Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello everyone. Welcome to Another episode of DevtoDev, the podcast about everyday video game developers and why they do what they do every day. I'm Alex Salman here again. Ready for another good conversation with a friend and ex colleague, Matt. Matt, if you'd like to introduce yourself.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. My name is Matt Brunhofer. I've been in game development for about seven years. I've worked in quality assurance and production across Square Enix and Zenimax online studios, mainly on Dissidia, Final Fantasy NT, as well as the Elder Scrolls Online and then the unannounced M that was recently shelved at zmax Online studios.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Yes, unfortunately, the one that. The one that got away, man, it did. Certainly did for many of us.
Yeah. Thanks for taking the time. Excited to dig into your history, who you are as a person, who you are as a developer. I like to kick this off with my favorite question.
What first inspired you about video games?
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Oof.
I think the inspiration really just came from my experience in the entertainment industry because I. From a young age, I never really thought about doing like being a developer of video games. It was always kind of that untouchable thing, that untouchable job, that really cool job I would never do. But from a very young age I knew I wanted to work in the entertainment industry, whatever that might be. But my heart originally was set on film filmmaking. I was really, you know, really into movies, really into understanding story, understanding character development, character arcs, all that stuff. And so for the longest time, it was all about filmmaking. I mean, from before high school, where then I joined like the TV production program and all that, really started getting my hands on cameras, making my own things that, that really started introducing me to the entertainment industry. And then I eventually got into the theater department as well. I played football for about my first three years of high school. I was never very good at it. I was always getting hurt, I mean, like, really bad injuries.
And I was never really in love with it. I did it to like lose weight because I was always the big kid. It was just one of those things.
But then as soon as I started doing the theater department because my dad, he kind of told me, you know, if you want to do filmmaking, you know, a lot of the majors that are kind of around the schools in the state, which I'm from Virginia, they don't really have true filmmaking film schools. You know, at that time they didn't really, you know, and I wasn't about to go to California or New York or anything like that. So doing research, it was like if you want to get into, like, a film program in Virginia, you really need to be part of the theater department. So fell in love with the theater department in high school. And then I went to college for filmmaking, theater and dance with digital. Emphasis in Digital filmmaking was my full major.
So I did. I did that, and I learned everything about theater, everything about filmmaking. I became a really good lighting tech in theater. Like, I loved running cables and setting up lights and focusing lights and all that stuff. And then from there, I graduated college with not really much of a direction. Like, I knew I still wanted to work in theater, but a lot of the theater places in New York and Washington, D.C. and everything you got, you had to have a resume. I didn't have anything, and there weren't any internships. So I actually went to school to be a medic, an EMT for a little while, and I actually became an emt. And then right when I got my certification and started a job as an emt, I got an internship at a theater. So I basically became that theater's intern as well as the emt, because, you know, you always need a medic on hand at a theater for various things.
And so from there, I did theater there for about a year and a half, and I decided, like, I really wanted to get back into film.
Really did. I loved my time at theater. I did a whole bunch of shows.
If anybody's ever in Fredericksburg, Virginia, look up Riverside Performance center or center of Performing Arts, I think it's called Now Go See a Show. It's always great.
But I really wanted to get back into film. And I think I kind of fell out of love with kind of directing because as a medic, I was actually able to get a job for a day on set of a legit Hollywood television series. They're filming the pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, and I was able to be a medic for a day. And I'm not gonna lie, I was. I was bored. Like, I was, like, watching the process. I'm like, man, I thought it was different, like, on a very professional level, like, doing all my short films.
Always a good time, great. Had fun with friends. But then, like, when it's on the very professional Hollywood budget level where everything is to a T and everything is organized to it. Like, I was just sitting there like, man, I would much prefer just to write the thing and then somebody else goes and makes it. And that's exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to become a writer. So I went back to school for writing, and I got my Master's in creative writing from Full Sail University, which is great. And then after I got that, I did the whole move out to LA and try to make it type of deal and slept on a friend's floor in a warehouse a block away from Skid row type of deal.
And I tried to make it. I started working for a children's theater company out there where we toured around all of la. Got to work with a whole bunch of great kids, whole bunch of great schools. And in the meantime, I was writing, I was working on spec scripts. I worked with a theater called Theater Unleashed and wrote a couple things for them.
And then I got. I landed, finally landed an internship at a legit studio.
And then. But it wasn't paying and I needed something that paid. And I found. I just said to myself, hey, video games, I've always loved video games. I played them. I should try this. And I looked up Square Enix and they had a job opening for a contract QA tester. And I applied. I didn't think I was gonna get it.
I got it. And then from there, like, as soon as I went through the interview and saw the.
I think the office kind of sold me. Like, you go up there, it's all official, like, Square Enix, it's got a whole bunch of Final Fantasy figurines and, like class cases, stuff like that. Like, it's great. But then sitting down and talking to the people and I realized, like, oh, these people are like at the same personality and level I am, which is great. Like, I immediately bonded with these people, having only talked to them with five minutes. And then as soon as I got the position and I started working on the game, I told myself, like, okay, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Like, this is great because not just because I got to play video games all day, but because I love the process, I love the production, the development pipeline, all that stuff and how it worked.
I even loved watching them convert my bugs from English to Japanese so that the developers could actually fix them. Like, I thought that was really cool.
And so, yeah, from there, man, like, I think that's how I kind of launched myself into gaming. And then, yeah, ever since then, it's been all about gaming.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Okay, wow. So there's so much there. I love it. So theater was your passion. So. And you said Virginia was where you kind of grew up. Yeah.
So were you gaming at the same time?
Was gaming a passion or was theater and the filmmaking dominating your time?
[00:07:13] Speaker B: I think gaming has always been a part of my life. I remember my first memory of gaming period was my brother and my dad playing Dracula on the Super Nintendo in 93, 94. And they couldn't get past the first part. I remember my dad getting frustrated about that. But then just watching it, I was like, oh, this is cool. And then from there, it went from like, my dad was a huge link to the past, fan love link to the past. So I watched him play that religiously. And then we ended up getting a Nintendo 64 eventually. And I think that might be, like, kind of the moment in my life where I really became a fan of video games. Because I never thought about it, like, outside of, like, oh, my brother's playing it cool. I never, like, you know, said to myself, I want to play a video game. I was too young.
