Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi there. Alex Solman here. Ready for Another episode of DevtoDev, the podcast about everyday video game developers and why they do what they do every day.
This time, another former colleague and friend.
Bill, would you like to introduce yourself?
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Hi, my name is Bill Mueller. I am an audio lead in the industry. I've been doing this for about 16 years as a game developer, but been doing audio for a lot longer than that. And yeah, I'm really excited to sort of dive in here.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Yay. Thank you for being here. Yeah, I'm excited because they say your history is diverse. It's not just game dev. You've got some other areas that I'm excited to learn about and see how they correlate with being a developer. So I always like to kick this off with my favorite first question. What first inspired you about video games?
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. I am on the older side of things. And so when I first started it was the Commodore 64.
My parents brought that home and hooked it up into the living room and they bought it as more of like, here's the computer, right? Like, here's this new fangled technology that's coming out and we're all going to start using it. And then it came with games like Zaxxon, which is this over the top, like Fighter kind of thing, Jupiter Landing, and Tooth Invaders, which was a stupid game where you brush this person's teeth and to try to clean all the germs up.
I was probably like five years old, maybe five or six years old. And just the, the allure of sitting down on my couch, grabbing a joystick and being able to control something on the television for the first time, like, that was mind blow to everybody in the family.
And that, that really sunk my teeth. Like, I don't just, I'm not just sitting there watching a cartoon. I'm actually participating and controlling a character. And that was just, wow, mind blowing to me.
And so from there it, you know, once the Nintendo came out and all my friends started playing that, my cousin Rich had his Nintendo in his basement and we'd go over there for like Christmases or any holidays or whatever, family get togethers. And that was the thing I do. I'd go downstairs, he had the full setup with the robot and the, the light gun and, you know, and tons of games.
That's all I wanted to do is sit in the basement and play Nintendo. And that was even just like from the Commodore to Nintendo was a huge leap of like, wow, here we go. And I just begged My parents begged, my parents begged my parents for Nintendo. And eventually one Christmas came and there was a Nintendo underneath the tree. I was like, that kid. Like, oh, my God, you know, and all my aunts and uncles and my grandparents, they bought me Nintendo games. And it was funny because I think that that was the time when I was at that age too, where I'm like, wait a minute, how did they know Santa was going to bring me a Nintendo?
[00:02:30] Speaker B: So.
And yeah, you know, and again, it was. It was old enough at the time where, you know, like, people don't remember this, but, like, having multiple TVs in the house wasn't common, right? I mean, you had the one tv, had your living room, and that's all we had. And it was a pain to hook the Nintendo up. You'd hook it up into the back of the tv, which meant, like, unhooking an antenna or whatever you had, right? So it was always a pain, you know, meant that, like, my dad couldn't watch TV if I wanted to play games.
And my parents were cool enough and I always respected them for this, where they said, you know, you're young, but we have an extra, believe it or not, black and white television from when we were younger. It's still in. It's in the basement. We can put it in your bedroom and you could put the Nintendo onto that and you can play in your bedroom. Now, there's rules. You know, you're young, we don't want you doing it at night. You got to make sure you get ready for school and that kind of thing. But, you know, it's in your room. And of course, you know, I played it at night anyways, and it was great because, like, in the morning it made me get dressed a lot quicker. I'd eat my breakfast really fast, so I can get like that 10 or 20 minutes to play a little bit more Nintendo.
But again, for me, it was always that, like, what I'm. This is incredible. I'm controlling something on the tv. It was a technology that always inspired me and, like, how that sort of worked.
And eventually, like, when you get to the Nintendo and you're playing games like Kung Fu or like Mario, you're also. Now I'm being challenged. And I can see how I can progress through something and at a young age. And I can see how that sort of developed into, like, my musical career as well. But, like, you know, struggling through this one area, let me keep practicing that. And, oh, I. I did better and I got through it and I learned how to do that. And like, that was something that I brought into, like, music, for example, where I'm struggling playing this piece here. I can take these couple of four measures, slow it down, keep playing it, Keep playing. I got it connected to the other measures and move on to the next. So, like, I always sort of live life in that sort of, like, mentality of like, you know, get through this section, learn how to do it, get better and move on. I've always sort of brought that into other parts of my career as well. So that was the start for me. Right. Like, that was sort of what really hooked me into games.
Right.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: So very much that Nintendo generation. You know, I like that it started with a computer for homework. Like, how many of us had that? Oh, no, we do my homework on it, I promise.
Yeah. And then, no, no, no qualms around the Nintendo. Right? That's not for homework, that's just for games.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Okay. So Commodore 64, Nintendo. And then. Yeah, that sort of. That level of interaction on the TV was. Was what drew you as well as the challenge. So where. Where was this? Where did you grow up?
[00:04:59] Speaker B: East Boston, Massachusetts.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. And any siblings that were gamers or any other people in the family?
[00:05:05] Speaker B: No, I was the only one in my family. I know my sister would play from time to time. You know, I do have a sister, but I wouldn't call her. Like, she wasn't head deep into it. Like, I was, like, I wanted to play all the time. And, you know, my dad thought it was cool. Again, it was that, like, you're playing Duck Hunt, you know, in the living room was fun, but, like, we weren't huge. They weren't huge into it as much as I was, you know, but I had a lot of friends that. That did. So that was. That was helpful, right?
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So. So you were the one that sort of caught the bug the most in the house and then. And you had a circle of friends that were gamers, you said, you mentioned a cousin as well, that were gamers.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially. Especially as I got a little older too. You know, that was what we did, you know, in high school and middle school, was that we'd go to a friend's house and, you know, they had the Genesis or whatever and that, you know, they come to my house and they play whatever. Somebody had an snes, so we do that, you know, that's all we did as kids most of the time, you know.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah, same here. Just playing video games, loving video games.
And. And so. So you went to school and college and you know, kept gaming and then. Then you went to the University of Massachusetts.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So UMass Lowell. Yeah, UMass Lowell was my thing. So I mean, to back it up a little bit, what, you know, I had mentioned, like, it was exciting for me to see the sort of the technology of like how something worked right for games. And that was always fun. And around that same time too, my parents brought me to.
It was Disney on Ice at the Garden way back in the day. And I can vividly remember, I don't remember what was on the ice at all. I was young, but I vividly remember seeing somebody standing behind this console and you could see like they were controlling lights and they were controlling the audio. And I was like, whoa, what is that?
