Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to the last episode of season one of Dev to Dev, the podcast about everyday video game developers and why they do what they do every day. But today, it is not about one developer and it's not about me a little bit, but it's mostly about reviewing season one.
[00:00:21] I want to wrap season one with this last episode and then take a small break before I kick off season two, too.
[00:00:29] And so I thought it would be fun just to take, you know, a little bit of your time to do my textbook waffle. Those that have worked with me will know I love a waffle and sort of walk through the season, what my sort of takeaways are from it, what I want to do with it and. And sort of gets an opportunity to just sort of, I don't know, express how I feel about the season and what I think I've learned, what I think I can do better and where I want to go, like I said. So if you'll indulge me a little bit of your time just to do this. It's not gonna be a long episode, it's not gonna be a full episode, but I think it's gonna be fun to do and I would love feedback.
[00:01:11] I appreciate everybody that's given me feedback on the show.
[00:01:15] You know, both people I know and people that I don't.
[00:01:18] I really appreciate those that are listening to it. It's a modest group, and that's flattering. Like, I'm excited that anybody wants to listen to it, honestly.
[00:01:28] I've enjoyed the conversations, all of the conversations, so much, and I'm excited to keep doing them. I'm excited to keep chatting to people that I know and. And, you know, speaking a little bit about season two, trying to focus a little bit on people that I don't know, for those that don't know or maybe, you know, haven't picked up on it.
[00:01:51] Season one was very focused on Zos, Senimax online studios mostly. Pretty much all colleagues that I either worked with directly on the project when it was closed and when it was cancelled, Project Blackbird when it was canceled or had left not long before, but I had a close relationship with from my time on Project Blackbird.
[00:02:14] Many of you have probably seen, you know, probably saw those news reports when the project got shut down and we all got, you know, let go.
[00:02:23] And I wanted to spend some time in season one really focusing on that experience. I think, as I said in the intro, the podcast is never meant to get anyone fired or, like, reveal any scoops or secrets. It's really focused on trying to dig into the human stories of the people that I speak to.
[00:02:42] And I think for most of us that were on Blackbird, what's happened, what happened to it is part of that human story.
[00:02:51] But I didn't spend much time focusing on it specifically. It came up many times throughout many episodes, and I think the ripple effects of it, both during and after, can be heard either in direct dialogue or in the echoes of what people are talking about.
[00:03:07] But I really wanted to give people that had gone through that experience an opportunity to speak to it, speak to who they are as developers and to those of us, you know, those that hadn't been on the podcast, but hopefully were listening to hear a bit more about folks they'd worked with. You know, I'd worked with everyone that I spoke to, you know, in season one I'd worked with closely or, you know, directly, certainly.
[00:03:32] And. And there were lots about them that I didn't know, even having worked with some of them for over four years. And that's, you know, a big part of what this podcast is about, is to uncover those stories and walk through those experiences and.
[00:03:46] And try and use it as a way of understanding what it truly means to be a video game developer.
[00:03:53] And looking back over season one, watching the clips, you know, that I use to sort of summarize the episodes, I feel super proud that people felt comfortable to come on this podcast and reveal those stories, you know, and reveal those human elements.
[00:04:10] There's definitely things I could have done better. I think the format. I think I've sort of settled into a format that I like.
[00:04:19] But reflecting on the season, I think there's parts of it that are maybe become a little bit formulaic and, you know, focusing so much on the career path from start to where they are now, and then trying to cram a few questions in at the end, you know, that I use as sort of regularly throughout the episodes, I think could be a little better. I like the focus on the career because I think ultimately that's where the human stories come from, right? Where that journey, you know, hearing people reflect on that journey and how it's impacted them, what decisions they made, what decisions they didn't make.
[00:04:54] I think really is the bones of it, right? That's where that. That's a great catalyst for getting to those. Those stories.
[00:05:01] But I think I could do more to kind of frame the questions and frame the. The exploration of that history in a way that digs even deeper.
[00:05:12] We'll see. I'm going to try and do that in season two and again, would love feedback on that. If people feel like I'm doing it well, doing it poorly could do it better. Have other ideas. Please feel free to reach out to me and any of the, you know, the guests, many of whom I continue to speak to, you know, since we recorded our episode. If you have feedback or, or thoughts having part, participated, I would, I would love that. But please do it in public if you can, so that, you know, it can be a dialogue. You don't have to DM me privately. I'm an open book. You know, I'd love to explore, as I like to work, right. I'd love to explore that development process and show the working.
