use of your time. You need to be teaching other people how to do things. So if you like catch something that the team didn't think about how you found it, how you got there and then bring someone along the journey with you and go, Hey, Tina, I was looking at this and I noticed this thing over here. And that said to me, Hey, there's a conflict and we need to dig in, you know, that kind of thing. Hmm.
00:15:54
Speaker
That is actually... It's that scene in Band of Brothers, right? When Winters is like, I want to join the assault. And his superior is like, no, you can't. You don't do that anymore. Exactly. Yes, exactly. And you have to delegate to other people to assault town. I love that you brought up Band of Brothers so good. I love that show. I wanted to rewind a little bit for our listeners. A lot of them are gamers. We have some game developers that listen too, but I wanted to elaborate on what a milestone was.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yes. is um Something that if you work with me near me, you will always hear me say is everybody needs deadlines. I also like to joke, and I'm really sorry to all the the artists in the world, artists are like a liquid. And so the more time you give them, they will fill up that time because you you know you keep iterating and
Feedback & Communication in Teams
00:16:40
Speaker
other disciplines will do that in particular. I like to to pick on artists a little bit.
00:16:44
Speaker
Um, so part of what we do is we know roughly when we want the project to come out and that may be a deadline that was given to you by the publisher. That might be a deadline that you've picked internally, or maybe you have a huge point of the game that you want to reach some like a milestone. Like we want to have multiplayer working by next to my age. Yeah. And so what you got it, what you need to do is kind of set up checkpoints. So think of a milestone as a checkpoint and then.
00:17:12
Speaker
You can be pretty ambiguous with what those goals are. So a milestone deliverable is like a goal, but you're going to get a little bit more specific um with what it is. And the bigger your team, you have to get more specific about what you need out of each of those teams, because because if you leave too much to kind of.
00:17:29
Speaker
Interpretation. Interpretation, thank you. yeah You don't know what you're going to get. So milestones, we do them we were doing them every six weeks. We were going to switch to every two months. um A deliverable is a specific goal or aspect of the game that you're asking to get to a certain point. So it could be getting a tool functional. It could be, hey, I want an M4 in-game, and I want a shippable model that has final textures. That could be a milestone deliverable.
00:17:55
Speaker
That's red. That's somebody that works with creatives every day. Very hard to wrangle them to get things done on time. It is. Yes. Yeah. And it's funny because there's a lot of people who like to say, we'll time box them. And I'm like, well, I'm not an artist. I don't know what a reasonable time box is. And that's where leads and directors come in. Yeah. Like when I think of the relationship between production and other departments, I always like, I have a producer who's paired with the lead.
00:18:19
Speaker
Do you have a character artist lead? Do you have a producer who's managing character art? They need to be like this. like They're communicating. They know about the schedule. The character artist is the one that like is the subject matter expert, knows what needs to happen when. And the producer is the one that's like, oh, that's a little too late. Or, hey, this other team is going to need it at this point. And it's kind of helping wrangle where it has to fall.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah, either you're their best friend and their worst enemy at the same time all the time. Yeah, exactly. I wanted to touch again on what you said before where you helped people understand how you came to the conclusion or discovered like a concern, right? Because in my personal experience in production,
00:19:03
Speaker
I've put myself in a lot of cases in the hot seat of being the bad guy to a lot of people because I just said, hey, here's some bad news. yeah How do you wanna deal with it? And I was talking to directors and leads, right? So I always talk to directors and leads as if they are directors and leads and they can handle this kind of conversation. um But sometimes I caught them on a bad day or maybe they weren't feeling it because they just got bad feedback on something.
00:19:31
Speaker
And so, i ah you know, in in some cases, production can fall into the trap of being the person that they don't want to talk to or that that they don't like because you are the bearer of bad news. And I feel like what you just said sort of takes that power away from them in doing that because you're just like, here's some evidence that I discovered.
00:19:54
Speaker
you know, and and it kind of diffuses it rather than just going in and saying, we're not going to make this deadline. And here's why you're right. Yeah. Whenever, whenever you're going to talk about not being able to get something or something coming in late,
00:20:09
Speaker
I think you always want to have data, right? Because exactly what you said, data doesn't have feelings. Like data is data. It's something that you kind of look at. So if we're talking about something being late, we always ask, like, I always ask people to kind of like, come tell me, but, but investigate a little bit. Why was something more complex than we thought? Was somebody out sick? Did they not get the support that they needed? And then explain and then come with like a proposal for how we move forward and handle that.
00:20:39
Speaker
So um to show like, hey, I looked into it, I tried to figure it out. And then if you're going to a director in particular where you're going to need like a decision or a lead, I always like to come up with a menu of options because if you go to someone with, I have a problem and you stop there.
00:20:57
Speaker
yeah They don't know how to handle that. That's frustrating. You're putting all of that weight on them. And so that's why, you know, you get that kind of reaction. But if you go to them and you say, I have a problem, here are some options and these aren't our only options, but these are the ones that I think are reasonable and I recommend to be.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah. Then you are inviting them to go into problem solving mode as opposed to like problem reacting mode, which I think is is really critical. Yeah. Yeah. one of Things about production, it's probably like.
00:21:32
Speaker
I feel like to people who are not in game development, production is probably one of the most relatable aspects of game development because it's just about organizing people. And as you said, you're suddenly communicating effectively. And what you just described, I feel like, is the way that people need to need to act and behave. and and principally like That's a principle you need to carry into the workspace in order to get stuff done efficiently by saying, like hey, problem solving, here's all the solutions. What do you guys think we should do? yeah It's that part in TNG. I'm a Star Trek fan. I'm a Trekkie since COVID, ah where Patrick Stewart says suggestions and asks everybody for suggestions.
00:22:14
Speaker
right That's what ah I think a good producer and all the good producers that I've worked with will do. Or if it gets bad enough, they just say, look, sorry, guys, I'm going to do it. I'm just going to say what we're doing and here's what we got to do. Knowing that it might get flack, knowing that it's going to suck, but also understanding that we're going to trust them enough to think, well, it must be pretty bad if they're just saying, let's do it, you know. Can you guys hear Leanne? I can't hear that. Did you meet your mic on accident?
00:22:44
Speaker
No words. Uh oh. for the For those who are not watching right now, Leanne's just fixing her microphone. She just gave us a reassuring thumbs up. And since people asked at the start, Jay is traveling. That's why I am subbing in today. I am not replacing him on this podcast. Are people speculating already? I don't know. I i mean, I haven't looked at the Discord yet, but yeah like where's Jay? Well, while Leanne gets her her stuff ready, and we'll let you know when we hear you, Leanne. I feel like I've done, as ah as a designer,
00:23:14
Speaker
I feel like i've I've only was a designer in AA. I feel like a lot of people in AA and indie, like you end up doing a fair amount of production, but it's not very organized. I ended up becoming like extremely grateful for Jira once we started using it. I've heard a lot of people shit talk JIRA and I get it. Like there's stuff that maybe you don't really like about JIRA and nobody likes to have a tool that might not totally fully understand some of the challenges that you have, right? Cause JIRA can be misleading as far as an estimate goes or as far as setting the wrong expectations, but that's the thing you resolve with your team and with your producer. And also like I promised you from the Indian double A space, using task management is like so much better than just everybody doing whatever the hell they want.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah, sorry about that. I don't know what happened. I do want to add that. OK, so when we're talking about production, Mike, just for our listeners. I know that when you're hearing us talk about production, it sounds like anybody can do it because it's like, oh, yeah, problem solve or like figuring out deadlines. But there's a lot of nuance that's not really expressed very well.
00:24:27
Speaker
um a lot of the time because you have to have game developer experience to be great at it, right? Like if you don't understand what someone's working on and you just make a deadline, that's not gonna ship a quality product. like and and And we've talked to teams that are very small, like um ah what's the name of the the the group of four guys that made the shooter?
00:24:57
Speaker
that has like two guys came together to make a shooter. They didn't have a producer. And when I, uh, you know, chatted with them ah outside of the podcast, they said, Oh yeah, we were like crunching nonstop and we were kind of like working on top of each other. Yeah. Um, so I just wanted for crunching, but yes, no I totally see what you're saying. yeah Continue. Yeah.
00:25:20
Speaker
But Mike, they yeah, like in your position and being able to like produce, it's because you have the knowledge and understanding of how certain teams come together to make a future. Right. And that's what you ah you talked about, too, of like.
00:25:36
Speaker
people have to come to you as a producer and trust you and so if you don't have that experience like it's kind of hard to trust like you know working in the media background and and tiina you know you experiences too I'm sure at IGN or whatever but or one up but like executives pull at you into a meeting and they have no idea how a news cycle works or how the quarters work for or embargoes work for games. And it's like, well, how am I supposed to trust you to have my best interest in heart? So like, I would imagine it's important that to recognize that anything can be learned. I think that's something that we often have to remind people when we're like interviewing someone who maybe doesn't know a particular tool or a particular language. like anything can be learned. We all start at zero, right? Like like we learned along the journey to where we all got. And what what I always notice with with people that really thrive in production, I think anyone can learn how to do production, but the ones who really thrive, they're the ones who are organizing their friend groups. They have spreadsheets at home tracking their game library.
00:26:37
Speaker
Tell me what's in their pantry and when it's going to expire. You know, like, like that kind of passion for organization and like color coding things, I think is that little oomph. Yeah. Oh, no. Oh, no. We don't hear or see you in the end. Just adds up. I'll DM her real quick. OK.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah. I would, I would say, uh, production is a two people skills. Very important. Well, that's true. Yeah. If you're an introvert and you're just like, we got to work on this thing. see You want to try speaking? I jumped out of the stream and back. later youre You're back. we got you I will be throwing this laptop out after this. Sorry about that.
