Being Authentic with Yesenia Cisneros | Lead Producer @ Brass Lion Entertainment | Ep 17 - Out of Play Area

Episode Transcript
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John (00:02):
Own episode 17 of Out of Play Area.
We invite our first producer onto theshow, Yesenia Cisneros a lead producer for
Brass Lion Entertainment in New York city,working remotely from LA, California.
She's been on a wild during yourstudio industry hailing from Queens New
York, coming through e-sports being acontent model at X-Box working in QA

(00:23):
and eventually finding her happy placeas a producer at the Pokemon company.
And more to where she is today.
We talk about the impact that seeingyourself represented in the leadership
and studio executive team has on yourselfand your team, as well as being able to
bring your authentic self to the job dayin, day out, and how to be an effective
producer while working remotely and more.

(00:45):
Please welcome from New York City Queens.
Repping her ChinaEcuador, Rianna of roots.
Yesenia Cisneros let's start the show.

Catherine (00:58):
Bienvenido Bienvenue Welcome to the Out of Play Area Podcast, a
show by video game devs for game devs,where the guests open up one-on-one
about their journey, their experiences,their views, and their ideas.
No ads, no bullshit.
Join us as we venture far outof the play area with your host
seasoned game designer, John Diaz.

Yesenia (01:24):
I have, the white claw hard seltzer, natural live a hundred calories,
gluten free because I'm basic and bougie.
spike, sparkly.
Why?
With a hint of natural light.

John (01:36):
I'm glad you called this out.
Cause this is definitelythe summer drink, right?
It makes me feel like, oh my gosh,it was so close to summer time.
Let's get it.
Ooh, summer bottle

Yesenia (01:53):
yeah, I definitely bought access.
The weather was real nice up here, thispast weekend and I just like barbecued.
It was really good.
I like just like laid in myhammock, drank white claws and
passed out, it was so good.

John (02:06):
that's sounds like summer to
me.

Yesenia (02:07):
And then I had my friend over because she's vaccinated as well too.
And I'm back to the eighth.
So I was like, finally,we get to like, hang out.
So it was
really nice

John (02:14):
which one did you get?

Yesenia (02:16):
team Pfizer house Pfizer.

John (02:18):
Yeah.
Yeah, I I trust theGerman engineering man.
I got Pfizer as well.
I guess that just seems tobe what's readily available
around the Pacific Northwest.

Yesenia (02:26):
Yeah, I definitely didn't seem much, Moderna at all.
definitely a lot of Pfizer, butI remember when I was getting the
vaccines for my parents up in New York.
Gosh, that felt like I was lookingfor Pokemon because it it was so long.
Like it literally took me likea month or two that's when they
would like, just open it up.
And I remember I had likesix tabs open on Google

John (02:48):
Yeah.

Yesenia (02:48):
and just refreshing every single day, trying to get
appointments for both of them.
I felt like I was lookingfor legendary Pokemon.

John (02:54):
But you got your parents sorted out, you found,
them a
slot.

Yesenia (02:57):
Yeah, I did.
But man, that was a lot of fucking work.
Oh, can I cuss here or no,

John (03:01):
This is a come as you are a podcast.
If you've had a day where youfeel you need to let it out,
I'll be right there with you.

Yesenia (03:10):
love it.
Love it.
Yeah.
So now it was a fucking journeyto get them those appointments.
And what's funny is like, Iopened the gates to my parents,
they're like, yeah, I'll help.
dad look for something.
And then it became like, oh,you don't have to do that.
But because I offered, then itwas a daily check-in of like,
did like, oh, now we care.
Okay, fine.
So they were on me like every single day.

(03:31):
Like, no nothing's changed from yesterday.

John (03:33):
it's funny how that is.
It's my parents are the same way, right?
It's like, oh no, no worry.
Not the pro coop.
I don't want to bother you.
And then as soon as soon as you'realready doing the thing, then it's
like kick the feet up and now theywant to participate right now.
They're like micromanaging and

Yesenia (03:48):
Yeah.
That's how my mom, maybe it'sa Latino thing or something.
I don't know.
But
it's, that's how big mymom is, especially like
and then as soon as I do it,it's like micro-managing and I'm
just like, I need you to go away.
got this.

John (04:05):
I wonder if that's like low key training for what we do in games.
Cause I definitely have a fewcoworkers that are like, no,
no, no, don't worry about this.
Or keep pushing somethingoff of putting something off.
And then as soon as you're workingon it, then they want to be involved.
Like, no, no, no, it's not like that.
It's like this, this.
let me, let me get in there.
Let me get in there.
Yeah.

Yesenia (04:22):
We've been trained from the beginning.
This is our Colleen

John (04:27):
I'm sure it's like this throughout all development,
but all I've ever known as gay.
So, I see that a lot

Yesenia (04:32):
I see a very often it's very common.
So I think you're onto something

John (04:36):
Where are you coming to us from where you seated out of right.

Yesenia (04:40):
right now.
I am in Seattle, Washington, thebeautiful Pacific Northwest, but
I shall be moving in a few monthsand I'm going to try, that's.
So Cal sunshine weather,

John (04:52):
Oh, is that going to be your first time living in SoCo?

Yesenia (04:56):
living there.
Yeah, it

John (04:57):
What part?

Yesenia (04:58):
I'm thinking Burbank area.
around there, there'll be myfirst time living over there.
So I'm really excited becauseI've been here for like 14 years

John (05:07):
time for a

Yesenia (05:08):
time for a change.
And also like, just want sunny and warmweather, like all the time, but every
once in a while, when I start thinkingabout moving, I get anxiety from it.

John (05:17):
you've been in Seattle for 14 years.
You're gonna make the move to LA.
You're going to embrace that.
So Cal sunshine, as everybody should,at least at one point in their lives.
and you are from New York city.
I wonder what your expectations are of LA.

Yesenia (05:35):
Oh, my gosh.
so I'm a Queens girl, represent Queens.
I know it's not going tobe the same as New York.
Like I know I can't expect thatcity life, but I do expect more
diversity than what I have right now.
And that's what I'm excited about,where it's like a little bit closer
to the diversity that I had back east.

(05:55):
Well, it's like more brown people andpeople like me and like more diverse food
and cultures that I can be surrounded by.
So that's kind of what I'm expecting.
And then of course thegorgeous weather all around.
So I expect rooftop partiesat some point in the future.

John (06:08):
Oh, Yeah.
That's the thing.
There's a lot of partiesover there for sure.
I mean, these days with the amount ofsun I get, you can easily confuse me for
a Caucasian person, I don't get enoughsun, but now I'm going to start getting
out there and get into my color back Butall I sympathize with you 100%, you got
to go out of your way to find more brownpeople and people of color to find the

(06:29):
spots and see where to go and get somebomb ass food and where the music is.
Right.
And things like this,

Yesenia (06:37):
I expect better dating experiences in LA.
That's what my hope is becausethe dating pool here sucks.