[00:05:49] So I think taking a bit of time to kind of look at some general takeaways throughout the 17 episodes that I've done in season one, there are some patterns. I think the number of times that I got lucky it came up was fascinating. I've always felt that about my career. So it was fascinating to hear so many other people, you know, unprompted, sort of bring that up and say, yeah, I can't believe this happened. I'm lucky there. And I do think something that Zach said during, I think it was episode 12 was Zach, he sort of mentioned the. The classic phrase of, you know, luck is preparedness, meeting, opportunity. And that really stuck with me, you know, throughout the subsequent episodes and reflecting back on the earlier episodes that, and you may have heard me sort of refer to that in a couple of the episodes that I think people that have managed to, you know, parlay those, those situations into a meaningful career. Yes, there's a, you know, luck is a way of looking at it, but I do think you were in the right place at the right time with the right level of preparedness for that to happen.
[00:07:00] You know, when I think about Landon's story about basically being thrust into an art show that led to him, you know, being presented his own resume from his professor and going and getting a job, you know, as much as he self doubted himself, clearly people saw the prepare, the preparedness and the, you know, the opportunity that he was, you know, that he was the stage that he was at. And, you know, the luck played out really well. And I think there's multiple stories, you know, Lehman's story about, you know, being very, from episode six, about being very focused on art and finding his way into game development when not, you know, using it as a way of effectively, you know, finding his way into concept art and using as sort of a cover almost and then discovering narrative design as a piece that he didn't even really focus on his talents, you know, that he had talents in leading to a meaningful career.
[00:07:58] You know, I think there's lots of stories throughout, throughout all 17 episodes of this, and I've heard that word come up a lot.
[00:08:05] And I think it's interesting, I think it's interesting to reflect. I, I, I wonder if in the modern era that's as commonly considered now that there are many more courses and many more quote, unquote, pathways into game development. I think a lot of us that have been, you know, not all, but I think a lot of people that have been on the, on the podcast so far, maybe you know, made their way into the industry at a time when it was more about chance because there were less guaranteed ways. Guaranteed is the wrong word. Less focused ways on making your way in. I don't know, maybe that's true, maybe that's not, but it was fascinating how often it came up.
[00:08:50] I think, I think as well here, you know, as I kind of mentioned, you know, I think you can echo, hear the echoes of learnings from, from us that have gone through a big canceled project that we, you know, were really excited about and put a lot of our time into and learned a lot from and take those learnings on to, you know, to future roles in future companies. I think that's really interesting. I think that doesn't happen to a lot of people, right? You always learn hopefully from whether you ship or whether, whether it's canceled. I think some people walk away from canceled projects just frustrated and angry and bitter.
[00:09:24] And I think it was, you know, it was telling that a lot of people seem to have reflections on what they'd learned and what they had the opportunity to do. And, you know, how they were grateful and certainly how I feel kind of grateful for the opportunity and they bought a great version of themselves to the project, even though no one will ever get to play it, but, but us.
[00:09:45] I think it's also, it was also interesting how many, how many people reference that playing games, you know, sorry, making games has made it easier for them to appreciate games more. Both, you know, from a technical perspective, from a flaws perspective, from a, you know, from maybe giving games a bit more of a chance because they've got more understanding of how games are made. I think Nick in Episode five, you know, made a great point of like, how would any game developer not be changed by that process? And I think he's right. I think ultimately, when you look at a lot of the responses to those that question most people do, one way or another, reflect on it, you know, having changed the way they game.
[00:10:30] And I think that's fascinating. I think that's again, a key piece that being a game dev is not often, you know, necessarily focused on that, you know, and I think it's, I'm sure it's true for movie directors, I'm sure it's true for musicians, I'm sure it's true for novelists, etc. Lots of creative mediums, once you see how they're made, it's hard not to reflect on, you know, outputs of other people, you know, other within the same medium differently.
[00:10:56] And I think video games are, you know, no difference. I think the interactive element makes it a little different, right, because there's a nuance there that maybe you appreciate in a different way once, especially on the technical side.
[00:11:07] But I think that's interesting.