And I wasn't even interested in what was going on on the ice. It was like there was this behind the scenes happening that was controlling all this stuff. And, you know, we were just sitting at this angle where I could see people like directing the ice, people on the go, go, go, go. And I'm like, oh my gosh, there's an entire world that gets created behind the scenes and not just what's happening on the ice. And I can remember going back and watching tv.
I believe it was like Bozo the Clown or something. And they would, every once in a while they spin the camera and show the audience and you'd get a quick view of what was happening behind the scenes. Again, you see people like producers and directors, and I'm like, wow, that is so cool. That sort of moment like, really got me interested in like, how stuff was created. I think a lot of kids, you know, when I got into playing music were like, I want to be, you know, a rock star. And I was always the, I want to be someone. Like, how does this get made? Like, what's the recording process? You know, how does television work? And like, you know, how does audio for that kind of stuff work? And I was always really, really interested in that. And, you know, and through high school, got into music really deep and was like, I want music to be part of my career. I want. But like, I wasn't sure how to even step into that.
I ended up going to college for my first year to be a music educator and for, for the, for the thinking of like, you know, I love music, sure, I'll teach kids. And after like my first month there, I was like, if you're going to be a teacher, should be because you want to be a teacher, not because you're like, I just want a paycheck. And I get to do music right. Like it could really screw a kid up if I do this wrong.
And so luckily, UMass Lowell had a program in called sound recording technology. And I was able to sort of take a look at that and go, okay, well here's something like, here's that behind the scenes thing that I've always wanted. Let me learn a little bit more about this. And I just, I mean, holy crap, I just fell in love with that like from day one. Learning just like how audio works and how soundboards work and how recording works and all that sort of process. I just dove head like I just could not believe it. It was like the fact that I was at UMS Lowell was just amazing because I don't think I would have found that if I went to any other school because there's not a lot of schools that do sound recording like UMS Lowell does. So yeah, that's kind of how I sort of fell into the audio world of things and you know, from there where I am today. But yeah, so that's kind of how it first started for me.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: That's interesting. And so the sort of fascination with the behind the scenes and then the fascination with audio. Did you correlate that with video games? Did you kind of wonder how video game audio was made to.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Eventually I did. It took me a while.
Yeah, I think that's sort of. It's funny because I listen to, you know, you talk to other people on this podcast. I think a lot of people have that sort of saying, like, I loved playing games. I never thought that I could ever make it. I never understood like, yeah, there's a process there.
And I think a lot of that, the time that we grew up, there wasn't a lot of information about how games were getting created. They just sort of did. But like, you know, I understood what a camera was, I understood what a microphone was on television, I understood how radio worked.
So it was a lot easier for me to be, oh yeah, that's what I'll do. But as much as I loved games, it was never like, oh yeah, I want to do it. Not till much later.
But yeah, yeah, for me it was just about the audio end of things.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. Like being able to, like you say, correlate the how in TV and you know, Disney on ice versus the very opaque how of video games that were just this magic thing that appeared on your TV and came from somewhere. Right? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Okay, so University of Mass Lal kind of got you the hook into making video, sound record, making audio, sorry, sound recording, etc.
Where did that go from there?
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so one of the things, to graduate, you need to have an internship. And they had a rule where you weren't allowed to intern at the same sort of studio or same place as another student was interning at. And in New England, there wasn't a ton of, believe it or not, you know, recording studios that were available.
So it was like, okay, I could move out to California maybe and try to get an internship, but I don't want to. You know, they were unpaid at the time. So I found a radio station that was looking for an intern to do some sort of production for them.
Not a small station, was actually a pretty big station in Boston, wfnx. And I applied for that internship again. It was one of those, like, it's audio related. I didn't really know that I wanted to do broadcasting. I just wanted to do audio. And applied, met with them and they were like, wow, yeah, you know, Pro Tools, all this kind of stuff. Come on in. And it ended up being an amazing experience because I was the intern for the morning show.
And like most morning shows at that time, you know, they were crazy. They were a lot of fun. You know, it was like the Howard Stern era of like, you know, shock jock kind of thing. And so I was intern Bill and I became a personality. So I was doing a lot of the production, you know, making the ads and doing a lot of the bits and stuff, but also going on air, and they would make fun of me or they're doing something stupid and that kind of thing. Right. Like, so it was kind of cool. I got to be on the air, I got to experience what that was like. And sort of, that sort of also hooked into me as well. But I got to, you know, do a lot of production, sort of flex my muscles of like, I knew Pro Tools.
A lot of the DJs didn't really know it as well. So I'd come in. Oh, yeah, this is how you do. This is how you mix this. Oh, this is how you EQ that and make this sound better. Like, ah, great. So I started doing a lot for other shows as well.
Yeah, and that was sort of my first, like, step into doing audio professionally was. Was within radio. So I did radio for many years. I did that show for about, about a year, year and a half, and then eventually stopped being an intern. They started paying me, you know, a little bit more money, but eventually got a job as a production director for a smaller station.
In Massachusetts, where I was doing, again, all the advertising, all the promos, you know, mixing into all kinds of stuff. And that was, again, it was a small station, so you got to wear a lot of different hats. Where I was also learning, like, how radio actually works, you know, how the. The signal gets broadcast in the air and all that kind of fun stuff. So I was doing that, but I think radio, I sort of hit a ceiling. I was like 22 at the time, and I was, boom, production director. And there was no real growth for me other than like, maybe going on air and stuff. But I just. I don't say I got bored, but I love a challenge, too. And every day I'd come in and here's like, an ad for this, you know, car dealership, and okay, the next day, here's another car dealership. And, you know, there's sort of the same sort of thing. And I was looking for a challenge.
And that's when I moved to television, because that was a different sort of beast for me. And that worked out cool because the shows that I worked on, one of them was an entertainment show that had bands that would come in and perform live. So they were looking for someone who had that sort of audio experience of working with bands, which I got through college. And I did live sound for years as well while that was going on. So, yeah, I did the radio thing, live sound, moved over to television, did that for about three or four years. I was nominated a couple times for Emmy awards for my work there, did that, which is pretty cool.
But, yeah, and then, you know, again, I sort of hit that ceiling of, like, I'm doing the television shows. When you do live tv.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: You get this script of, like, this is how the show is going to run. And, you know, you do it five days a week, and it's the same sort of block. And again, it's not to say it's not. It's, you know, not boring.
