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Has Gaming Infiltrated Hollywood? (ft. Pete Blumel - Modern Warfare 1-3, Shrek) | Dev Heads Podcast
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This week, the Dev Heads crew is joined by Pete Blumel, a veteran producer of film and AAA games that's worked on everything from Modern Warfare to Shrek, to chat about the relationship between Hollywood and gaming.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
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Meet the Hosts and Guest - Pete's Background
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey, welcome to dev heads focused on the ins outs and goings on games development with host experience ranging from indie double to triple A. I'm Jay. Join my wonderful co-host Tina. Hello. How's it going? And Mikey. Hello. And today we've an extra special guest, Mr. Pete blue metal. Hey Pete, long time no see for real. It's been a hot minute. Yeah.
00:01:00
Speaker
So Pete, tell us a little bit
Pete's Career in Entertainment and Transmedia
00:01:02
Speaker
about yourself. What are you about? What am I about, man? I've i've been ah been around the block in the entertainment industry for a better part of my career. I worked either at DreamWorks or Activision. I was Activision back in the early days, like McWarrior II, Muppet Treasure Island, which I joke is one of like the first transmedia projects, I think, at least for me it was, way back then when we were shooting a um a movie and making the game at the same time.
00:01:30
Speaker
um I went to DreamWorks back when it first started, about a year into its inception. I was there for 11 years at animation, then I moved to feature film. And then went back to Activision to work at Infinity Ward when the guys were kind of transitioning from World War II to modern warfare.
00:01:46
Speaker
That's kind of been the the bulk of my work, sort of straddling the line between um Hollywood production values and and Hollywood methodologies and production and all that. and And video games, which I love, right? That's kind of where my heart and soul is.
Partnering with Michael Bay and Sony Studio
00:02:01
Speaker
Spun out of there, did a couple of small companies, and then ah partnered with ah Michael Bay. And we got funded by Sony to to build a studio to do some work.
00:02:09
Speaker
for virtual production and video game ideas, generating IP, also working behind the scenes and some other AAA titles that we've done some white glove support for. And then I also do a lot of production on the side for different projects or consulting. I do a lot of different things that kind of bring in IP and shape IP for video games or immersive experiences or virtual reality or film and television.
Complexities of Video Game Production
00:02:36
Speaker
All these things are kind of finding a place together and I like to think that I've been at the and of an intersection of a lot of that for the better part of my career at a very high high level of understanding all the players and how to get them all to play together. Quite the name drop too. Michael Bay.
00:02:53
Speaker
I'm still on that quarter too, actually. I'm still on my pictures or island, honestly. That quarter too is pretty cool back then. It was, man. I mean, we had that trailer that we did. We had like a little a teaser reel we did with digital domain and, um, the timber wolf kind of, they were too much fun. Yeah. I remember that. I think we were blown away. We're like, that was the coolest thing ever. This game is going to be so awesome. They were not even textures on the, on the ground back, right? It was.
00:03:22
Speaker
um But really good experience. you know it's It was really fun to work on that. and you know That's how I got into production. And you know you start as a tester, then you get into production testing, you know lead.
00:03:37
Speaker
coordinator and make your way up. And so I've really come from the, from the realm of understanding how to make a video game, how to QA it all the way to how to like do cashflow and P and&L and all the boring stuff that comes with kind of being a studio leader.
00:03:52
Speaker
so my heart well haven't you done, man? Like you're an ASOS Renaissance man. Like for an free you've, you've touched so many things you cant have to be right. and and And you guys know this too. Like you wear a lot of hats and, um yes um, you know, today,
Communication Strategies in Game Development
00:04:07
Speaker
right? I mean, we all know this today to make a video game, you've got to know how to deal with actors, whether it's signing them on and working with them like a listers.
00:04:15
Speaker
Right? Voice acting and stuntmen are still a really big thing, even more so. And then you got to know technology. You got to be able to talk to coders and engineers and everything in between, and then talk to the publisher about what they expect, right? What they want. And they all speak a very different language. They really do.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't think a lot of gamers understand that, like to communicate effectively with an engineer versus like an artist, or even like you said, talent, you have to use a different way of communicating. And ah it's um it's almost like a challenge sometimes, right? Because there's always disagreements or hurt feelings and yeah, I don't envy having to navigate all that.
Influence of Video Games on Hollywood
00:04:57
Speaker
The way I kind of think of it in my head is like every video game shouldn't exist because it's just this like crazy production and and combination of people that just somehow produced something and it's like messy and beautiful at the same time and and all those nice lofty ah words that we use because it's ah was just a crazy organized artistic effort and I'm kind of curious people like as far as like team sizes and stuff that you've worked on, like what's what's some of the bigger sizes and what are some of the smaller sizes? And is there like, I assume there's a big difference, right? I assume the Hollywood ones are bigger, but maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. I mean, there, I mean, games are bigger than, I mean, when, you know, college, you know, it's hundreds of people, right? Even more.
00:05:44
Speaker
a film cannot be that much unless it's an animated film. A traditional animated picture is you know several hundred people around the world, but I found the sweet spot to be like 100, 150. You get to know people's names, you get to know what they do. Tina, we worked together, you've seen it. I miss the days when you could know everybody's name. And more importantly, when you're in a meeting, because you do switch gears, you're an animation meeting, then you're in a technology meeting, and and and and sometimes about the same topic or not, and you're trying to silo things and bring them together and not have friction. But knowing as as a production person, you know as a producer, like you know can this happen or not? And it's good to always know who who literally is going to do it.
00:06:28
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so that you can come up with an assessment to say, ah that's going to take a little longer than we think, or no, the guys can handle that because we know that it's animation, then it's rigging, then it's audio down the line and all those people to be involved and kept each of them buy into the idea and do it. and When the team gets too big, now you're talking to other producers. and so you know I've definitely worked on on things with like you know a dozen people and we've done a few things like that and we've done things with you know hundreds and I think I really enjoy that that sweet spot like I just said about 70 80 90 200 150 on the on the high end with vendors being able to communicate right like being able to have that face-to-face interaction and understand what people like you were saying can handle uh from their teams and that only comes from
00:07:19
Speaker
knowing them on that intimate but professional level. And when you're just communicating with other producers, so like I come from the the indie scene where there's only at most, you know, three, four, five people working on the project. So when we come up with ideas or, you know, production is happening, I intrinsically understand what my team can do and what they're capable of because of that size. And it blows my mind to think of trying to manage and produce on that level. Like you're saying, Oh, the sweet spot's a hundred to 150 people. I'm like, I couldn't imagine like talking to that many people, let alone, you know, intimately understanding their workflow and what ah they're capable of. It's super impressive. Before we move on, uh, I wanted to ask if you could move your mic a little bit closer to you, maybe even throw the headset around your neck because we're picking up, I think audio from the fan on your,
00:08:15
Speaker
laptop. Oh, you know what? I can kill that. Hold on. Kill what? I'm scared. underneath the desk scared stabb The fan to death.
00:08:28
Speaker
and just happy yeah How's that sound, Eric? That sounds better to me. Yeah. Maybe just to pick up your voice a little bit, just like a little louder and we'll be good. Sure thing. Yeah. Hmm. There we go.
00:08:41
Speaker
all right but So I'm really fascinated to talk to you, Pete, about the fact that you've worked both in video games and in the movie industry.
Hollywood's Respect for Video Games
00:08:51
Speaker
And it seems like to me that, you know, when when I started out in video games, I don't think Hollywood really took Our industry very seriously, you know, it's kind of like a thing on the side. We had like what Super Mario Brothers growing up in the 90s, I think, as a movie and I like some little combat and Mortal Kombat, you know, it's kind of like that movie more like a campy type, you know, reaction to video games. ah
00:09:17
Speaker
And now i I feel like video games just completely infiltrated Hollywood ah because you know you have like The Last of Us being nominated for awards. Do you feel like the movie industry now kind of looks at video games differently?
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, yes, most certainly. I mean, I lived it, right? And it was hard to get people. There's a certain air about making a movie and being a filmmaker because there's so much more pomp and circumstance. You get a red carpet when you finish, right? And there's a big party and there's a lot of recognition towards certain people. And the devs on games don't necessarily get that as much. And there isn't that kind of fanfare in the same kind of way when you release a game.
00:09:58
Speaker
um But just generally, generally, I felt like, you know, was it art, right? Was it considered art? Like a film is art. You go to film school and you learn all these, you know, and in games, it's, some it is art too, for sure, all day long. I don't know if it was perceived that way. I mean, working where I was, and I really, my whole career, I was trying to champion getting IP transitioned from one to another. like when I was in animation at DreamWorks and even in feature film, um we had talked about minority reports of game or AI or you know Jurassic Park was took a stab at it at one point. And certainly all the animated movies, but you know the animated movies all always fell into a consumer product bucket. It didn't fall into the cans of creatives. And so on the consumer product side, it's looked at like as a toy or coloring book or anything else. So it wasn't help it wasn't always looked at as a way to build the story world, build the characters, all that kind of stuff.
00:10:51
Speaker
Today, it's obviously a form that can really make sense, or immediately can really make sense in film. Fallout's another great example, but there's planning. And they're hit and miss still, I mean, for their own reasons. But I think if you really take time and look at the IP, there's lots of IP in gaming, because I really believe some of the most creative people I've ever met are in games as well, not just film, but in games. And I think today,
00:11:15
Speaker
And we saw this back in Call of Duty when we we started of making um decent numbers that rivaled Hollywood weekends and and total box office draw, or global. um Then all of a sudden became a question like, hey, you know I got bombarded with questions, and including my partner now, right who was like, hey, man, I see these games, and they look a lot like my my movies and my shots. And he wouldn't be wrong. I mean, we certainly had influence from all kinds of filmmakers making Call of Duty and Modern Warfare. So yeah.