John (06:45):
can't speak to that, and I don't want to like put any
preconceptions on the LA dating scene.
Right.
I think every city
has its,

Yesenia (06:53):
yeah, absolutely.

John (06:54):
you know, saying, but that's exciting.
That's exciting.
I think it's great for creativesoverall, you know, like a change
of scenery, a change of weather.
it might lead you to do kind of thebest work you've done in your career.
So that's, that's exciting times.
Do you have like a timeline,when you will be down there?

Yesenia (07:10):
Yeah.
So I'm thinking likeSeptember of this year,
so it's coming up pretty quick.
Like we're already halfway throughmay, so that's insane to me, but yeah.
So looking at the December, My lease isup, so I don't have to pay double rent.

John (07:26):
Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be good.
So you can like blow out the summer.
Cause I think a lot of peoplehere in Seattle, right.
Seattle summer is a beautiful to
everybody out there.
You know, that that's the mistake.
A lot of people make as they comein the summer and they're like,
oh my God, it's so beautiful.
I want to move here and then it's

Yesenia (07:40):
Yup.

John (07:41):
you get sold a false bill of goods.
Cause it's only like thatfor like four or five months.

Yesenia (07:45):
and I definitely came here during some of the first time.

John (07:48):
I do like how geeky the city.
Yeah, I'll give them that.
Right.
Like there's a lot of culturearound games, role-playing
games, video games, VR tech.
and then you have kind of thenature outdoorsy vibe that comes
together, you know, like with thewater, the lakes, the boats, the
mountains, the skiing, all that.
So it's, it's a really cool formula,But there's definitely something to

(08:11):
be said for what happens when youget to warmer, hotter weather, sun
And more diverse crowds, you know?
So

Yesenia (08:18):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.
But like you said, every city has its ownthing, so I'm just like, whatever, but
I'm living my best life, so I don't care.

John (08:29):
I'm super excited to Sandia because you are the first producer to
grace, the mic of, out of play area.
And so I'd love for you to breakdown you at, what's your role,
what you're doing right now.

Yesenia (08:43):
It's an honor to be your first producer.
amazing.
So I am currently a producer over atbreasts light entertainment, which is
a brand new studio that got, foundedwithin the past couple of years.
So we're a studio focus on creatingoriginal fictional universes, that
center mostly on black brown andother traditionally marginalized

(09:05):
characters, cultures and stories.
So we're super diverse and inclusiveenvironments of all backgrounds.
And we really want to change what thegame industry is because I've been in
this industry for about 11 years now.
And the studio that I'm currentlyat the first time I've worked
at anything like this before.
And so it's like really focusingon the marginalized voices and

(09:27):
like actually creating a newculture that hasn't existed before.
And this is like the first timeI actually have people of color.
That are founders and they'rein charge And I also have a
woman in charge of the studio.
And there are a woman of color, precise,I've been at the studio for a little over
a month and I'm still like in LA LA landbecause I can't believe that something
like this exists and it's amazing.

(09:48):
And so one of the projectswe have is quarter wolves,
which is a narrative podcasts.
however, right now I'm working onan unannounced RPG, anime style
game and that is all I can say.

John (10:03):
stay tuned.
Y'all stay tuned for a big
announcements from brass line.

Yesenia (10:07):
the industry and the people are not ready for it.

John (10:09):
Okay.
Okay.
That's exciting.
I think the last time we spokegetting ready for this show,
you were just starting out, youwill kind of get in your, you
were hitting the ground running.
So this is great to hearhow you feel after a month.
it's always the honeymoon phase.
Right.
And then you start kind of into thethick of things and in the flow.
And so it's really cool to hearyour perspective on what it's like

(10:31):
to see yourself represented inthat executive layer of a studio.
I don't think that I cannudge on that enough.
I would love for you to speak moreabout what that gives you as a Latina.
Who's been in the game industry fora majority of the career where you've
come from and where you are now, howdoes this, energize you in coming

(10:55):
to work in, do, working on whatyou're working on and knowing that
this is how it's structured when you
look up down left and right.

Yesenia (11:01):
yeah, no, that's a really good question.
So being in here for about a monthnow, I stumble a lot when I'm talking
about it, because sometimes there's nowords to describe this feeling because
it's so brand new and I've never doneanything like this before, or been a
part of something like this before.
And that's not to say like the previousplaces I worked at were terrible.
You know, I worked on other largeIPS, like Pokemon and Minecraft, you

(11:24):
know, stuff like that, but there's adifferent layer to what we're building
at our studio and I'm getting tobe part of it from the ground up.
So it's just seeing that.
Yeah.
They take the diversity inclusivity.
Seriously.
we take that seriously from the beginning,with how we build our culture, how we
build our team out, what our values arefrom the beginning and how we continue to
scale up to make sure that every personthat we bring in share those same values,

(11:47):
because that's, what's super important.
And I think a lot of
other companies have sometimes failedin that aspect where they hire people
and it becomes very homogenous.
And then, and then towards theend, they're like, oh, we need
diversity and inclusivity.
And it's like, you can't really implementdiversity, inclusivity and equity.
When you have a bunch of white peopleat the top and the same amount of

(12:09):
people like taking charge of everything,you can't really change anything.
Or the team's structured.
It's like you need leadership to change.
And it just becomes a little bit, Ifeel a little bit harder to actually.
Compete with that.
So the fact that at breast line,we're doing it from the beginning and
like being really conscious of whowe bring in, what we're building, how
our team structure is, what our team
culture is, what our values are, is super

(12:29):
important, as we scale up thesevalues have to stay intact.
And so for me personally, I feelfor the first time ever, I don't
have to prove myself anymore.

John (12:41):
Uh,

Yesenia (12:42):
So that is like such a relief.
so many times, especially beinga woman in the industry, being
Latina in the industry, feellike I get underestimated often.

John (12:53):
or that you have to work twice as hard.

Yesenia (12:55):
Yup.
I get under estimate at the worktwice as hard to constantly prove
myself and my worth and that I'm goodenough or better than my counterparts.
And for the first timeI don't have to do that.
It's like.
They already know, I'm a bad-assand they're like, here you go.
And it's like, what?
The only person I have tocompete with myself is myself.

(13:15):
Now.
Like I have no one, like holding meback in a way, if that makes sense.
Cause there's always all thesebarriers in other places I worked at.
And now it's like, oh, the onlybarrier is myself now because I'm
able to be my authentic self andbring my whole true self to this.

John (13:29):
That's beautiful.
I mean, I unfortunately, I'venever worked at a place like that.
And when I hear you and other peoplethat are coming on the show, like Elaine,
talk about breast lion and how it'sstructured, it does sound extremely
compelling, It's just a wonderfulnarrative and an experience for people.
Of all backgrounds, writeit's all about empathy, right?
So just put yourself in the shoesof someone else and recognize

(13:53):
that you look to leadership.
And when you don't see yourselfrepresented, that has an effect, right.
That has an effect to make you wonderwhether or not you're cognizant of it.
It's like, Hmm, I get there?