00:27:23
Speaker
Got to get that gaming PC. So half a gaming PC, my husband and I both work from home and he's in meetings and we didn't want the podcast to pick up the stuff he was saying. so Got you. We do have a question from the chat. um yeah Ed Crichton, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, Ed Crichton, he says, how do you diffuse tension with your distributor when you're not making deadlines and or going over budget?
00:27:51
Speaker
It's a very big generalized question. Yeah, it is. So I think in this case, I'm going to talk about publishers. So when you're with a publisher ah and your milestone schedule is something that you both come to together, it's a negotiation.
00:28:08
Speaker
So quite often publishers will have a milestone template and and things like particular deadlines that they like to hit that that carry a certain amount of of meaning for them. and And some of them are more confusing than others. They'll be like 80% of game is at this point.
00:28:25
Speaker
um Generally, I prefer to default on kind of transparency and openness. If I tell you that I think something is coming, it's not going to hit as hard when it arrives. And so a lot of what you do is just kind of open communication with them, ah letting them know how things are going. If something's going to be over budget, you kind of have to look at the why, and maybe you're going to propose something that can fall off.
00:28:53
Speaker
Like, hey, this is ending up over budget, but we agree that it's important. Like, let's use weapons as an example. We want to hit 20 weapon models. We want them to be at a certain quality. It's costing more than we thought it would. Maybe we can get rid of some accessories. Maybe we don't have as many different kinds of grenades. How do you feel about that? So it's, it's the same thing as what we talked about earlier with bringing your problem to an individual. You're bringing it to an organization with a sensitivity towards um the financial piece. Something that is interesting that I have found in my experience, and I don't know that this is necessarily true of all publishers, but it was certainly true of every publisher I worked with. For some reason, they are much more open to adding money to an outsourced budget as opposed to a debt budget.
00:29:38
Speaker
So going to them and saying, I want to get more outsourcers to do X, Y, or Z, as opposed to I want to add more headcount directly to the company was an easier pill for them to swallow for something. And it's because they have different budgets, right? And maybe they didn't tell you what the full budget of one part is. And I think that's the other thing is buffer.
00:29:59
Speaker
um You got to try to build in buffer for all the things you don't know. ah You don't know what's going to take longer. You don't know what's going to cost more. So like when we do our budgets, we have we try to have headcount buffer. We try to have outsourced buffer and time buffer. and And you kind of eat into that first before you end up going to whoever and saying, hey, can I have more? Assuming going to a publisher is almost like applying for a job. Like always, that's for 25% more than what you actually need.
00:30:30
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. I don't know if we've ever really done that. I think you have to be careful with that because if they think that you're being ridiculous, then it kind of puts any requests or conversations you want to have in the future in a particular light where they're approaching you. Like you got to build trust there, right? Like they have to feel that you're being honest with them and and you and you have to hope and and trust that they're being honest with you as well. And then they probably go, sorry, Tina, they probably go the outsourced route too, because a lot of that's international.
00:30:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i I mean, I'm not going to lie. Like it's way cheaper to get some stuff from from overseas than somebody that's based in North America. Like development now in particular is very expensive in in the US s in particular. and And by expense and budget, it includes, you know, like their salary, if there's any sort of like bonuses, if there's any promotions. So, you know, when you're saying like we need an artist to make 20 weapons,
00:31:27
Speaker
you know, one artist can't do that within a reasonable timeframe. Like you can't do that in a month just for the listeners to understand. So you would hire a couple people to make an X, you know, 20 weapons to meet a deadline. And that costs money, right? When you're hiring people. And I guess I kind of understand, I kind of understand what a publisher is thinking when you're like, Oh, here's some money to outsource because when you hire outsourcers, it's a contract. So there's like,
00:31:51
Speaker
an end date. yeah yes They're not headcount, which means you're not giving them healthcare. You're not paying for the... um you know to To have that person on the team as like a permanent or ah as permanent as possible yeah employee. um So it's easier to like hire contractors and then say goodbye to them when you're done with them. um yeah And I'll be honest, like even when it comes to like headcount requests internally, something I like to validate is, is it a short term need or a long term need? Because I don't know if you guys remember, but like 10, 15 years ago, the the common thing to do in games was to hire up.
00:32:31
Speaker
And then you shipped your game and you laid a bunch of people off. And now we've been seeing a ton of layoffs for the last year, but it's not at the end of a project necessarily. But back then that was the practice. And I hated it because I very distinctly remember at my last company at Timegate Studios, um they're no longer around anymore. i They would hire up QA.
00:32:52
Speaker
we would finish the project and then they would get rid of everyone but the lead. And that set us back so far because we had to rehire and reteach. And something that's not quantifiable is what does it cost to onboard somebody to your team? yeah Like it's a high cost. Like there's a lot to teach them. They have to learn the language you speak. And so we were always doing that with our QA teams there and I didn't like that. So when I was at Turtle Rock,
00:33:17
Speaker
And um you know i one of the things that I manage is our is our staffing schedule. When somebody comes to me and says, I need a person, I'm like, well, is that a short term need or is it a long term? And one of the questions I'll ask them is, OK, let's think about post-launch. What is this person doing? Are we keeping them busy? Because what I don't want is a bunch of folks that are able to contribute at that point because then you can't justify sustaining them. and and And I'm happy to say that except for ah after Evolve's free to play contract ended with 2K, we have not done layoffs at Turtle Rock Studios. and And I hope we're able to maintain that forever. Yeah, it kind of seems like the skeevy thing with the the QA stuff, especially, you know, places like Activision, all that is they're not they're not told when they're hired that they're probably short term.
00:34:06
Speaker
So when those layouts hit, it comes as a shock. And it's like, well, we never really plan to keep your arm. So I like that you, you as a producer, think about that ahead of time as are they long term or short term higher? Cause that's the expectation of like, you may not be here after, you know, this game ships, just so you know. When you want people to to want to come to your company and you don't want to generate that kind of reputation, something that I absolutely adore about Turtle Rock, it's one of the things that I love, is we have a lot of people who have left and come back. That is the biggest compliment, I think, to a company to say, hey, I want to work with it for you again. And I actually felt that way. i i i ah hired a
00:34:43
Speaker
gal back this summer, who she worked for me when we were working on Back for Blood and had to to leave for circumstances. And then when we had a lead producer opening, she applied to it and she's like, I want to work with you again. And I was like, that just means so much to me that that somebody is willing to do that. So I think that's a lot of what's kind of magical about Turtle Rock is people genuinely enjoy working for the company. And the company shows that appreciation for the employees as well. They take very good care of us.
00:35:14
Speaker
of hearing that. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Cause you don't, man, that's, that's not very common by the way. It's really nice. Yeah. Um, I have another question that came up from the chat in a producer move to other industries, like absolutely. Like what those skills work in ah like him reading it verbatim, like what those skills work in like movies or TV, or I don't know, running a restaurant.
00:35:42
Speaker
I am not comfortable commenting on movies and TV as much because I think what producer means there is very different. um But for other industries, like sometimes when I'm really, really stressed out, I'll joke, man, I should just go work on bank software because like for software in particular, um very much transferable. Right. You're thinking about critical paths.
00:36:07
Speaker
dependencies, making sure that people are working together, defining goals, moving towards a deadline, reporting on how that's going well. like That's transferable to so many different industries. Running a restaurant, I've heard that's one of the worst things you can do actually, so I don't know that I've trained it for anyone. It's very stressful. I mean, you're worried about resources, you're worried about dependencies and things like that, so probably.
00:36:31
Speaker
um I've met ah a producer. She worked at JPL, jumped into a video game studio. because she was working with engineers on both sides. And then just moved back to, um I think, SpaceX to do cool space things. That's awesome. um So yeah, it is transferable. In terms of Hollywood and TV and film, I believe some aspects are similar, like if you wanted to get into animation or producing an effects team.
00:37:03
Speaker
That would make sense. But going from like an executive producer on a video game to an executive producer on a movie is very different. And I think that person, Tina. Oh, go ahead. Finish. No, I was going to ask for that person. I'm curious. What was easier for them? Was it working on the spaceship? Was it working on the game show? Because I think I think game shit's harder. I hear all these stories, producers included. but all departments, that video games are harder than a lot of those. But with space, people can die. We're going to go morbid. No, no, no. The stakes are much higher. I frequently remind people, like, we work in video games. It's not life or dead. Can we please just take a chill pill and calm down? Exactly. It helps us get to the right place we need to get anyway when you settle people like that. So it's good you do that. But Tina, what did this person say? Because that's just my suspicion, despite the stakes being higher. So it's very nuanced because I did ask her this question too. It was easier in terms of scheduling and tracking space projects because the government is very like on you for very specific details about milestones and where money's going. Like you can't F up a space projects budget. You just can't.
00:38:27
Speaker
Right. So the accountability you're saying people straighten everybody out and made them go, Oh, fuck, we better make sure. Yes. Which I guess does force every, like nobody's leaning back in a chair and being like, well, I'll just go, I'll go MVP with this one because a, the government be someone might die. Yes. You can do that in video games, which happens sometimes. Mike, I have the game for you. If you want to test that theory.
00:38:56
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, shit. I'd literally just look, wait, what is it? Uh, Kerbal space program. If you want to be a bigger and a space guy. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Well, I, I, I part of why I asked that questions. I just feel like it's not so much that like.
00:39:11
Speaker
space would be easier than making a game. It's I feel like a lot of the things that happen to game developers. There's a tendency to try to make things work with not a lot of money. And I wonder if it's the same in space or do you have the money and you have the budget to hire all the people that you need instead of what happens softening game development all the way from India up to AAA where a person ends up doing way more than they should be doing because they just can't get the money to hire.