00:11:43
Speaker
i mean Hollywood's come around to answer your question. What do you think has ah helped them come around or why do you think that they take video games more seriously now? I think the stories are more, you know, when you're working on Nintendo and we're playing Nintendo games and maybe that's what people still think are video games for the most part or Fortnite. um There isn't story and character, but then you look at Last of Us and other really big titles, God of War and so forth, and there really are. So
Hollywood's Interest in Gaming Technology
00:12:10
Speaker
I think filmmakers are seeing that there are indeed really great stories are told on the medium um that can't be told in other other mediums on flat surface.
00:12:19
Speaker
as well. like They're experiential. Second, it's money. you know i mean they see box they see They see that it's doing well, and Hollywood has had a great summer so far, but generally speaking, it's hard you know it's hard to get a project greenlight in the middle of those two. To get a greenlight on a movie or TV show, goes you go through a lot of steps and regime changes, and then it might go, it might not. so um Games are still an interesting way to to to have a storyteller get in and tell stories in a different format.
00:12:45
Speaker
um expand their brand and, and you know, i'm I'm right in the middle of those kinds of things. But I think it's intriguing because I think there's a place where Hollywood and games can come together if you're very careful how to do that. But it exists. there's there's there's There's ways to get them to work together. Correct me if I'm wrong, but AAA games tend to make a lot more than blockbuster movies, right?
00:13:06
Speaker
Typically, if the game does well, right? I mean, we've been fortunate to work on on some pretty big titles, but um even even games in moderate success, 5 million, 6 million, do better than than the average you know ma theatrical release. yeah I think income something beautiful that might not be considered with adapting a video game into the movie format is how it can help bridge the gap between basically show an audience that wouldn't necessarily be
00:13:44
Speaker
be able to get into games showing them that, you know, this like The Last of Us, for example, I have friends who never play games, but watched The Last of Us um TV show and it made them intrigued where it came from. And that was their gateway into understanding that games can tell whole um interactive narratives and I think that adaptation, there's ah there's a huge benefit to it, you know, crossed pollination between them rather than one just benefiting from the other. There's this, you know, merger, which I think is beautiful. I agree. There's definitely something to be said for the gateway. ah Like, ah I'm thinking of it in a different context, but I'll i'll bring it up anyway because I think it's similar. ah How many people got into ARMA and Nilsims, a very esoteric, very like gated sort of
00:14:34
Speaker
ah hardcore genre just because they heard about DayZ online from content creators or social media and they put they downloaded Arma 2 to play that and then eventually now they're playing Millicent games even though the barrier to entry to that is so high. I feel like there's something to be said there where somebody could watch the Fallout show and be like, oh an open world RPG sounds intimidating to me. This world seems cool though. Maybe I'll try it.
00:14:58
Speaker
especially because games are, I think, relatively speaking compared to the 90s, a lot cheaper. ah Maybe not the AAA ones, but generally speaking, there's a lot of really ah cost-effective options to get into that.
00:15:10
Speaker
There's data to support it as well, right? I don't know the exact numbers, but the play the player rate of Fallout 4 blew up after the TV show came out. like Not only were players returning to play it, but a new influx of people were going to um interact with that. and um the it's just They feed off each other. this you know reinforcement loop where they're both going to help each other succeed. And I i think it's really beautiful that you know people like yourself, Pete, have been for so many years encouraging this, and it's going to help both industries grow into a new space, which is really, really nice. I think so. I mean, it's been something I've really wanted to do forever, and I had the opportunity now to to kind of explore it and build it. And it's not easy, especially working in a Hollywood system.
00:15:58
Speaker
and the Hollywood lawyers and studios and all those fun things that you just have to navigate as a producer, you know, the contracts even, right? but um And that that just took years, just the contracts at a certain high level, right? But we did all that. So there's a precedent already set. We have a blueprint to do it.
00:16:14
Speaker
um on my side, so and it wasn't easy. It took a long time to create something from scratch, not just an IP you're adapting from one way or another, but to create a brand new IP and say, we're going this is a movie, we're developing the movie at a studio, we're developing this project is as a um a game, right? And and how to um get them to play together is absolutely not easy, but it's really, really worthwhile doing. For me, I just think it's cool. I just think you know, at a certain stage of my life I want to try new things and push new new new ways of doing things. And I do believe that, like you just said, that if you build a world and you play to the audiences right, you can expand the world rather than just making a copy of one side or the other, right? yeah the
00:16:55
Speaker
hundred percent believe and have you yeah One thing gamers don't realize is when you work in Hollywood and and you work on a project like you produce Shrek or whatever it all the things you worked on, you go from like job to job. It's not a consistent paycheck. Whereas in video games, you can definitely as a developer land a gig where you're just constantly paid the same salary no matter what project you're working on. Even if you don't have one, you're kind of just Pretty much set, right? In production, while I was lucky, I was an employee at Dreamworks, right? So I wasn't on production, but typically there are, like in animation, yeah there there are certainly um um like um like a game studio, animated studios are like game studios, right? So they you keep all your animators and you hope to get another project or a sequel and off you go and you keep rolling with it. um on On movies though, for sure. And again, I was staff at Amblin, right? So I was part of the, you know, the
00:17:52
Speaker
Spielberg staff so I didn't have to worry about that but on the productions where you build up a whole team and then you wind them down I saw that you know over and over and over again that's how that is when you're a crew member you just got to find the next movie the next movie the next movie and that is tricky that is tricky so um if you're yeah and and hopefully it's a big movie like Transformers or Jurassic lots of CG and there's um you know you film it but then the crew after that has a lot of time to to create content you know on the post side animation basically is what it amounts to. Those who can be a job for quite a while.
Annapurna and Netflix in Game Development
00:18:23
Speaker
Can you speak a little bit to the Hollywood side, trying to break into video games? um Like you see Annapurna has a segment for games. I think Netflix, yeah, Netflix has their own arm where they're trying to publish their own games now. Yeah. Annapurna is pretty amazing. They've managed to find some beautiful indie darlings and actually
00:18:47
Speaker
They've been great successes financially as well, but they tell such amazing stories. Sorry, that was my microphone. I don't know if you guys just read, but they just, I think I saw some kind of co-dev or collaboration deal with Control 2. And I love Control, although that was super cool. But it's a bigger step for them because it's more into the AAA space than what they've been doing.
00:19:12
Speaker
Um, but yeah, they've, they've, you know, if you, if you know the, um, the founder, Megan, who, who started Anna Perna, um, she loves video games. She, we she's one of the most clever people I've, I've sat down with her to talk and meet. Um, so, you know, that's, that's an interesting um example because they are actually hitting a really cool, they're telling stories that, you know, all their games are beautifully told, indie stories, right? You know, and that's their, that's their step.
00:19:43
Speaker
But, you know, there's lots of things, like Skydance is doing it too, right? Skydance, you know, her brother, same thing. They've got it very strong. Oh, they're siblings? They are, yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. And so, you know, I won't speak to, I mean, from the outside looking in, right? So, you know, Skydance handles some bigger projects and then Annapurna was more of the darlings that can find money and voice for some of these amazing indie darlings.
00:20:10
Speaker
um But yeah, same same thing. like right Netflix has got an interesting model because they are they don't need to monetize the same way traditional publishers do because they have a subscription base. So if they can um simply add value to their they're user base and their subscribers with more content, then as a developer, I think it's really refreshing not to have the same kind of you know financial responsibilities imposed on you from the higher level, and on the team as it disseminates down to make money in a certain way, right? We have to have DLC in a long tail. Those things can happen more organically naturally because they've allocated money to the project, I would assume, and then that subscriber base will sort of pay for it. I don't think they're going to charge for games anytime soon. It's just part of your model. What are you going to say, Mike?
00:21:01
Speaker
I was going to ask this kind of a question for all of us.
Successful Movie-to-Game Adaptations
00:21:06
Speaker
I'm thinking about examples of really good movie tie-in or show tie-in video game, movies or shows that then became video games, excluding the ones that came recently.
00:21:19
Speaker
Because I do think it used to be a mixed bag, but now it's finally getting better. like the The money's being put in, the effort, the production. And I'm just curious to hear from all of you, like what are some of your favorite examples of some teams that got that right, put a movie or show into a game? I've got mine, which is um it instant. It's from the team at Ubisoft, headed by Michelle Ansel, who did ah Peter Jackson's King Kong, the video game.
00:21:46
Speaker
which is unbelievably good. It's this weird half of the game is a weird skull Island, immersive sim when you're playing as Jack Driscoll and um having to use the environment to ward off dinosaurs and, you know, um, navigate the environment with the natives and stuff. And then the other half is a third person, uh, beat them up game where you play as King Kong. Yeah. not yeah um You know, it's so good too, right? It's super immersive. I remember minimal HUD first person. It's incredible. And ah the team that worked on it, um my favorite game of all time, Beyond Good and Evil, um that team then worked on this game in between working on the Rayman, the Rayman series, and to just come out with this, it could have been easy. And a lot of the times it is easy to just kind of.
00:22:37
Speaker
churn something out because it's got the IP and that's the old way of doing it right and this is my favorite example of um and I know Peter Jackson was heavily involved with the production and I'm actually like making it make sense within the narrative. The voice actors are all the actors from the game. Like you were speaking to Pete, coordinating all of that and getting this to line up ah with the release of the movie, which is already you know one of the biggest movie projects ever put together. um it I'm just in awe at how any of that could come together. So big shout out to that. And I know Marty on second wind is going to be covering this on the archive, his show. So yeah, that kind of lines up.