Yesenia (14:09):
Yeah.

John (14:09):
and so for you to be in a situation where you don't even have
to wonder, you see it already, andyou're like, oh, this opportunity is
available for me, for my colleagues,for anybody that comes in here.
Cause it's from theground up from day zero.
That's fantastic.
You know, there's something to besaid for that, because I know for
a fact, a lot of corporations and alot of teams are trying to get there.

(14:29):
That's where they want to be.
They want to head there and, they'rein that situation of like, Okay.
they got to work backwardsbecause they didn't start yet.
and that's gonna take awhile, right.
Because they have to learn it.
And, it's that double sided situation oflike, well, why is it up to me to teach
you how to set it up to be the certainthing that we need to bring our best
selves to work kind of thing I want to

Yesenia (14:50):
Yeah,

John (14:51):
I don't want to do what I can, but

Yesenia (14:52):
but I can't, you can't have me educate you and
like do all the heavy lifting.
It becomes the F youpay me kind of scenario.

John (14:59):
Hell yeah.
I think that's so awesome.
I've felt that way in my careeras well, where it's like, was
I hired because I was Hispanic.

Yesenia (15:07):
Okay.

John (15:08):
and do you know that I'm probably getting paid less and doing twice the work
and in loving it, right.
I'm loving it.
I'm like, yo yes, this is an honor.
This is a privilege.
It's just amazing to look at yoursituation of feeling recognized,
feeling like you've earned where youare you're recognized and seen for
who you are and what you bring to thetable and know that that's good enough.

(15:30):
And that in fact kind of likefuels you to be even better.
As opposed to the other way withthe cattle prod kind of thing.

Yesenia (15:36):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Because I'm sure there's other people thatcan relate with my story, but so often.
In the industry that I've been withthe proving myself and having to deal
with microaggressions or having todeal with like implicit bias, you know,
it's all of this, like it all playsinto a role, plays a role into how
successful you can be in an environment.

(15:57):
and almost I've had to work twice as hardin my brain, like mentally, because you're
constantly like, okay, I gotta focuson my work to do a good job, then also
there's this other thing that's happening.
There'll be here.
And I have to prove myself that I'm good.
Oh.
But then this otherperson is undermining me.
So now I have to deal with that.
So, and it's just like very taxing.
And so I feel like you can't beyour best version of yourself.

(16:21):
And so that's what I feel with like brassline is that I can be the best version
of myself where it's like, oh yeah, Allof those barriers, all those issues that
I've had in the past, they are gone.
Like I'm considered partof the leadership team.
I am building the culture.
I'm with the hiring process andbringing it in and building out with
the culture and our team structureand processes from the beginning.
And that is amazing.

(16:41):
And and I can be my
myself.
And that's something I noticedactually within the past month

John (16:46):
Okay.

Yesenia (16:47):
is that I've been noticing the part of myself come back and flourish
where and it's one of those things.
Like, you don't even notice that you'redoing it anymore because it's very
subtle and you just get used to it.
But the code switching,that's a real thing.

John (17:02):
Yes.

Yesenia (17:03):
and also the way you dress and present yourself, because
it's like, oh, she's two hoods.
So obviously we can't take her tooseriously, you know, stuff like that.
And so now, since I've been on this teamfor like a month, Bit of my New York is
coming out again where I'm like, oh, okay.
you know, I'm like dressing up theway I want to again, and this was

(17:24):
a good habit to like kind of pause,just because it's an expensive habit,
but I'm getting my sneakers again.

John (17:29):
Are
you
a sneaker head?
Just saying?
Yeah.

Yesenia (17:31):
Yeah.

John (17:32):
It's okay.

Yesenia (17:33):
I may or may not have put a bid on some Jordans and
I'm waiting to see if I get it.

John (17:38):
Which ones?

Yesenia (17:39):
man.
I got the Jordan retro.
There's like the purple one.
one retro high court.

John (17:44):
Oh, the one.
Damn.
Okay.
Okay.
Little air forces.

Yesenia (17:49):
Yay.

John (17:49):
Woo.
We'd like purple.
around these parts.

Yesenia (17:52):
Yes, it's my favorite color.
So as soon as I saw those, I waslike, I need to put a bid on it.
I usually don't pay that much money.
And I'm like, man, that is bop.
Like, I've been really good.
The past 10, 11 years, likepacing myself with sneakers.
And now, like, since I've beenworking here, I'm like, oh, I can
like, do whatever the I want again.
And I'm just like, yeah, if Iwear these sneakers, no, one's

(18:13):
going to bat an eye on me.
you know, it's normal.

John (18:16):
It's funny.
Cause I've worked, for like nonsneakerheads and I've worked for sneaker
heads as like leads and directors.
And there's an instant connectionthat gets you in, right?
Like if you're a non sneaker headboss and I'm coming to you with my,
whatever sneakers I have on, right.
Like I think of particular, Ihad some like LeBron James joints

(18:36):
or some like duck boot and.
It catches the eye
and there's a little nod of respect thereand you kind of in, and then all of a
sudden that kind of trickles down intobe like, yo, come check out my design.
Cause I know you got goodtastes kind of thing.
funny how that materializes ingeeky game development culture.
So, rockiest sneakers proudly just saying.
Yeah, I think that shitis a super important.

Yesenia (18:58):
Yeah, I'm very excited and I hope I win the bid because I don't
want to bid higher than I already have.
But then I also bought that I'mwaiting for this bid right now.
I also purchased some air forceones as well with like I custom
made like blue and black and white.

John (19:14):
Okay.

Yesenia (19:14):
Yeah.
I almost went down a rabbit hole oneday and I was like, okay, I gotta stop.
I gotta stop.

John (19:19):
you like Adidas at all or any of the Yeezys?

Yesenia (19:23):
I'm more a Nike person.
I'm all about the air force ones and

John (19:27):
classic,

Yesenia (19:28):
Yup.

John (19:28):
classic classic I have, I don't know if you get down with
foam posits, but that's, where my,affection lies is with Foamposites.
I just love that material.
They're like super strong, they don't getscuffed easy and they're super eye catchy.
Right.
They just seem futuristic.
So I like those.
we've never, I've never talkedabout sneakers on the show.
This is amazing.

(19:48):
Does it fantastic?
don't want to get carried away.

Yesenia (19:52):
Yeah.

John (19:52):
to, Yeah.
I want to get back to game development.
being a producer, you mentioned someamazing responsibilities in being able
to be a part of the leadership, definingculture, implementing processes, to make
sure that this is a part of day work.
could you break down for peoplethat are wondering like, Hey,

(20:15):
what does a producer actually do?
What's the day to dayof a producer look like,

Yesenia (20:19):
Yeah.
So a lot of people don'tunderstand production and so
it's not an uncommon thing.
like even my old family, theystill don't know what I do.
Sometimes they call me likethe Chandler of the family.