But at a certain point, after doing that for four years, that. So I just lost that challenge. I wasn't, you know, challenging myself every day to. To grow as an audio professional.
And this is sort of where the gaming thing sort of. Sort of suck. It's hooking to me. And I was.
The Xbox 360 had come out. PlayStation 3 was out, and my friends who are all working at the station, especially my friend Tim, we're all huge gamers, and we play together, Gears of War and all this kind of stuff. So I went out and I bought a 360, and I was looking for some game to play. And there was this game on the shelf that had this robot looking dude with like a drill in his arm. And I was like, what is this BioShock? This kind of looks interesting. And I brought it home.
And holy crap, dude. Like, that was the first time I experienced in a game where, like, I got chills playing and even just talking about it, where the audio showed me that it could be part of the narrative, that it could be part of the storytelling.
And I was just full lord, you know, and if you've ever played BioShock and like, no sort of spoilers or anything like that, but the audio just, it creates the world for. It helps to create the world for the player. It's not just something that's there.
And that was the first time I really truly experienced that. And I was like, that's what I want to do, you know. And I started looking more into, like how game development works. At the time you had harmonics, you know, so Rock Band was a thing and that was in Boston. So I started like, sort of learning a little bit about like that company.
And I started learning like, you know, there's not just the audio aspect of things, it's not just the creative, but also like how they, you know, when a big daddy is really far down the hall and it's walking towards you, how that sounds far away. And so there's this sort of this analytical side of it as well as how you're creating, how you're setting that up. And I'm like, that's the challenge I want. I want something that's creative and I want to figure out how to make that sound realistic and how that works in the world and how the sound propagates through this fake environment that doesn't actually exist, but then sounds real. Like that's a challenge to me.
And that's what really, like, BioShock was the game for me that said, this is what I want to do. And I spent years, like trying to figure out how to get my foot into the door, you know. And.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Luck have it, BioShock was actually made by Irrational Games, which was in Boston. And so I just, you know, I was always that kind of person that I learned through my audio work that you have to get yourself out there and start like just emailing people and just, you know, talking.
They had a thing in the area called shooting.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: I forget the name of it, but it was a group that met once a month in Boston at a bar. And it was all the game dev studios and anybody could show up. And so I started just going to those and introducing myself to like the audio directors and that kind of thing. And I met one of the audio guys at Irrational and you know, hey, can I buy you a beer? You know, I told him what the game did for me and we started talking and he started giving me tips on how I can get sort of into the. Into the industry.
I need to make a reel. I was like, cool. Went home that night, I think I downloaded the Assassin's Creed trailer and I stripped out all the audio and I was like, okay, I need to do something with this, you know. So went around the house, started recording different things in my house to like make things for like armor and footsteps and started like, okay, cool, I can do this. Oh, yeah, cool. So I made a cool trailer and he was great. I was able to send him the video and he'd send me some feedback and that kind of thing. And eventually he said, look, you know, if you really want to get in this industry, you got to like, you got to get your foot in the door somehow. You know, whether it's doing it doesn't have to be audio. Like, a lot of people get into doing qa, you know, that sort of route and then sort of work your way up. And again. I got super Lucky Turbine, which worked on Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. They were looking for an associate live producer who specifically had experience working with multimedia, so working with the audio department and that kind of thing. And I applied.
They were like, oh, great. Yeah, you've done tv, you've done radio, done all this multimedia experience and I got the gig there. So that was my first like step in. Wasn't even audio, it was as a producer. And that's sort of how I got my foot into the door.
Yeah. So that's sort of kind of how it all started from there, you know.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: That's amazing. I mean, the.
There's so much there that it sounds like the technology of audio really hooked you. Right. Like you talked about pro tools and you know, the. And that I think that correlates really well with the sort of behind the scenes nature. Right. How does this stuff go together? Oh, I want to learn how to do it. Oh, now I'm the person making that. That sounds like that set you up really well. And obviously you game audio is very technical as well.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: I'm fascinated about the sort of shift alive what you mentioned kind of, you know, the radio stuff. You sounds like you're doing a lot of pre recorded, right? You were doing commercials and things that would be pre recorded and then the TV was live.
So I presume that was quite. That put you under pressure, right?
[00:18:53] Speaker B: That was tons of pressure. And I loved it and I didn't know how much I was going to love it. And I done live sound, you know, for like concerts and stuff in the past. But that's a little bit different when you're doing live tv.
I love the pressure of if I screw up, you know, everybody's gonna hear this and you've made a huge mistake and everyone's gonna know. But there was also this sort of freedom of I screwed up, it happened and we have to move on. Like, there is no fixing that. There was. So there's also this sort of bit of a freedom to that as well that I appreciated as well. So whenever I did a show, if the audio or the rather the director didn't say anything to me that meant I did a good job. If the director said, hey, great job. Even if he said you did a great job, that meant to me I did something where he noticed the audio at some point, you know, So I always knew I did something sort of wrong somewhere.
But yeah, that, that, that sort of live transition, I loved that. That was a lot of fun. It was a challenge. But like I said, you get sort of complacent and it becomes sort of just like, okay, it's just another day of me doing audio and I wasn't growing as an audio professional, you know, which is kind of. Which is wanted to keep doing, was pushing myself.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: So, yeah, almost like the pressure became not rote, but like you kind of got used to the pressure and you need something new to stretch you in different ways. That makes sense. And, and perennial, the perennial audio curse, right, is if no one mentions what you did.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: It was exactly.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Yes, I know. So often when I talk about game feel, I'm like, hey, you know, it's like a great soundtrack. If you don't see it, it means it was amazing. I'm like, I feel so sorry for all, all the audio. People put so much work into it. But yeah, you know, it's true though.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: You know, we get.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
And. And then that pivot. So that pivot into. I mean, not many people.
What were you kind of late, late 20s, early 30s when you made that pivot?
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's probably my. Yeah, yeah, mid-20s, late 20s.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. BioShock was. Yeah, around sort of what, 2006, is that right? 2007.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah, 2000. Yeah, around that time.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's, that's a huge pivot because it sounded like you were building a career in audio. You know, you, you'd already moved through different parts of audio. You searched for different challenges. It wasn't like you were bored of audio. It was like, I want a different industry, I want to shift. That's a huge risk. And a huge.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: It was a huge risk.