Benefits of Game-to-Movie Adaptations
00:23:18
Speaker
Nice. I really liked a toy story three. I think it was on Xbox 360. I remember correctly. I think avalanche. put that one Yeah, I never played that. That's interesting. It was a lot of fun. And then they had this like story, what do they call it? Toy box mode, which eventually became, um, what was their toy version of Skylanders? Uh, uh, I forgot the name of it.
00:23:47
Speaker
Oh, that what do you mean? Like there's a like a different version, like Disney infinity. Yes. So they made toy box mode and toy story three. It was like the coolest thing I've ever at the time played, right? Cause you could just open world, do whatever you want. There was new stuff that would pop up. You would get like cars unlocked. You could like make your own town. It was just like a really cool place to hang out and do crazy things. Um, and then yeah, ah Disney infinity came out from that mode and, uh,
00:24:16
Speaker
I thought that was great. There's birth from it. That's crazy.
00:24:22
Speaker
What about you Pete? Yeah. Yeah. I'm really, I'm really trying to think because I only remember the ones that didn't really hit it for me. I do agree. King Kong was amazing. And I remember it only having like eight achievements. Um, they're really, I just got played through it. From that era, right? You get away with just a few achievements. Yeah. Uh, not, not, not, that was not a thing against it. It was, this it was like an an interesting thing when you're trying to like, you know,
00:24:47
Speaker
add so many achievements into games back then and you're right it was it was a labor of love you could tell it was love put into it i mean i don't know like going back i think you know we joked on moral combat but that was like as a person who played a lot in the arcade i thought well this is kind of cool the first one the first one right um but um yeah that was a good ass movie yeah it was straight up you knew what it was combat it was cheesy it was it look but let me get some content Yeah. Campy was the word Tina used, but that's good. That's fine. It knew what it was, ah in my opinion. I mean, it was fun. It was good. I mean, it's probably part of the reason why, you know, like, I think that was, you know.
00:25:26
Speaker
That was part of the reason to Tina's question earlier about Holly looking at things when they're so campy, and then you've got those string of movies by that movie bowl, wasn't it? You know, all these crazy... Oh, I remember him. I think he was German. Like I could watch a journalist's rival or whatever. This is ridiculous. Yeah, I remember that. I remember his name in a mountain time.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have that just pop them in my head, but I was like, so I always thought like in my head, I was like, what, what not to do. And so when I would have these conversations at Ambulant, like with, with, with Steven and and with the with the people, the stakeholders, because little people, people don't always know this, but Steven Spielberg is a big, big gamer. And, yeah um, um,
00:26:08
Speaker
In fact, it was part of the Medal of Honor, you know what made Medal of Honor. and then that That team became Call of Duty, yada, yada, and so forth. um But finding the right way to to line up to the brand. and and Back then, filmmakers saw the value, but it wasn't what it is today where you can really tell stories now. so The campy aspects and directors that made really low budget, um poorly adapted movies just to get a buck out of the you know you know incentives program out of Germany or whatever,
00:26:37
Speaker
you know, aren aren't the way to go. Now we can see that there's art. And if you put love into it and you really think about the IP can cause a great example and everything more recently, um, then you'll get something really worth playing that, that has charm and character and immersive qualities. And that should be a good game. So anyway, do you guys know what happened with Uber bowl? He now opened up a bunch of restaurants and they did really well.
00:27:03
Speaker
Yup. Really? yeah That makes sense. it was This was in the late 2010s. And in 2020, his restaurant won a gold award for best European restaurant, the 2020 Vancouver magazine awards. Uva was quoted as saying, it's interesting, right? I had to open up a restaurant to get good reviews. Oh my God. Amazing.
00:27:25
Speaker
like I didn't watch many of his movies. um I appreciate what he was doing, even if I wasn't a big fan of the movies. Kind of like, you know, someone's got a trailblaze, someone's got to experiment. I remember the the boxing fight was ridiculous. That was so early internet in my head, just the ah a strange occurrence, but I guess made sense for the time and certainly drew a lot of attention. But I think it was him and no tax from something awful.
00:27:50
Speaker
Yeah, very here we are, right? Talking about it. It's funny. And you're right, he was a trailblazer. He tried that he tried to do something that wasn't um quite, you know, I mean, you need you need a budget to to tell a good story, you know, a good game story in in in a movie, I think, right? Like it's it's it's hard and and a good script and ah and a good talent and actors and all those fun things. And it's easier today than it was back then, right? And then you need it. Yeah.
00:28:15
Speaker
They could be good. Everything. That's true. And money, money pays for that studios studios today see it where they did before. I mean, we you know, we can go on and on a Mario and Sonic and everything's being adapted now. And they're really, that's true. Sonic. I mean, look at. on Exactly. Right. Um, what was the big hit on Netflix, uh, with the Henry Cavill?
00:28:39
Speaker
The Witcher. The Witcher, yeah. That helped us. You know what they did was they released The Witcher, then they released the Nintendo Switch version, right? And then The Witcher as a game kind of got a little bump in sales. So that's when you do it right. Cyberpunk fixed their game after a rocky release and then had a show, you know, in the animated show. And that I think helped a little bit too, I i think. It definitely does. I sat down with um the devs of Witcher and Cyberpunk at GDC this year um to talk to them about just that and ah the the shows were were
Collaborations in Game Adaptations
00:29:12
Speaker
mentioned. is like
00:29:13
Speaker
they They reclaim a lot of goodwill that was lost because of the the kind of ah self-admitted botched release of Cyberpunk 2077. And that was a gateway to bring people back in to the DLC that fixed a lot of those issues. And um I think when gamers, because a lot of people are used to seeing less than stellar adaptations, um you know, the Mario movie and, you know, whatever people think of Mortal Kombat, I love it. but
00:29:45
Speaker
You know, some people always point to those things. So when adaptations are shown that clearly have so much love and respect for the source material, it really brings people back in and that cross pollination can begin again. And it's yeah, it's really smart way of doing it.
00:30:01
Speaker
I feel like Fortnite really taken advantage of cross pollination with all human IP. It's like everything they do. There's just some random character. I was like, oh, John Wick, what's up? Yeah, in Fortnite, right? it's It's kind of nutty, the power of brand, right? That kind of recognition and how it's been created to to monetize. it's it's a little It's a little crazy.
00:30:30
Speaker
and butstein You would not have foreseen that from a financial or or design perspective, you know, if you wrote that wrote that down and presented this to anybody, right? Oh, when I've always ran, characters fighting each other and that's going to make sense. Why? I mean, there were were things we didn't put in Call of Duty because it didn't make sense in the world.
00:30:47
Speaker
ain't them Can you share some? today it's it makes Can you share? I know. I'm curious if you can share. Kojima visited the studio a lot back then, right? He did. I got to meet him and he signed a copy of Metal Gear 4 for me. It was amazing. and then no shit You're connected again. Yeah, I was just just not too long ago, but, um, yeah, like, you know, cause there was talk, like, could we, could we potentially explore like a crossover? But, um, it just, the the the stars are in a line and there was more on a, on a business side. think It wasn't too, too involved in the whole business. it might have yeah and Um,
00:31:26
Speaker
Yeah, we'd have to recreate the characters because they have a different, like the way they model and and create their characters in their game are different. So like getting assets over would be just another thing. Oh, that's, that's a trivial grand scheme of thing. I remember putting predator in ghosts, I think, right? Yeah. And how tedious and difficult that was to just get the predator in the game. It it was, yeah, I was, yeah, I was, um, I was in the middle of that, right? That was one of the last things I think I had done. and I think we know the artist that made that. By the way, Kick Ass, one of the nice, I think Fox had said this is one of the nicest models we've seen for a predator that wasn't making a movie. But like, you know, the CG, the high res is really cool. And that deal was pretty straightforward because we have the latitude to like, we have a big title. I mean, people almost willing to give it to you for nothing to get to get the, you know, the exposure. But, you know, like in other games, like, do you guys remember, like,
00:32:24
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. It's funny, like, because, you know, Axe, like Axe was in a Rainbow Six or something, wasn't it? I forget, or one of those Vegas or something. Oh, Axe. A shooter body spray A body spray. I may wrong, but, and that just wouldn't work in cod, right? So it this was like, you know, like the guys who were running, if they were to least, in our, own you know in our, in our sailor work. yeah with You know, Remington, I did all the deals for all the the things you saw in the game. Remington, EOTech, all the military stuff, Pentagon, yada yada.
00:32:53
Speaker
That was straightforward. But any other brands were kind of tricky. But then look, Kojima is a monster, wasn't it? Into Death Stranding and nobody bats an eye. So I think it depends on the product too.
Merging Hollywood with Gaming Processes
00:33:08
Speaker
Kojima gets a lot of latitude that the rest of us don't in the industry. Nobody else gets a feel. That's fair. That's fair. There is a sense of like leeway and who's it coming from. By my opinion, you can just pick up your voice a little bit where you're coming in a little quieter. Just a heads up. All right. Yeah. Just keep telling me.
00:33:23
Speaker
Yeah. so Yeah. Kojima has definitely crossed over into Hollywood. He pop knobs with directors and stuff. 50% 50% movies or something. um I love his reviews, by the way, on Twitter. Like when he hates something, he just says, I watched it. right there's nothing was Deeply respectful.
00:33:47
Speaker
Yeah, I love it so much. He's like, I watch his film like damn. He's doing a movie, right? Like he's starting ah the new IP with Kojima Productions on a new espionage series and they're doing a movie at the same time, right? I didn't know that. Well, they're definitely doing the Metal Gear movie.