John (20:30):
Tell me more, tell me.

Yesenia (20:32):
Yeah.
So as a producer, my job is to workwith the creatives and the technical
people, like the engineers and thecreatives to get them aligned on
goals and to ship our product frompoint a to point B to the public.

John (20:45):
Okay.
Let me, let me throw that backto you and make sure I got it.
There's the engineering and there'sthe creatives, which you can literally
draw the line in the center andbe like left brain, right brain,
right.
There's like, Hey, this is what we can do.
And this is what we want to do.
And there's always a clash in the
center.
and so you're saying that you facilitatethose conversations and help them.

(21:07):
define the goals that will getboth parties to making the best
game possible and hitting a date.

Yesenia (21:13):
Yup.
Pretty much.
So I'm a, essentially a cat.
I work with like the creatives, theengineers, any like product owners, they
coders make sure, like, we're thinkingabout the best game possible that we
want to build, making sure that we'restaying true to the vision, generating a
timeline together, and our features likewhat are we building and why, when do we

(21:34):
want to ship those out and making surethat all the pieces are aligned so we can
actually ship on time for our players.
and sometimes I keep the train going,but also I'm also on the train and
putting the tracks down as a trainis going so it can keep going.
So bit of all of that.

John (21:50):
that.
seems like a high pressure, highresponsibility role, if you were
to get sick or go on vacation, itseems like you would come back to
and like mad max type of setup.

Yesenia (22:02):
I would say a little bit.
Yes.
But also I would argue no, because ifyou're a good producer and you have a good
process, you will not come back to chaos.

John (22:11):
Nice.

Yesenia (22:12):
Yeah.
It depends on you solely to get anythingdone, then you're, doing something wrong.
It's my opinion.

John (22:18):
but, okay.
So if you're doing your producer rolerights, you can take your proper two,
three week vacation and the projectwill still keep on target on track.
No delays.
I like that.
That doesn't sound as intimidating.
Now.

Yesenia (22:36):
Oh, but it is.
Okay.
All right.
Fine.
Fine.

John (22:40):
What.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Right?
It's, It's one of those, like,if you're good, what it is.
If you're not as strong then yeah.
You're more
bottleneck and they're moredependent on you, right.
that's where you separate kindof junior associate producers
from senior executive producers?
Absolutely.

Yesenia (23:00):
I've always said this, like I think anyone could be a producer,

John (23:03):
Okay.

Yesenia (23:03):
but I don't think everyone can be a great producer.

John (23:07):
Uh, there's some nuances there.

Yesenia (23:09):
Yeah.
it's definitely takes a certainpersonality type, a lot of learning.
but yeah, anyone can track things.
because we do a lot of productionstuff in our day-to-day lives.
Like, oh my doctor'sappointments at this time.
So in order to reach my appointmenton time, I need to leave the
house by this time because there'straffic, that's simple things
of like production right there.
Like figuring that out badand like, or cooking a meal.

(23:32):
Oh, I need to like cook this,have dinner ready by this time.
And I have all these three dishes to make.
So based on that, I'm going tostart this one here, because this
one takes the longest and I'mgoing to do this at the end because
that's the shortest amount of time.
And then my dinner will be on timethat's production in layman's terms.
So that's what I mean, likeanyone can really do it.
but to be a really good and great producertakes another level of skills, I think.

John (23:53):
It seems as though to do your job effectively, you
need all that information.
You need to know, Hey, how longis this going to take to boil?
How long is this going to take to cook?
Right.
how long has it going to take to cut up?
So talk me through how you go aboutgetting that information from your team.

Yesenia (24:11):
that one's a hard question for me, because my process
changes every studio I go to andevery team I work with because.
I'm a strong believer that thereis no one size fits all process.
right now I can talk, mostly aboutbrass line because I'm kind figuring
out the process as we go right
now.

John (24:28):
you just been there for a month.
You learning the personalities

Yesenia (24:31):
So yeah, it's definitely learning the personalities of
everyone, seeing motivates them, howthey work, what's their communication
flow because everyone has a differentcommunication flow and understanding.
And so essentially, there'sdesign documents, which is like,
here's our high level vision.
This is what our game's going to be.
Here are our pillars.
And then to kind of like if I wantedto build a actual roadmap of like,

(24:55):
okay, this is a timeline of this.
So now.
The next step is we need to makesure everyone is in alignment.
And so that's where I like talk toeveryone where it's like, okay, you're
in charge of this high-level vision.
maybe we need to start up a strike team.
Like, that's something I've doneon my studio right now where it's
like, we have a strike team that'sfocused on one part of this game

John (25:12):
One pillar.

Yesenia (25:13):
yeah.
And I tried to give them more autonomy inwhat they're building, because you give
someone ownership, I feel like they'remore motivated to get the job done rather
than doing something for processing.
Cause that's where I've seen a lotof producers kind of fail sometimes
where the, like they just putprocess in for process sake and it's
actually not fulfilling anything.
And so you have to like figure out why areyou implementing this process is actually

(25:35):
improve anything because as producers, ourjob is to amplify everyone's, performance
and, of like a support role in Overwatch.
Like, yeah, you're, you're likesometimes playing tank, you're
playing mercy, you know, whatever youhave to like switch between those.
it's mostly just talking toeveryone and be like, okay.
And then setting up meetings and planningsessions that like, this is our goal.
Let's talk about the document.

(25:56):
Let's make sure everyone'stalking together.
Are we all in alignment of it?
Okay, cool.
Once again, to an alignment, what I haveis like the lead of that strike team,
talk to their team and be like, okay,this is what we think our goals should be.
for our next milestone, let'ssay, and then we meet together,
like really break out the feature.
So I go for a more collaborativeapproach of like, what should we

(26:16):
be building for this experiencethat we want to give the player?

John (26:19):
Yes.

Yesenia (26:20):
so we start like very high level and like, an upside down
pyramid and like work our way down.
So it's like very high level vision.
Okay, cool.
Well, for the next mile, sowhat do we need to build?
We need to build X, Y, and Z.
Okay.
How do we get there bybuilding these features?
Okay.
Now let's actually figure outhow do we build this feature.
Then you go to user stories at task level.
So that's kind of like my approach.

(26:40):
I start very and big andfunnel all the way down.

John (26:43):
That's a great visual And I think that sounds like a very effective process,
start big and small and very specificfinite, concrete deliverables, those wins.
Right.
And then build that momentum on the teamand then rinse repeat kind of thing.

Yesenia (26:57):
it also, depending on what part of the pipeline I'm in.
I changed my process as well, too.
So if I was like an early conceptphase and production phase, before
I go into full production, mystructure and process changes.
Each one, because you need to makesure that you have that fluidity
as well, because you need to find abalance where in the beginning you're
giving everyone enough creativefreedom to build and really brainstorm

(27:19):
and think big pie in the sky.

John (27:21):
Yes.