And, you know, you know, bless my wife and my family for, for backing me for making that decision. And it wasn't easy, you know, at all because I came into it, I had no real producing experience, nor did I have any gaming experience in the industry whatsoever. I showed up and they were like, okay, we're going to Scrum right now. And I'm like, what the heck's a Scrum? What's a Jira? What's Perforce? I don't know what you need me to do, you know, like, and I did a lot of, like, the loke managing of files for Dungeons and Dragons Online. And it was like, okay, we need you to go to Perforce. You're going to diff here. And I'm like, what are you talking? Like, I knew none of that stuff. It was trial by fire. I was stressed. It was a huge. And I was like, oh my gosh, did I make the wrong decision? But I did it because I wanted to get my foot in the door, you know, and it did allow me to start learning. Like, eventually I learned what Perforce did and what diffing meant and what JIRA and, you know, and it was a good actually experience for me because I, I learned a lot of, like, what producers do and how to manage your tasks and, you know, that kind of thing.
But I always viewed it as, it was just my step. I was just going to come in and then hopefully break into doing audio again.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: I learned pretty quickly that that wasn't going to happen at Turbine because, like, you know, you don't just come in as a producer and then say, hey, audio team, can you bring me in? And, you know, I didn't know that. I kind of felt like a jerk almost kind of making that sort of thing right where they didn't want me to do that. And I didn't know that's not how it worked. I just would have thought an associate producer was someone that was a low level. But it's not, It's a career path, you know, And I don't know, I kind of felt bad for that.
But, you know, eventually there was also a startup, Seven4Five Studios. They were on a music performance game and they were looking for a sound person. And I think, like, at this point, now that I had the experience of working in the industry, I could at least talk in an interview, talk the lingo with them. And when they said anything about like, yeah, so you've worked per use perforce before, I'm like, yep, I have. You know, I know what that is.
And it was a music performance. It was like, you know, someone trying to rip off Rock Band or something. Right.
So I had that experience as well as like mixing bands and that kind of thing. So that, that is where I started my audio care career after Turbine. So I did Turbine for about nine months. Was like, this isn't for me. But at least it gave me that, you know, that, that foot into the door, as it were, to move on to doing actual audio. So 745 was my first, like, I am an audio person in the industry kind of thing.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Got it. Yeah. And I would imagine that that producer role gave you a good exposure to the sort of the gears of game dev, right? The different, different departments working, the current, you know, the overlap, the communication, how the game gets put together, how the behind the scenes work. So I would imagine gave you a good insight there.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Tons, tons of tons. I mean, just, you know, and again, I was lucky. I feel like, you know, that I had that opportunity to learn game dev in that sense as. Because I think a lot of times, you know, when you get into qa, you're, you're, you know, this is what you're doing, you know. But I, like you said, I got to experience everything from like, you know, how a build process works, how stuff goes live, how the loke process works, how they create tasks for animators and audio people. Like all of that I got to experience at Turbine. So that was a blessing in disguise. You know, at first I thought, thought, oh, this is not for me. But here I am many years later and I'm still pulling from that experience that I had. So it was good.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think, I think internal QA and you know, production are really good kind of intermediary roles that help you learn the, you know, the process of making games. Whereas if you go into a single discipline, you learn that discipline very well. But, you know, and you obviously, you interface with other people. Of course you do. But production qa, they can be very internal qa, they can be very in the middle, which is a great grounding to get.
Okay, so, so 745, that, that was a, you know, audio Development, actual, you know, and how was that transition and how did you find. How much did that pull from your previous experiences as well?
[00:25:15] Speaker B: A ton. I mean, because we were a music performance game, you know, we would get master stems from various bands, which was so cool, you know, to be like, oh, here's, you know.
You know, Eric Clapton was one of the ones that we worked with. And I got to get the original masters from Eric Clapton and mix it for the game, which was just, wow, what am. This is amazing.
And I had that experience of doing music for a long time. And so, like, that. That really was a good first step for me because I was still learning how to do sound design, which is a little bit different than mixing music. But, like, this gave me that opportunity to really flex my muscle in mixing the music and then start learning how to do the sound design for the various other aspects of the game, like the menus and things of that nature.
Unfortunately, the game, it was a flop, you know, and. And whatever. I mean, it was the best. One of the best studios that I've worked with in terms of, like, the people that I worked with to this day. I'm still friends with all of them. It was a great company. We worked our asses off. There were decisions that were made that were just not on us. It just, you know, that kind of stuff happens. I think the game came out in 2010 and it was voted, like, one of the worst games of the year for a couple weeks. But, like, it didn't bother me, you know, like, we did what we could do, you know, with what we had, and I learned.
And that was another sort of learning sort of process of like, you know, you can only do what you can do and what you can control and just deal with what it's in your little sphere, you know, I'm vocal. I mean, you've worked with me. You know how, like, I will speak up when I don't like something. And I was very vocal there about sort of some of the processes, and I can say what I can say, but at the end of the day, someone else makes the decision. And I learned that that's sort of just how you have to kind of deal with it. So 745 was a great learning experience.
And then from there, I went to 38 Studios, and this was again, like, this was more of a sound designer making monsters, making fireball effects and that kind of thing, and not just dealing with music mixing. So this was a huge different step for me as well, but a great learning experience there. So yeah, yeah.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: And talk to me about that process of going from, you know, kind of mixing and like you said, the kind of music and audio work you've done previously into the actual sound design. You talked about that, you know, being inspired by that with Bioshock, but how was that transition?
[00:27:29] Speaker B: It was a lot different. But I then I think, like, I'm pretty good at like. And I'm doing this little triangle thing and I'll explain this in a second, but I'm pretty good at like, you know, taking what I know from one area and how I can adapt that into others. And when you're mixing music, you're thinking of things in terms of like, you know, doing this. A balance of frequencies, right? Like when I'm building, whether it's like a rock song or it's an orchestra and I'm recording, like you're building from the bottom up. And like the. These instruments work with these instruments and these frequencies work with these frequencies and you build something that sounds good to the ears. And so when I started to do sound design, I started thinking a lot along terms of like, that sort of that balance of like how frequencies work. And, you know, I had a good idea of like, okay, I want a monster to growl or I want this fireball to do this thing in my head. I have an idea of what that sounds like. How do I get that from my head into something that's tangible and something that, that people can hear? And I could break apart the sound in my head and start being like, okay, I'm hearing this low end frequency here. I need this sort of element. I'm hearing these crackly sort of sounds here. Let's find an element that is that. Let's bring them together, let's mix it. And it's kind of like building a song in that sense, but for like a specific, just one quick sound, you know. And so I think, like, again, that experience really helped me get into doing sound and I absolutely, I love it. And to this day, it's like what I love doing every single day is sort of creating that sort of stuff. So, yeah, it was a. It was, I guess, a challenge. And that's what I was there for, like every day. I was being challenged to do something different and be creative and figure out how, you know, use Unreal. We use unreal at 38.