[00:11:09] I think it's also fascinating the variety of ways that people have leveraged education. Right. Some have studied great unis, great colleges and led to. Fascinating, led to great opportunities in the industry. Some have studied at other colleges and maybe enjoyed the process but not really felt like it really got them anywhere, but been able to leverage that into the industry anyway. And some haven't studied at all. Some haven't been in the, you know, been through the, the college or university angle or not in a way that is meaningful to, to game dev and, and still found their way in. And I think that, again, I think that's probably still true today, but with so many more courses available and many of them very good, I, I think there's, there's more of an expectation that people have had those, those courses, but many of those courses are very expensive or very prestigious colleges. So, you know, again, I'm sure it's similar for other media, other creative fields that, you know, the, the education landscape is very broad and very varied in terms of quality and effectiveness at getting you a job. But I think it's interesting comparing those stories across different people and sort of hearing the way they've, They've, you know, chosen a certain course because it gave them a broad aspect, as, you know, as Chris did in episode 17 or, you know, going to a very dedicated course focused on video games and, you know, and using that as fuel to be successful. Or then, you know, talking about Zane in Episode, what was that? Episode 13, going into an entirely unrelated development field, robotics, and discovering that he had a love for programming, but not in that field, but actually through game development. I think that's lots of really interesting stories there in terms of people leveraging university college education and finding that as a way of getting into games.
[00:13:18] So I think there's probably more parallels and things you can extrapolate. I think the last one I would probably reflect on is the classic question about has it changed you as a human? Being a game developer changed you as a human. I think that was a lot more varied when you look at the responses. Some people definitely some people know this was kind of all as who was going to be, as Bill said in episode, I think 1415, sorry, you know, that he, you know, it was always who he was going to be. And you know, I think, I think he's just sort of built on that version of himself.
[00:13:58] You know, some people, some other people, you know, have not. And I had that. So I think that, I think that's an interesting takeaway and that I think that's the piece that I kind of like about those consistent questions. I kind of enjoy the fact that they do give you those strong comparison points. You can compare other people's stories directly almost, almost empir, you know, with those consistent questions. Whereas obviously everyone else's. Everyone's journey is so different. It's hard to really compare them.
[00:14:25] Yeah, I think, I think there's some interesting parallels you can pull from all 17 episodes and, and compare different people's experience.
[00:14:36] I want to spend a little bit of time just going through each episode very quickly just because I think there's threads in each of them that as I think about them, as I reflect back on them, they've been really fun to be a part of. Right. And to have those conversations happen on this podcast. You know, going right back to the inaugural episode with Anthony, Episode one, talking about audio production and being audio engineer. I loved his insight into, hey, I'm not music, I'm not a musician. In fact, I actively failed music musician based study. But I love the science of sound design and the science, the technical science of audio. I thought that was fascinating. I didn't know that about Anthony. I thought that was a really insightful, you know, and very honest piece of information from him. And I really enjoyed digging into that a little bit more. And you know, and then he's just sort of general insight into how it, how what it takes to build audio from scratch. You know, again, sort of reflecting back on Project Blackbird which was built from scratch.
[00:15:45] You know, digging into that a little bit. I thought that was really fun, really enjoyed that and I think I'm really grateful to Anthony for being guest number one and helping me work through some of those early problems. I think I messed up the intro to that episode multiple times. We had a lightning strike, you know, storm midway through that shot. He shut his whole network and power down and we were able to sort of recover and hopefully you could, you know, the gap in the episode isn't, isn't too obvious.
[00:16:13] Yeah, that was. I really appreciate Anthony making, you know, making the first, being the first guest and helping me work through it. And then episode two, you know, I really, really loved episode two.
[00:16:26] Hearing Layla's story on episode two was awesome. I think she shared so much about adhd, you know, this fascinating concept of rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, which I knew nothing about.
[00:16:39] And you know, how that leads to a real challenge of kind of presenting her true self and, and having to balance that between, you know, how she may show up at work and how she may show up, you know, personal life.