Yesenia (27:21):
before you like go into production and it's like,
okay, now we have to like reallytighten in on what we're building.
We can't like do toomuch exploration anymore.
And then as we get closer to theship, you have to tighten it again.
Even more.
It's like, Nope, we're in ship mode.
So that's, another thing likeproducers to change their process
throughout the development cycle.

John (27:39):
that's a great call-out and that's something that you cannot
underestimate enough, right?
Is the team or creatives, yougive us rope, we're going to
take the whole damn thing.
And
we're going to look through duel,all, blow the scope, any chance
we get As disciplined as we can beas senior as we can be right, to
be like, Hey, eyes on the prize.

(28:00):
This will, we got to get tothe nature of what we do.
Fun things are gonna pop up.
And be like, oh my gosh, wenever accounted for this.
And play test is showing that this isawesome and we got to go deeper on this.
so it's great that you called outthat you recognize that different
phases in than production, right.
Require different amount ofleniency or tightening up.

(28:23):
I'm curious how you handle these.
moments on a project that arelike unallocated or unplanned
for, to be like, Oh, we need anew level to teach this feature.
Right.
If that happens at all.

Yesenia (28:37):
Oh, that happens on every project that I've worked on.
one of the things I really like to dois I like to get the team as quickly as
possible to a functional build that wecan play, because once you actually have
it on the vice and you get to experienceit, now you're able to actually get that
feedback that you weren't able to get.
So like my main goal is alwaysto try to get it working in a

(28:59):
build as quickly as possible.
So we can have more time for playtesting and Polish and iteration because
unlike software, where it's like youcan ship and it's functional yay games.
It's about an experience.
What is the player going to feel?
And so you, can't, it'shard to account for that.
And so that's where I usually add moretime into the Polish phase and I tried to
get the build in as quickly as possible.

(29:20):
So we have a lot of buffer timefor polishing and discovery.
That's kind of my tactic, what I do.
And then there's other instanceswhere it's in production, we have
many levers that we can pull.
you have this trianglewhere it's like, okay,
do you want a good, do you want this fast?
Or do you want this cheap?
can't have all three.
You have to pick two of them.
And so sometimes the wayproduction can help with that

(29:42):
is like, I've done this before.
It's like, okay, can we get moremoney to get more developers?
Yes or no.
Sometimes we can, but I will say on theflip side, adding more devs does not
make the thing go faster all the time.
And that is a common mistakethat people probably think it's
like, just add more engineers.
So it's like, Nope, they'renot going to code faster.

(30:02):
It's actually going to slow it downbecause now you have to think about
wrap-up time to teach the new people.
And then there's too many peoplein the, build and the Depot, like
moving assets around and it justbecomes a bottleneck and that way,

John (30:13):
Yeah.
There's a more bugs find their way intothe Depot and then that adds a whole other
spectrum, too.
yeah.
And what I've seen is definitely, Rampup time, usually equates to senior time
to train the individual.

Yesenia (30:28):
There's always a cost.

John (30:29):
yeah, there's always a cost and there's always this expectation on the
senior to be like, Hey senior, you'regoing to do your job at a hundred percent.
you're still going to have timeto like ramp these people up.
And that's extremely unrealistic,but it's never accounted for

Yesenia (30:42):
I know it is super unrealistic.
that's kinda what I lean towards whenthings are unaccounted for, because
let's say you are going to findthings in place where it's like, oh
no, we really need to change this.
There are going to be some timesthat we need to change something.
Or maybe like at our studio, especiallysince it's focused on like brown stories,
marginalized stories, it's like, arewe being respectful of this culture?

(31:03):
You know, there's going to bethings sometimes that we're going
to have to change at the lastminute, like, oh no, that was bad.
And we're going to have to do it.
And so those requiresconversations with my leadership
team, the founders essentially.
Cause we're a small studio,

John (31:15):
How big is the studio?

Yesenia (31:17):
are right now at about 19.
I want to say,

John (31:20):
Oh, that's a good size.
That's a good size.
Yeah.
That's like very flexible.
Agile, mobile.
Everybody has skin in it.
decisions get made fromall angles and you can
implement.
yeah,
Yeah.
That's pretty sweet.

Yesenia (31:32):
Yeah.
saw like in the March and Iwas like employee number six.
So

John (31:37):
Okay.

Yesenia (31:38):
yeah.
We've been growing real fast.

John (31:40):
Yeah.

Yesenia (31:41):
so those are conversations we have to have, like, if there's
something proper, it's like, okay.
the best advice give to producersis asking the why, because so often
we get caught up in like timelinesand burn rates and like, like, no,
no, no, we don't have enough time.
We have to get this done.
And it's like, no, sometimes we justhave to take a step back and ask why,

(32:02):
because sometimes there's a reason thatwe need to add something, you know,

John (32:06):
Yeah.

Yesenia (32:06):
to ask the why you can help facilitate.
How we get to there becausea designer would be like, we
need to scrap all of this.
This is
We need to do this and this and this,and this is how we're going to build it.
But if I ask the why, they're like, oh, wejust want the player to be able to do X,
oh, we can do that for you a lot cheaperthan what you just gave us as an example.

(32:28):
And this is how, and so that's howproductions, able to rely on those
levers of like, okay, how do wegive you what you want while also
making it still good experience,but cheaper costs or, you know,

John (32:39):
Yeah.

Yesenia (32:40):
cause like I said, you can either have a good, fast or cheap.
You can have it all.

John (32:44):
Yeah.
no, that tri force is,
very real.
and It's funny to me becausethere's a lot of times where it
feels like, people themselves intothinking they could have it all.

Yesenia (32:55):
Yeah.
It's like, no, you can't forthose listening, like your iron
triangle is what they call it,your project management triangle.
And there's also like in game in themiddle, if you were to put a.in the
triangle, that's your quality andthe petty note where you move it.
That's what your quality of the game is.

John (33:11):
nice.
I like it.
I want to know how do you get into this?
How do you get into productionhow did you get into production?

Yesenia (33:21):
Mine is a very interesting story.
So

John (33:24):
It is.

Yesenia (33:24):
I don't think, people will have the same experience I did,
but So I've always been a gamer.
And for me it was
halo to essentially that changed my life.

John (33:36):
Oh my gosh.
It changed mine too.

Yesenia (33:38):
Yeah, cause it's like, I've always played video games, but halo
too, for me was the first time that Iactually experienced multiplayer with
people that like all over the world,like that's was something new for me.

John (33:49):
Cause that was the first X-Box live game.
Yeah.
Like on me when I say Xbox live, Imean, X-Box live as an online service
and then halal to re letting you goonline and match-make and competitively.

Yesenia (34:03):
Yeah, because I think I did a little bit of that with like DVR, but it
was halo too, which is different for me.
and so
I actually like played so many hourson that game and my grades suffered
tremendously in college because of that.

John (34:17):
What were you studying?