00:34:06
Speaker
um What's the name of the actor? well i doubt He's involved in that because could need Konami have cut all ties with him, right? So right. No, right, right, right. Okay. I was sorry. I was thinking of the Metal Gear movie with Oscar Isaac. I forget his name. The guy from triple frontier and Oscar Isaac is playing. Wait, I'm sorry. I might be confusing. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. you mean poamma I'm learning stuff today.
00:34:31
Speaker
I could have sworn that there was going to be a movie Metal Gear Solid with Oscar Isaac as Snake, Oscar Isaac from Triple Frontier, Dune. Am I wrong? but ten i go night i Maybe was a rumor. It may have been a rumor or a fever dream or you're right. It's one of the three.
00:34:49
Speaker
but that's That's true. Thank you, Jay, for grounding me. It's fine. I'd go see that movie. you know It sounds cool, right? It is a shame when it happens. This is where you want to make these deals.
00:35:02
Speaker
Like he's, he's, he still created that, right? I mean, I grew up playing those games. So he should at least get like an executive producer credit or something. I'm sure he won't because it's owned completely by, you know, Konami. So, but you know, in, in a deal going forward, as I, as I look at the, this is where ah I do a lot of these deals for IP because you want to own the IP as much as you can on license it, or, or at least have concessions to give up ownership later or parts of it. Right. But that,
00:35:27
Speaker
That's all I've been doing is trying to figure out how do you protect the developers and the creatives on both sides that that create something before you sell it off to a studio. We all know that eventually you'll have to sell off your IP if you want to, you know, like it's inevitable at some point, but how much can you control and how much can these put in some, you know,
00:35:43
Speaker
writers, or there's no reason why Kojima could not at least be involved as a consultant or something, but I know there was a fallout. And by the way, fallouts happen all day long in in the creative space, but that's what you know contracts and producers and agents like to help keep it together, because I think the movie would be better if he was involved even in something, right? 100%.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah. Konami would bring back a lot of goodwill by, by fostering those relationships again, you know, and, um, actually being like, yeah, we are making a movie on Metal Gear and we have brought Kojima into, to consult on certain things. Um, I just did some reading, apparently deaf stranding a 24, uh, doing a deaf stranding adaptation. And, um, the next espionage game that, uh, Kojima is doing with Sony is going to have a movie coming out at the same time.
00:36:36
Speaker
they're currently working on so both all industry interesting things and I think worthy of movie adaptations. um It's just whether the movie adaptation of the new espionage game from him and his team is not a retelling of the same source but an accompaniment. I think that's a an area of movies and films that hasn't been explored a lot of, you know, exploring an area of the world that the game isn't and having it as a companion piece
00:37:08
Speaker
you know bounce off of each other. I think that could be really interesting. Speaking of the the those unfortunate aspects of the industry, I'm curious to hear from you, Pete, what's one of the things that that ah you really don't like about working in this space? like What's one of the really difficult things or what are the things you wish would change about working in the the the Hollywood production space?
00:37:32
Speaker
um Well, everyone feels, everyone is, you know, Hollywood is still trying to figure out games, like, right? Like virtual production is one thing where they, um you know, people talk about it like it's some amazing thing, right? But virtual production is basically like in gaming, we we do this every day. It's not, you know, that that's not black matter.
00:37:53
Speaker
It's like the production the tech is, and sometimes you run you bump into a ah bit of, you know, like processes that that kind of cross over. And so there's old school ways of doing things. And I'm using this as an example of the broader thing, whether we're talking about, you know, agents coming in to get involved or studio heads or any part of the production. There's a way to produce something in ah in a movie that people have been doing forever.
00:38:18
Speaker
Whether it's production design and the way they concept 3D models and then how you would do it if you're on a game side, which is, I would argue more efficient because I can take 3D models and put them right into a game and even use them for final pixel and certain shots in a movie, right? If you have depth of field, you know, like, you know, you can, so there's more efficient ways. I think games have been.
00:38:38
Speaker
making things because they've been around, they're a little newer and this whole process is newer, but in film, it's a very old school thing. it's so that That mindset is sometimes hard to to kind of rub against and get people to kind of work together, especially at high levels. Again, it's it's back to us talking about how do you get the different luminaries to all want to work together and create something. and kind and These are slow nudges you're doing, like the little, little, little till you get to a point where you achieve it, but takes time and takes a lot of nudging and a lot of just gentle caressing and massaging, if you will. But it's like the old school Hollywood model of making movies is there's just a way to do it, whether you're financing the movies, filming the movies, post, you know, at editing the movies where games are iterative and we're figuring things out right away all the time, all the time. We're changing that. We make a game between
Video Game Tech in Film Production
00:39:26
Speaker
titles, right? You ship a game and then all this new stuff you want to incorporate comes up and they may need new people or different people. So,
00:39:32
Speaker
That's the thing. Like it's like we're more iterative and more like, you know, see the pants, figure things out. Film is very rigid and they're still learning how to adapt. And so the adaption, adaptation, the adaption, whatever the changes they're making are a little more granular towards, right? That makes sense, right? That's the slower the change. that Got it. Right. It sounds like you're saying that there's there's kind of like a development disparity of sorts where Hollywood film production, whatever is a little more not traditional, but it has a set way that's not so iterative, whereas is game development is iterative and and would expect that out of the work they do together. But it's just not like there has to be a sort of marriage or a balancing between the two. Yeah. Yeah. It's become more and more prevalent.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah. in the Go ahead, Jay. Sorry. Yeah. Is that the question is so I, sorry, Ludac, you've had your cuddles off your pop. So the question is, so I studied film before I went into games. Um, and it was, it was my first love. Uh, and I think it's an interesting point you raised Pete, which is the iterative nature of games and the rigidity of movies and film production. Is that.
00:40:48
Speaker
Is that because it's a a separate medium or is that because the industry at large in games is so young in comparison to to movies? Like do we have a lot of the things solved or is it kind of geared towards technology? There's been a lot of technological leaps in games that have been happening recently but in movies we've kind of we, unless we're moving into like a 4d and, um, 3d and stuff like that, we're not making a lot of leaps that are going to change how the production works, but in games that's happening all the time. do Is that because of the age? ah these little bow Yeah. And I think it's just a culture too. Like you said, like, uh, there's just the way we're just, we're just more.
00:41:30
Speaker
We're always trying to figure things out. Not that they don't do that in film, too. I mean, there are shots that can't happen that get made. Directors, especially the big ones, ask for certain shots. And and you know like a guy like Bey builds his own cameras. I've had the fortune of working with some pretty prominent VFX supervisors who are asked for a shot. And then we have to figure it out in the game engine. and then make that real, right? But we shoot physically. So we shoot as it was a physical shot in the engine with trackers and all that. And then we can then know that we can do that shot on location because we've actually physically shot it with handheld cameras. Right. But those, those innovations are, are, are, um, I do see, um, man, I wish I was better with names. The, uh,
00:42:16
Speaker
You know, the Lion King and the Mandalorian are using video game tech. oh And that's taking Hollywood by Storm, right? Where they have ah environment artists create the world and then they project it on like a ah big dome screen.
00:42:32
Speaker
And that's better for a shot than like a green screen, right? Cause it's like more realistic lighting for the lighting. Yeah. It can bounce off the actors. So like and all of Mandalorian is taking place in a, most of it's in like a filmed in a little dome, right? With just video game art in the background. Yeah. And that, I think that's cool. I think it's fascinating that we're starting to sort of like it's restrictive. It's extremely restrictive. Yeah. It's beneficial in some ways, but also in others it can,
00:43:01
Speaker
restrict the shots that the you know the cinematographer or the director can request. um If they're going to use the volume, um like they kind of have to be ah using a lot of static shots um so they can you know film from specific angles and stuff like that. I think it's definitely an interesting progression technology using um Unreal.
00:43:23
Speaker
ah to to automatically just be like, okay, so in this framing, I don't like the way this landscape looks. This boulder over here is intrusive and is drawing the eye. They can automatically just move it instantaneously and frame up the shot and the lighting and everything then is done perfectly. um If we can get that on a bigger scale, I think that's a crazy leap for for movies.
00:43:46
Speaker
Yeah, Unreal Engine with Hollywood, I think, on improving that kind of stuff. So I'm curious to see where that goes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the volumes are getting, are getting bigger and more robust. Uh, you know, Mandalorian, like a lot of the talking head shots are on volume, you know, in a volume. And then they kind of do CG for the big, the big action sequences still traditionally, but you know, also helps the actors get more immersed than yelling at a fake dragon, you know, or, uh, you know, like a puppet, right? Right. Or whatever. They, at least they filter an environment when they're interacting with, with, with props. But, um,
00:44:18
Speaker
Um, so that's, that's helpful, but yeah, it and it can be like, you know, on a feature men, orange TVs, right? But on a feature film, when you have big, big shots and you have your 360 shots and huge cranes, we've actually had to devise, um, turntables and moving screens to try to capture what a big filmmaker would want to do if they were in that volume.
00:44:39
Speaker
And it ends up being expensive. So for feature film, it's curious how much you can do it. I got like talking head shots, easy, ah the bigger shots, I think you're from the numbers we've crunched. it's Arguable that you might just want to go shoot it. The funny thing is, though, that, you know, a lot of like physical locations are coming back. Right. um You know, like there's some beauty and in being out in the desert, you know, and and filming, you know, or and doing those kinds of things that just give the give some grit to what you see. And so yeah there's pros and cons. Speaking of desert, you kind of helped infiltrate Hollywood into Infinity Ward when you were there because they got to do explosions and drive tanks and stuff.
Authenticity in Military-Themed Games
00:45:20
Speaker
And I don't think many people know about this stuff.
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah, that was crazy. um It felt like, well, okay, so it was all World War II, right? So all these super intelligent, smart World War II buffs making a video game, right? These guys are like...