00:39:36
Speaker
ah Because you have that government assistance when it comes to spaceship, right? And you have more precedent because we've been doing space shit since the 50s, you know, it's I don't know. That was my that was a part of why I asked. Yeah, just to deviate a little bit. Yeah. And to pile on to your comment, Mike, um the government's more willing to throw money at a contractor.
00:39:57
Speaker
for space stuff, yeah then they are to get more money. so You know, what that's that's a commonality, I guess, with video games. You also can't really do multiple disciplines if you're working on a rocket, because if you put somebody in charge of electronics on a rocket, you're probably screwed that if they don't know what.
00:40:15
Speaker
You do also have, I guess, yeah, you become more, or part of what you're saying is you hiring that person, they're probably pretty damn qualified. Thank you, Eric, for Eric's put up. For those of you at home who are only listening, Eric's put a very helpful visual aid of a rocket on the screen. terrible space program oh is that called though we zoom in a little bit and okay No, I see I see the 3dness to it yeah ah the same Yeah, like when you're hiring people at JPL like they're pretty damn qualified I can understand broadly speaking like zooming out here macro you could end up hiring a lot of people in roles in game dev We're like they need to learn a lot
00:40:53
Speaker
and they might not. Like there's a ramp up period and there's the ambiguity and fog and like the loss of meeting milestones or deadlines as a result of that, but it's okay because the stakes aren't high. You can't really have that in space stuff.
00:41:05
Speaker
no Anyway, that's just my suspicion. I don't know anything about space. I think I can circle this back to video games though. So yeah I think the important thing with like space development is like you have checks and balances between the different roles. And I would argue that that's important in games as well. And that's where this is where I have opinions that some people might disagree with. One of the things I really don't like is when I see somebody who comes forward as I'm a producer designer.
00:41:32
Speaker
To me, on a large team, that is not a role that you shouldn't be trying to fill both of those roles. Because in my mind, design and creatives job is to ask for more. I have ideas. I want to make it better. And my job is to say,
00:41:49
Speaker
Whoa, dog, you got to slow down or we're out of time. And if I'm the person who also has a pet feature, who is designing a thing, I'm going to bias towards the things that I want to see in the game. And so that's where I kind of see that those two roles can't exist together. The process is exploited.
00:42:07
Speaker
Exactly. I've very directly experienced this, where ah being on a AA team, you run into situations where, kind of like I was saying, you end up doing some production. You might not do it as well as a producer would do it, or or even just any person just dedicated in the role. ah You've got two knocks down, right? Like, it's it's already going to be worse for two different reasons. But you kind of have to do it, because you got a ship, and you are in the curse of AA, where you have a little bit more money, and the expectations are a little higher.
00:42:36
Speaker
yada, yada. ah I've worked with someone where they were doing production work, but also doing the design work. And you could easily get into a conversation. And this is an out of defensiveness of my own ideas. This just happened where they say, well, no, we're we can't do that. We don't have the money. We don't have the time. And you go, well, hold on. Like I looked at Jira and we have this week, your features there.
00:42:58
Speaker
um are you saying this because you don't like my features because we don't have the time cuz cuz it's there i see the space and that's always a very difficult you can even describe his awkward conversation.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yeah. And that's where actually as an EP, I have to be careful with expressing my opinion or giving feedback because what I recognize is in my position, I carry a certain amount of weight. And so a lot of what I'll do is if I'm not sure as to whether or not that feedback should be shared because it could send people in the wrong direction, I'll hit up my directors on the side and be like,
00:43:32
Speaker
Hey, I have some feedback. Please tell me, like, feel free to tell me to go away. I'm wrong or, or not to share it. Um, because ah of exactly that. Like you have to be so creative feedback or scrap. So something at turtle walk, that's really important to us is play testing our games. We try to get them play to simple very, very early. And we hit a point where we play test it every day. Cause like I've talked to people at some studios and they're like, yeah, we play test often. And I'm like, oh, how often every two weeks?
00:43:59
Speaker
That ain't often. um we it's It's a big ask out of our QA team, but like we have nightly builds. They take a look at them. if They evaluate if it's play testable. And then we encourage everyone on the team to give feedback. We have a feedback form in Slack that they fill out, design and create all sorts of people like reading it. And um you know people have to learn how to ingest and react to feedback there. And and that's where i'm sometimes I'm like, I'm going to be careful with what I put there.
00:44:27
Speaker
and That's true, man. That's true. You almost one of those things. Go ahead. I was just going to say you you because of your position, you specifically shouldn't. And that's just how it has to be like organizationally.
00:44:39
Speaker
ah like specifically shouldn't give creative feedback? you you Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Like it could be distorting. If I'm understanding you right. That's like what you're describing. I think it's more you have to be careful with what feedback you are giving. Like I think going in and saying, Hey, I'm still struggling with the controller. It doesn't feel good. Like you need to be able to say that kind of thing, but like, Hey, I think this model should be purple instead of pink because purple is my favorite color. Not great feedback to be giving. So it's, I think it's more the higher you move up.
00:45:08
Speaker
the more you have to understand the impact of feedback that you give. and and be discerning about it Yeah, was like feedback is one of those things that. You have to find a way to word in a way that like they hear it, but it doesn't feel like they're being criticized. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like, right. It feedback like you shouldn't write it and like whoever came up with this should get punched in the face like, no, read it feedback. Oh, my God. That's good. I like never never, never, ever use the I don't want to offend you, but it's just like, yeah, the feedback straight. Yeah. Tell me what you're thinking. Yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
Cause I had a, I had a boss once that was like, he would, he would never use my name and like feedback is like one of those things that's like super nuanced because like I had a boss that would not use my name. He would just call me dude or bro. And it just like, as somebody that's in that role, it's like, that's, it feels condescending coming off that way. And like, that's that that it does, doesn't it? yeah I'm hearing it in my head. are you way ah Sorry, just saw, I'm sure I'm hearing you right. yeah You're saying like, instead of the being the sentence, Nick, I think we really need to work on so-and-so. He would say, dude, we really need to work on so-and-so. And it does sound a little more condescending. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's like, it's not addressing you. It's just like you're another person, basically. i guess But we also use these words, dude and bro, as like, not, I guess, interjections. I forget the the term for it. It's informal. Yeah, it's informal, but also it can be like ah a, uh,
00:46:35
Speaker
It's like an exclamation sometimes. So that kind of adds a little bit of fog where it sounds like he's annoyed with you or he's being condescending. Yeah, I i think that's like probably the hardest thing of probably being a producer. not Not that I'm on a game, though. So it's just.
00:46:49
Speaker
communicate, especially nonverbal communication when you're just doing it over Slack and stuff like that. Like people can read things in so many different ways. Yeah. I think there's good rules of thumb though. I'm curious for all your guys rules of thumbs. Our minds are like, the one I've heard is the sandwich. You say the nice thing, like here's what you did really well. I think we could work on improving this or like, Oh, I'm not a fan of this. Uh, and here's another thing you did well. I try to do that, but honestly, like,
00:47:14
Speaker
it can sound very forced and insincere and like you're being formulaic so i can just do one in one because that's like a quick short hand of like i really like this part could work on this a little bit and that kind of insulates you or insulates the person i find in my experience from being like oh this person just hated what i did or they're offended i'm not i'm gonna reject it.
00:47:34
Speaker
There's a bunch of talk about production which is of course where this is relevant being a design designer or like a lead designer giving that creative feedback is like super critical and you gotta do it in the right way. but don't know What do you guys think how how do you guys like to give feedback.
00:47:48
Speaker
I think the important thing is staying focused on the work or the results and not the person. Because if the person feels like you're criticizing their skill, their decision making or anything, that's when it starts to get too personal and they take they might take it the wrong way. So being focused on, hey, you know, you made this change was made and it resulted in this and this is why it's the problem. So trying to make sure that you're framing it as that, I think is really important.
00:48:14
Speaker
um the The compliment sandwich I think is is and the term for what you were describing. I go back and forth. I think really what you have to do is get to know the person and what they like because there is a class of person that will hear the positive thing and only like that's the lonely kids into the last thing that you said. And so they're going to be like, Oh, he thinks I'm amazing and completely forgets the feedback. And then there's the person who, and I'm actually one of these people as something that I've been working on for myself is I only hear the negative. And so an exercise I was given was, Hey, make sure to write down the positive stuff when you hear it. And what I realized was it happens more than I thought. And so,
00:48:57
Speaker
You kind of have to figure out the person that you're working with, what kind of of of communication they need. And that's one of the hardest part of being a producer. I think one of the most dangerous producers are the ones who are like, I have a silver bullet. I know how to manage everything. I'm going to work with everybody the same way. When you actually have to personalize it to every single developer you're working with for them to trust you. Even on a high level by department too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:26
Speaker
Well, I actually think one of the dangerous things is when people go, oh, all engineers are the same. They are so not all the same. Everybody is different. Yeah, even even freelance writers are like that. You know, yeah everyone is differently. You don't know if they're going to go on Twitter about mouthy later or whatever. It's like, ah you know, yeah. ah Yeah. Even even in my experience, like I've always tried to have like all the people over just doing text feedback because it's so easy to just. but Even though everybody's like, there's no tone and in text, there's always a tone in text.
00:49:56
Speaker
In my experience, i've when we're talking about feedback, I think not only providing feedback is you know essential ah to the quality of a game, but also mediating as a producer, the feedback that's being given in a room. Um, I've found that there's particular parts of a game that get a lot more feedback than others just because of the sheer simplicity of being able to give feedback. For instance, art, art is very easy to critique because it's something we all see. It's something that we can all visually understand. Um, we could look at a code base in a meeting and everyone is not going to be able to chime in and say like,
00:50:35
Speaker
That looks, that looks bad. You know what I mean? So, um you know, I feel like writers and and artists are probably some of the most vulnerable group and effects. So, you know, trying to help keep things respectful is ah is is ah is a challenge there.