Yesenia (34:18):
I was studying biology because I wanted to become a doctor.

John (34:23):
Hey,

Yesenia (34:24):
Yeah.
So I was on that route.
I already knew what I was going to do.
I was going to be an anesthesiologist.
I've known Matt since like thefifth grade, because to think
that's like, I need to make moneyand it's the first gen Ecuadorian.
It's like, oh, okay.
This is what I'm doing.
I want to be a doctor.
And so,

John (34:38):
there's good.
Money it's a prominent career goal,and there's a clear path to it.
That's what's up.

Yesenia (34:44):
yeah.
And I think that's what it is, isthat there's a clear path to it.
And I think that's why

John (34:48):
Unlike video games.

Yesenia (34:50):
Yeah.
On like video games.
But I want to like change that.
that's why I think so many peoplehave different ways of how they got
into the industry, because at leastnow it's becoming more mainstream but
back then, I didn't know about it.
And so when I started halo two,I got very involved with it.
I got competitive with it.
I actually competed at MLG.
I even had my own MLG team that competedin the halo two that I started managing.

(35:13):
Cause I was like, I'm justgoing to start doing this.
I had no idea what Iwas doing, but I did it.

John (35:17):
You went from a pro gamer competitor on the team to the manager of the team,
or is that, one in the same is that youcan be a player on the team and man.

Yesenia (35:25):
I started going to MLG.
My first one was like in 2009 andNorth Carolina and I got introduced
to a lot of people there andthat's how I got more involved with
the the e-sports back in the day
gaming
scene.

John (35:38):
this is in its infancy, right?
This is when mod was starting.
and I can't tell you how manypro gamers I knew back in the
day, let alone female gamers,

Yesenia (35:50):
Yeah, I was surrounded by a lot of dudes.

John (35:54):
just like the video game

Yesenia (35:56):
Yeah.
A lot of dudes, but yeah, no, I startedlike doing that and I noticed that
all these other clans were out there.
Like the PMs clan, therewas also KSI at the time.

John (36:06):
What was your team?

Yesenia (36:07):
we were team bombshells.
They're fine.
It was a hobby I had, um,

John (36:16):
I mean, you gotta be better than all of us normal.
I mean, not normal, but all of us like

Yesenia (36:21):
yeah.

John (36:22):
players, you know, Xbox live warriors.
If you're in MLG,

Yesenia (36:26):
Yeah.
I'm not as good anymore though.
I will say that.
if you don't practice,you definitely lose it.

John (36:32):
I would love to face you, under whatever circumstances
motivates you, because I suspectthat as good as I think I am.
the level between someone who's playedit competitively and the level of
someone who's played it for fun at homeagainst his friends and online is still
like the length of the grand canyon.

(36:53):
So you may think compared to otherprogrammers that you're not good, but
compared to amateur players, you'restill kind of open alliterate people.
I'm sure like the musclememory would kick in after
one or two sessions,

Yesenia (37:04):
we'll see, we'll see.
Maybe a few more white claws.

John (37:08):
man.
I, I got to shout outthe homeys in New York.
we used to go by the nametribal and we would throw down
hardcore on all those maps.
damn it, what was, it was like a andthe sword was spawned at the top
and you can kind of drop down andthey had like a rocket launcher.
Fuck Is the name of that?

Yesenia (37:28):
Is it that large map?

John (37:30):
No man.
It was good for like one V1,but it was also good for like
two V

Yesenia (37:35):
midship?

John (37:36):
Mitch, all my God.
midship out, shout out to lockoutlockout It is mission is a big one.
I was a big midship fan, butlockout because every, everybody
thinks they're good on lockout.
so it was always kind of a neutralground of like, see me on lockout son.
I'd be like, hi, yo, bring it.

(37:57):
Let's go.
Oh,
Uh, good.
memories.

Yesenia (38:01):
my God.
Lockout is so good.
The rush for sniper
and like

John (38:07):
Yes.
all those key weapons and shoddy, right.
Shoddy.
Sure.

Yesenia (38:12):
God.
Yeah.

John (38:13):
a lot of close quarters.

Yesenia (38:14):
Yeah.
It was underneath sniper tower.

John (38:17):
So you could always drop down.
You can
get the sniper dropdown and get the shoddy.
So you got both of those.

Yesenia (38:21):
And the plasma while you're at it.

John (38:22):
all this to bring me back.
have to call out that we live in Seattle.
So whoever designed that fucking mapat Bungie needs to be here somewhere.
Somehow, I'm going to say it.
on this episode, talking to you thatI'm going to find this person or this
team, and going to bring them on.
We're going to invite them.
And we want to talk about lockoutbecause that's pretty powerful for

(38:44):
big generation of halo players.

Yesenia (38:46):
Oh yeah.
I bet.
I know some people.

John (38:48):
Yes.
help me track them down, please.

Yesenia (38:51):
All right.

John (38:52):
so getting back, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to get off
on a tangent.

Yesenia (38:55):
We totally need it.
We totally get that.
It's totally fine.

John (38:58):
you are a pro gamer in MLG, halo to you're owning opponent.
You moved to managing, team bombshells.
where does that lead you to.

Yesenia (39:07):
so then I started doing a lot of pro bono stuff cause I was
like, oh, I'm going to get moreinvolved in the gaming industry.
So I started doing pro bono book with like
other gaming companies that one of themactually started up back in the day.
Chassidy or Zari actually hada company back in the day.
a super powerful Puerto Rican woman.
So I started doing all these likepro bono stuff and then also.

(39:27):
Getting involved in the gamingcommunity sites like forums.
And then I also startedwriting game articles.
Like I am all over the place.

John (39:34):
Wow.
And
so where did this come from?
like
where did that
urge or energy?

Yesenia (39:39):
because halo two was so big for me.
And then like being around thosepeople and seeing that they're
doing this as a job, I was like,shit, that was my realization of
like, I can do this as a career.

John (39:50):
What specifically.

Yesenia (39:52):
just working in games.

John (39:54):
Okay.

Yesenia (39:55):
Yeah.
So at that moment, I didn't know yet what?

John (39:57):
So you were not making money as a pro gamer.

Yesenia (40:00):
no, no, no.
I was not at the level oflike Walshy and all of them
big ass checks.

John (40:05):
yeah, help me understand as a non e-sports
athlete,

Yesenia (40:08):
I just, competed in them and like the competitions, but I was never
like sponsored or anything like that.

John (40:14):
Cause I would be led to believe that the money comes from.
The prize pools, but I guess, the majorityof the money comes from sponsorships.

Yesenia (40:21):
Yeah.

John (40:22):
Uh, okay.
Got it.
setting that straight.

Yesenia (40:25):
so yeah, I was like, people are doing this as a career and so I just
want to get into the games industry.
So I started researching and gettingmore involved as much as possible
learning as much as I could.
And then I was like, you knowwhat, I want to work at Bungie.

John (40:39):
The makers of halo, that makes total sense.