00:45:35
Speaker
This is what their bread and butter is. And only way you can learn World War II is to read about it in history books, right? And then Modern Warfare was like, well, I mean, we can talk with the Pentagon and talk with the branches and get access. And then we can go get armorers. You can go get Navy SEALs. We can go get machine guns. We can go get black powder and C-4. And those all sound so different when you get me. And then it was like, and I think the designer should go hang out with, you know, Marines for a day or two and do some live exercises and understand what it means to be out in 29 palms in that heat or, you know, when we went fuck and, and sit with Marines or talk to guys who fly cobras. And they're so ah guys coming back from, from, you know, ongoing conflict.
00:46:28
Speaker
And I would like to think that that brought authenticity because I know from some of the guys, you know, we come out of them, we all look like raccoon eyes because we're covered in dust after a day out there. Um, but you get an understanding of what, but you know, call of duty, at least at infinity ward was about surviving just like the world war two version was, right? No one fights alone, but you're surviving this horrible ordeal. And that's, um,
00:46:53
Speaker
something that I thought was important rather than being a super soldier. And so being, being out there and understanding that it's a really tough job and you have the utmost respect for every single person, regardless of what they're doing, whether the infantry or in a tank or in a helicopter or anything between is kind of cool. I thought ah that was fun. And it was fun because, you know, we, we got to understand and, and, and empathize with, with the guys and hope that translated into the game in some aspects.
00:47:18
Speaker
I gave Eric some photos that I think he shot already, but maybe he can bring them up again of a 2015 explosive shoot that you and I did together, Pete, ah where we dug up holes, we buried C4. I don't know what other explosive material we used, but we captured the audio so that we could put it in game. And that was one of the craziest things I've ever been a part of.
00:47:45
Speaker
I don't, can you talk about how that experience came to be? There you are, about nine years ago. Look at that. um you know, I, the audio guys always want, uh, different sounds, right? So I'm like, okay, so we have to go and brought like, okay, grenades, all those kinds of things were boring. And even they were kind of new because we were like an early modern warfare ish game, right? Like in the, in the, in the scope of like taking like Holly Prussian value, putting it into a game was still kind of new. And so we were, which one was this just to interrupt you for a second, which called it cod for, and then, um, comfort the transition to modern warfare as a brand.
00:48:25
Speaker
Right. Right. Right. Because that that in that era, there was nothing that that wasn't quite a thing yet, right? The production value and the expectations from games weren't even quite there yet. So like, you know, like, I don't know what early, like the first ghost recon did or games like that or, but like way more low key, way different. Yeah. I mean, so we really wanted to bring, like one of the things that Jason West had said was, I want this to feel like a summer blockbuster movie. And I'm like, well, I i can make some phone calls because I just came off of Transformers. Like, and again, just working behind the scenes as as a guy there on the tech side, but I got to know a lot of people. So, um but how that came about with a shoot was, you know, like by the time we were in monomorph or two, monomorph or three at this point, we've recorded so many things. We've shot every kind of gun. You guys we were pulling guns.
00:49:10
Speaker
Like, you know, like what other guns could be possible introducing the game because we've gone through all the staples and then some. But um the shoot was, you know, the the guys wanted certain sounds. I talked to the armors, I talked to experts from the film side that they record a lot and they go, well, you really want to get this kind of explosive or this kind of thing at this range because it'll sound different. And you guys will find that very unique. And then, you know, the biggest challenge wasn't getting everyone to um like finding a venue, whether it's in Arizona or or somewhere in California. It's usually better out of state just for um for the sound and and and and being away from things, right? Kind of like having more space. Middle of nowhere. Middle of nowhere kind of stuff is always better. um I think we filmed that too with the effects team, right? Some of the explosions. But then it was really, so you get all the people, they all exist, they all do film. It's just getting film guys to come do it for the game. um All the equipment, all the armors, all the explosive technicians and all that. But then, you know, it was it was tricky and I'd already
00:50:04
Speaker
built this bridge on quality four when I first got there was with Activision with the publishing units because those guys have um they have you know people that executives that look at the insurance and what developers should be doing. Developers should just be sitting in front of a computer. shouldn't be doing Yeah. if Absolutely. And I go, yeah, but be really good if we can get out there. And so it was like, you know, we had to go through all of this sort of procedure and paperwork and reassurance. And that was just mostly me talking and talking and talking, showing them all the plans.
00:50:39
Speaker
the budget of course which is near there really for that but really just saying here's what we'll spend, here's what we'll be, here's the people we're hiring, these guys are all like ex-IDF, ex-seals, things like that so no one's you know There's risk in everything, but you know film does this every day. And I think that people will bring out there on our side, from the deaf side, probably be all right. like There's safety three times over, because we don't have safety officers and safety supervisors like they do on film. They kind of have to act like that um um on the game side, too. Maybe games have that now. I don't know for these kinds of things. But back then, it was like, OK, well, what would, you know thinking of about like the safety guy at AMBA? I like the Wild West.
00:51:16
Speaker
A little bit. You would make sure this, this and this are done and that these papers are filled and then we had a medic on scene and and um an evac right situation with helicopter, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? All these things you think of. And then it's like, okay. And I know, I know for a fact, because like another studio didn't do those things and I got a call from the actors and go, Hey, what's going on? I go, well, I don't know. It's not us. I can help them.
00:51:41
Speaker
um So yeah, it's kind of funny. So, but that was the biggest challenge was kind of get accurate to understand that in this particular game. Um, look, but I'm like, look, you guys are doing Tony Hawk stunts in a, in a warehouse down the street on a half pipe. Someone could twist their ankle. Like, so this, this is, yeah, a little more extreme or having, you know, heavy ordinance injuries injury. So the difference between doing a kickflip and burying some C4.
00:52:12
Speaker
Both are probably covered by insurance though. Oh my God. So but we got the proper insurance, all good, totally legit up and down. So, and that was a challenge, right? Just getting that. And then once, once you do it once, then it becomes an easier conversation every time we did it. So yeah yeah part of our production um for, and I don't know how Treyarch did it. I'm sure the same kind of things because it was the same, but we we did it first, arguably because we were getting into the, um, the war for land.
00:52:39
Speaker
Yeah. I just don't know if gamers understand that. Uh, yeah. The authenticity and like effort. The devs went through to understand the. Content of their game was pretty wild. Um, I recall.
00:52:54
Speaker
Uh, you know, when I was like putting the C four on the ground before someone blew it up that um um I think it was you that told us that we can't take a flight within like a few weeks after we've handled explosives because ah TSA will detect that material still on your body. flag Even if you've showered and washed this up. Yeah. You get flagged and you're like, you can't travel. They're like, yeah, we always would have been up to, right? We drove for work.
00:53:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You don't want residue on your hands and going through TSA. So we had to drive, right? We had to drive all the way to Arizona. We got a caravan of big SUVs and rolled in there was kind of cool. At least get to spend money on that and, and, um, and then some good stick dinners. Um, but yeah, it was where easier drive than it was to to to fly in that exact.
00:53:40
Speaker
But i mean authenticity is the most important thing in everything. We have a project right now that I'm that i'm that i you know currently with with my partner, and we're working with NASA. We're working with Kip Thorne and people that really can inform science. I so i i get really jazzed when I can work with people way smarter than me in other realms to help us make what we're doing more real.
00:54:01
Speaker
you know um ah If you guys don't indulge me, like i dont you know like in Cod 4, I sent two guys um to ah the Middle East to Egypt to to shoot a lot of what we ended up, in the reference photos for what we used in the video game for our desert you know our desert combat scenes. And so some people might see Call of Duty 4 missions and go, oh, that's actually a sign in Egypt, not in wherever we were supposed to be, right?
00:54:24
Speaker
this fictitious land because they were um but same thing i am you know we we talked internally is to do this sort of look me to be certain but not really but they they went there um we found some locals but we had to have you know i had to make sure we had like literally,
00:54:39
Speaker
um a team of delta trained operators to extract them within 24 hours if they threw up you know a flare if they need anything to go wrong there i could have guys to export them out of there um right away but so safe is really really really important um And that's the balancing authenticity and making sure that where we get it from is absolutely safe. And they have locals on the ground. They had a former you know police captain that was taken to the right places and keep them away from the wrong places in town. So because you can get in trouble but really quickly. I mean, as Americans, people may even think you're like CIA, you're an American run with a camera because you don't really know you're not from there. Right. yeah So it was really important that we that we laid the groundwork and the guys were super pro and gung-ho to do it and Really kind of integrated like green berets practically into there took all the pictures and then brought them back and that's how we kind of make quality for but um Crazy stuff that again. i I let everyone know and I said, I'll tell you what we we've got an end to somebody that can bring us a
00:55:43
Speaker
out of the UAE, we can get operators to get them out of there within 24 hours, signed, done deal on deck. So Activision could feel good that nobody was going to get hurt. And even if they did in the rarest of circumstances that in a very stable country, of course, that, that even in the rarest circumstances, there's a way that we can get them home pretty quickly. So I'll just speak triple a little bit on that.
00:56:07
Speaker
Yeah, I was just gonna... Sorry Tina, go ahead. Then I'll make my AA comment. No, that's all I said. That's all I was going to say. I was just going to say, ah to speak to the AA, because I've worked on military shooters for a good portion of my career.
Film Professionals Transitioning to Gaming
00:56:19
Speaker
Insurgency, Sergeant C. Sandstorm, Dave Infamy, World War II shooter, onward in VR, working for Meta.