But then I remember the day, like, I came home from school or something. I went into our little playroom, whatever it was, and my brother was doing something on tv. I wasn't really paying attention. And then he just automatically saw that I wasn't paying attention, just said, like, dude, we got a Nintendo 64. And like, I snapped over and looked and he's playing Turok 64. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is amazing. You know, 3D, cool, like, all that. I'm like, oh, my God, what is this? And, like, from that, I was enthralled with video games. And then we got was it Ocarina of Time? And my dad absolutely loved Ocarina of Time and I loved watching him play. And I think my love for video games really started and has even blossomed to now about, like, just sitting down and watching other people play the game.
I don't know what it is. Like, I love watching my brother play Metal Gear Solid. I love watching my dad play Zelda. It's like how I became kind of really enthralled with video games. And I don't think it was until the PlayStation 2 era with. I think the first two games we got were Kinetica and Madden 2002, where I really got into playing and started understanding, like, oh, I can actually do this. And then from there I. I played throughout high school probably, or middle school, and high school probably a little too much. Like, my grades started to suffer because I was playing so many games. And that's all where my focus went. And then once I got to college, I took a break from video games for about three years. Like, I.
Maybe it's two years. I remember getting Modern Warfare 3, the original, at like, the midnight release, playing it And I just told myself, like, after playing that game, I don't want to do this anymore. Not knocking the game, it just was like, I need to focus on school. I need to focus on film. I can't do this anymore type of deal. Because I think I spent 24 hours total playing through that entire game and replaying it. And I'm like, I can't do this anymore. So I took a break from games, and it wasn't until I was working at the theater and I got a PlayStation 4 that I kind of fell back in love with it because I loved kind of, like, the concept of streaming because something I've always done, like I said, is watching people play video games. And that's exactly what Twitch is or used to be. Like, you watch people play video games? That is amazing. That is awesome. And so I told myself I would love people to watch me play video games, so I got a PS4 to try to stream and do all that stuff.
And so, yeah, like, I was playing video games religiously, like middle school to high school. But then once I hit college and kind of after that, it kind of seldom kind of deteriorated just simply because I got busy. I was focused on other things in life.
And then once I started streaming on Twitch, like, yeah, I built a community. I had friends that I played with, you know, but it wasn't like a religious thing at all.
And then I think once I started, like, getting back into games, once I got to California, that's when I, like, really started picking it up again.
And then actually, Battlefield one, I think, is the game which I believe you worked on, right?
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Alex Battle for one. Yep.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it did.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: That's the game that kind of reunited my brother and I because we. We, you know, he'd been living on the west coast ever since I was, like, in high school because he's a.
He's. He's now a first mate on a dread ship off the coast of. Off the. Off the west coast. And it was really that game that kind of brought me back to the camaraderie you can build within video games and where, yeah, our relationship kind of blossomed again. And so that game will forever be my favorite multiplayer game of all time. Simply not because of, like, of course, my brother, but also it's a great freaking game. If you haven't played Battlefield 1, it's. It's. It's. It's up there. It's. It's. It's incredible.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
And not just because I worked on it. It's. It's a really good game.
So. Okay, so you got a brother. A brother who games. Do you have any other siblings or just a brother?
[00:11:48] Speaker B: I do. I have a s as well. She's not a big gamer. She liked. She.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: She.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: She's much older than I am, so she actually became a pilot, an airline pilot, when I was pretty young, so she was all around the world, so I didn't get to see her too too much. But anytime she was home, she wasn't really a big gamer, but she always liked watching my dad and my brother play and myself play as well.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Okay, so you both kind of watch your brother and your dad play sometimes.
Okay, and. And so you. So there was a point where video games and the sort of film and theater side of your life clashed.
But it sounds like maybe in those earlier days they sort of were sort of equal partners maybe, right. That you were. You were sort of enjoying the sort of theatrical side that. That. That part of your life. And also video games at the same time, were they kind of your main passions?
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I. It comes back to, like, I just.
At the end of the day, I just want to entertain people, however that may be. Like, I like, like I said, from a young age, I just wanted to be in the entertainment industry. I wanted to make things or write things or be a part of projects that, you know, just made people feel real emotions, real passions, you know, have them become fans of something. Like, I became a fan of something. Like, I am a huge Metal Gear Solid fan, not only because it was one of my favorite games to watch my brother play, and it's also one of my favorite, you know, series to play right now. But it. It had such an impact on my life that I think I said to myself, I'm like, that's the kind of stuff I want to make. It doesn't necessarily have to be video games, but I want to make things that have such a heavy impact.
It's like the first time you see your favorite movie.
Like, I wanted to make somebody's favorite type of deal, not for the clout, but simply for me wanting to give something back to somebody, to make somebody's day, to make somebody's world better. Like, that's kind of been my thing, and I've bounced around between industries, but I've always had the focus of, like, I'm doing this with a passion, not because I don't have a direction, but more so I have a lot to give. And I like to consider myself a jack of all trades in some fashion. So it's like, if my best foot forward is in games right now, great. If at some point I go back to theater and I get a gig on working on Broadway, which probably won't happen since I'm so out of experience, but if it ever did, like, I would put my same amount of passion I put into my work now into that.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Right, interesting. So.
So this desire to kind of inspire people and, you know, in the same way that you were inspired by sounds like by watching people play.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah, just.
I mean, just watching movies and watching people play and, you know, listen to music, just like trying to figure out why I was being so inspired by something and how I can do that to somebody else as well with something I'm making.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Got it. And then you mentioned that, you know, kind of lighting and, you know, kind of set up almost became something in theater and film that you really loved. Almost like the, you know, the behind the scenes part of it really drew you as opposed to the performing part.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Right, right. It's like I got goosebumps at the end of every theater performance I ever ran. Because while I was working in theater, specifically for the dinner theater in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I was one of the main techs, backstage stagehands. And like, you know, we were running sets, we were, you know, doing scene changes, running flies, helping with, you know, costume changes and all of that stuff.
