Why did you want to become producers? Why was production the avenue of game development that you wanted to go into?

For me, I've always had a creative bone since I was a kid. And the story I always tell is, Eric the artist hasn't finished a product in 10, 15 years, but Eric the producer has gotten a lot more done. So for me, it's working around creative people coming up with interesting, exciting final products and helping shepherd them and work alongside them to get it out into people's hands in whatever fashion that is, whether it's books or websites or whatever. Whatever it is that's there to engage people and to potentially entertain them or educate them. So I think I originally got into it because it allowed me to work alongside people and also work in a creative environment that got something exciting out in the hands of people to also enjoy it. And in our case, give us feedback and work closely with us. But it's a cool way to work with creative people and help them understand what it would take to get something done, and kind of play both sides of it. You want your creative people to be very creative and shoot for the moon and blue sky and always go over the top, right? And then we can come and go, okay, well, this is what we could do. This is how we could do it. This is how we could get there. This is what the next steps would be. Maybe we tear it up. Maybe we get out the first version. Maybe we get out the final version. All kinds of fun ways to work with people that are creative. But it started for me being creative and understanding that process, no matter what it was, to then move into working alongside people.

Personally, I got into games, obviously, I started my first job in games at 21. So basically, I think when I got in the industry, like a lot of people, we wanted to be the game designer, because that was like the sexy position. Everybody knows the game designers, right? Everybody knows Miyamoto, everybody knows Sid Meier. And we think, that's the job I want. The game designer is the best job. Then, actually working on some games, you realize that it's not actually how it works. The design is certainly a really critical part of it, but the game is figured out while it's being made. There's an expression that we're trying to find the fun, right? And that's something where you can have the best idea in the world. You can have something that just looks so cool on paper. And then really when you start building it and you start making it real, that's when you find the fun. And so for me, I love games and I wanted to make games. I felt that a producer got to be there throughout the entire process. The producer got to have the fun in the design process. The producer got to work out those technical challenges with the engineers. And the engineers sometimes surprise you and say, yeah, the thing you thought wasn't possible, well, it is possible. And now you need to change your design because it can get even better. Or an artist will just blow your mind on something. And what I like about it is, as a producer, we go where we're needed. We go wherever it's needed to make this game the best it can be. And then we get to stay with it even after it's released and get the feedback and say, okay, we put this thing out. We were really proud of it. Blood, sweat, and tears, all the cliches. But whenever it gets out in the community, you start seeing how people react to it. And then it kind of becomes the community's game, because shortly after, everybody on the stream right now knows that, generally speaking, the players know it better than the developers after about two weeks. So the producer, though, gets to stick with that and say, okay, we've gotten all this feedback. Let's pick some things that we can do that we can be successful at, because we can't pick everything and be successful. But the producer gets to be there the whole process. And it's fun to make the whole game, not just fun to make a game design document, in my view.