[00:16:49] This concept of like life is a turn based video game was great. I loved the way she framed that, you know, and treating people as systems and kind of how that helps her as a, you know, in her sort of very unique cinematic pipeline kind of production role. I thought that was great. I really love that. And obviously her unique, you know, her story of, you know, coming over from Russia and you know, kind of the way video games entered her life was, was rad. I loved how much like, you know, later shared. It was a great episode. And then, you know, quickly Followed by Episode 3 with Chris digging into how, you know, he's kind of blue collar welding job, you know, went from that into game dev and you know, he sort of showed up overdressed for the first day and I loved, I think this is a trend that didn't show up in every episode, but I'd like to think that there were several episodes where as we were discussing, hey, how do you as, how does you as a human show up in your role as a game dev? There were sort of moments of recognition. I think this happened in Chris's episode where he was talking about creating music and creating riffs and you're being a musician and how, you know, his skill in music is sort of assembling the piece into flow and how that overlaps with level design and level design flow and you know, how much of a parallel there is there between, you know, again, what he draws inspiration from as a human and how it also impacts what he wants to do in game Dev and I think would be great at, you know, and there are obviously some Also some, some really honest conversations about imposter syndrome, which many of us struggle with and you know, trying to balance that when you become a lead. I thought that was a really human, that was a really human conversation with Chris and I really enjoyed that one.
[00:18:36] Similarly with Paul in episode four, like really digging into programming. And it's funny when I reflect back on that episode, how often we use the word AI meaning NPCs and you know, kind of enemies and non player characters. But when you read a lot of this, especially in the clips, it looks like we're talking about the, you know, the, the modern AI parlance, right? We're talking about ChatGPT, which we're not.
[00:18:59] But I really enjoyed that conversation. Again, engineering. I'm not an engineer and I'm not smart enough to be an engineer, but sort of of digging into an engineer's brain, how often it can be very different to a designer's brain. And yet Paul had, you know, a really interesting perspective on, you know, what he draws from this kind of problem solving that he loves being a programmer and, and how, you know, NPC engineering is kind of one of the best examples of problem solving because it overlaps so much with game development and game design around how the game plays, which I really liked. And I loved his fantastic analogy or his like, story about how he sort of, he's come to realize his mum's sewing process is so similar to his engineering process. I thought that was profound. I'd never heard that before. And I thought that was such a great, you know, personal story that I really enjoyed. And you know, they're moving into Nick episode 5 with his learning to program on a course with a teacher that had no idea how to program. Just thought there should be a programming course. And you know, there was some references in the, in the comments on that, on that clip about, you know, some people that had been on that same course with him and, and then, you know, I really enjoyed Nick's interesting combination of kind of a passion for language, you know, overlapping with a passion for accessibility and approachability and how that's kind of fueled his modern approach to an area that is often misunderstood and often forgotten and really only in recent years has become a priority. The kind of approachability, accessibility I thought that was, and very apropos, you know, for where the industry is right now, which I really enjoyed.
[00:20:40] Moving on quickly to, you know, to Lehman Orlando episode six and seven. Lehman's story was great. Again, as I mentioned, sort of subverting his way into narrative, into the industry Trying to be a concept artist and then falling into, you know, loving narrative and uncovering that skill which was always in him. And you know, his whole role of law master is one that, you know, I really enjoyed working with. There aren't many examples of that around the industry, but he was a great example of it and had a really interesting sort of summary of what it means to be a law master and how you can create that sort of perfect blend between gameplay and consistent rules of the world. And if you can land that, how great it is and really enjoy that conversation. And Orlando's as well, sort of the opposite side of that. Much younger in his career, but with a level of maturity and approach to things that was stunning to me. Like, just fascinating to hear him, you know, someone who's way, way years in the industry are way less than mine and yet he's already sort of at a point, like I mentioned, where he sort of got over himself and he's able to approach things. And it explains why when he joined the project, you know, he was such a, a great addition, you know, in the way he approaches things and struggling with this version of sort of competition of whenever he sees something, he wants to do it better but from a non toxic perspective. And so sort of really focusing on it being, you know, him sort of effectively competing against himself rather than just trying to be other people and be better than other people thought. That was the way he threaded that needle I thought was great. And you know, makes a lot of sense having worked with him, Episode eight with Matt, you know, he's sort of being a video game fan and then being so focused on theater and maybe getting into movies and moving to LA and then telling the story of driving past the Square Enix building in Hollywood, you know, in la, which I know very well from having driven past it just drove past it a couple of months ago and thought of Matt, actually messaged him. I was like, I was right there. It made me think of you just sort of suddenly remembering effectively, oh yeah, like video games are a big part of my life. Maybe I could do that. I loved that. I thought that was great, you know, great example of how, you know, video games can almost, you know, you don't necessarily have to grow up being obsessed with being a video game developer from day one. You know, you can find your way into it in different ways. And all the, all how his sort of skills from theater production and TV production and being at Cannes and all those kind of things led him to be a really good producer and gave him the tools he needed to be able to organize and do things that he'd already done in the film and TV medium, but not in the video game medium. But having them translate really well.