00:56:24
Speaker
and ah We did not have the money for that, but the way that we tried to achieve that authenticity was, I mean, it was fortunate we were doing this in the late 2010, so there was social media. I had the privilege to interview like ah the people that were actually exchanging gunfire with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and getting to talk to those people ah ensures that there's going to be some authenticity. And I also feel like, from because I was a designer, right? ah There's a little bit of, uh, I guess you would say humility. It's a little humbling, right? Because at the end of the day, there's a conversation about like what we're doing is making their job feel very exciting and cool to some degree. And you kind of need a little bit of a gut check from the people who have done that to make sure that you're doing it with like some level of respect and understanding, at least was the philosophy of like what we had, which sounds like you guys had as well on call of duty and, uh, talking to those people and hearing what they do is being a game developer. Of course, you're immediately humbled.
00:57:20
Speaker
It's an experience that you feel like you have to get right, at least in certain ways. No, I agree. And that's, I think, what we wanted to impart when we went there as a deaf team to everyone to come out of there going, man, these guys are doing things that are... We get to go home to an air conditioned office and then pretend like we understand it and we don't, but we got a good idea and we hear those stories and they're pretty amazing and they're young people, way younger than us, 18, 19, 20, some of them.
00:57:45
Speaker
the seals and Delta guys older, but you know what I mean? Like the average guys that we talked to. you So yeah, it certainly, I mean, I can go on and on. I can bore you guys all day. But I mean, when we did for Zella, a guy to to, you know, police, a police, um,
00:58:00
Speaker
I forget, he was not a chief, but a captain or lieutenant, but someone who'd raid into favelas to tell us, hey, like you know how do you guys handle this? Because it's dense, you're uphill battle. you've got um It's Swiss cheese, right? You're taking fire from everywhere, potentially. It's terrifying. And so he told those stories. And one of the things that really impacted me was how some of these gangs of things, i mean you know, they put the younger people up first with guns before they, and they hide. It's terrible. Like it is a, this you think about what they have to go through to, to, to, to navigate and um you know, do a breach of that kind of, that kind of um um urban, you know,
00:58:42
Speaker
yes Yeah, it's crazy. But then we brought in, but then you have up more. beat I brought in someone that survived, you know, um Chernobyl and grew up in Pripyat and we had her come actually a couple of people, but she was most prevalent to tell us like how things looked, um the murals on the walls. Like did we get this building right? Did we get the pool right?
00:59:01
Speaker
because she knew firsthand. But any of these conversations really remind you of just how lucky you are, at least for me, I am, to be in you know making games and and content, and at least to do our best to create entertainment, but try to find a place where we're telling a perspective, we hope, in the realm of making this entertaining and and and you know quoteot fun But we're hoping, at least in Infinity War, that we were we were conveying that the magnitude of what was was happening and the danger, I guess. I'd like to think, you're right. It doesn't all me make it on screen, just like a movie. But you try, right? I'm i'm in awe at the level of dedication and the lengths
00:59:47
Speaker
you and your team have gone to to acquire that authenticity because a lot of people look at AAA as an industry and see it as a a lot of the times money hungry kind of just let's churn things out and just make as much as we can. But like to hear the lengths you went to to to make sure that all of the experiences you were trying to portray um in in this military shooter were authentic and the the the lengths you would go to get that is super impressive. And I respect it massively as someone who in the indie space
01:00:24
Speaker
does just sit in an office. Well, it it's the only opportunity I have, right? If I could go to the places um and talk to the people um of the games I was making, aing I would do that. But it's so nice that with the resources you have, you are taking those important steps to do so. It's really, really important. Yeah, it's nice to have a budget for sure. You want and you want to use it in the ways that makes you different, right? But luckily everyone ah at you know at that time, um I can't speak to it now, it's been 10 years, but the devs were all very much um military enthusiasts in in the most um positive ways because World War II really was one of the last great wars, right? and
01:01:05
Speaker
um you know we're we're doing everyone's We were the good guys, and everyone understood the magnitude of what would happen if we didn't win that war. And so I think that you just we just took that sentiment of how we revere the people who serve, regardless of what country they are, because we we jump around a lot in in the games, and SES were obviously in other factions. And then try to take that and and move it forward in the modern warfare, which I think is what differentiated us from sort of these overpowered super soldier kind of stuff that you see.
01:01:35
Speaker
you know as much as we could. and There's still a good amount of super heroics, right in those games. But ah but I think Call of Duty four, like I forget what year that was. Well, like 2006, seven, eight. I think then it was ah it was a nice balance. You definitely had like that kind of post 9-11 soft fetishization. But that's just what the time was. And then you also had the important balance to it with the Marines. Right. And then ah the working with the the Russian separatists or whatever they were, I forget.
01:02:06
Speaker
ah You had a nice balance there. I think the newer Call of Duty is they lean harder into the soft stuff because it's cooler and and more whiz-bang opportunities are there, more globetrotting opportunities. But that was something I liked about Cod 4 is it was still attached to the OG Call duty sort of ethos of like, let's talk about the people that are just people that have to go over there and and enlisted and signed up to do the service. that was That was something that was still, I think, maintained in Cod 4.
01:02:34
Speaker
um ah and then experimented with these things. so Not to say there weren't like secret cool missions in the original Call of Duty, like they were there too, when you're blowing up the dam or whatever in Cod 1. But um the the balance was nice in Cod 4, I liked. The Marines were an important perspective there. They were. ah One thing I wanted to mention to our listeners is that I do see a lot of Hollywood industry folks trying to jump into game development.
01:03:03
Speaker
and la In a large scale, like I worked with animators on Apex that were you know that used to work on Frozen or Big Hero 6. You see effects artists jump back and forth between you know blockbusters and and video games.
01:03:20
Speaker
I don't think a lot of people realize that Hollywood's in a pretty bad slump right now relative to video games. I mean, I know that we have a lot of layoffs happening video games, but I think there's significantly less work and in, in LA at least right now. And so I, I, I'm talking to a lot of folks that are asking, how do we get into games? Like a lot of writers too. You see that crossover happening more and more.
01:03:48
Speaker
I mean, if they've got a good reel, they should be submitting it. I've for sure used Disney and DreamWorks animators on projects, film stuntmen. I mean, ever since Cod 4, we brought in film stuntmen, right? David Leach, by the way, who's a huge director now, was our first stuntman. He was doing motion capture for Cod 4, which was a first for us, right, to get away from drawing animations and actually having trained, you know, men that know how to do this. And all the John Wick team ended up being, you know, a section of them became the the cod, the cod guys, at least infinity ward. But like, as far as animators, like, you know, animators and and voiceover and writers and all those things, like, I think, I mean, yeah, they, they, you know, the same guys working on transformers can animate some pretty amazing things in the game. Once you just kind of work out the pipeline, which is important, right? Yeah. trying fireable skills
01:04:39
Speaker
For sure. um And they're they're super talented. and they And then the filmmakers go, oh, I know those guys. but Yeah, they want Transformers. They're super cool. Good to go. right And then the conversation becomes so much easier.
Creative Skills in Gaming Transition
01:04:49
Speaker
And then you just shape them to to help work ah in the game so that they know how to get there. Basically, you've got to tell them there's no camera. Don't worry about getting your animation to a camera listen for animators. So i mean anybody out there listening that wants to put a reel together and submit right to all the studios um I don't try to make friends, get a LinkedIn, um, you know, for sure. It's this town that can cross for really easy though. I was going to say Nate in the chat said, I think gaming forced Hollywood to compete outside of the film industry. So I think it's true. Yeah, it's a good point. Go ahead Jay. So it's good. Yeah. Yeah. the What I was going to say was the, um,
01:05:35
Speaker
Like you were saying, Pete, submit your reel. If you work in film um or animation and you're thinking about getting into games and you're intimidated by not understanding the pipeline of specific engines or you know that kind of workflow, it's a huge thing in the industry to onboard new hires into whatever engine you're using or custom engine that is being used for the game. So that is a part of the process. So don't be intimidated by that. It's ah your skill and your passion.
01:06:01
Speaker
that people are looking for, not necessarily your um intimate knowledge of a specific system. Or a tool. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, Perforce is easy to pick up. I mean, right? And and everything else is just sent down chain, like, you know, engine and things. that If you're an animator artist, that's not always even your problem. Like, right? You create something with the specs of the game and off it goes.
01:06:23
Speaker
and percent Yeah, so yeah, for sure. If you've got a great reel, send them, make that reel. And by the way, they don't all have to be like super high-end AAA. I mean, so many indie games are out there that have beautiful, I mean, some of those beautiful games are indie games. And in fact, I would argue that most of what I play is more indie than AAA. you know I do like playing AAA, but there's so many great stories and beautiful art styles that allow you as an artist or an animator, or even as a writer, a creative in any realm, to kind of spread your wings and do really different kinds of things.
01:06:54
Speaker
you know, yeah in new space.
Improv Game Pitch: Wizard Cat
01:06:56
Speaker
Speaking of spreading our wings, did we want to try to do an improv game pitch? Let's give it a go.
01:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, think it is any ideas or thoughts or comments on any of this, please just chime in. Okay. This is silly doing this together. This is a group thing. All four of us. four Before we start, um, before you bring it up, Eric, uh, just to say everyone in chat, this show and everything at second wind is supported by your wonderful donations, uh, beyond patron or here in live chats. So if you have any questions or, uh, and you want to support the show, please send them in and we'll ask them towards the end.
01:07:33
Speaker
ah We did have a question though that just came up. You should read that one before we start. Snake in the Garden gives five euro. Thank you so much, Snake in the Garden says, Pete, would your fav genre be cinematic story forward games or more gameplay loop focused games like Uncharted versus Stardew Valley?
01:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, you know, um I love a good story. um I think loops are really important, though, right? I mean, you've got to have a compelling reason to keep playing. um But the story really, really, to me, at least, um is important. I remember one of the things that impacted me way back when I was a natural republic. Like, I couldn't stop playing that game, so I just wanted to know what would happen next, what happened next.