But it's like a bit of an adrenaline rush because not only, like, yeah, the actors are performing on stage, but you also are performing as a stagehand because you have a part in that show. And so I would get goosebumps at the end of every night when people would start apply, applauding, and all the actors are out doing their first bows. But, like, I know a piece of that applause is for me, and I'm like, this is why I did it, because we just made somebody's night wonderful. Like, that's why we do this. And yeah, like, it was it.
I've never wanted to be, like, the forefront of attention type of thing. And so I think I. I very much veered towards, like, the backstage, like, the behind the scenes ordeal because I find it interesting. I like seeing how things, you know, get put together. I've always loved, you know, puzzles and legos, but because, not because of the finished product, but how you get to that finished product type of deal and, you know, really pushing myself and challenging myself to, you know, do these things. And then, you know that sometimes people look at and say, oh, that looks cool. But then, you know, there's 500 man hours that went into making that thing and somebody just passes by and says it looks cool. I want to celebrate the 500 man hours that went into it instead of the final product, Even though the final product is also great. Don't get me wrong. I think the process and the journey of getting there is what's really, really amazing.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Got it. And it sounds very much like a desire to kind of. This is the wrong word, but kind of enable other people to be successful as well. Right. There seems to be a part of it that is about, you know, my contribution helps these folks do their job better, be better, you know, at what they're doing. Okay.
Interesting. Yeah. Because like looking at your career, like you said, you know, a number of performing arts and theatrical areas that you mentioned, kind of writing Theater Unleashed and various writing roles.
And you mentioned Full Sail as well as somewhere you went. And obviously Full Sail is quite well known for its video game courses. Was there any overlap there? Did you see any or were you very focused on the performing arts?
[00:17:21] Speaker B: I had what was.
Was a very accelerated program. It was a year program where each month was a.
A different subject.
One of them was video game writing and, or writing for video games. And we had to make our own game on twine, you know, text based adventure, which I really love doing. I thought it was great because I had a very much a branching storyline and like some people just did linear. I was like, no, forget that. I'm going branching and trying all that, like challenging myself, trying to figure out. And I love doing that. But my main reason, this can sound funny, but my main reason for going to Full Sail was because back then my goal was to write for the, for World Wrestling Entertainment. I've always been a huge wrestling fan and I loved this, the. The opportunities for storytelling there because not so much during what, 2012-15, like the stories were okay, but like before then, like some of the storylines were incredible and then even some of the storylines now are incredible as well.
And I wanted to do that. And one of my, one of my teachers was actually like the lead writer during the. The Attitude era and all that did like the Undertaker, Prince of Darkness, all, you know, all that stuff. Like his first night was the night mankind got thrown off the Hell in the Cell by, by Undertaker.
So like I, as soon as I learned that he was my teacher, one of my teachers I like, I just confided in him and wanted to understand what I got to do to make it into the business. Because Full Sail is the home of WWE's developmental branch, the NXT.
And so a lot of the students, like the film students there, also run the productions for the filming of the. For the weekly shows. And I wanted to kind of use that to kind of, like, elevate myself and get my foot in the right door. But my teacher kind of told me, it's like if you want to make it as a writer, you got to have, like, TV credits, and if you want TV credits, you got to go to. You got to go to Hollywood and do that whole cake. So that was my plan. Moving out to Los Angeles was trying to build my credit so I could eventually go to the wwe.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Got it. Interesting. And what was it about WWE that kind of drew you that. I mean, there's a. There's a huge theatrical element to wwe. So I presume, like, you mentioned the stories, right?
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Just. Yeah, yeah. It was mainly just, you know, the opportunities for storytelling. I mean, the stage is a very powerful setting for storytelling, and I thought, you know, what's better than being able to tell a story and then just have two people, like, duke it out or four people duke it out as a part of that story? I mean, there's fights and action and stories and movies all the time, but doing that on a live stage setting, like, it's. It's incredible.
So it really drew me because I saw a lot of opportunity there, and that's just kind of where my. I guess my creative.
My creative juices were flowing towards at the time.
And, yeah, like. Like I said, if it wasn't for me getting into games, I probably still would be in LA trying to make it, trying to write for the wwe.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Got it. Okay. Yeah, I could. Yeah, it sounds like at one point it was a real passion, a real destination for you. Yeah. So.
So let's go back a little bit to the point where. So you move out to la.
You know, you're trying to. Trying to find your. Find your place there. And then you mentioned you kind of almost stumbled on the qa. The QA role.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just looking for a legit job. Like, I liked my internship where I was just. I was reading scripts and providing coverage on these scripts and, you know, getting into the nitty gritty of how a film production company works in la.
Super cool.
You know, a lot of cutthroatness, though. You know, that type of deal. But, yeah, I needed. I just needed a job. Like, I needed money, honestly, to stay, and I didn't want to go back to the children's theater I was working for because I felt like I did Everything I needed to do there, personally.
I mean, I could have if I wanted to, but I wanted to kind of brand my. Or expand my horizons a little bit. And so I just started looking. And I remember every time I drove out to, like, LAX or pick somebody up from lax, like, Square Enix's offices right there next to lax, and I was always seeing them, like, man, Square Enix. Like, I remember playing or watching my brother play Final Fantasy VII and then us playing Final Fantasy 10 together and all that stuff. So it just dawned on me that, like, let me just check to see if they have something. And I looked it up and they had a. Like I said, they have a QA contract position open.
I applied to it, and I. It's one of those situations, like I said, where games were always kind of that untouchable force that I don't think I would ever do.
And then I got the. I got the email from the. The hiring agency saying, like, hey, they want you to come in, do their. Their interview process and all that stuff. I was like, oh, cool, this sounds fun. And then, like I said, when I walk through the front doors and kind of went in there, I was like, yeah, this feels like home. It might not be like, Square Enix might not be my home, but, yeah, the gaming industry feels like home.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Got it. So, yeah, so that was the thing I was going to. I was going to scratch out is you also mentioned that you sort of games felt untouchable. Right. Something that you never felt. So they were clearly a passion for you throughout all this time, but they were sort of something that you just had no concept. So at no point did you think, I can make games. I just enjoy consuming them and watching them and.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah. I think it comes down to, like, from what was available for a kid like me growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. Like, there were documentaries galore about how this band made this album. Yep. How Martin Scorsese made Raging Bull. You know what I mean? Like, there was just countless documentaries about how this was made. And I'm like, you know, I would watch those and say, like, oh, these are actual humans doing these things. I got to be able to do that. But for games, like, the Internet was very much in its infancy, so anything you did see was either very hard to find, but then there was no, like, theatrical documentary releases on any kind of gaming or if there was, I wasn't seeing.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Because that's not what HBO was premiering on Saturday night type of deal. So it was more of an untouchable thing. Because I didn't understand how a video game came together.