Yesenia (40:42):
and so I quit school.
I
quit my job.

John (40:47):
your, your medicine
Oh my goodness.

Yesenia (40:50):
I quit school.
I quit work and I movedacross the country,
to Seattle.

John (40:55):
where was school?
Where were you going to
school
at?

Yesenia (40:57):
time I was at Penn state university.

John (40:59):
Okay.
Then, and then you, you went to Seattlebecause bungee space in Seattle.
I'm sorry.
They're based in Bellevue

Yesenia (41:05):
Yup.
so, yeah, that was likeback in 2007, I moved
came over here.
They didn't have a job, but I waslike the turbines and I just, I
did some odd jobs here and there.
And while I still continued lookingfor people in networking and then
I went to my first packs 2009

John (41:22):
tell me more about that, man.
Cause packs is kind ofwhat brought me to Seattle.
My first time, give a take my buddy movedhere, it's definitely one of the things.
If you're working games orinvolved in games, packs is a big
reason for you to come see you.

Yesenia (41:36):
yeah, no, it was amazing.
And.
I don't know if it's because I've beendoing this for so long, but PAX is
different nowadays than it was back then.
It has a different vibe and Ican't quite put my finger on it.
It just feels different.

John (41:49):
So you're
talking about 2009, right?
That was your first

Yesenia (41:52):
yeah, it was magical for me.
And that feeling has mostly gone away fromme and I, and it's probably because I work
in the industry now, but I still enjoypact because now that's the way I get to
see all of my friends at the same time.

John (42:04):
Yeah.
I mean, same reason.
Like people look forward to GDC and
and things like that.
Like, okay, we're going toconnect with all the buddies.
We're going to catch up,see what we're doing.

Yesenia (42:12):
Cool.

John (42:12):
maybe there's a suite project that we can jump ship on kind of

Yesenia (42:16):
Right, exactly.
It's so no, that's why liketax was so magical to me.
Like that was my first.
Game convention that I've ever been to.
And so I was
wide-eyed bushy tail and like, oh my gosh.
at that time I was part of this, femalegaming group called gamer chicks
they were a great community becauseI learned so much from them I got to
meet amazing friends from that group.

(42:38):
And because of that group, Or some of myclosest and best friends till this day.
so yeah, what's a past, she was showingme around and I got to meet more people.
And then I just happened to meet agroup of mutual friends of hers where
it's like, oh, Hey, they work at X-Boxon the Xbox live enforcement team.
and they're hiring.
And I was like, okay.
And so I gave my application,my resume and I interviewed,

(42:59):
and I got the job right away.

John (43:00):
What was the answer?

Yesenia (43:01):
So the interview at the time, I don't know how much I can say, but
it was different because the X-Boxlive enforcement team is in charge of
monitoring the live services for X-Boxlive and making sure everyone's following
the terms of use and all of that.
And so.
It was, job was to help moderateall of that and complaints or
anything like investigations

(43:22):
that
came through.

John (43:23):
does that all come from like player feedback?
Like whenever I get pulled in bysome player, I'm like, oh, that
motherfucker was cheating report player.
Is that the type of stuff?
Okay, cool.
Cool, cool.

Yesenia (43:31):
Yeah.
And so it was, I don't even rememberwhat my interview process was anymore.

John (43:36):
That long ago.
Yeah.

Yesenia (43:38):
that there was a lot of disclaimers of like, Hey,
you're going to see some stuff.
Are you okay with this?
You know, that kind of thing.

John (43:45):
And you're like you I'm from New York Queens, man.
this is a Monday.

Yesenia (43:48):
Yeah.
This is a Monday that's coffee.

John (43:51):
so I gotta ask, right?
Cause I don't know how many people I'mgonna, get that have experienced that on
the spectrum of like, this is a lot tohandle a process and like, all right, this
is just, you know, somebody complaining.
what, what was the, what type of thingsyou were dealing with or was there
anything kind of like too much to handle?

Yesenia (44:07):
Oh yeah.
all I can say without like givingtoo much away or getting in trouble.
Xbox is, I've seen a lot of things andI've heard a lot of things and I've
also had to deal with a lot of monitors.

John (44:19):
Well, I mean, like not too far fetched, when you look at Twitch
streams and the type of language

Yesenia (44:23):
exactly
it

John (44:24):
use

Yesenia (44:25):
multiply that and think about images.
Also

John (44:29):
images,

Yesenia (44:30):
remember
back in the

John (44:31):
oh oh yeah, because had the webcam, I forgot you had the Xbox webcam.
Oh my
gosh,

Yesenia (44:38):
all I will say.

John (44:41):
I forgot.
This was a thing.
I have a cousin who was a big fanof UNO in the webcam and I never
understood it was it wasn't my jam.
Right.
I'm just like, yo, we play a halo.
But he would definitely talk to me aboutit as a, as a social connection thing.
Like,

Yesenia (44:56):
Yeah,

John (44:57):
and you connect and you have a good time.
Why?
Wow.

Yesenia (45:02):
there was definitely something called UNO after dark.
And there was definitely momentswhere things should not go
into that part of the body.

John (45:09):
Y'all just Sandhya.
You're taking me back, man.
Xbox live has come a long way.
We've come a long way.
As an industry, as an onlineconsole, internet players, safety,
privacy, making it family friendly.
Geez.

Yesenia (45:26):
And one versus 100.

John (45:29):
Was this like, like a game show kind of thing?

Yesenia (45:31):
Yeah.
that talks about,

John (45:35):
yeah.
Oh my goodness.
Damn.
This is fantastic.
Good times, like over a decade ago.
Geez.

Yesenia (45:47):
And so, yeah, I, I got my job there and then from there I went
to QA and my first game that I wasa tester on was year three, and then
I also worked on Batman Arkham city.

John (45:57):
so this is worth highlighting is the fact that you transitioned it to QA.
how'd you find that?
Right.
How did you find getting in, on kindof the development side of things?
what skills did you learn?
How
was all that.

Yesenia (46:10):
So for me, I got into the QA side of things, very non traditionally.
So when I was on the X-Box team, I wasa contractor at that time and that's
a super common in the games industry.
And so I had to take like ahundred, they break at that time.
And the agency I was workingwith, they gave me a temporary
job to kind of fill that gap.
And I was like, oh, this works out.

(46:31):
But then I didn't get called back tothat job because I grew the position.

John (46:36):
You were too good

Yesenia (46:37):
I was too good.

John (46:38):
to experienced

Yesenia (46:39):
and at that time I was really upset, but now I'm
like, oh, this makes sense.
Yeah, they were right.
and then they were like, well, we'reactually starting the QA team internally.
Do you want to be a part of it?
And I had like two choices to makeat that time, because at that time I
was looking at this position, whichwill pay me shit, I was looking at,
a customer support position withthe tweak fleet back in the day.

John (47:00):
what the.

Yesenia (47:01):
The tweaked fleet.