00:50:54
Speaker
I agree. Do you like to do the kind of invitation where you say, OK, this part, nobody said nobody's getting feedback about X. ah What are we all thinking? Is that something that a producer sometimes does? It depends. You know, I think you got to take.
00:51:12
Speaker
the room in and and what's going on, but definitely mediating is like a a skill set that I'm pretty sure has a certain level too. um To get into specifics, i you know I remember everyone chiming in about skins.
00:51:28
Speaker
uh, character skins. And I think that could be a very touchy subject for artists because when an artist creates a character, they have a very specific vision in mind. And in a lot of cases, microtransaction skins can just wreck havoc on that vision for an artist, right? So it's like, oh, yeah put you put them in a fucking snowman costume. Like I hate it. hate look yeah Look at Team Fortress 2 or something, right? And the consistent, clear art style at the start of the game. And you could easily argue, not everybody would agree. Some would say, like, oh, it keeps the style. But so many of the cosmetics break from that and and look ah very different. What were you going to say, Nick? Hunt Showdown is going through that right now because I think they added in the screen character model into the game. Yeah, that game has a very, very distinct aesthetic.
00:52:19
Speaker
That surprises me. Ghostface? I don't know how I feel about that. Interesting. Yeah, neither it does the communities. but there's you watching you were When you first come out, I think you want to stay really, really close to your original art style, your world building and all of that. But the longer that you're out, I think that's where it starts to loosen. So my guess is for Hunt, they probably figured, hey, we're far enough. And when we launched having that sacredness around what our style is starts to kind of go away.
00:52:54
Speaker
Because like I remember so many games, they add something like completely ridiculous and it just suddenly like a bunch of people start playing again, they start picking it up, even though you would have never wanted to see that there at launch.
00:53:06
Speaker
yeah um There was an old game that it was a mobas were exploding. It was super Monday night combat. And they added a rubber ducky waste floaty that your character could have. And I remember when that came out and a ton of people like rushed to buy it and wear it and you saw it everywhere. It was so ridiculous. So while we're on that subject of player feedback as an executive producer, like how much how much do you pay attention to that online?
00:53:35
Speaker
ah Quite a bit, especially once we go live. um I'm somebody in the past who has ah tried to be active in our Discord. I'll go through our Reddit, um different social media and and definitely the different social media platforms have different tones of engagement from.
00:53:55
Speaker
from the community. um But I like to, and a lot of what we would try to do is you look at what people are saying and then you look at what the data is saying. So we've I've talked to to folks that worked at studios in the past where they would only balance and react based off of data. We liked to mix the two together.
00:54:19
Speaker
Because if somebody's saying, hey, the MP5 is like really, really power, it's too strong, it's overpowered, it keeps kicking my ass. And we look at the data and we see that it it's actually not, that it's actually pretty even. We then ask ourselves.
00:54:34
Speaker
OK, why do people feel that way? Is it the audio? Is it too is it punchier than it should be? Is it some form of animation or a hit reaction that's happening? And then we might tweak that. So player sentiment feedback, very important. And and for me, usually what it is is it triggers an investigation. So I might see something and I might go to our design director and say, hey, I i feel like I'm reading a lot of people complaining about this thing, this card in Back 4 Blood. that would often come up and he would be like, okay, I'll look at the data. We'll talk about it. And sometimes like, eh, it's a non-issue. They're just mad or, Oh yeah, we're going to dig into this. This is what we have to happen. Cause you have to look at both because like but they're both important. Yeah. you've done a lot of them
00:55:24
Speaker
Oh, good. I was just going to follow up. Do you like do you find it's hard to and as as a producer? Like, you know, those developers are looking at that feedback, too. And sometimes you get really focused on that one comment. And it's only by one person was like, I got to fix this. And you have to come and be like, if no.
00:55:43
Speaker
there would be a lot of conversations. And I think generally what I would try to do is see, is it just that person? Is there consensus around it? And then, um, cause yeah, quite often, uh, sometimes that would happen is like the game would just come out. You would see a bunch of player feedback. We got to do a hot fix. We got to rush a balance change. And I'm like, okay, hold on. We have one coming out in two weeks. We can include your change there. And then you can make a post to the community saying, Hey, this change is coming. And that was like kind of a good, like,
00:56:12
Speaker
and tina you playing so no it's coming yeah exactly i just I just gave like a verbal reaction or visual reaction to what you're saying because we didn't touch on live service. Being a producer for live service is a whole different beast. It is. ah It is gnarly. Yeah.
00:56:29
Speaker
um but So for evolve ah for Evolve, I did a lot of that um and we we hired someone for it and it is very tricky, right? That balance of like, what do you call for an emergency patch for? What do you not? And I actually think one of the hardest problems for our industry right now is in this world of live service games where people eat through your content super quick and want more. Like how do you make sure that the post launch of your beam is something that is sustainable and tenable. It is a hard fucking problem, my friends. I wanted to say like, ah so there's this whole group of young people that grew up with Fortnite as their one game, right? yeah And the updates and the amount of updates they got in the time they got them is fucking it up for the rest of us.
00:57:21
Speaker
They killed that guy team too, right? yeah like if i And this is like hearsay, but if I remember correctly, like Epic started one week or two weeks off in the summer and it was because the team was like crunching all the time trying to get stuff out with their seasonality. and that's just It's just not something I'm interested in. Yeah. I just wanted to share like the the chaos and expectations that were now set with this young group coming up into video games are like, I want a new update to my game that I play all the time in the next two weeks. Or it's like, it's taking too long. and but Yes. I just, it's just, it's just fascinating. Like I don't know what the cascading impacts will be on live service
00:58:02
Speaker
for the next decade because of this and like the amount of content. Oh, I think it's already happening. Right. well Yeah. I think you've already seen it. Right. Yeah. There is hell divers too has really gone through that because they ah they had a lot of updates like right at the start and now they've slowed down as I've tried to make them more impactful. But then.
00:58:22
Speaker
Not only are the people expecting more content, now those updates are like balance changes are being way more scrutinized. Because Helldivers 2 went through like changing the stuff where it took the fun out of the game. So then they have to go back and redo that patch to roll things back now.
00:58:38
Speaker
While continuing to work on new contents, like I would be, I would be terrified to work in Mike. You worked on insurgency too. I would be, yeah I would be terrified to work on a life service game because it would just feel like there is no pleasing anybody on those things. I'm smart. I can't share all of my experiences. I'm smiling knowingly because of like, I've, I've been involved with projects for like.
00:59:01
Speaker
I will basically say, guys, slow down. You have to slow down. Okay. You're going to set their own expectation. I do see, Tina, your point about how you might be setting a broader, like industry-wide expectation. I think the one thing that kind of helps us, helps, ah I'll use this word again today, insulate us from that, is like every game has its audience. And a lot of the people that are on Fortnite aren't necessarily the same as like a game like I worked on in Insurgency. So like there was a little bit of understanding and and I think gamers finally are understanding also like we just don't want to play broken stuffs like take some time but that being said like putting stuff out even like once every quarter for every every like
00:59:42
Speaker
I remember we tried to do like once every two months and it was it sucked. And once every three months was tough too. So like three or four months, that was where we ended up. And you you if you set that pace early, I find, then players kind of get it. And also like the the value of something coming just regularly is really high.
01:00:02
Speaker
And like, whether that's two or three new weapons, just do two. People are still gonna be pretty excited by two new guns. So when I looked at, I could say that, like, when I looked at Helldivers specifically and saw all the shit they were putting out, I was thinking, like, fuck, guys, slow down. Like, ah we're already so elated and everybody's playing. you You guys knocked out of the park, like, it's a great game. You don't need to go crazy. Spread that shit out. And And then like put in a balance patch here they spend a little time and look like there's nothing that's gonna say like this has to come out now like your artists are never gonna be twiddling your thumbs just work on the next one for later build build buffer when you talked about like buffer in budgets why not buffers in time like let me get a few weapons they put them in the bank i had your perspective.
01:00:47
Speaker
Say it again. I wish everybody had that perspective because it unfortunately isn't the case. right There's a lot of pressure from publishers to get much more out because it's all about the the the retention. It's all all about how many times people are logging in. Exactly. and something so Nine years ago, I think live service was um a hard problem and and that was when Evolve came out. Now we have cross-platform and I want to talk a little bit about what that means. so releasing on Steam is actually really, really easy. And like kudos to valve for this because yeah they kind of like, it's up to you to fuck it up. Like you can just push a build live. You can do stuff. There's no, there's no certification that you have to go through. Whereas when you're on a Sony platform or a Microsoft platform, you have to go through certification. And even then the time it takes for each platform is different. And so when you want to be a cross platform title, which back for blood was,
01:01:44
Speaker
You have to factor all of those timelines in because you want PC to continue being able to play with Xbox and with PlayStation. And so your how fast you can be is affected by the slowest platform. Yep. And so that was something that was very real for us. And and I think first party, ah sorry, Microsoft and Sony are aware of that and they're trying to fix that, right? they're They're trying to address it and they talk about that a lot, but we're not there yet. And so
01:02:18
Speaker
I want to be so like, it'd be cool if we could be super nimble, but you actually kind of can't depending on what your patch is. Now, if you're really savvy and you set up this amazing online infrastructure and all of your balance data comes from the server and you can update that with a updating clients, you're in a golden spot, but like nobody does that like. And so that's where you could do balance changes as opposed to balance patches and And I think that you can do that in an emergency case, maybe depending on how you set it up. But generally the other stuff, like it's hard now to your point of like releasing little bits of content, something you can do. And, and I think the community isn't always on board with this.