[00:23:19] I thought it was great.
[00:23:20] Battle story about using Monty Python to get a gig will never get old. I love that. That's one of my favorite clips.
[00:23:29] And also the really human story of, you know, getting a great opportunity, you know, a prestigious studio like Sony Santa Monica, and choosing not to take it because it wasn't close enough to his family. And the reason for him, you know, changing jobs was to take care of his family. I thought that was, you know, wonderfully humble and, you know, an incredibly heartwarming story. And, you know, and then just digging into Bao's an expert in combat. I loved working with Bao and, And you know, and hearing his sort of approach on why combat draws him. The intimacy of it, you know, the precision of it, how, you know, that more personal experience of. Of. Of melee combat in particular versus, say, first person shooters and stuff like that. I thought that was really good. And very, very much echoes with, you know, with my things. But I hadn't quite coined it the way that he did, which I really.
[00:24:17] Liam, episode 10. Oh, man. Taking a flyer and going to E3 on the hope of getting a job, man, I would never have done that. And like, the fact that Liam just was like, yeah, you know, this is what I felt. I was like, why not? Let's go do it?
[00:24:30] Was incredible. Loved that.
[00:24:34] And then I also.
[00:24:36] He talked about again, something that I found very profound is trying to balance game dev is a very.
[00:24:50] Can for some be a very personal thing, right? There is a big part of you as a person that's wrapped up in how you show up as a game developer because it is a creative and, you know, organic field.
[00:25:04] I think the way Liam sort of expressed this, hey, I need to do, I need to be inspired by what I do in order to show up as my best person in the world. I think was really profound and, you know, again, resonated with me really well in a way that I hadn't sort of coined it. And I really enjoyed that, you know, hearing Liam sort of express it that way and sort of express it in such a personal way. Like I say, it did really land with me as well.
[00:25:30] Then that wicked little story about how they were him, you know, him and his brother were selling servers basically to allow people to play medal of honor in, you know, those early days as a server hosting company. I thought that was great. Love, love that little anecdote, that was wicked.
[00:25:48] Episode 11, you know, Landon's episode was incredible, too. Again, as I mentioned, this, you know, this whole having his professor basically set him up for a role, you know, to get a job was. Was incredible.
[00:26:03] Showing up to this role, not really knowing what to do, but doing such a good job that within months he was, like, thrust into a proper production role on a really big ip. I thought that was great.
[00:26:13] And again, I think. I think it was a very. Landon's episode, as I think all the episodes have been. But Landon's episode definitely was. Was very human and very honest and very kind of reflective of, hey, you know, I didn't always get this right and like, I've had to learn how to put myself in check and how to balance, you know, what I do. And I thought that was, again, wonderfully human and wonderfully personal. And really, you know, what this, this podcast all about, the stories that, you know, drive people that make these games. Well, that was incredible.
[00:26:47] Episode 12 with Zach, someone who I've worked with, you know, another person I've worked with very closely. I loved his, you know, hearing an engineer, you know, talk about fail fast, you know, and that can. Failure can equal success. I think, you know, there are many engineers that, for good reason, don't think like that. And there are many there, you know, there are engineers that do. And I think working with a gameplay engineer like Z that does that is. Was huge.
[00:27:12] And to hear him explain, it was great. And. And also, man, as I mentioned, I am so bad with competition in the wrong place. I think I enjoy competition in certain ways, but I'm often bad with competition and how. How much it fuels him, you know, both professionally and privately, was. Was great. I was a great opportunity to kind of poke at that a little bit and understand it a little bit more.
[00:27:37] Episode 13 With Zane, you know, digging into the engineering interviews and how terrifying they can be. I always thought they were. I was always kind of wondered how hard they would be. They're so much more empirical. Like, you know, get this answer right or don't even bother showing up.
[00:27:52] And he really, you know, summarized that really well.
[00:27:55] And then, you know, as I mentioned, discovering programming by taking a different course and finding his way into it and that the way his parents, his dad kind of instilled this idea of, hey, if you don't have the confidence to find an answer, you will. I love that. I think that's something I'm going to take, you know, personally and try and, you know, try and instill in my kids because I think it's a great, you know, great ethos.