I didn't know what it was all about. I didn't know what programming was. I didn't know what art design was. I didn't know how one person, or, sorry, multiple people created this one character, put it in the game, made it move, made it to all these functions with all these systems, all of that stuff. No idea. And so it was more of a.
I think it's untouchable because I just don't know anything about it.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: And if my younger self. If I could go back to my younger self, I would convince myself to at least read a book about how it's done, because then I would have known. But like I said, my. My passion, my focus was on, like, filmmaking and getting into that part of the entertainment industry and then getting into theater and all that stuff.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And it makes a lot of sense to me that this desire that you had to entertain.
In many ways, filmmaking is a much more at that, especially at that time, was a much more accessible thing where you could literally pick up a camera and make a short film or a film, you know, fairly easily. And even though there were maybe mapping programs, you know, Doom and Quake and some of those things, there was modding tools. Right. But that's a level of complexity and a level of obscurity that is, you know, much not as immediate, I guess, as filmmaking.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah, like, games were very much a hobby. Like, you know, I had some PC games like the one I played religiously with my friends with soldiers of Fortune 2 back in the day. And, you know, but they were just a hobby.
You know, it's something I went home and I played with my friends on, you know, played wars, played World of Warcraft, but, you know, they were just a hobby. You know, there was something. I don't think I could. I could make something like this. And it's one of those things, like, in my very adolescent mind, it's like, are these things even made? Like, I couldn't even put 2 and 2 to how these things are made. I can see how if I watch a movie, like, I can see, like, oh, I see where the camera's set up. And like, you know, this is where they said action and this is where they said cut type of deal. But then, like, when you look at how play a video game back then, it's like, I don't even know where to start, how this is put together. How do you even, like, you know, create the base world?
Like, all of that stuff. So I think my, my, like I said, my adolescent mind just kind of blocked it out and just said just play it as a hobby. Just do that and just be happy type of deal.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Very opaque, you know, very, very, very difficult to, you know, to, to understand for sure.
Oh yeah, so, so you mentioned when you sort of walked in the door of Square Enix and you kind of met the people, you kind of felt like you were home. How do you correlate that? Like what, what were the similarities that you saw? You kind of mentioned personality maybe as one of them.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Like I think everybody just had a passion. Like it's, it's a, it's a, it's a different kind of passion. You walk in and everybody genuinely seemed happy where they worked. Like that was another thing. Like I, back then, yeah, I've heard, I heard the horror stories about game development and crunch time and all that stuff. But like when I walked in I saw people happy. And I don't remember ever a time in my professional career like outside of entertainment, you know, when I was working first time gigs at like a furniture warehouse, moving furniture or a movie theater. I don't remember a time walking in and everybody was just happy to be there.
And when I walked in, the receptionist was happy, the people interviewing me were happy. And then once I got the job, everybody I interacted with was just happy because they were working on something they truly loved, they were passionate about. And it wasn't just about the money either. You know, when you, when you work on film sets or work with, you know, other places, like there's always just this, this, this lingering thing about money just kind of in the background. So people are, you know, people need jobs, people need to support themselves, of course.
But then passion can, you know, you can lose your passion but still do a job, but then you just won't be very happy about it because you lost your passion. It's not about the money. So that's what I really liked about it was that the people were just genuinely happy and were just, you know, interesting people as well, coming from all sorts of different backgrounds, some that went to school for game design or people that were just like me who had a hodgepodge of different things in the industry, in entertainment industry and then just fell into games type of deal.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm guessing for you, you know, personally not having had any, any aspirations to make games, but, but knowing the power that they have to entertain, I can imagine there was an instant like, wait, these are people like me doing the Thing that I love to do, you know, in. You know, in. In a genre, in a. An industry that I. That I love to be, you know, I love.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Right. And honestly, to this day, I don't understand why, like, as my young self, I didn't put the two and two together about, like, the amount of emotional kind of resonance a movie can have can happen the same way in video games. Because I was obviously inspired by games throughout my life, but I think I fully looked at them as a hobby, so I didn't. I guess I did take the inspiration the same way, but, like, you know, being able to inspire people, being able to hit people with different emotions in video games is. Is. Is 100%, obviously, one of the best things about video games across the board and making video games. And I don't know why my young mind didn't connect those two and say, hey, what you're trying to do in movies, you can also do in video games too, dude. Like, you know, it's kind of the same thing.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: It is. But I think your point about how, you know, the opaqueness of. Of one industry versus the other sort of made that seem less attainable, you know, the video game side. Less attainable. And maybe that, you know, I'm maybe reaching here, but that moment when you walked into Squeenix and kind of got a role there, you were like, oh, it can happen. It does.
Now I understand it. And now immediately it all clicks. And I think it's fascinating that you're absolutely right. Right. You can get people that are just there for the money. You went there because you needed money.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: I did.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: But you immediately found your calling. Almost Right. You found, oh, this is. This is where I'm meant to be kind of thing.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: Right. It was very much one of those things where I needed the money because I still had other focuses I had. I needed to continue writing and trying to get into Hollywood and all that stuff.
So I needed the money. So I was very much getting into it for the money. But then, like I said, when I started working with the people there, the passion that came through, I love that was just. It was incredible. And yeah, I think at that point as well, like, all of my recollections about video games started coming back.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Like why certain games were so impactful. I just didn't realize it. Like I said, Metal Gear Solid.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: I think I actually wrote an essay on why I, to this day, still think the Joker in Arkham Knight is like the best use of a villain in video games ever.
Because it's just you have that history.
You have, you. You have the mechanic of it all.