01:03:02
Speaker
is you can kind of precede content with a patch. So you could put out a patch that has content that is not immediately available, but then at some point in the back end, you switch it on. But people on PC will data mine it. Yeah. And then they get mad at you. And then it's just.
01:03:20
Speaker
You're kind of in a you can't win situation, it feels like sometimes. So you kind of have to ask yourself. And I think I think hell divers sort of decided this, like, we're OK with people data mining. You'll get excited. And and then it comes on later. And and that's a decision you have to make.
01:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. People were using the mechs before they were officially out. Exactly. Yeah, I remember that. might it might have It might have just been because everybody was so elated and happy with the game that they were OK with it. I think what you're describing, that's true. like It does probably hold up. It's one thing to be like, gamers are more OK with. OK, well, if they're going to wait because the weapons not ready, then of course, take your time with it. But if it's sitting there, they don't understand the value of deliberate content marketing, I guess. of like We have to space this out. like It's too abstract and strategic for I think a lot of them to get. This is a big part of my job, doing like the essentially creative direction and content planning for Sandstorm was like, we every update needs a theme, and the weapons play into it, the cosmetics play into it, the map plays into it, and like yeah, this weapon might technically be ready and shippable, because that's just how it shook out, but we there's value to waiting to let that stuff all hit at once.
01:04:35
Speaker
And its value to them, i ah they might not agree, but it's my perspective that it's that it's value to them, to you, listener, that ah if if we're holding on to a little bit of content, it's because if we release it at the right time, at the right marketing push, the community grows. And guess what? We get more money to make the next one. So yeah that's the value there.
01:04:56
Speaker
I didn't. I never I never really thought about it this way. But the game game developers have officially entered the game's media market. And I won't get where we have to keep content coming all the time. We watch our audience die and then the website does.
01:05:11
Speaker
eat yeah i want this I wanted to bring this back to production. Live service as a producer can be like playing 3D chess in my opinion because it gets so much more complex to schedule and track what's going on. So you have the game that's live that people are playing right now, but then you also have to keep track of what is coming out in the future and when yeah and where that lives and making sure it comes out at the right time yeah when it hits live. And then in addition to that, you're like, oh, there's bugs in the live game that you need to fix. You need to track that to happen in future patches, which is, you know, it it just becomes a lot more jumbled. And in addition to that, like you said, being multi-platform as that extra layer of you're only as fast or as best as the most difficult platform to work on.
01:06:01
Speaker
And i will I want to elaborate more on that on the platform. part But you have a question for you, Tina, and then Leanne. So since Respawn is like so focused on Apex, you didn't like you guys specifically just stayed on that project after it released and didn't move on to the next thing. Leanne, at your studio, Turtle Rock, you guys finished Back for Blood. And then, you know, you're thinking about the next game because Back for Blood. I don't know if it was planned to live forever. I'm assuming not. I'm assuming you guys had a roadmap that you wanted to get through.
01:06:31
Speaker
ah We had a year of post-launch that we did with Back 4 Blood, and then um whether or not you do more ah depends on a lot of different factors. I can't speak to what led to kind of our decision making, but the kinds of things that factor in is, does the publisher want to keep paying for it? Is there hunger for it in the community? and You kind of need the stars to align to be able to to keep doing all of that.
01:06:56
Speaker
ah but As you're approaching being done the game, like you have to start post-launch content before. And so part of the problem as a producer is and and and seen and nailed it calling it 3D chess. I have to figure out how I make sure the right people are making the game as awesome as it can be for launch, but also that the right people are starting the post-launch content so it doesn't fall behind or. and And lands right on time and lands on time. And so, you know, one of the things that helps with that is is the idea of triaging. I think generally people think of triaging with like hospitals or or times of war. But we we utilize it a lot in games for finalizing or deciding what it is that we have to prioritize. So things like live blogs, they get triaged. We take a look at them. We evaluate how important they are. You might ask.
01:07:52
Speaker
customer service, how often it comes up in tickets, and you're choosing when it is that you're going to get it done. And like once you've chosen when you want to get it done, you are then um subject to the developer's ability to resolve it and how you want to resolve it too. There's not always just one way to resolve a bug. And quite often, how when they can resolve it is what determines when it comes out.
01:08:17
Speaker
And then with content, you know, you're trying to figure out, you're looking at your tail end again, going, okay, a map takes roughly X months. So if we start it here, it'll be ready here. And then we have some testing time and we can put it in this patch. So there's an awful lot that that has to happen.
01:08:33
Speaker
um If you look at work in source control and use Perforce, working in branches helps that a lot. You maintain one branch that's your live. And what that is, is it's an exact representation of the code and data that is live so that if you do have to do an emergency fix, you can go in there, do it, create a build out of there, and send it out. Then you have your, for us, you know you you have what you're trying to finalize. And then you have your, this is dangerous development over here. Don't mess with it. You don't even want the side. It might not come out. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Our live service projects, like a good way to train up producers, though, because like if you do put them on those those additional or the post content, it's like a small contain thing to start on. It's like that question. I really like that. It is. It is. But you're not you're not wrong. Right. Because it's a more straightforward problem, I would argue. But that straightforward problem doesn't mean straightforward answers. Right. yeah I think that something that a lot of people on our team have learned recently is, especially in in in a remote environment, is I personally think that finalization and maintenance of a product is the easiest. I'm putting this in air quotes because because it's still very challenging. There's still very high pressure, but it's like make a decision, get it out there, like solve the problem. Whereas pre-production or the concept phase of your project, I would argue is very difficult for producers because that's a lot more of exploration phase and finding the fun. It's a lot more squishy.
01:10:08
Speaker
So if you're somebody who's a little more regimented, that's why I like finalization and post-launch. For me to my personality type, I like that. It's like, solve the problem, move on. Next problem, next problem, next problem. I would go one step further. I don't even think it's your personality. Even though I'm not a producer, I think that most people would agree with you. Maybe, Tina, I don't know how you feel about like it's so nebulous in the beginning. How do you know what you need when you don't even know what the game is? Well, you could do a post on stage and you fall into a rhythm. It's like, all right, well, we're doing this much of X category, this many weapons, this many maps, et cetera. I do think it gets easier at that point. That's where the game is known. Yeah. Yeah. At least turning up a producer, at least the scope of that project is manageable. I think I might be like the crazy one here because I love pre-production a lot.
01:10:59
Speaker
I do like it because my excitement comes from inspiring people to just start momentum, right? And protecting that momentum no matter what it is. Um, and being able to navigate that nebulous place. I found that like live service has prepared me in a really bizarre way of working backwards.
01:11:24
Speaker
right So when someone says I want something, I'm like, okay, here's all the parts that I needed to get it done. I need to make sure that I keep that in mind while someone's talking about the idea from day one. right yeah So when we're in pre-production, just spitballing ideas, I'm like, okay, I'm keeping in the back of my mind that this crazy feature that they want is going to contain a lot of networking code. And that's going to be like a long time to like test. So I'm going to keep that in my long-term roadmap.
01:11:52
Speaker
Right. And I just get excited by that because even though it seems like there's nothing really to establish milestone wise on paper, you're starting to create like the plan for the long-term project. And so much can change that I feel like that's the exciting part for
Pre-Production and Chaos
01:12:09
Speaker
me. Um, being able to say like, you know, we have a deadline in a month and we have these, these goals to hit, like that's cool. But it's, it's, I guess for me, it's, it's more about like,
01:12:23
Speaker
The crazy twists and turns is what excites me. But I think in a masochistic kind of way, right? To Nick's point, though, i like i'm I'm not disagreeing with you. I agree with you that it's the most exciting. But to Nick's point, that is a hard thing to train a producer on. You don't know how to recognize what needs next code, gameplay and all these things. But finalizing a game, this is a bug. I have to make sure it goes to resolved and then closed is very straightforward. Yes. And I would argue that, like,
01:12:52
Speaker
Something i I prefer for pre-production is people who've gone through that finalization because they also know, hey, I have to give you the spacing and encourage you to innovate. But we also have to hit a point where we just start and working. Oh, no. No more work. Oh, no. What was she going to say? We we asked julian ten of fro ah you, Tina, with your production work, you kind of sound like me because it sounds like yeah I don't know how much you write stuff down, but everything goes into my head and it becomes like a little spider web. And then I'm just like, I gotta do this and this and that. I feel like that's you. I feel like you like controlled chaos.
01:13:30
Speaker
I love, I love the chaos. That's where I thrive. I think you got Leanne again. Pre-production was actually one of the things that was my strength and my last company, I didn't get to finalize some of the projects that I worked on because they wanted me to kickstart the backlog, define pipelines and things like that. And I agree with you. It's most exciting. Um, but it's a little easier to just finish it. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
01:13:58
Speaker
I think, I think you're right though. Yeah. I wouldn't want to put like an entry level or mid level producer on pre-production to be like, have at it. let yeah Let us know when we're ready to ship. that's That's not fair. Um, but yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't be as excited by the squishiness if I didn't know what it took to get something out. Um, on time. Yeah. Yeah. I like squishiness as a word to describe it.
01:14:28
Speaker
That's a good one. You mean for this like the the nebulous the word nebulousness? It's just really, it's just soft. It's just like, what is it? We don't know yet. like Let's figure it out. it's One of my favorite ha-ha, but least favorite questions that we I've heard from a publisher before is, when are you going to find the fun?
01:14:49
Speaker
Yeah. That's like being asked in games and media, how do you get to 10 million views? Uh-huh. Yeah. If I had the answer, there I think we'd already be there. If I had the answer, I'd work as a consultant and
Pitching Game Ideas
01:15:01
Speaker
make tons of money working for different companies, tell them how to do stuff, you know? ah Yeah. that's so That's always fun to get in like.