[00:28:18] Joel's wonderful com. You know, episode 14 of his, you know, his, his stories of the Navy and kind of finding his way, you know, into game dev, you know, through video production.
[00:28:31] You know, a role that very few people talk about or really understand. You know, kind of making marketing materials and trailers and trying to build the materials that insp you to go play the game that, you know, that's being worked on. I think that, you know, having done a little bit myself, myself, that's really a really interesting role. That again is very misunderstood, rarely discussed. So I thought that was a great conversation. Similarly, you know, being a camera designer is not very commonly discussed or not a common role in many studios. Especially now in our more modern, you know, most games have kind of third person or first person controls and you know, I think that was a great aspect, you know, especially on, again, on a project that was sort of finding its feet. The way he found his way through that and sort of tried to figure out how to do his job effectively was, was really interesting.
[00:29:18] Bill's story, episode 15, you know, as a mutual fan of Bioshock, like hearing how that basically changed his whole direction of his career just through playing that game after being so successful in kind of live TV and radio, that was incredible. And then obviously his. All his stories about surviving a collapsed studio, again, you know, as people that have gone through, you know, a collapse of a project. And again, this is not something that's unique to video games. There are many, you know, as we've seen in the last few years, there's many examples of people losing their jobs. I'm not saying this is unique to video games, but again, because of its creative, because it's such a creative field, when projects collapse, it can be so heart wrenching. And then when you combine that with being pregnant with your first child and trying to balance all that, man, that was such a great story.
[00:30:06] You know, obviously many of us had heard about 38 Studios and how it went down, but like hearing it from someone on the ground and how they were, how it affected them in their situation, I thought was incredible. Love that. Love that episode, penultimate episode with John digging into his. So grateful to how much John shared in terms of, you know, how video games were an outlet for foster care, you know, while he was in foster care. And you know, how, you know, he didn't maybe necessarily even as a young person feel like he would have the success that he had. And you know, how that's just, you know, he reflects on just being happy with the people you work with and, you know, and the work that you do is enough. You know, you don't necessarily need to be, you know, some prestigious, this or incredible. You just want to enjoy the people you work with and be happy in your field. I thought was great. And, and even his early esports stories about, you know, winning Call of Duty tournaments and getting to go to Infinity War, I thought that was again, such a wonderful little anecdote of an example of someone that was passionate about the industry and, you know, the stars aligned in a way that got him his opportunity. That was great. And finally, Chris, man, Chris's episode, you know, having another producer on the episode was great. I've tried to be kind of broad with my roles. Obviously a designer myself. I didn't want to just have designers on, but, you know, audio engineers, technical designers, combat designers, production, you know, video production, cinematic production, you know, different gameplay engineering. You know, I think, I think I'd like to think it's been a good, you know, broad spread. I could do more for sure, but I'd like to think it's been broad and I'd like to think that the pacing of the episodes and the variety of the episodes has worked well. Again, I think I could do. Do more in season two, but having another producer on was great. You know, digging into his philosophy and how, you know, having worked very closely with Chris, can completely concur that he is someone that will focus on what does the team need. That's what I'm going to make happen. Don't care about what this structure might be or what is supposed to happen. I'm going to focus on what needs to happen to get this team to be successful. That was great. Really good philosophy, I think not, as he said himself, not for everyone, but, you know, I think he models that very really well. And of course, I loved, I loved his Call of Duty Online stories. They were great. You know, again, many of us in the west have barely even heard of Call of Duty Online yet. Its impact on the Call of Duty franchise and, and his opportunity to work on it, I thought was a great little insight into, you know, working on something that is maybe successful elsewhere and, you know, not in, you know, maybe not in. In some places. And I think that was really good. And finally he's, you know, referencing Peter Molyneux and, and how he sort of convinced his parents that, you know, this medium is. Is artistic and, you know, is worth sticking with, I thought was awesome.
[00:32:54] So, yeah, I Think sort of picking out some of those highlights, I think it gives us a good, sort of, I think it gives a good broad summary of, of what this series seasons have been about. And looking back on those clips, especially back to back, I think it, I really enjoy the tapestry that it, that it paints of, you know, what it is to be a game dev.