You know, it was my first time using wise at 30 studios as I'm learning all this new software that's very, again, like analytical of like, it's not just creating cool sounds, but like, how I get this now to sound cool in the world. And I'm like, oh, my God. Every day was just an. This huge challenge and this awesome experience. And I just love, love. I have never done anything like this in my life. And to this day, here we are 16 years later, and I still get that feeling every day when I come into work of like, this is amazing.
So, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Fascinating that you haven't sort of hit that ceiling of. Of needing a new challenge that you hit in the other places.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: And. And so that that sort of framing around frequencies is really interesting. Where do you think that sort of skill comes from? Where do you think you learned that?
[00:29:54] Speaker B: That was college.
I'll give props to one of my professors in college, Dan Lutz, who is an incredible professor, who helped me also, and I can explain a little bit later, but like, also helped me push myself further and allow myself to learn that I could actually do this kind of stuff.
But like, in college, when we were playing music, because that was the kind of thing at UMass, Lowell was sure you were a sound recording major, but you also had to do music as well. So you had had to perform and stuff. And he always talked about, like, when we were in. In band, like, how you build that. The triangle was something he would do. Right. It was like how you build the sound from a live experience from performers. You know, you have your low brass instruments and then you have your higher stuff. And like, if the trumpets are playing super, super, super loud and the flutes are playing super, super, super loud and the. The low brass are not, it's going to sound like ass. And so he was always, you know, if the band sounded weird, you do this little triangle thing. And I took that and brought that into, like, my music mixing of like, okay, if that's how a live, then how do I can bring that into music? So that was something that I learned just from doing live music for many, many years. So, yeah, big props to Dan there. So, yeah, that's where that started from there, huh?
[00:31:06] Speaker A: And that's something you've sort of carried with you and transitioned into different industries and had success with it all the time. Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: And so, yeah, so building those sounds and the technology of all that as well, that sounds like that continues to be something that's really driven.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: You know, the technology changes constantly, and it's really cool to sort of see how it's changing and then how you want to change it yourself. I think that's also been interesting not to get deep into it, but you saw what we were doing on our project, and we wanted to create this realistic environment with the audio and sitting down with programmers and engineers to go, how do we do something like that? You know, where we're creating this realistic. The audio is reacting correctly to the world. And no matter what a designer does, we know that the audio is always going to act correctly to the world. And that's sort of where the future, I think, of audio is moving towards. And yeah, it's great to sort of constantly see, like, how that is changing and being a part of that. Right. And having ideas and how we push things a lot further. You know, I do a lot of, like, just like, you know, sitting around the house and hearing sounds or like walking around the world and hearing sounds and hearing how things react, you know, when you're in a bedroom, as opposed to a bathroom or a kitchen or if you're outside and listening to how all the, you know, stuff reacts to that and like, how you bring that into the game world is something that I'm a huge proponent of. So, yeah, definitely the technology part of it, too.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: And that technology has kind of grown, I mean, from, you know, from Lord of the Rings online to, you know, to what you were doing at 38 Studios to, you know, to.
To. Then you went freelance for a little bit.
You've been. You've been. You've been a freelance kind of.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: I mean, I. I wouldn't consider myself freelance anymore.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: 38 Studios, I don't know if a lot of people know the history there, had an epic collapse at the time.
The. We literally.
I found out. I had a friend call me on a weekend and says, hey, man, I'm really sorry about your job. And I was like, oh, what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, I just heard on the radio that three Days studio shut down.
And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about, man. I was just there Friday. Everything's good.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. What happened was. So Kirk Schilling was the owner of 30A Studios. Kirk Schilling was a Boston Red Sox pitcher, famously won us the World Series, was big in New England.
And so sports radio would follow 38 studios a little bit, you know, and they heard some rumblings that there was going to be something that was bad was going to happen on Monday, and they released, hey, we think Chris Shearling studio is about to close down on Monday. And I was like, I don't know what the hell they're talking about Monday Morning. So I lived in New Hampshire at the time, and I used to have to drive down to Rhode island, which was a little over 100 miles each way, so 200 miles a day. So I use a lot of gas. And I went to go fill up my car, and my debit card was denied. And I was like, what? I just got paid today. How is that possible? I opened up my thing and there was no money in there in my account. And I was like, that's weird. We got paid today. And then I started thinking, wait, my friend told me he heard on the radio we might be good and closed. No, I don't know about that. So I drove into the studio and I spoke to Brian, one of my other sound designers, who I work with at Zos as well. And I was like, did you get paid today? He's like, I'm pretty sure. And he looked at his thing and he's like, no, wait, no, we didn't. And I was like, that's weird. And then we got the email that was like, hey, everybody, come, come, come, come downstairs. We're not paying you. We ran out of money.
And, yeah.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: About a couple days after that, we found out my wife and I were pregnant and we're expecting our first child.
And then a few days after that, 38 literally shut down. You know, just. We got the you're done kind of thing. We lost health insurance. It was a mess. We could do an entire podcast if you ever want to, on that. They. They stopped paying our health premiums. And so we only got a couple of, like, I think it was like five days notice that our health was going to get turn turned off. And so when you just found out you were pregnant and we needed to see doctors, the people had a lot worse than me. The people had surgeries lined up that they had to quickly get in before the insurance got canceled. It was a mess.
So, yeah, found out we're pregnant, got lost my job. And then I spent that period of time as a freelancer trying to pick up gigs as I could. Right. I did a lot of stuff actually for UMass Lowell because I was pretty good friends with Dan Lutz, who was the band director there, you know, where he offered me an opportunity to come in, record his performances.
You know, made some extra money doing that, did some small games on the side, like little mobile apps that I got connections through and stuff like that. I had interviewed at companies like Riot and stuff, but we were west coast, and at the time when you're pregnant, you know, thinking of moving My family, you know, thousands of miles away, was difficult and not something I really wanted to do.