So, like, like I said, like, once I started working there, all of my recollections and understanding of video games have actually had a very big impact on my life. I just never knew it. I wasn't taking it that way. And then that made me say, like, okay, what's my favorite game of all time? What's this? What's that? Like, what have I played that I truly remember and was impactful and all that stuff? Because as soon as my passion for, or seeing everybody's passion for video games in that office, it ignited my own passion for video games and reminded me, I love it. It's an incredible art form. I should have been doing this much sooner.
Damn it, let's go.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: You know. Yeah, but you found it. Yeah. And it sort of unlocked that, that thing in your. That's. That's such a great story.
And so you're at Square for, you know, for a few months and then you moved over to, to Eso?
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I moved. I moved back east because I had met my now wife and I wanted to be closer to her. But I, you know, very much told her, like, I'm moving back, but I'm still.
I need to do games. I need to be in games. I have to do this. So I was in the Northern Virginia area, so the, the closest studios were Bethesda.
And I wasn't even looking at Zos.
I just saw on Bethesda's website they have, you know, all the Studios or, sorry, ZeniMax's website, they have all the studio under the Zenimax umbrella. And I saw a QA contract role for Zenimax and I applied and I had to go through the interview process and I remember I didn't hear anything back. And I think to make money, I was working at a movie theater at the time and my, my now wife told me like, hey, you should call. If you haven't gotten a call back in a week, you should call them. And I was like, yeah, you're right. So I called the recruiter, don't remember his name, but I called the recruiter and basically told me, hey, it's between you and someone else. So do you have any references? And I was like, oh, yes, I do. And I gave him references and I ended up getting the job. So that was really cool. But the crazy thing about it was I lived in Manassas, Virginia. The offices of Zenimax Online Studios is in Hunt Valley, Maryland.
And that is A good without traffic, hour and a half, two hour drive.
So in order for me to make it there by 9am every morning, I had to leave at six and I was stuck in traffic for three and a half hours.
Two and then three and a half hours back every day for.
Until Covid hit.
So like I, like I said, my passion was ignited and we didn't consider moving closer to Maryland or anything like that simply just because tax purposes and all that stuff.
But like I was driven. Like I wanted to do this, I dedicated myself to doing this and I actually lost a car doing this.
I got into an accident and totaled my car. So I, I got a new car during the whole process and continued to make the trip because I loved gaming. But then I especially love Zos so much and what we were doing that.
Yeah, so that's, that's a little tidbit about kind of the. What passion actually does to a person.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Overall. Yeah. Yeah. As someone that had an epically long commute, you know, in la, I can sympathize. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's a lot of time in the car, but the job is worth it, you know.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: And, and so yeah. So you started this contract and then you went full time.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: On eso and so you stayed in qa, you know, for a couple of years. You know, a few years working your way up to lead and around. So around sort of January 23rd, you kind of transition into a technical producer.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Talk to me about that. Trans that transition. Like how did that happen, you know.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Well, going back to like my time on eso, I was mainly on the Dungeons Arenas and Trials team.
So one of the things, like I had to get very good at the game. I had to be like a player wise because we balanced the content for the Dungeons Arenas and Trials and they wanted to balance these to like the 1% or sorry, at least the hardest difficulty level. They wanted to balance these to the 1% players because that's, that was, that was, that was a big draw for those players. So I had to get very good at the game. So I, I not only got very good at the game, I fell in love with the game. Not only because I was working on it, but because it's a fantastic game. But it also allowed me to start studying how the game was made.
Because in qa, at least on eso, we had the opportunity to kind of sometimes use the tools that developers were using to kind of make our own, like little test things just to test out the tools and the pipeline in general.
Overall and I loved kind of setting up my own person and spawners and effects and all that stuff. I thought that was really cool. And so when I moved over to the unannounced MMO project, we were kind of the first wave of QA on that team.
A lot of the testing wasn't for content anymore. I was strictly used to just testing dungeons, arenas and trials and doing some art passes for the content team and all that stuff. I wasn't used to testing tools and how like full on testing tools, not just using them real quick to make sure the pipeline works and the system works and submission works, but you know, testing how, how to break a tool that people are using, how to, how these tools are put together, how the assets are managed, how things are submitted, how are they making into the game in the nightly builds. Like all that stuff I had to learn. And so I very much started generating a passion for kind of technical game development. More of that, like we said earlier, the behind the scenes stuff.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: Understanding, like it's cool. Like I love seeing an artist and tech artists like, you know, model and rig a character and bringing it to life. But what really interests me is how they get to that point, how did, are they able to rig? And you can just say, oh, they're just working in Unity or they're working in Unreal yet. But it's more complicated than that. Because what a lot of people don't know about game development is like, yeah, you can use these engines, but a lot of the times the teams working with these engines are creating their own custom toolings and workflows to make their game. And what is that that they're doing, how does that work? And so built a passion for that. So I had to know the tools really well. And I think at some point I kind of became the designated kind of support specialist because we had so many new people joining the team that needed to know how to use these workflows. And I was like the only, not the only one, but one that was available the majority of the time because a lot of engineers were heads down and other stuff that I could help people start understanding how these tools and things work. And I think I showed that I could handle those kinds of, not only those requests, but those kinds of items when it comes to game development.
And so I got tapped on the shoulder about a technical producer position and I was kind of told like, I should try applying and I did.
But it wasn't, it wasn't like cakewalk. Sure it was. You know, I was in being hired from internal, but I had to go through the whole interview process and, you know, I. I flubbed up quite a bit and I had to figure things out and I had to really prove myself during those interviews. So.
But yeah, eventually I moved into the technical production role, and then my entire world changed, Alex, because now I was on a different, completely different side of game development.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Yeah, that's sort of why I was digging at it, because, yeah, the QA side, that inspired your passion, Right, or reignited your passion for games. And, you know, there's a correlation there, I think, between being an integral part in making sure that the entertainment the players get is robust and fun. They're getting the best experience, which to me kind of correlates with who you are as a person, I think.
But then the technical production, you kind of mentioned it, Right. I think getting into that more, that more back room, behind the scenes stuff is much more. Is a different world. You know, you are. It's a different. You're serving a different audience. Start with, I mean, indirectly you're serving the player, but more directly you're serving the. The team itself.