[00:33:15] Yeah. I think lastly, just the technical side of this has been really fun, right. You know, finding a platform that lets me capture and edit and generate clips. The impact of, you know, some levels of automation and some levels of AI in a controlled manner has been really interesting. Right. Digging into different ways to leverage AI to expedite the process of getting the meat of some of the text and some of the things that I need to sort of generate copy has been really fun. And then being able to use that as a, as a, as a framework to go sort of extend and add to, you know, and alter in a way that hopefully gives it the flavor that I want it to have. You know, coming up with macros in chat GPT that help me generate, you know, core copy that I can then use to, you know, edit and generate, speed up the process of generating, you know, the content that I need to get the episode out, you know, each episode, the recording is only the first part of it. I then spend time, I go through every episode to edit them. I've really learned to make sure I mute the other, the non speaking participant as much as I can, you know, to avoid overlap and too much, especially for the audio folks, lesser trouble for the video. But I've enjoyed kind of generating clips and you know, finding little excerpts that I can use to, you know, to populate and to give insight onto the episode. I've enjoyed making the artwork and you know, the frames and that's been fun, you know, messing around with that.
[00:34:48] I, I'm proud of it. I think there's a consistency across the, the, the podcast and that with the visual, especially when you see it in the podcast app or in Spotify. Like I'm proud of that. I think I could, you know, I'm not the most visually artistic person in the world, so I'm sure I could do more there and improve that. But I've enjoyed that process and then just understanding, you know, the process of generating a podcast, you know, feeding it into the, you know, the various programs that populate it out. Generating, you know, having the copy and the image and you know, and the scheduled publishing the, the hashtags, you know, having all that stuff kind of organized in a way across YouTube, Cast or Spotify and Patreon, and then doing the. The individual posting of the clips on Instagram, blue sky, and LinkedIn. Right? That's been really fun. I think there's ways I can speed that up and make it more consistent. I think, especially over Christmas, I've been a little bit less consistent than I would like, but I would like to think I was pretty consistent once I got into a good rhythm, you know, kind of publishing the episode on a Monday and having clips go up and kind of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and having the COVID page on Instagram and then the three clips, you know, on Blue sky, and having the three. Three clips laid out so it looks neat using the right hashtags. I think finding the right hashtags is fun. The fun challenge, you know, I think I have my own. That I've. I've sort of built up now and then trying to find the right one for each episode and trying to, you know, extend the reach as much as I can has been fun.
[00:36:15] I think there's ways I can stream like that. There's ways I can improve it through some different methodology. Oh, I didn't even mention the blog as well that I put up. You know, the blog is kind of the. The root page where it all stems from. So it's been fun, and I hope that, you know, I've had feedback that people have kind of enjoyed the episode popping up on their feed, and they've already got. They're already in a rhythm on. On. On listening to it. So I really appreciate that. And, you know, it's. Again, I would like to increase. I would like it to break even. That's what I would really like. I would like, you know, a little bit more traction on Patreon, so I can, you know, hopefully get to a point where it's just paying for itself, and I don't. And I can literally just do it for the fun of doing it, which is primarily why I'm doing it.
[00:36:59] But, you know, it's not free right now. There's enough hosting costs that, you know, they're not. They're not insane, but they can, you know, they're significant every month. So I'd like to improve that a little bit.
[00:37:09] I think that sort of just gets into the last part of, like, where do I want to go from. From here?
[00:37:15] Definitely gonna pick up season two. I think I'm gonna maybe give it a week or two's break. So I don't, you know, don't post an episode. Maybe just post some Clips over the next couple of, you know, week or two, just to keep the feed live. And then kick off season two with a few changes. A little bit of change to the intro, maybe a little bit of visual stuff, visual change to the theming and a different approach to guests.
[00:37:38] I found it very successful if I can record several people in a week and then have, you know, a month's worth of episodes backed up that I can edit, organize, you know, schedule and then start another batch. I was really consistent with that early on. Got less consistent. Just life got in the way over the, you know, over a few months. So it tended to be record and then that episode went up in the last sort of four or five episodes. But I think I can get a little bit more consistent with that.
[00:38:08] But the big thing that I want to do one is start to talk a little bit more about the influence of Greg Miller on this podcast. You know, actually pull up the clip that the, you know, that from YouTube from the Game Awards from like 10 years ago. Because this idea actually started about six or seven years ago now.
[00:38:29] And season zero, maybe one day, season zero will go up from, from my EA Dice LA days if, if folks that were on that are okay with it.