01:08:11
Speaker
And the loop was pretty straightforward, but there's a progression system and it was, it was very solid, but, um, it was a story. So it it just, I guess it really depends. Me personally, I, I talk a good story and if the loop is even, yeah um, you know, um, just moderately, you know, sufficient, I can, I could play it for a while and and not, not get bored. I mean, I love multiplayer too, but I'm not the best multiplayer player. Um, I've always gravitated towards telling stories. It's my favorite thing to play, my favorite thing to make.
01:08:37
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like solid is a good word to describe the loop in cook because Kotor was Dungeons and Dragons based, right? I vaguely remember. I think that was it. Yeah. For sure. All right. great Let's get into chaos. This is going to go. This is going to get crazy, Pete. i just prepared You ready?
01:08:58
Speaker
okay Before you say anything, I just want to let the listeners and and viewers know that this is the improv game pitch. It was inspired by watching Amnesia Fortnite from Double Fine. Or is it Fortnite Amnesia? No, Amnesia Fortnite. Amnesia Fortnite, yeah.
01:09:17
Speaker
yes So what do we see here, Tina, for those listening? So, you know, Pete worked on Shrek and Puss in Boots is a pretty cool character. And I was looking at Twitter the other day and I came across this wizard cat who's pretty thick, you know, orange, cute, wearing a witch's hat, has a little staff of some sort. So you got to make a game out of this. I have nothing. I love how you described him as thick.
01:09:48
Speaker
he's thick he's good is he Okay. I, all I know is that now you can't buy a ship. I, I, I think gamers would be furious if you one couldn't pet this cat or romance the cat. Okay. Well, the first question we really need to nail down is whether this is an NPC or we are playing, as I said, magic cat.
Game Ideas: Horror and Whimsy Blend
01:10:14
Speaker
I don't know. If it was an NPC, you know, there's, there's only so much that you can do. Eric's making the cat. Eric is widening the cat. you look at the question He does. He looks like an NPC to me, too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm getting a bit of a horror vibe here from like the the harsh light in the woods. Well, yeah, like a fucking ah Blair Witch Project ah light right in the face. Oh, yeah. Black Forest behind. ah Maybe like a cool juxtaposition between having extremely cute ah magic creatures, but in a horrible like nightmarish environment. There you go. So is it a horror game?
01:10:56
Speaker
Listen, I was thinking RPG-ish. Well, it could be both a horror RPG. It's true. Were the animals. harry um Yeah, yeah. The animals are um like it's kind of a violent. You guys like conquer bad for a day like, oh, everything's cartoony and silly, but it's also violent and yeah like the the bull explodes into blood or whatever. That's kind of what I'm imagining. It doesn't have to be that edgy, but it can have the the cartoon violence of that. That's like disturbingly realistic, let's say.
01:11:26
Speaker
I love the idea of like realistic animals being put in situations where they look like you know these little characters juxtaposed with like a super cartoony and environment or landscape.
01:11:41
Speaker
So I think that would be a great visual. I think the juxtaposition is the important part, whether it's like the extremes of real creatures in a cartoony world or like yeah cartoony magical creatures in a horrific, horrific world. I kind of like both. I think we need to have like, I'm thinking BoJack Horseman, but there's like a bit of a horror spin to it. I don't know. ah What's this picture? That's not for me.
01:12:09
Speaker
ah yeah Yeah, like we're decided that the the the cats and NPC it's our RPG um Why are we talking to the cat in the woods? Maybe let's think about this situation here Why have we met tubby the cat the witch cat so me looks so me like that. Tell me the cat
01:12:30
Speaker
Well, does I, I always like to think bottom up. So I like to think when we do our pitches, we're thinking mechanically first, and then we can figure out the, the wise of Tubby the cat is in the woods. Um, we can sprinkle that on, um, at the
Game Mechanics: Action or Turn-Based?
01:12:45
Speaker
end. I mean, you gotta be able to add him to your party, right? Like you'd want him party based, right? Yeah. Okay. All year round. So are we doing an action? Are we doing term based?
01:12:57
Speaker
I'm imagining um imagining the approach to Tubby, and Tubby is there and goes, sorry, we decided to come and meet me, or something like that. Tubby knows he's powerful, but doesn't look like much, right? He's like a Yoda, but you know a fluffy cat.
01:13:14
Speaker
Yeah. tunnelo At first glance, not intimidating, but very experienced, ah deep knowledge of magic. Sorry, Jay, go ahead. Go ahead. you know i like Kind of me too. I think we're we're definitely using this, but we need to think mechanically, what, uh, what excites us the most? Is this a game that is, uh, you're collecting, um, party members to go on adventures and it's like a term based RPG, or is it a, you venture into the woods because you're trying to build out.
01:13:42
Speaker
the roster for the village that you've started and you need a court mage. So you venture into the dark woods to find your, your, uh, your villagers and Tubby the cat is, is one. Wait,
Horror RPG Village Builder Concept
01:13:55
Speaker
wait, just hear me out for a second. Horror um RPG village builder game. Okay. yeah you're good like valhe But with NPCs that follow you around companions or something, right? Yeah. No. Yeah. i don't ah Yeah, you're building out your, your village. Yeah. and a second m night shemmelon type yeah yeah you guys go into the woods And you find a road. You're like, Oh my God, I'm not in a fantasy world. i mean i'm not sh to The village.
01:14:25
Speaker
We were talking about loops, right? One of my favorite survival games like Valheim is Seven Days to Die. Love that game. Yeah. ah The reason why I love Seven Days to Die is every seven in-game days, seven real life hours, you get it. There's a blood moon and you get attacked. So what if it's like Valheim, we're building up our village, but we're in the middle of these dark, terrible woods and something's happening to these cute creatures who can die violently. What happens? What's this? What's this ah thing that might happen?
01:14:53
Speaker
Hmm. What's the inciting incident? What? Why are we? Why are we collecting these guys? I feel like it's got to be animal related, right? We have to connect that piece a little more. Yeah. Like something really more ferocious and then like werewolves or something. I don't know. Or something with lots of claw. Yeah. Like a predator. Maybe the tigers are. Go ahead. Yeah.
Narrative and Gameplay Mechanics
01:15:14
Speaker
Mutant were a million coyotes. I don't want to eat cats a lot. Um, I don't know. a like It could be like aliens.
01:15:20
Speaker
aliens
01:15:23
Speaker
you're like freak about animals te is like how about aliens
01:15:28
Speaker
weable you're you're you're You're assembling squad of earth creatures to fight this unknown enemy. like Oh, interesting. Okay. No, i hear I see you. There's so there's a contrast go on. I'm tracking, you know,
01:15:44
Speaker
Seriously, you're selecting, you're your hand-selecting your you squad from the Animal Kingdom. and Okay. Have you gone on a M. Night Shyamalan binge recently? Are you going to suggest another twist? I like this.
01:16:01
Speaker
um monster is and team at so yeah yeah i mean yeah ending is like a great i p right and There's been an apocalypse, human humanity doesn't exist and magic was unleashed adventure time style or something and only animals who can talk and walk around ah defend earth from aliens.
01:16:20
Speaker
I will, I will say the apes, but like planet of the cats and then they get involved in by the way i like i weren' different creatures. I think i you want sure cat it could be all cats, but I also think there's a beautiful exploration where we can have, uh, animals doing jobs and roles in, in our village that are kind of makes sense for there. So like the cleaning made, uh, is an anteater.
01:16:45
Speaker
who like hooves up all of the dust with their nose or something. And just like, I want to, I want to make it silly, but also juxtapose it with the horrible, horrible forest and the aliens. All I'm thinking about is predator and like seeing Arnold ah go around the jungle and coming across Tubby Cat. The movie would be infinitely better if Tubby Cat was in it. words for clara as he as he waves his wand around or waves his staff. Oh, my God. OK, and you maybe mechanically, what what are we looking at? So it sounds like you've got some survival inspiration. You're building up your village. Yeah, there's magic. Right. There's there's a variety of animals. It has a little bit of everything. This game seems so chaotic. It's like we have a bit of a crazy scope. All right. Let's add some stuff.
01:17:41
Speaker
i've I've got some stuff to add. Here we go. So because we've got such a blending of genres, let's just keep going. All right. It's it's a roguelike. So every day what you do is you start with nothing and you go out and get villages. And as you bring them back, they ah apply certain bonuses to your next next venture out and they join your body. So to be the cat, be it a merchant or a court jester can cast spells. So you're building your roster to go deeper and deeper into the woods to find more and more. um What would the sloths give you? cat What do sloths give you? Oh my God. Okay. Some hyper intelligence or hyper wisdom. What kind of hat is the sloth wearing? I need to know.
01:18:23
Speaker
What's a, what's a lazy hat? What hat do we associate? Okay.
01:18:31
Speaker
okay He, he's a, he's a chef. Um, he, he's a chef. He wears a beret, but he's a bit pompous. So, uh, he only cooks foods that take literal days to make. Like he'll be like, Oh, I'm going to make a ratatouille or I'm going to, you know, make a stew. like god So there are buffs. Yeah. But three, three runs for now, I'm going to get an awesome buff. So it's in investment character. Yeah. Cause he said, right. Yeah. what's icing and
01:19:03
Speaker
and love that beautiful pictures and these are range Um, yeah, but big the road like element is, uh, if you go out on your run and push further and further with more of your party members, uh, if they die on the run, they are permanently removed. They, you know, we get some darkest dungeon kind of, uh, vibes. They are removed from your party. Their house is demolished. Um, maybe there's a certain amount of space you have in your village. So if you have four party members and you find one, you want, you have to choose who to sacrifice and leave in the dark. and take them back. yeah i I love the juxtaposition of like the the darkness and the the horrible stuff that's happening, but the crazy cute creatures, like, no, I get it. And and they're all dignified about it. They're like, I accept that that I must be the sacrifice. The camera moving away from the, from the animal, like as they get enveloped by the darkness, as the, a as the alien tractor beam lights up and pulls them up.