01:15:08
Speaker
where How do you get to this exact thing? i'm like yeah I wish we all had that answer, because we would all be millionaires. yeah I'll tell you, Ron, this is like sort of related, but like talking about pitches and stuff, one of the worst comments or questions you can hear during a pitch. that is I didn't get this, but I've heard of this, and this is real. Is this even a game? Yeah, pretty bad, right? and i seeing I'm seeing three cringes.
01:15:35
Speaker
Oh my God. I think I would like just put my head down and run out the door and never come back. Yeah. But you can. And here's the thing about pitching. You just can't. You have to be confident.
01:15:47
Speaker
look down is like, well, no, like you believe in something. That's why you're here pitching this. Don't let this fucker intimidate you, whether they're doing it deliberately or they're being insensitive or they're just tired. They're having a bad day or they want to get to business. It doesn't matter. You have to believe in it. Do you know if this, this example, was it like a VC person or was it an an industry person? Cause that is very important to me to understand. I, I,
01:16:14
Speaker
I can't share that, but i I can say that you're right that that is relevant. like that's um yeah That's super important. you can have and like For people who are like listening, I guess, like money comes from all different kinds of places, and it's not necessarily people who understand games development. yes So you're right. I should give that context. It's still a pretty shitty thing to hear. It is, for sure. If I was standing in front of Kojima, and I was like, here's my game, and he's like, is this even a game? And he's asking that?
01:16:40
Speaker
I would. Yeah, that would be I think I would also die. I would just go like, OK, that's it. I'm good. I mean, you're right. I'll go work in another industry. I love this training, but you'd be like, is this a game or is it? Yeah, exactly. No, that's what I was thinking of when I cringe. I was like, oh, my God. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know what you mean. But speaking anyway, that's what you're you're you're talking about. The softness reminded me of that.
Improv Game Pitch: Halloween Special
01:17:04
Speaker
Speaking of pitches, Tina, I think you have a fun thing for us to do.
01:17:08
Speaker
Yes. So Leanne, at the end of every podcast, we like to be creative and silly. So we have something called the improv game pitch. It was inspired by Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnite documentary.
01:17:21
Speaker
where anyone in their studio can stand up in front of the whole team and say, here's a game idea I have. It can be as detailed or as a lack of detail as they want, but they have to get people to buy in. So in this instance, we're just going to assume we're all bought into the idea, but we can flesh it out. So if if you don't like the idea, run with it in a completely different direction. We're just here to like spitball a game.
01:17:46
Speaker
So I'm in our executive producer. Yeah, you can comment on how awful the scope will be on this. Yeah. Careful. I'm trying to create a feedback. No, no, I want I want to hear from you. I'm just going to just remove you from the podcast. So, Eric, do you have the photo and I'll walk through. OK. Yeah.
01:18:13
Speaker
So Halloween's coming up. And we want to come out with a game in the next. Seven days.
01:18:23
Speaker
like Maybe it'll be a mobile game. I don't know. Maybe be a web browser game um where you can ah customize your pumpkin. So you're going to have a billion different ways to customize your pumpkin. And we're going to have contests online.
01:18:42
Speaker
So people can vote on what they like and don't like. And you want to do wait you want to tell people who can't see right now what we're looking at picture wise, just a little bit of context. Yeah. ah So Eric found a photo of a pumpkin that's a blue Santa Claus.
01:18:59
Speaker
It looks like there's a snowman in the middle. There's a honeypot, Winnie the Pooh's honeypot. Oh yeah. So there's a lot of i there's a lot of ah intellectual property being stolen for a video new game. This one just says Fortnite on it. It just says Fortnite. I don't think we should make this. if if we If we say it's created, like open it up to creative ah content or creator content, maybe we can get away with it. Oh, what is that? parody that There's an M&M one. so i don't I don't know if people will be interested if we don't steal IP. I don't know how to get around that. I think for pumpkins, we need IP because we have to be able to sell skins. Not necessarily. Hold on. i think I think we need to pivot this project. Okay.
01:19:44
Speaker
um Have you guys played Tiny Glade? I think it's called Tiny Glade, right? I think I've seen screenshots from it, but I haven't played it. Okay. I think there's a market. And Tina, let me know if I'm straying too far. Okay. I'm just kind of throwing it out there. But I think there's a bit of a market for cozy games, as we call them. Very vague genre, right? Like kind of like... Animal processing. A little bit more defined. Yeah, but just more casual, let's say like builder experiences like Tiny Glade.
01:20:14
Speaker
I wonder if you could do something like that with pumpkins. I'm picturing an art style like James and the Giant Peach, where it's um not stop motion, but something like stop motion. i say pumpkin You're manipulating things on the pumpkin, like you've got an editor for it. Yeah, because they're they're they're attractive fixtures in front of homes, right? They're very like they're they're like furniture in In a sense, we use pumpkins like furniture. What if it was like Tiny Glade with pumpkins? That could be our little tagline to the VCs when we go to pitch to them. And then we show them a stats, like, look how much money Tiny Glade made. And they go, interesting, interesting. and That's my suggested pivot. What do you think? now I'm going to pivot as the business guy.
01:20:55
Speaker
sim anything simulator is in right now so is pumpkin simulator and you have to go in and yeah be the pumpkin I think if you want it to be unique see the pumpkin yeah let's all right let's reverse this that's the pumpkin carving simulator but it's a pumpkin carving a human It's it's simulator. The world's first simulator. Getting some surgeon simulator vibes. Yeah. Yeah. You just take this apple, like find a guy with a big belly, starts carving out what you want. Start. You're going to need some gourd tech. Yeah. I don't know what kind of what the seeds would be in a person.
01:21:35
Speaker
are you Okay. Are we going stylized or are we going realistic with this? ah Oh my God. Well, we got to be inclusive. sky
01:21:47
Speaker
Stylize or realistic. listen Okay. I think, um, I think it needs to be stylized. Well, no, it's a simulator game. yeah People want stylizing five graphics now.
01:22:00
Speaker
but Yeah. I think we go either way. I think is the point. Like a lot of sim games are realistic because they're simulator games, but also there's more and more of their stylized. So I think we can go either way. I think because then we can be on more platforms. Right. And that's better for us because it's harder to go on the switch. Yeah. want um pe We could also see the PCs. Yeah. yeah or a minute One of the only adult reading only games on the market.
01:22:28
Speaker
Wait, what's the adult radio game on the market? Oh, I know. I said we could be one of the only AO games on the market. Oh, shit. But then you won't be on any. I don't think you want to strive for that. No, I would really excite a certain audience, a certain audience unless they're like they're whales. I don't I don't think you're going to make money. Yeah, I think.
01:22:51
Speaker
yeah i'll enjoy it I'm enjoying the pitch so far. Hold on, let's review. I'm not saying we we should stay here, but this is a pumpkin carving ah simulator horror game that's an adults-only rating where you are a pumpkin carving up humans that I track in so far. Yes, my God. good Go on, Nick. Sorry. and no That's about as far as I've got. I mean, we're not going to make any money on this. What are the what are the um what are the other tools that you would give a pumpkin to carve a human?
01:23:20
Speaker
We need guns. We need guns. What are we going to do with guns? Hard for person. I mean, yeah, if you use it. like up a person well ga play Sorry, my whole history is all shooters. I can't get away from guns. You should be totally on board for this concept. You're carving up humans all the time. and Damn right I am. Just so you know, Leanne, like 70% of our pitches, 78% devolve into violence because we're all shooter fans.
01:23:47
Speaker
If we can make the human zombies so it doesn't feel as bad. Your pumpkins carving up zombies might cause problems with some markets, though. Yeah. OK. Well, do we have a teacher? We can show our rules. Yeah. China doesn't allow zombies, right? Is that right? You have to be careful with the particular kind of gore.
01:24:13
Speaker
that you do. So I want to say for summer, we've you've had like games have had to do like green blood instead and it's not blood then it's something else. Was that German? No, that wasn't German. No, I know in Japan, ah we had to do changes for back for blood for for Japan. Yeah. we Do we have another creature that we could carve up that's like ah more palatable if we're going for a broader spectrum with the sub creature, the substitute.
01:24:44
Speaker
Very specific hippos. Hold on. She's talking about the hippo from the mood. You want to carve a little hippo? Wow. This whole time she's been looking at us like we're on hinge, but she's over here wanting to carve a beautiful little hippo. You can't problem here, Tina. When we get the guns in, which we now discovered that we need, most calibers are bigger than the hippo itself. You're not going to be able to carve anything. No, I don't think we should do this too much, dang, it's so bad. I think we went in on the wrong direction. You gotta pull back, guys. You're right. You should go back to humans. Humans as well. You can't do animals. That's what I'm talking about. And a producer moderating. That's great. Okay, so it's stylized, it's humans, we're leaning in. The humans were serial killers, like Dexter, so it's bad, they were bad guys, it's fine to carve them up.
01:25:35
Speaker
OK, so we're going to need a bunch of narrative because people are going to want to understand why it's OK for that human to be carved up. We're going to need stories for all of them. And they have to be real bad guys, too. They're murderers. And yeah they kick puppies. They, you know, they're just terrible people. these Murder. bigby hippos So, okay, so we we have all that. Can we talk a little bit more about like outside the core loop? I think we know surgeon simulator. We could take some there, but like, what are we working toward? We have some narrative. ah what What's, out here's the question I'd like to ask. there What is hour one and hour 10 and hour 100?
01:26:13
Speaker
How do those all look different? Our one hundred. Oh, my God. Well, if we're going to have an end goal, we've got to like set up a competition. The pumpkins are are seeing who they can carve up the best. Oh, yes. I like that. Oh, community vote. Yeah. Community vote. I like that. And then, uh, but but there's like more intricacies you got to think about because you pumpkin seeds, seeds, pumpkin seeds.