[00:38:39] But yeah, I want to try and you know, broaden the, the reach of it. And this is where I would ask you listeners that are out there, please, if you could promote this, add a review. I do genuinely think that the, you know, my biggest platform is Apple Podcasts and Spotify. They're both very close. But adding a review would really help. As I understand it, that does help push it up the, the charts.
[00:39:08] If there are any hashtags or ats that you could do to the clips, I'd really appreciate that. I think, you know, trying it only takes, you know, I want, I want this to, I want this to go as wide as it can go because I think there is, yes, it's very inside baseball. I think it is prob. A little bit.
[00:39:25] Oh, it's, it's deliberately quite focused on developers. Right. You know, and development and you know, have had some feedback that sometimes it can be a little hard to follow for non developers and I think I can work on that in season two. My eldest son actually had a great idea of how I could do that for season two.
[00:39:41] But I definitely want to try and broaden the reach. Try and broaden, you know, who it goes to and the people and topics that I cover. But still keep that focus on the human element of, of making games because I do think that is my usp and it is the thing I'm the most passionate about. So it would be crazy to do anything different. That's the reason why I do this. That's the thing that I love doing.
[00:40:04] So what I think I'm going to do for season two is I'm going to archive season one onto Patreon.
[00:40:12] So in a couple of weeks, I will take down all of season one and then replace it effectively with season two. The clips will all stay up, that'll all stay live, but the, the RSS feed and the main feed will be season two.
[00:40:28] I haven't tried doing this yet. I'm pretty sure I could do it, but I'll basically leave the Patreon up and pull it off of all the other feeds. Now I think if you've already downloaded it and you've already listened to it, I don't think it will go away. I don't think it will change. But if people come new to the show, what I'm hoping is they'll discover live content, they'll discover season two in the, you know, similar format and they'll have a whole season to discover on Patreon.
[00:40:52] I'm going to try that and see how it goes. I really want to avoid ads if I can. I don't really want to go down. I certainly don't want to start reading ads out. That just gives me so much cringe, you know, respect to everyone that does that. Not saying you shouldn't, it's just not for me.
[00:41:08] And I don't really, you know, listen to so many podcasts. I don't really want to insert ads if I can avoid it. I would like it to be self sufficient if I can, so that I can just do it, record it and not worry about any adverts, you know, ad free episodes, that kind of stuff. It's a common way of driving people to Patreon and I can see the merit of that, but I'd rather not do it if I could. We'll see. We're going to try it in season two and see what happens.
[00:41:33] Try and keep season two around the same length, maybe, maybe a little bit of more of a.17 is a slightly odd episode number, but Christmas kind of caused some of that, you know, interrupt and I thought it was. It just ended up being a nice spot to kind of make a break and, you know, start season two.
[00:41:51] So, yeah, I want to try and broaden the reach as much as I can and if you, y' all could help with that, I'd really appreciate it. If you know someone you think might be interested, please share it with them. Please repost things. I'm going to try and fix the hashtags on some of the older posts I put and you know, like I say, probably repost some, you know, over the next few weeks to kind of a broader selection just to kind of get people interested, maybe compile a few together.
[00:42:18] But yeah, if you could, I'd really appreciate it.
[00:42:22] And yeah, hopefully I can grow it and keep doing what I do and hopefully keep, you know, providing you the content that you've enjoyed.
[00:42:29] Please remember I do have a Patreon. If you didn't know already. There is a simple tips jar $1 thing that would, you know, if you just want to support. And then there is the, the higher tier that gives you the video versions of the episodes. I do video record every episode and edit that, you know, and generate the audio from it.
[00:42:49] So please, if you could support that, that would be great.
[00:42:53] And yeah, that's really my wrap up actually went way longer than I thought it would. Apologies, I've way more waffle than I was planning. But again, I do want to say thank you to all the guests that have been on the show. Every one of the conversations I've loved. Every one of the conversations I'm proud of. It's great to reflect back on them and sort of just see that tapestry that we've built together.
[00:43:13] And everyone that's listened, continues to listen, has given me feedback or just enjoys, you know, enjoys hearing the conversation every week. Thank you.
[00:43:22] I hope I can continue to keep this show going and keep it fun and keep it interesting.
[00:43:28] All feedback is welcome like I said.
[00:43:31] And yeah, so I'm going to sign off for the end of season one. Again, thank you to everyone and I'll see you in season two.