01:20:02
Speaker
And you hear like a ah couple loud like magical castings or I don't know what all the if they all have magic or not. But you just hear like a yelp of like an animal's cry. And then they're just gone. And the survivors know they need to honor that animal deaths. Cutest as that animal was. so All the more reason to survive and live another week or whatever. There's no way you could write.
01:20:25
Speaker
a story around this. Cause you never know who the player is going to select to live and die. That would be chaotic. You could write a story about this. Like if you had a selection of, uh, 10 different NPCs, we can go a little bit more structured and narrative based like octopath traveler. Let's say we have eight and you have eight, um, on each one of your attempts, you can get different people to come back to your village and you can explore their story, which is unraveled on each subsequent run. So this is another reason to want to keep going and to do another run because you want to discover more of that character's story. And we can even do a weird, I guess, kind of memento thing where let's say you do a run with Tubby Cat. Tubby Cat gets halfway through his story, but then dies and then you reset the run. Next time you get Tubby Cat, he remembers
01:21:15
Speaker
who you are and what was happening. And that becomes a narrative point. He's like, I died. What is happening? And then that becomes more of a narrative hook. I reckon we could do something interesting with that. I like that.
01:21:30
Speaker
ah lu
Character Introduction: Ludo the Miner
01:21:31
Speaker
Ludo would be Ludo would be a character she'd have a little mining helmet on. Tell tell us Ludo's character. what What are what are the abilities? Ludo is ah she's a designer. So Pete, for for reference, um I have a show called Design Delve, which is animated um that it's me and my my dog Ludo um and in it with with design miners. So we go into the design mines and we craft games in these mines and stuff. um And she's very loved in that show. She has a little hat on. um I'm sure Eric will pull up a ah clip of Design Doll.
01:22:09
Speaker
And I'm trying to think about what Ludo's mechanically, what would she be doing? um She would probably, well, she's a miner, right? She'd have a little pickaxe and she'd be able to break ah certain pathways that are blocked off. You'd be able to access them. um So yeah, there's my, there's my show. um You'd be able to access specific things. um What else
RPG Concept to Movie or Series
01:22:31
Speaker
would she do mechanically? I'm trying to, I'm trying to think. Mining bonuses, ah miners, miners ah brew good coffee.
01:22:39
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Okay. Because they got to stay awake in the mines. Uh, that's another seven days thing actually. So, so you get an energy bonuses when the's in the party because they're going to cook coffee, make coffee for everybody. controversial Yeah. She can break specific obstacles and she can allow you to, um, create shortcuts. So she has a rope that she can dangle down and that creates a, a shortcut that you can use on future runs in the chat, uh, passively finds treasures.
01:23:07
Speaker
Yep. Possibly finds treasures. Being a miner, of course. Flashlight from the helmet. Okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. There's lots of abilities when you're a miner. This sounds great. This does sound like a potential Hollywood. Yeah. Pete, what are you saying? We turn this into a movie. We'll take this corsese right now and see what you think. He'll email us back, guys. I love it. Let's make this happen.
01:23:34
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my god. And this is the last time any of us heard from Pete. You can really do an animated series. i I can totally see a short form animated series all day long. Yes. Oh, there you go. Yeah. It's silly. I already animate Ludo and me, so let's just make Ludo the lead. You play as Ludo and then we'll make it happen when we pop.
01:23:59
Speaker
There'll
Importance of Art Styles and Narratives
01:24:00
Speaker
be a cool story about cats and dogs, ah in the interest of survival, needing to resolve their differences, Tubby Cat and Ludo. I don't like you, and you know, like me, we have to work together to kill these aliens, et cetera, et cetera. We have to work together to kill these aliens and escape the dogwood. For the cat, I'm thinking, like, the cat feels like a Cartman, say, mage kind of character. I don't know, like the cat. Oh, okay. And a reverent cat.
01:24:28
Speaker
Okay. I like this. And what is, what is that like figure? Yeah, go ahead. What's up. ah he's He's like a sage, like Yoda, but a total jerk and you know, like post down you important and then you build up. I like that. He's just an iOS. He's like, it's the end of the world. Fuck it. I got my magic. I'll be okay. I'm only working with you guys because the coffee's good.
01:24:50
Speaker
Yeah. I want coffee and you guys are all jerks, but then you rub his belly and all of a sudden he's super amicable out of it. Then if you get the stuff, he can make the food. They really liked them. That's amazing. I love it. I wasn't expecting anything from that photo other than just smiles. Well, you give us good props, Tina. Got a game. We got a good crew. There you go. So we have a one more question that came in from dark Jackal. If you want to read it, Jay, where I can. Yeah, yeah, sure.
01:25:21
Speaker
She can look behind you for your puppy. Okay, I've got an answer. You'll be okay. So from Dark Jackal, $5 a day says, thanks for the conversation. As always, Pete, is there a type or style of game you would like to see ah more examples of anything underrepresented in your opinion? Hmm.
01:25:46
Speaker
I mean, yeah, there's, there's several, I love art, you know, I just, I love, I mean, art sells to me. So in any games do this more than anyone, but like stray, I thought was beautiful and so there's tons of them. And so for me, um, there's a couple of things, art styles, one, like those kinds of like really vibrant.
01:26:07
Speaker
art styles, that and like telling stories that I don't, there's just needs you more inclusive stories just in general, you know? And I think finding the right art style to match with, um, just more inclusive stories, stories that you don't see in AAA as much, although they're happening. Um, I'm
Games as Emotional Art
01:26:25
Speaker
trying to think of like a really cool art style that stray is one, but there's, there's some, there's just man. Um, man, I throw one out there before you think of one Pete, just, uh, do you guys ever play the Neverhood?
01:26:37
Speaker
yeah no nice his adventure game ah the dream march stamp yeah ah was it really yeah i i am Yeah, it was like kind of surreal and and a strange world I'd be curious to see because I played the Neverhood but I kind of dropped it because you know how adventure games can be right like they're just difficult to understand or just play and um I think that would be a pretty cool one to to see some sort of in other media of film, a show, something would be pretty cool. That was kind of inspired by the Aardman movies that were happening at DreamWorks as well. Say that again. I got to listen to the Aardman movies like the stop motion, Clay Wright. And that was right. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thought that was really, really. Yeah, I thought that was just really clever, the time. And it was a funny game. So I remember correctly. Yeah. I mean,
01:27:31
Speaker
Yeah. Props to the funny games, right? I love games that make you laugh. Sorry, not to get into art styles versus not, but like even Grand Theft Auto has funny, funny shit. It's just hilarious. yeah even what you know But I mean, in general, games that make you kind of chuckle once in a while, Fallout does it here and there, you know, Fallout 4, at least from... yeah and plate some But you know what I mean? I'm sure you guys have ideas too. Yeah, for me, it's an expression of I love because I'm a game designer. I was speaking to earlier. I always think bottom up first. I think of mechanics and then trickle down the story next. But that's not the discount.
01:28:08
Speaker
how important I find story and narrative and what we're saying. For me, games are art and all good art should just make you feel. I want games that make me feel something, whether that's you know crying with laughter or crying because I'm so emotionally attached to you know the characters and the the stories being told or anger you know or fear. That's what I think this medium does better than any other. ah So if a game can you know, make me feel then I'm I'm happy.
01:28:42
Speaker
What about you, Tina? What in terms of feelings? What would be a? What would be a game that um ah ah genre sorry a genre that you would like to see ah brought to see more in film, I guess. Hmm.
01:29:02
Speaker
I kind of threw a game out there, but I meant like the adventure genre, the surreal adventure genre. That's also funny. But um yeah, what what might be one for you? A genre thrown into a movie? Was that what they said? I thought that was a question of what would be a good genre that could be better represented in film? I can't even remember anymore. Maybe I misremembered it.
01:29:23
Speaker
Let me let me read it again. ah Pete, is there a type of style of game that you would like to see more examples of? Basically, just what what kind of games or genre do you think are underrepresented? And what do you want to see more of? I misunderstood the question. Go ahead. It's still a good question. It's a good question. I would. This is hard. It is, isn't it?
01:29:53
Speaker
I think new fighting games don't come out as often. I would love. It's all established brands, isn't it? Right. and through That's true. Maybe. rights one isn But two X K O's coming out, which is, which is an interesting spin on the genre, but you're right. They don't come out a lot. Uh, but I think the the best thing to come out of those games are the narratives. Um, yeah some of my favorite things about the new Mortal Kombat games is specifically the campy self-aware story rather than the gameplay. You know, so I want to see more of that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there's.
01:30:37
Speaker
probably some opportunity there, like avoid to fill. Yeah. Bong.
Closing and Acknowledgments
01:30:46
Speaker
All right. That bong was my, my cue for, uh, I think that is going to do it for Dev heads for this episode. Um, and unless anybody has anything to say, to interrupt me, literally just shout at me if you do have anything, but if not, uh, I want to say thank you to all our our patrons and all of the viewers who have joined us live. We'll say thank you to Mikey and Tina as always. And Pete, thank you so much for joining us. We've really enjoyed having you here. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was fun. and you Thank you. p
01:31:14
Speaker
yeah And thank you to Eric in the back being the best producer ever, as always, putting up all of our images instantly, getting all of those goose and gag going. Big shout out to Eric. But yeah, thank you so much. And we will see you in the next episode. Thank you, guys. Thanks. Bye bye. Bye bye.