01:26:41
Speaker
Well, pump pumpkins, when you carve a pumpkin, it just has goop inside. Humans have like bones and all the other stuff that you got to get to to get to the goop. Well, OK, there's also a cooking component to the game. You're making the gym go on. Yeah, we also can make a soup. Yes. bonery Yeah, we're going to teach you on bra how to make bone broth and the health benefits.
01:27:09
Speaker
Is it, I guess they're bad guys, right? They're murderers and great puppy kickers. So we can eat them. So it's not cannibalism. Correct. That's true. Yeah. Okay. We're in the clear. Okay. So, so you're trying to make the perfect human dish. That's the, that's the progression. Like you're working toward that pumpkin Thanksgiving.
01:27:33
Speaker
but good thanksgiving That could be the title. repairing we go we all your other We've gone from going from artists to start up eating people now. I into cooking simulator games. I don't think there are enough that are good. So have you played a mass food simulator, a demo recently? next question ah I'll send you a link. It's pretty cool. Nice.
01:27:55
Speaker
I thought about trying that with the second one team, but I could only see chaos happening. So we should absolutely try. No, do it. You should do it. Sim games are super fun now. Like I'm so happy with that genre's innovation. It's it's really, I was playing contraband simulator recently and it's wild. You like getting to shoot outs with terrorists, but you also are checking people's documents. It's, it's crazy. But anyway, back to the pump. Yeah.
01:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. Um, where were we? I want to know, I want to know more about the main character. Like, so you are pumpkin. Yeah. How, why do we need to know about this universe where the pumpkin can be inspired by nightmare before Christmas? Like the pumpkin king was a pumpkin king all about Jack Skellington.
01:28:41
Speaker
But he had a King of Halloween town. Yeah. okay and And he gets interested in Christmas and they kidnapped Santa Claus so he can be Santa Claus. I only know this because my three year old has watched Nightmare before Christmas like 50 times. Yeah. Little kids are really really into it. Her favorite character is the mayor.
01:29:00
Speaker
Oh wow. So is he, um, so there needs to be a narrative. Uh, I'm saying he, I don't mean to gender the pumpkin. The pumpkin could just be whoever you choose your pumpkin. Her name is Rachel. Okay. Rachel, the pumpkin, uh, the righteous pumpkin killer. So now I'm starting to think, uh, we're making pumpkin wick comes out of the scene because somebody shot more dang.
01:29:29
Speaker
people want But why does Pumpkin Wick have to make a delicious soup? and He's got a feed. and she knew She has to feed Rachel. She has to feed her new hippo baby because they killed Mudali. Is that the story? is' just that We're just making a soup now, and that's that's the end goal. and that's I really like the soup. I'm a fan of the... Because again, like think of it from a di design perspective, guys. We have to be working towards something.
01:29:54
Speaker
So what are we doing with all these human bones? We're doing with all these entrails. So we have to create something with all of them. And we have to do a lot of killing to get to that point, right? That's why the soup works. That's what I'm saying. But I like the vengeance idea. I just wonder, like, why so um why cooking? Why would that be the end? for Maybe because we're going to feed the soup to another human.
01:30:19
Speaker
The worst human. The real bad guy. The one who coordinated all the puppy kicking. We have to... The Mudang kicking. The Mudang kicking, yes. Okay, I like that. So it's about, oh shit. Okay, so it's like a gang leader and you're killing and cutting up and feeding him all his lieutenants, right? And all these other people. And you start low and work high. Exactly, yeah. And then you have to find his family members. It's a little bit of mercenaries, you know?
01:30:48
Speaker
Right. You started with them. and he more The more you feed the gang leader, the more inflated he gets, and then you have more room to carve him. Oh shit. This is a good horror game. I like this. like i like how glory I love my head. Keep it like this. You're our protagonist now. Yeah. yeah right My name's Rachel.
01:31:12
Speaker
but you just me Okay. Wait, wait, wait. We got to talk about Rachel's last name because it has to be something pumpkin related. Oh yeah. Rachel's last name. gotindo Yeah. What's the word?
01:31:25
Speaker
go Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, seed, Rachel, seed name, Rachel lantern. Okay. so just I'm fascinated by the like very bland, ordinary name. not Not to hate on any Rachels. I don't know any Rachels. I hate on John Wick. His name is just John. it's Yeah, that's true. The innocuous name, I think, lends to the gravitas of the story. Agreed. In some sense, yeah. Sussyguro2000 in the chat gave us five euros. Thank you. He says, you can build a meat dragon to end the world in vengeance.
01:32:04
Speaker
Hmm. Oh shit. I like that. That's cool. So yeah, you're using your evil magic, but you can't just do evil magic. You need human parts to build. Why does it have to be a human though? It's awesome. It's just the magic system. It's okay. It's just the magic system. That's just how it works. No, you have to... No, you have to... No, you have to... No, you have to... No, you have to... No, You have, but that's okay. We're in blue sky zone right now. Okay. So you got the Fortnite budget. you have to... I got it. You have to use humans to make the meat dragon that ends the world. They did say ends the world, right? Before you continue. Yeah. Because these humans, the criminals, right? The lieutenants, the mob boss, they're evil. They're awful. You have to make your evil dragon and ends of the world built out of evil meat. So there you go.
01:32:55
Speaker
I'm seeing agreement and not green lighting the concept. that Thank you. yes yeah You need a name for this ah game, you guys. Yeah, that's true. Oh, that's easy. Pumpkin carving simulator.
01:33:12
Speaker
I think that might mislead people. might not so Because you would go into the game thinking, oh, I'm just carving up. Oh, shit. I'm coming up. I'm carving up humans. Oh, shit. I'm be eating them now. Let me you take a page from you, Nick, though, since you're thinking on the business side. yeah What if we go for instead of the subversion you're describing or the surprise you're describing, what if we went more for the eyebrow razor where they read the title and they go what with human carving simulator?
01:33:42
Speaker
And they go, what? And they look at me. Tina's grimace suggests she does not like that idea. But that's what you're doing. I mean, you're carving people. Well, there's also there's we could also play off of ah the very famous movie How to Make a Dragon, How to Make a Meat Dragon. and yeah Oh, man I like that. That's good. Meat dragons. You know, we could see Tina is now in some sort of bluish graveyard.
01:34:10
Speaker
with different pumpkin faces you can see My forehead my foreheads sticking out. Yeah. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh yeah. This is Rachel. Hey, I'm here to carve what she says. I want to expand my skill set. I like Rachel's voice. What's your inspiration for this direction with Rachel?
01:34:37
Speaker
Uh, I watched a lot of, uh, oh my God, I can't, I'm so bad with names right now. Um, I don't know. rachel wilson The OC, the OC TV show is my inspiration. A little bit of like valley girl. I like Paris Hilton carving simulator. this This whole conversation has made me think really terrible leprechaun movies. Oh.
01:35:03
Speaker
I haven't seen those. Oh, my God. You gotta to go watch. They're horror movies, right? They're so dumb. but I do love how like with a sweet voice, you can sound so unhinged by saying something like, so I just need to carve up a bunch of humans, and then I'm going to make a meat dragon, and it's going to end everybody.
01:35:27
Speaker
And then we're going to get Starbucks. Yeah, and then we're going to get Fraps.
01:35:34
Speaker
That's a good contrast. I like it. Oh, wait, I'm a carvester. was ah car kind and think we got to go with the teeth. Yeah. Well, you just just jesus made me think about what you could use but than the meat for her since ah what Starbucks loves their pumpkin lattes. just Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah.
01:36:00
Speaker
I think this is all very on brand for Halloween. um I think this all works. Oh, yeah. Like pumpkin spice carving or something like that. Did you guys see in the chat someone suggested carvest moon? I like that one. Ooh. Cute. Yeah. Any others in the chat? Good name suggestions.
01:36:18
Speaker
Oh my God, this is amazing. I love that we started with, hey, let's just customize some pumpkins and steal some intellectual property to, let's just murder people. Oh, I mean, you brought me onto the podcast and I sent that on hinge mode within 10 seconds. That's amazing. That's a new record. We have to make it legally viable, you know? We'll do what we have to do. I made a quiet promise to myself of like, I'm going to try to do a nonviolent one this time for this pitch. That's part of wide timing. This is amazing. But I like this one much better. We have four FPS players in this chat. Eric's assembling a great picture right now. Go ahead, Tina. Sorry. Here's the fun question that every developer gets asked. How do you incorporate microtransactions into the site?
01:37:10
Speaker
You want once you get once you're done carving them up, you get different hats and stuff for the humans to put on heads on your wall. Could do weapons, weapon skins. and yeah It's like this is a single player against. I feel like this is a single player to me. I feel like, yeah, I feel like if we go multiplayer, we're going to unintentionally create cults and we shouldn't do that. That might be an ethically dubious area to go to.
01:37:37
Speaker
the The problem, I think, with microtransactions and single player is like, you can't show them off, right? That's true. So I'm trying to think of like sell power in a single player game in a photo. OK. Yeah, that's true. Well, I'm like the Matrix. You are like the Matrix. Oh, what happened? Eric's a very good producer, but then he starts distracting you. I just a bad producer, Eric.
01:38:06
Speaker
All right, that was fun. Yeah. OK, what was the name again? Carves Moon or Pumpkin Carving Simulator or Human Carving Simulator, I think was all of them. I think I like I think I like human carving simulator. Oh, my God. It's a point of process very, very quickly. And I think Mike was right. People would see that on Steam and go, what the hell? Yeah, I think so. The Dexter fantasy still exists.