So. Yeah, how do, how does that, how do you. How do you think that experience, that role connected with you and your passions?
[00:39:11] Speaker B: I think it came back to the. To the same feeling I had when I was doing, like, technical theater, where I knew what I did enabled the people that put the product together, put the game together and theater, the show together.
And being able to be a part of the process in that way was like, you know, I very much felt like.
Like I found a lot of.
Of, sorry, I'm losing my words here. I found a lot of encouragement come from the fact that I was helping others do what they wanted to do, and that was very rewarding overall. And just. Just simply, like from the. From the technical side of game development, you literally build things from scratch, which is great. And I love kind of bringing things into existence like that. And so I think that's what really ignited my passion on that front was like, okay, we have a problem, we got to build a solution, and we literally need to sit in a room and whiteboard this out and figure it out. But it's the same thing for, you know, if you're doing a new encounter or a new boss fight or coming up with a new armor set, you're whiteboarding out. It's just. I preferred being on the technical side of it because I was like, okay, we got to do this so that all these other people can do that. You know, there is no game without kind of like the technical side of it. And I kind of. I kind of like that. But at the same time, there's no game without designers. There's no game without tech artists. There's no game without animation.
So I liked fitting into that role within the puzzle.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I think correlates a lot with who you are as a person. I think, you know, like you said, that role is, you know, you remember from my time, you know, working with you, that's such an important role.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: That involves, you know, trying to make people's experience the best it can be, you know, but constantly under the. Under the pressure of it's not always where it needs to be, especially on, you know, a tool set that as we, you know, kind of building a toolset from scratch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot to do there.
Okay. So.
So, you know, obviously you went from associate to technically as full technical producer. And, you know, there was a time, you know, on the project where you were the fate. You know, many ways you were kind of the face of that interface between developer, you know, internal developer and tools people, also internal. But, you know, they are sort of two sides of the same coin.
And knowing who you are now and knowing your origin, which I didn't know until now, it makes so much sense how good you were at that. Right. Because I think there's a part of the role there that you did so well, which was being the face of the tools. Being the face of hey person struggling in the tools to get something to happen. I'm here to help make your life better. Tell me what your problem was. You were really good at that. And it makes a lot of sense to me that your theatrical background, you're kind of. That background that you have of kind of wanting people to have the best experience kind of seems to overlap really well. Made you have made you excel at that, I think.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's kind of interesting now that I think back on it, like, it's almost like I was kind of destined to go this path, you know?
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: We always talk about fate and like, some people have it figured out from a T, like they know exactly what they want to do. And I thought that was me. And I kept bouncing around, but I always knew, like I said, I want to be in the entertainment industry. But then after getting into technical production and truly understanding what it is to be a producer in game development overall, like, it just. It was easy for me to kind of hearken back to all my experiences and Just say, I've always been kind of meant to do this. I've already been doing this just in a lot of different ways. So all those skills I generated from, you know, TV production in high school, to theater in high school, to filmmaking in theater in college, to making a short film in con France or can't. Con. Can. Can France can, I think at the Cannes Film Festival, which I was actually a producer on, which is kind of funny.
And then, you know, going into back to theater, getting into writing, all that stuff, like all that skill set kind of like allowed me to prepare myself for this, and I wasn't even knowing I was preparing myself for it.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, just as you were talking, like, you know, coming up with stuff from scratch, right. The writing part that you did, you know, there's an element of that, right. You know, just trying to manifest it out of nothing. I'm sure the productions that you did, there was a lot of high pressure, right? There were a lot of times where, you know, stuff was on the line and you had to be calm and cool and, you know, organize, you know, and then obviously the technical side being kind of someone that was attuned to the more technical elements, I mean, had to pick them up and understand them, you know, even to the fact that, you know, clearly you're a gamer and capable of hitting very high levels in games, right? Not everyone's capable of that. Not everyone has the mechanics, technical skill, and, you know, you clearly did. So, yeah, like you say, it feels like there was a lot of overlap with who you were as, you know, what you'd learned up to that point, that really came to the fore. And, you know, it's very much how I felt about my role Zos as well. It sort of felt like it was the best version of me.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: Right?
Yeah, yeah, I think. And that's something to call out about Zos in general is I. I feel like it. It brought out the best versions of people and their skills and their careers across the board because we. We truly were doing some incredible things there.
And yeah, I just want to shout out to Zos about all that here, here.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: And I think that's something that gamers, right, who are so focused on the end products.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:44:45] Speaker A: Maybe don't correlate, you know, like you were saying, right. There was a period where video games, production of video games was so opaque. I think it's better now, but it's still quite opaque that there is this, this human element of the team's success and the team's capability and the, and the studio's atmosphere and you know, that can have such an impact on that out, you know, and it's so invisible, right? Because you're just, look, you're just staring at the end products and going, this game sucks. Or this game's great. But there's that human element of the people coming together that makes such a difference.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And while there are some games that get released that I feel like are pushed out way too soon for a variety of reasons that I'm not going to know, I full well know that nine times out of 10, that project had a lot of love, blood, sweat and tears put into it by a whole bunch of people. And, you know, I sympathize with every single person that is in game development, actively working in it, that can call themselves a game developer because it is, it is not easy at all. And that's. And I get a little irked anytime I see like, you know, the initial ratings come out of a game and you got people just kind of already giving scathing reviews of the game because the game isn't like the original or isn't like the sequel. And I'm like, but, you know, let's focus on what it does really well and the fact that it was made first of all and pushed out as a triple A title, that in and of itself is, Is a feat. And it's why a whole bunch of recruiters want to look at your ship titles to see what you did. Like, that's the reason it's there, because they know it's not. It's not easy and they need that experience overall.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I think that dovetails into my next question, which was how. How is being in the industry affected the way you play and consume games?
[00:46:30] Speaker B: Oh, man, I definitely notice a lot more, especially being in QA when you're looking for. For bugs constantly, you find bugs really easily. Always found bugs in games. But, you know, escaping the world is a lot easier now for me than it was originally. But, you know, I can kind of tell, you know, you can tell when you know where a trigger volume is for something now because you understand what it is.