And then, yeah. So we were getting closer and closer to my child being born. And it was like, okay, I don't know if I'm going to make this work with the actual being in the industry. Maybe it's time to start looking at other places. This is again, where, like, that sort of luck. And I say luck, but also you make your own luck. I definitely believe that.
So I worked with Brian Brockett at 30 Studios. Brian Brockett got a job at ZeniMax Online, and they needed another sound designer. He had up the audio director, Brad Derek, and was like, hey, I worked at this kid, Bill. You should talk to him.
And so Brad sends me an email. He's like, hey, you still looking for a gig? I was like, yes, please. Ended up interviewing with them.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: My wife went into labor about a week after the interview was done. And while we were in the hospital, she was in labor. We were in, like, a little lull, and I looked at my phone and there was an email that says, hey, we want to offer you the job.
So I literally went from, you know, finding out we're pregnant, losing a job, going nine months of like, what are we going to do? To suddenly, like, literally, like, three hours before my son is born, now you got to do your job. And I just remember being like, do I get health insurance? And they were like, yeah. Day one, I was like, I accept this job. Let's go. You know. But even that was stressful in and of itself because now I'm going like, I'm a new dad, we just had a baby, and now I have to move from New England down to Maryland for ZeniMax. And I think this is a part of industry that doesn't get talked about a lot. Like, it is fun and I love what I do, but, man, you know, like, it is not. I had to move my family, you know, away from their family. You know, my kid was six weeks old, you know, and we're new parents trying to figure out, like, what to do, and we had to get up and move and find a place to live. Like, I. That first six weeks, man, I don't even remember what was going on. I'm trying to be a dad, trying to learn, you know, trying to pack a house, trying to find a place to live in a place that I've never even been at before, going to a studio where I knew nobody. And my wife is now moving with me, and she knows nobody and she doesn't have a job. And you know, it was, it was a stressful, stressful time. But like, man, I love it here. Zenimax welcomed me with open arms. The audio team, everybody, Brian, Brad, Matt and Josh. At the time, everybody was so welcoming and they let us in and I've loved it here. I've been here for almost 13 years now.
A couple years after we moved, my wife, they were looking for a fight. My wife does Finance and ZeniMax was looking for somebody in the financ finance department. And I said, hey, you should apply to that. And so she applied and she got hired. So my whole family is a Zenimax, you know, sort of thing. She works more for the corporate end of things and I work at Zos. But yeah, that, you know, there was definitely a period of there where we weren't, I wasn't sure if I was going to do this ever again, you know, and I'm glad it sort of worked out. Again, you make your own luck. But you know, if it wasn't for Brian being getting the job here and then recommending me, you know, who knows what would been have happen. So yeah, that's kind of how I got to Zos.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean two wonderfully human stories there, right? The, the losing your job, which sounded like, you know, in many ways a dream job, right. The, the 38 studios that, you know, doing proper sound design, like really getting to do the audio part, that part of sound design that you really wanted to do and then that's just ripped away from you.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Yep, yeah, yeah, that was, yeah, that was tough too. Right. And you know, that's where, you know, I, I, I, I was confident in my skills, but also I didn't have a ton of released games where I could say here's me as a full time sound designer, where it's all I did.
I never had that opportunity. And because it was a game that wasn't released, it was hard for me to even show people what I did because it was all NDA'd. So I was in this weird sort of boat. And again, that's why I was lucky where Brian, he knew what I could do because we worked together. So that helped out too.
That's sort of how this industry works and that's how entertainment works. Any sort of audio. I was working in radio, television, like, you know, you need to get yourself out there, you need to meet people. It's not just about where you went to school or any of that kind of thing. It's, you know, working with people and keeping Good contacts with people and connections. And that's sort of how you sort of work through the ranks and move through stuff, you know?
[00:40:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that was something I wanted to ask you. You know, as someone that's only really ever worked in video games, like me, it can be. It's easy to be a little myopic about, like, you know, in video games, this. These things happen, and those things happen. But like you say entertainment and media, there is some overlap. Like, what. What parallels and what differences do you see between, you know, the kind of audio world that you started in and the video game world that you're in now?
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: The systems, the structure, the, you know, the experience of working in it.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, like, again, I work in broadcasting mostly.
Like I said, it's definitely.
I want to say it's. It's who you know. But there is. I think the overlap there is. Is. There is connections that you have to make. Right. Like, I knew.
I worked in radio. I knew somebody who knew someone at this other station who got me an interview there, and I was able to work my way through there. And then when I wanted to work through television, it was the connections I made through. It was actually a salesperson who did sales for radio who was like, hey, there's this television station that I do sales for as well. Looking for an audio person. Did you want to talk to them? So, like, there's that connection there. And I think in games, it's sort of the same thing. You're meeting a lot of different people. You need to be nice, and you need to know how to interact with a lot of different types of people. And I think, you know, my college career sort of helped me. They really pushed that in. When I was at ums, Lowell was like, getting yourself out there and, you know, learning how to connect, I think that part's the same.
I think just in general, there is a. And I don't want to make this sound weird, but, like, when you're doing radio and you're doing television as an audio person, there's a ceiling that everybody is okay with hitting in terms of how things sound.
No one's looking to push the boundaries of live audio for, like, a news or, like an entertainment show or like a sports show.
And so, like, yeah, there's a level of, like, we're okay with this, you know, and therefore, you get this technology, you get this budget, you get this sort of stuff. And I never. I always wanted, like, how do I make this sound better? You know, how I want to make this sound better. And they're like, well, we don't care. This sounds good enough. And I think like that again, I'm not trying to dunk on it, but like that from an audio perspective, I think that's where broadcasting is, is like they're okay with not spending a lot of money on the audio end of things. Just it's sounding okay.
When you get to levels of like you watch like an NFL broadcast or something, like, obviously that is like, that sounds amazing, but there's billions of dollars behind that and you know, getting to that opportunity would be tough.
So I think in gaming there is this always this push to push audio to be the best as it can.