01:38:33
Speaker
The honesty would be appreciated, I think. Yeah. Yeah, that too. As a as a point of reference, the mortuary assistant sold very well. So really, it's a game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a horror game. You have to play it once. It scared him. And what's interesting is that. Yeah, it's on six. I've never heard of this. It doesn't sound particularly exciting, right? Why would I want to be the mortuary's assistant? That doesn't like when you look at every shot and you go, what the fuck?
01:39:02
Speaker
but Yeah, that's real. like It's like a dude's face of like the the pins. Yeah, Tina, this game is not for you, man. Just just so you know, it's a very it got very positive reviews. It's a really well. There's a market for our human carving simulators. Oh, my gosh. But we need to plan for at least a year or two out because it needs a release on Halloween. And this has a lot of time. No, no, no. From a perspective.
01:39:33
Speaker
I think it's doable. I think it's doable. The scope is very malleable. you know You can go pretty far. You can keep some stuff a little bit more shallow. So I think there's a good amount of flexibility here.
01:39:46
Speaker
It's a good point you make there, right? Because not every game feels scalable. Nobody goes like, we're going to make it MMO, but it's scalable. Don't worry. We'll tone it down. It's like, yeah, it's going to be pretty big no matter what. and ah MMO implies a certain base. Right. Exactly. yeah yeah Somebody mentioned Ravenous Devils in chat, too. That's another game you should check out, too. Oh, that's the barbershop. That's the barbershop for your killing people.
01:40:10
Speaker
Ravenous what? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I played that one briefly. its It's pretty boring too. You throw shit in the the grinder, right? I think. yeah And you grind up a... Oh, it's funny. simulator They have a ah gif on their Steam page that's soup. yeah It's a bloody soup.
01:40:33
Speaker
That's shit we got a pivot. Yeah, we have to do it. We're going to be like, oh, this is so this is so derivative of ravenous devils. They're just doing ravenous devils. and well I know how we do that. We go to the best market available VR. Oh, my God. Wow. but That is dark.
01:40:52
Speaker
yeah Oh my god. Well, Leanne, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on our podcast. Thank you for having me. And sorry about all the technical issues. No, we do it live. We expect this. you know Awesome. Love to have you back when you guys have something to announce. Yeah. and It better not be our game idea we just came up with. And you can't share you can't share anything about that. I got to ask. Unfortunately, I cannot.
01:41:20
Speaker
Okay. Well, you will be waiting. Mike's not even on the press side and trying to get it out of you. I got it. Look, man, I got to try fishing, right? you know if it's know ah find out said Dark donated $5 and says, had a meeting. at
Halloween Plans & Podcast Wrap-Up
01:41:36
Speaker
I'll have to catch this episode later and find out who stabbed Jay.
01:41:39
Speaker
No one stepped. there Happy Halloween. Jay's alive. is live in the house who you Who else are you going to point at besides the guy that replaced him on this episode? at Any costumes? Are you dressing up for Halloween? How do you, would you dress up for work from home? I would. I think that'd be cool. So I might. um Actually, I had today off because Turtle Rock's big holiday party every year is its Halloween party. And that has been true since I started. Wow. There's costume contest. You have to show up with a costume, food, drink, photo booth, dancing.
01:42:12
Speaker
And we have some real cosplayers that show up with some really awesome costumes. So I never show up in the costume contest, but I will be dressing up. I went to a haunted Victorian tea party at the beginning of the year, and I had purchased a costume for that. So I was like, OK, I have to use it again. So I'm going to be a Victorian vampire to me. A Downton Abbey vampire, if you will.
01:42:39
Speaker
That's good. The Halloween's have been very cost effective for like the last decade. I just wear a red wing sweatshirt. Nice. Nice. Yeah. I've got to go to banana suit and sunglasses. I'm the banana from VR chat. You could, you could come to his favorite. You could start singing banana phone. That's true. Or peanut butter, jelly time or. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a, there's a well to draw from there, aren't you? Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. I'll need to look into that. Did he have maracas or something in peanut butter, jelly time?
01:43:09
Speaker
No, I remember his hands being up at his hands were circles, if I remember correctly. Yeah, I think I saw this. Thank you. I think that comes. Oh, my God. Eric, Eric, just thank you. Now that's stuck in my head. So I know exactly what we're doing for second one for Halloween. Now we are dressing Yahtzee up in a suit. Amazing. You're going to make them dance. You're going to need to make that into a gift. Oh, yeah.
01:43:39
Speaker
Oh, I was thinking of the family guy. Okay. Yeah. yeah you Thank you, Eric. Thank you. You've clarified. Applause to Eric, by the way, for everybody, please. he He's yeah so good at bringing the shit up immediately. It's kind of scary how good he is at it. I love it. ah Leon, where can people find you on social media?
01:43:59
Speaker
I just recently joined blue sky cause that's been coming up. I refer to the other social media as that, which will not be named. So I've gone a lot more quiet there. Um, but yeah, you can find me there. Snow kissed at blue sky. Cool. All right. Uh, I guess we'll just, since I'm hosting today, I'll do the way I in podcast, uh, anything else to plug where we wrap it up.
01:44:20
Speaker
Uh, we have a Halloween ah stream coming up, uh, on the 31st. We're going to be playing, what were we playing? Amnesia? No. Oh my God. Amnesia is playing because of the bunk. And I would just like to take a minute. I am very, like, it's going to be the most boring play through we've ever seen.
01:44:41
Speaker
No, I don't think so. slow or yes Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'll just take one minute of everyone's time and please listen. This Halloween podcast, I'm very excited for it. This was a challenge for Jay and me because we wanted to like very delicately encourage Tina to be to to step up and do this. It was totally up to her. She didn't have to, but there's like, the reason I'm etching this, there is a real and genuine fear, I think, inside of Tina to play this game. She's, and Tina, please correct her, I'm wrong, is not into horror games and finds them very scary. So what you're going to see- I can't do them either, Tina. You are not alone.
01:45:16
Speaker
Yeah, I struggled too, but Tina stepped up. She's going to do it. So like this will not be, I don't know, like a fake out scary, uh, uh, you know, I don't watch streams and it's like fake. It's not really going to be on to, to watch me just suck at his game.
01:45:34
Speaker
The creative league on Amnesia The Bunker is going to be with us. So it'll be him, Tina, Jay, and me. And you're going to see real fear. And you we'll see how far Tina gets. I think she's going to do better than she thinks. I think it's going to be fun. I don't know, man. i I did a trial run and I made it to the beginning after the like tutorial. And I was like, I'm out.
01:45:54
Speaker
she all be there she was card you She was recording our battle masters episode and I go to check the footage and she didn't she goes to the tutorial dies before she even gets into the bunker and goes, I am done.
01:46:08
Speaker
Good luck, Tina. Thank you know so much. I would not agree. I was laughing so hard when I pulled that footage up. I was like, I'm out. yeah Yeah, we'll see how it goes. I'm going to play with the lights bright. I'm not going to eat beforehand. I'm just going to get ready. Maybe stay away from a coffee too. Some adult diapers behind you. hold me the Yeah.
01:46:30
Speaker
ah yeah why not eat Are you afraid you'll puke out of fear? You know, I'm going to shit myself. I'm going to have a bunch of like random facts up on the screen. who Just to like start a conversation, you know, like on a long road trip, I'm like, Hey, did you know that there's like redwoods here and this, uh, there's a rainforest in Oregon, you know, it just so there's something to talk about. it comfort topics, security topics for you to lower your angle anxiety. What's your favorite pizza topping? Mine's cheese. I was going to say cheese. Have you ever played that game cheese or font? It's really fun. No, what's that's that? it It shows names and you have to choose whether it's the name of a font or the name of a cheese.
01:47:09
Speaker
Oh, it's actually quite difficult. Yeah, that does sound hard. There's another similar game, which is really fun, which is computer scientist or serial killer. um There's a lot of similarities. Hey, we need to play these on the stream. Thank you, Leanne. I'm going to If you make it through amnesche to the bunker, I'll have an even better horror game for you to play.
01:47:33
Speaker
All right, I'm down for surviving is having to survive more. That's fucked up guys. That's what I've had to do for the last five years. It's been my tradition every year on the escapist. Like they make me play through entire horror games in one night. Oh God. The only one I haven't been able to finish is a visage.
01:47:52
Speaker
Visage. I don't even want to try that. I'm not going to look up like most like creature games don't scare me. It's the games that like put you in like a very relatable environment like a house. And that gets that gets under my skin. And this is like the best game for that. Absolutely like that. No other game has made me feel as uncomfortable as that game.
01:48:13
Speaker
Oh man. If this goes well, we can do like phasmophobia or forewarned or lethal company, Tina. I think that's like, life phsmophobia you're going to have to like define what well means. it speak if anmunity If the community is laughing, then it's going well. All right, fine. That's fine. I'll do it for the people, for the children. ah that's that's a magnanimous Thank you, Tina. Mikey, anything else to plug when you're in?
01:48:40
Speaker
No, nothing on my end, man. Have a happy Halloween and come on out to the stream. All right. Well, thanks everybody for tuning into this episode of Dev Heads featuring Leanne Papp, executive producer at Turtle Rock Studios. And if you aren't already, be sure to check out the second one, Patreon to support the show. And of course you can find Dev Heads on all your favorite audio platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
01:49:04
Speaker
Oh, I guess we'll see you next time and Jay should be back next time. If he's not, then he probably got murdered by a badger or something. Or a pumpkin. He's getting carved out by a pumpkin. Yeah. by Rachel. okay Rachel. Rachel. I forget her last name. god One of the good last names we thought of. Rachel Gord. Thank you. Rachel Gord. And thank you. Now I know why Batman screams Rachel. Rachel.