You know, growing up, it was always like, man, why does this cutscene always start right after this door? That seems really odd. And now I'm like, oh, well, I know exactly why that happens and how it works type of deal.
But as a gamer myself, I, I think back in the day, like, I tried to rush through stuff too much. Like I tried to be. For example, I tried to play the Very first Halo and just get through it and didn't really take the time I needed to really absorb everything about it. Absorb the story, absorb the characters, absorb everything. I just wanted to beat it, to say, hey, I beat this game.
Same for, like, the original Grand Theft Autos and all that stuff. And then I think when I played the original Mafia, which is my favorite game, I was really young, but it was like that inkling of that moment where I realized, man, I should play games slower, because with Mafia, if you rushed, you got in trouble. Because in that game, there were speed limits, there was gas in the car, there was an actual story that was really beefy and you needed to sink your teeth into type of deal. And so now that I've kind of worked in games, I take my time through things. I don't like to stress when I play games anymore, unless it's a FromSoftware title, because the stress just comes regardless. But I used to be all about beating games on the hardest difficulty and just not having a great time. Now I play games on, like, the easiest difficulty. Unless it's something like the. The Resident Evil remakes, where the Inferno mode completely changes the game and how it's played and where the enemy spawn and stuff like that. Like, that's super cool. But then I always play a game on Easy when I first started because I just want to absorb every single thing about it, to just not only make myself better as a developer and an entertainer, but just to truly celebrate what these people did and what they put together.
Because I can look on IGN and see, oh, a game got a five. But then I play it and it's like, I think it's an incredible game.
I see why it got a five. But there was a lot of hard work that went into this type of deal.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So sort of broader appreciation for not only the technology, but also the effort. And like you. Like you mentioned before. Right. The. The. The hours of the journey less than the destination. Right. Being. Being kind of drawn to understanding that more now that you've. You've worked in games.
And I'm curious. I mean, you mentioned, you know, loving ESO and having to get really good at ESO. Are MMOs kind of a passion for you?
[00:49:23] Speaker B: Or.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Or is it, you know, is that something you normally play?
[00:49:26] Speaker B: Not really. Like, I played Guild Wars 1 was my very first.
My very first MMO. And that was. I saw the game in Walmart when I was like, I don't know, 10, 11, and I was like, this looks cool, because I like the armor the guy was wearing on the front. I thought it was super cool. I want to play this. Didn't know what the heck an MMO was. And then I realized, oh, I'm playing with other people all at the same time. Like, this is really cool.
And to this day, the best guild I was ever a part of was on Guild Wars. Like. Like, I forgot what the guild name was, but they were the most incredible people I've met on a game. And that guild transitioned over to World of Warcraft. And so then I sunk my teeth into World of Warcraft. But then as soon as I hit 60, I quit. Because that grind is ridiculous. The original, if you go play vanilla, wow, you do that grind to 60 without bots, like, it's. It's insane. And I think everybody should do it because I think it's a rite of passage for people in gaming to do the original grind.
But from there I think I played. I played Guild Wars 2 for a little bit, but then after that, it really wasn't a passion. And I remember talking in my interview for getting into Zos, they asked me, like, you know, do you play MMOs? And I told them straight up, like, I used to raid in. Wow. I haven't. I've never touched eso. I've watched a couple streamers play eso. I think it looks cool and I would really like to work on it type of deal.
But I was straight up honest with them because I wasn't gonna lie to them, of course.
And then, yeah, once I got the job and started playing ESO, there was a. You know, I love. I think MMOs are an incredible genre. They're not my go to for. For a lot of things. But eso, I just developed such a love for it because of, I guess, you know, I got really good at it. But then just how rich that game actually is.
Like, they're.
You can pump a thousand hours into that game and still have 3,000 hours left to do. Like, there's so much content in that game. And I know some people just run dungeons or just run trials or just do overland content, just do PvP, but like, you do all of that together. It's so rich and vast. And I think that's what I really loved about it because it's such an incredible product that there's just. There's endless, endless things you can do in that game. And it's all. It's all fulfilling. Like, it's all fleshed out stories with all voice acting. And I think what bugged me about World of Warcraft back in the day, I think they do it now. But World of Warcraft back in the day, it's like, it's all reading. Like when you get a quest, you're reading it and there's no, you know, quest markers telling you where to go, which I still like. I like reading something and trying to figure out what I need to do. But I think the fact that, that almost every, almost every quest in ESO has full voice acting throughout is incredible because that's incredible writing, that's incredible voice acting direction. Those are incredible voice actors because it's, it's a lot.
[00:52:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I'm curious, you know you mentioned. So there's a couple of MMOs you mentioned sort of playing Battlefield 1 with you, with your brother.
Are you more of a multiplayer gamer or a single player gamer?
[00:52:34] Speaker B: I'm more of a single player gamer. I love multiplayer games. Don't get me wrong. Like I was there for the original Destiny.
I pre ordered Destiny. I was there for, I think I went through until Rise of Iron. I think that was my last expansion. So I was there for quite a bit.
Played a lot of Halo 2 online, but it was multiplayer. Has always been about hanging out with my friends. It's never been about being competitive. I tried doing MLG Pro things on Halo and immediately stopped because I saw I'm not good enough for it.
So I wasn't going to kid myself.
But no, I am more of a single player, narrative driven gamer or something I really love to do is kind of play with simulation within games. So like in sports games or in wrestling games, setting up like CPU for CPU matches and playing with sliders and playing with values on different stats just to see like what the outcome is and try to get the most realistic kind of outcome as I can or you know, experience as I can because at the end of the day I've always loved watching people play video games. And if I can, if I can, like, you know, as I'm working on something like pop, pop a game on and just like have it playing in the background type of thing of like something I set up, I can just kind of see what the results are. I find that really interesting. I also really like you know, the interactive story games like Telltale games as well as supermassive games.
I think when until dawn came out, I think I, I played that game so much and I speed, I was, I speed ran it like I think I could beat in like under four hours or something like that. But like I played that game so much because it was.
It was so damn good.