And that to me is where again, where I love this, right? Like I come, I can come in here and I can like actually work to make things better and push the technology as far as I can with people. So that was the biggest difference to me.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think a lot of what you talked about being inspired by BioShock, right? That idea of not just the sound itself, but how it gets to you, how it, you know, how it translates the world. A lot of the stuff I remember you talking about, you know, working on, you know, and that is cutting edge in technology now is very much about that.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: It's a, about how the audio performs in the world, not just how the audio, individually audio element sounds.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah. I think we've reached a point where, you know, I mean, sound design, like the actual assets themselves that you're creating. Like, yeah, there are games that sound good, there are games that sound bad. But like you can for the most part make good sounding assets. How you make those good sounding assets sound good in the game is another aspect of it. It's just a completely different beast. And that's what I love about this is it's not, not just being creative and creating a cool sound, a cool explosion or a good gunfight.
How it reacts in the world is the next step. And that, that is to me is the most exciting part of it. You know, I love that end of it.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And like you say, that's always pushing the new technology, you know, from, you know, pushing to be as sound as good as possible, I would imagine. Also, you know, that sort of live, live tv, live broadcast, broadcast stuff you mentioned, there's a sort of well oiled machine element to it. Right. I'm sure there's a lot of which probably parallels well with how, you know, video games we have to be, you know, good communication, good, good Coordination, good appreciation of each other's skill sets, you.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: Know, to execute, especially in live television, I mean, like, you have a director, right? Especially, you know, okay, we're going 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And you go, like, now you have to listen, you got to pay attention what's going on. Director is telling everybody what's the to do. We're all working together as a team. I might notice something that maybe a camera is a little bit off because I can have all these views of what's going on and I can say, hey, hey, this is happening. We're all working together to make this awesome element at the end of the day, which is this cool looking and sounding show.
And I think gaming is a lot of that as well. Like working in the game, right. Like, I'm working with designers, I'm working with animators, I'm working with world building. And that's the thing I love about audio. And I think a lot of people forget is we touch, touch every part of the game, right? Like animations, world building, because we need to do the ambiences UI because they need their sounds combat and you know, vfx because they need their sound. Every single part of the game has some sort of sound element to it. So we get to work with all these different departments. And that in and of itself is a challenge. But I love that sort of, you know, working through and working with a VFX artist, working with somebody like you and figuring out like, how are we going to make the content combat feel, feel good and how does sound work with that, you know, and that was always a fun. It's always been a fun challenge to do that as well.
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, audio is such a key part of a lot of what I've done. Right. Is a lot of what I've made would suck if it didn't have good audio because it would be a key element missing on feel. Right. It's. Yeah, it's. It's a massive part of it. And, and how much.
And this might be a stretch, but. But how much does shipping a patch or a product, shipping a game match the sort of pressure and stress that you would feel of live broadcast?
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think it matches that stress. I think that live broadcast is its own thing.
And I think like I said before, there's also a sense of freedom. When you've done it and you've made a mistake or whatever, that second has passed and now you need to just move on to the next thing.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: You can't dwell on it. When you release a game and you find a bug or you find something that it's there, every time you play that thing, that bug is there actually more frustrating in that end. That freedom is gone there.
I mean you're trying to hit deadlines. Of course that's always a thing in the gaming industry, right. And there's that stress there. But it's a lot different than like live television I feel.
But yeah, I mean something like, you know, I work on, I've been at zos now for 13 years. Elder Scrolls Online is a game, you know, I was there from the beginning.
That's a pretty well oiled machine at this point.
But it, you know, you're still like you're trying to hit those deadlines, you're trying to fix the bugs. And as a live game, you know, you do have that opportunity to fix things as well. Like okay, this did go well, live wrong. Let's go in and let's fix it, you know. So yeah, it's a little bit different mentality, you know, but like, yeah, there's millions of people hearing my stuff. That, that will always be something that always blows my mind. You know, there's all the, all the people that are hearing and that, you know, made me nervous at first but now it's a pretty exciting feeling these days.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, yeah, I would imagine if you've gone through that live TV show stress, most other things feel chill in relation, I would think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't imagine. I don't think I would have the constitution for that. I think think I'd be too anxious.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: Okay, so, so yeah, so, you know, fascinating career, fascinating sort of shift in pivots and, but still this sort of through line of technology and you know, this combination of creativity and technology that feels like that, that speaks to you. How, how do you think that? And you've sort of mentioned, you know, the reason you got into music was, you know, challenge and you know, repetition and getting mastery and getting better. Better. How much of that, you know, what you do now in your role relates to you as what you do to you in the real world. Right. To you as a non developer. Like do you see parallels there? Are you a different person? Like how does that.
[00:48:39] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, I guess I'm not a different person at all. I mean I, I, what I do at work and what I do throughout my day, you know, you know, my wife could even attest to that. Like, you know, we get tasks while we're working, you know, we live our life, you Know, with. Especially when you have a kid and stuff like that. Like, it's like, this is due at this point, this apps happen. So we have t tasks for a day. So we live our life that way.
And I always, you know, I still sort of the same sort of quality. My son is now 13, and I talk to him a lot about, like, you know, learning and, you know, how it's okay to make mistakes and how you want to improve. You just keep working at that problem until you get better, and then the next problem is going to come. And then you work on that until you get that better, then the next problem is going to come. And that's okay to keep hitting these walls, you know, and. And I think work is like that, where you're constantly hitting these walls and life is like that, where you're constantly hitting these walls and it's okay to hit those walls and it's okay, you know, to slow down and start to figure out how to get past them. I think, like, there's a good connection between life and work, and I've always sort of worked in that way. I like to think of myself as a problem solver. I look at things as, like, whether it's sound design, you know, we need to make a fireball. Here's a problem, and then start to figure, break it down into, like, how I differentiate different parts and how I can make a fireball. And then there's how does that fireball react in the world? How does that fireball actually get triggered in the game? There's a technology part of it, and here's the problems that you have, and let's work through each problem and solve. And I think life is the same exact way. You know, got a kid who's, you know, trying to do whatever, right? And it's like, okay, here's a problem that we faced in life. You know, it's, you know, you lose your job. You know, like when I was at 38 Studios, right? Here we go. We lose our job, we have a kid on the way. Here's a list of the problems. Problems here. Start breaking it down and let's start fixing it. And that's how I again, I think that's where that behind the scenes sort of when I was a little kid, always interested to me in is that you can face these problems, you can see things that are issues, and you can break them down into different parts and you can start like, figuring out the solutions to those. And I think that works in my job and in the real life as well. You know?
[00:50:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great philosophy. I agree.
And so, yeah, you mentioned your son, your wife. Like, how does your family kind of relate to what you do do?
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny. Like, my son is a huge gamer. Loves it, Plays way too much, probably.