And like, after playing, like, Walking Dead, the first Walking Dead game, and living through the. Having to wait two months per episode to play through that, I was like, oh, my God, this is. This is such an incredible, like, genre of video game. And then until dawn came out and I said, okay, this just blew the roof off everything because these are gonna. This is gonna change the map. And I think what Supermassive has done since then has been really great.
And so what I. And what I really like about those now is that they have the director's mode, so you can literally set what, like, how the character's at and then hit play and it plays out the whole game for you. Like, I think that's great.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:57] Speaker B: So it's nice to see that those types of gamers are thought of because I know we're kind of few and far between, but, yeah, simulation stuff is really kind of my bread and butter. It's what I mainly did on my Twitch channel, so it's really cool.
[00:55:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And again, it goes right back to what you need. Your brother and your dad play.
Yeah. So as you start to wind this down, just a couple of last couple of questions. How does your family relate to your video game profession, your gaming?
[00:55:29] Speaker B: My parents or my family has always been super supportive, but they.
They were. They were military. Like, my. Both my parents were Navy dentists. So they were, you know, up at 4:30 every day, come home at 4 every day, like, you know, rinse and repeat everything. But they were always super supportive and wanted me to kind of go for my dreams type of deal.
But, you know, they were also very realistic. You know, they're saying, like, you can do this, but you need to be able to support yourself. You need to be able to cook for yourself. You need to be able to do all these things for myself. So I was. I was raised very well in that aspect.
And.
But I mean, like I said, my dad and my brother were big gamers. My mom. My mom's not really a gamer, but she tried playing Link to the Past once and didn't get out of the castle. She just turned it off and said, I can't do this. I don't want to be chased type of thing.
But, you know, they always. They always love the fact that.
Especially when I started working at Zos or no, frankly, when Dissidia launched and I sent them a screenshot of my name in the credits type of thing, I think they were super proud of me of that. So that was really cool. But they've always been super supportive. They don't really know what I do and what goes into it and I don't reveal too much at all. But anytime an expansion was coming out for Eso, I would show them the trailer just to say, this is what I'm working on type of deal. And then my brother, he, he's really into music. He, he. He's a phenomenal guitar player. He's in a couple bands in the Portland, Oregon area. But he, he mainly fell into the, the realm of shipping and driving ships and things like that. So that's what his real passion was.
But yeah, no, never, never any kind of animosity or anything towards what I do. It's more so they always wanted to make sure, like what I'm doing I love, but I'm also being able to support myself and I'm being realistic. I'm not, you know, trying to shoot for something I can't do and just kind of, you know, hitting, hitting myself in the head over and over until it doesn't make sense anymore type of deal where it's like, you know, I'm constantly having to move back with them because my, I had a fail endeavor type of thing. Like they wanted me to be realistic about everything. So it's also very much why I became an emt, because I was like, I can do theater but it ain't gonna pay much first few years, so I gotta have something in my back pocket. Luckily the job I did land, I was able to support myself. So. But that isn't always the case and you just have to kind of be realistic about things.
[00:57:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it makes sense.
I'm curious, just one quick aside related to that. You mentioned moving to la, right? You know, the sort of the fantasy of moving to LA and trying to land a job in Hollywood, did they relate to that more or less than the. I've got a job in video games. Right. Did one of them scare them more? You know, was one of them, did one of them seem more risky than the other?
[00:58:20] Speaker B: Like me going to LA definitely scared them more because that was like me leaving the nest. Yeah, me going to LA and trying this thing because my parents have been in the military for umpty number of years and then my mom became a government contractor. So the idea of moving somewhere without kind of a sure thing set up or something stable set up was really frightening for them. And then, you know, I'm moving from Northern Virginia to skid row Los Angeles also freaked them out quite a bit.
So yeah, it Was it scared them. But they, they supported me, they had confidence in me and I reassured them, like, I knew what I was doing. You know, I may not know where my job, next job is, but I know I'm passionate enough and talented enough to, to do whatever it is I need to do.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: Yeah, they obviously saw that in you and encouraged you. I love that.
So, just final question as which do you think defines you more?
Developer or gamer?
[00:59:21] Speaker B: That is a tough question.
Professionally, a developer, but casually, I'm a gamer, I guess.
[00:59:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:59:27] Speaker B: Best way to say it, like, if, if, if I'm meeting new people and like, you know, they say like, you know, you know, what do you do for fun? Type video. What do I say? I'm a gamer, period. And then they asked me, you know, what do you do for work? I was like, I develop video games. You know, I don't meet people and say, hey, I'm Matt Brunhofer, I'm a developer, you know, type of thing. You know, it's one of those, like, I try to keep my professional life separated from my personal life as much as possible, but there's no denying that one of my favorite hobbies is also what I do professionally.
So I always have that connection. So I think I'm defined by both, honestly. But when it's 9am and I'm in my 9 to 5, I'm a developer. When it's 5 or 6 o', clock, I'm a gamer type of deal.
[01:00:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that sort of. It's a weird question to ask because it's a hard one to answer, I think. But I think it sounds like we're very similar, that, you know, what we do as a job overlaps with who we are as what we do for fun and therefore who we are as a person.
And I think your story, like so many of the stories that I've, I've, you know, I've discussed, we've had on this podcast, is one where the passion that you had, maybe even in a different field, in your case, it was manifested itself in video games and then became, you know, the defining part of your career.
And, you know, in your case kind of unlocked this, like, oh, yeah, no, video games are my passion. They're everything I want to do.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: And I think that's it. Yeah, it was that light bulb that clicked, man. I just said, yeah, this, this is it. This, this is, this is it. And took me a while to figure it out.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: But you got there.
[01:01:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I got there.
[01:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's what makes being a developer so interesting. Right. Because it is a role that can so heavily bleed into you as a person. You, you know, what you do in and out of work can be so. Can overlap so much so well. Yeah. Matt, I really appreciate your time. Yeah.
[01:01:26] Speaker B: Thank you for having me on here, man.
[01:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's great. And a fascinating story. I love especially any, you know, a story that kind of starts, you know, has this unusual path to get here is so great. So thank you for taking the time, and I really appreciate it. Yeah.
[01:01:40] Speaker B: Thank you.