And I always find it funny because if I was his age and my dad made video games for a living and all my friends played games, I'd be like, my dad, man. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he works on Elder Scrolls, man. You know, he's a. He never tells his friends. Like, they don't even know. They come over and I got this whole setup and they're like, what is this? Like, oh, I make video games for a living. And they're like, you do? Oh, God, my gosh. Why doesn't tell me? It's just so funny to me, like, if that was me. But I guess, like, growing up in this world, to him, he doesn't think of dad as a game developer. I'm just dad.
And every once in a while, he remembers, all right, you make games for a living. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Which has always been kind of interesting. But he's a huge gamer. My wife, she calls herself a casual gamer, but, like, she plays tons of games as well.
You know, more like the casual, like, Dreamlight, Valleys and, you know, that kind of thing.
But, yeah, we're a huge gaming family. We love it. We have all the consoles and PCs and stuff. And it's. It's been fun. You know, it's been fun to watch my son go through the same processes that I have to figure out. Like, yeah, he can get better at Roblox or he can get better at Minecraft or, you know, he's doing, like, a lot of Fortnite and stuff. And, like, it's fun to see, like, the progress of him getting.
Kind of sounds awful watching my son get killed in a video game over and over and over again. But then, like, to see how he's, like, learned. If I slow down and I listen, I can hear the guy coming up behind me and I can react quicker. And like, now I play Fortnite with him and he's better than me. And it's. It's. It's awesome to see that sort of. That progress. Kind of like I did as well, you know, which is pretty cool.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: Now you're proud to watch your son killing other people rather than being killed.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: I struggle with that all the time with my kids. Like, it feels so weird to have that linger. Right? That's the terminology.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: I know Right, Yeah.
[00:52:37] Speaker A: And so you're still. Still gaming then. You know, gaming has still remained part of your life. And has. Has being in games changed that at all, do you think?
[00:52:46] Speaker B: No, not really. I think I can appreciate it a lot more these days, like, what a game and how it works and that guy. So I think, again, I was lucky. Not lucky, but like, in my career when I was in college and I was learning sort of the musical production end of things.
[00:53:04] Speaker B: It ruined music for me for a really long time. I stopped hearing music as a piece of music, and I started hearing it more as, oh, there's a kick and there's a hi hat and there's a guitar left and there's a guitar right. And they got a little bit of flange on the vocal here and, oh, there's actually three different vocal parts. Okay, cool. And I was hearing it as layers all the time, and that kind of ruined music for me. And it took me a good, like, year or two to realize that it was ruining. I wasn't enjoying music anymore. At least I was just hearing it as different parts and breaking things down. And I was like, man, I gotta stop doing that. I want to get back to, like, actually just enjoying music. And I had to consciously, like, try to stop breaking it down constantly.
So I learned a long, long time ago how to kind of do that. And now I'm at a pretty equilibrium now where I can listen to music and I can enjoy it, but I can also hear, oh, I love what they did with that snare. I love how the kick is cutting through the bass there.
And the same thing, you know, when I'm watching TV now, I can see, you know, the camera guy just wobbled a little bit or there was. There was an upkick on the.
The fade. They missed a word when they did that. I can notice that, but it doesn't ruin it for me anymore. And I think, like, that now that, you know, I'm playing games, I can notice when things are happening, but it doesn't sort of ruin the experience. I can still enjoy just playing the game, but I know now a little bit more how the sauce is made. I will say it's different when I'm playing something that I've made. Like if I'm playing Elder Scrolls Online with which I've got hundreds and hundreds of hours on live.
[00:54:29] Speaker B: I wear that. It's hard to take that dev hat off and just enjoy the game for what it is. I'll be going through something and I'm like, oh, I remember I Made a sound over here. Let me go check it out and God damn it, it doesn't work. Now.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: I got to fix it or it doesn't sound as cool as I thought it would seven years ago when I put it in the game. So always hard to sort of take that dev hat off. But no, for now I've been playing Arc Raiders like crazy. And again, it's, you know, I can play the game, but I can also step back and also appreciate the audio design in something as well. And like, O.C. raider sounds fantastic. Probably one of the best games of the year that in Battlefield 6.
But I can also just play the game, so it's kind of cool to be able to. Again, that took a lot of time for me to get used to being able to do that.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you can kind of separate the analytical side from the. Just flat out enjoy it.
[00:55:16] Speaker B: Just enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good.
[00:55:18] Speaker A: And do you think being.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: Being.
[00:55:20] Speaker A: We've kind of touched on this a little bit, but do you think being.
Going through this career of game dev, do you think it's changed you as a human or, you know, altered who you are as a human?
[00:55:30] Speaker B: I don't think so. I think this was always the path that I needed to be on. And like I said from a very, very, very early age, this was like what I wanted to do.
This was. This was always going to be who I was going to be, you know, and again. And I'm blessed to have parents that recognize that when I was a young kid and gave me the opportunities to pursue things like this, when I was working in radio, I was making a little money and I was still living with my parents and they could have been like, get out. And I had opportunities to do other jobs. And I think other parents could have said, you will make three times what you're making now. You can move out of the house, you can start a family, you can do that kind of thing. And they were like, you don't want to do that. You want to work in this audio field, you know, and they were always very, very supportive of that. This was who I was going to be. So I think, like, I don't know, I don't think it changed me. I think this is. Yeah. How I was always going to end up, you know.
[00:56:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. And it feels like although it maybe took you a little while to find your way to the video game version of that, it's still clear. It's sort of run through your DNA right back to, you know, the Nintendo and the. In the C64 and Disney on Ice. Right. It's. It's. You can kind of see those. Those. Those parallels and those through lines there.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: Yeah. 100. Yep. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
[00:56:50] Speaker A: Cool. Well, thank you, Bill. I really appreciate the time. It's a great conversation. I love a great story. I love that, you know, the twists and turns and. But how it defines you as a person. I think that's. That's really what this podcast is all about. So.
[00:57:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it and I appreciate the podcast. It's great to have something that I think is delving a little bit differently into the game developers, and it's kind of interesting to hear, like, our stories and how we got here here. I think this is. Thank you for highlighting that. I think this has been really interesting. So thank you.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: Appreciate it.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: Glad you enjoy it. I. I enjoy doing it, so.
[00:57:19] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:57:20] Speaker A: Sweet. Thank you.
[00:57:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Awesome. Alice. Right? Take care.