John (47:03):
Is that for Twitter?

Yesenia (47:04):
so X-Box has Twitter support back in the day with they were
called themselves a tweet fleet.

John (47:09):
Because it was integrated

Yesenia (47:10):
Yup.

John (47:11):
on back then.

Yesenia (47:12):
Yeah.

John (47:13):
So it was kind of, was it similar?
Were you like kind ofmoderating and things like this?

Yesenia (47:17):
a little bit, yeah, I like doing more, but it was more customer
support, like actually talking to people.
so I had those two options where it'slike, I can go into QA, get paid shit.
I can get this other joband get paid really decent.
And I chose QA because I was like, Iwant to work in the games industry.
So I need to do this pathin order to get there.
And so,

John (47:35):
I want to emphasize the key decisions you made.
And those kinds of sacrifices that youtook don't let me put any words in your
mouth, but kind of seeing the biggerpicture and the long-term gain, right.
Kind of running that marathon tobe like, Hey, this is what I want.
Let me sacrifice for the short-termgame now the longterm in the future.

Yesenia (47:54):
yeah,
absolutely.

John (47:56):
That's genius.
way to play the game.
Just saying, yeah,

Yesenia (47:59):
Thanks.
but yeah, that's essentially what I did.
I was like, I need to get into initiallyif I need to bite the bullet now and like
do this and then I'll get paid later.
Um, and so I did that and so I workedon our thumb and fear three, and
then I really good at doing bugs.
Okay.
First off, I need to tell you a story.

John (48:16):
I'll please.
We're all about stories on our right.

Yesenia (48:19):
so I do not come from QA background.
So this was like the first time I getinto QA, it was so overwhelming for me.
cause I had no idea what I was doing.
remember watching all theother testers there, like doing
logging bugs super easily.
And I'm like, I don't knowwhat I'm supposed to be doing.
So people who think that testQA is so easy, like, oh, you

(48:40):
just play a game all day.
that is wrong.
You actually have to figureout how to break the game.
And that is actually not as simple.

John (48:47):
is there no training?
No.
Like manuals, no.
Like people to mentor you.

Yesenia (48:53):
Exactly.
There was, there's like back in theback of the day, like this is an early
day, it's like, there's I had no manual.
There was nothing that told mehow to game tests or anything.
So I just kind of jumped in andthey hired me because of my like
skill set of what I had in the past.
And that I have core organization,good communication skills.
And
also I was already internal.

(49:14):
Yeah.
And they're like, okay,we'll bring her in.
And this is a junior level, so it's okay.
And luckily like, my boss at thetime, he was a really good mentor
where I was just like getting veryoverwhelmed and I, I said to him,
Hey, can I just borrow your time?
And can you just sit with me?
Because I actually don't knowwhat I'm supposed to be doing
in order to like, test his game.
Like, am I just running around here?
And then

(49:34):
I remember
he sat down with me for like 20 minutes.

John (49:37):
There's no test plan that you're following anything

Yesenia (49:39):
There is a test plan, but there were some areas where it was like ad hoc
testing as well, where it's like, you'rejust supposed to go play by yourself.
And that's the part I was like,struggling with where I was like, I
don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.
And so that's when he like satdown with me And like ran down
the, uh, level of me, like this
is what I usually check for.

John (49:54):
and to be fair, you're probably playing like an alpha
or beta build of the game.
Right.
There's like super buggy, super unstable.
Doesn't look as, what you wouldexpect the game to look like.

Yesenia (50:05):
yeah, because he sat down with me, like walk me
through that whole process.
I was able to be calma really good tester.
And then I ended up being theone with the most bugs per day,

John (50:13):
Yay,

Yesenia (50:14):
And then I got like promoted twice within a year or so.

John (50:18):
in the off chance that this mentor is listening to this
episode, the episode of a playarea, let's give a shout out.
Let's pass the rose on man, for thementor, taking the time for you.
First of all, for pull him asideand be like, yo, I need help.
Right?
That's not something that's built into.
A lot of our DNAs is being able torecognize it, but like, yo, hold on, man.

(50:39):
I don't know what I'm doing.
I could use a little bit of help andlearning how to ask the right questions,
I want you to shout out personin the off chance that they're

Yesenia (50:47):
Yeah.
His name is Evan McGuire.
And he's over at Bungienow as the main QA lead.

John (50:53):
Oh, shout out to Evan.
Maguire.
Nice.

Yesenia (50:59):
and with all of that, I ended up being in charge of regressions
and I became like the point person onour QA team of like working with the
lead and like all of that, like, thisis what our processes, I'm doing the
and I'm assigning the bugs out,working with rock steady and their
bugs and like back and forth.

John (51:13):
So when you got promoted, were the roles?

Yesenia (51:16):
I just got more responsibilities and more pay.

John (51:18):
Hey, that's a good way to be.
So, so it wasn't likeofficial like lead, but
you unofficial kind of point person.
Hey, that's a good place to be.
I've been in that position a few

Yesenia (51:28):
Yeah

John (51:28):
you just do the job that needs to be done.
And you're good at rallying people.
that's a super valuable skillthat it's awesome to hear how you.
Naturally built it, but alsokind of on the job and then
see how that into a producer
That's super interesting.

Yesenia (51:47):
Cause I remember when I was there, I was like,
I really enjoyed doing this.
At that time.
I had a project manager also.
and I remember talking to him andgoing, I want to continue working in
the industry and I really liked doingthis because I like solving problems
and figuring all this stuff out.
I don't want to be a testerall my life, but I want to do
something like what you do.

(52:08):
don't what to do.
And he was like, you could be a producer.
And that was the first time for methat I ever heard the term producer.
And I was like, oh shit.

John (52:17):
he planted the seed.

Yesenia (52:18):
Yep.
But I will, give shit.
I won't call him out, but I willgive shit for him underestimating me

John (52:24):
Oh, okay.
Hell yeah.
Let's hear it.

Yesenia (52:26):
yeah.
Cause he, I remember he, at thattime, he's like, you can do this.
I was like, oh, okay, cool.
And I remember he was like, if youstay in QA, though, that path to
production is like the career path toproduction from QA is a long way to go.
And he's like, it'll be a while.
And I'm like, okay, sure, whatever.
My next job after I left that and wentto an indie studio, I became a producer.

(52:50):
worked my way up into associate producer.
and then I went over to Pokemon,

John (52:55):
is this Niantic or the Pokemon company?

Yesenia (52:57):
the Pokemon company.

John (52:59):
love to hear more about that.
I have very little context asto These amazing games get made.
Like was in their Pokemon blue,uh, Pokemon, silver, Pokemon,
Sapphire, all those on mygame, boy, color game, boy, DS.
when did you get in and, and how was that?
Like

Yesenia (53:18):
Yeah.
So I started at Pokemon back in 2015,so I was there about for three years
before I went over to Minecraft.
That was really cool experience.
I felt like I walked back intothe nineties and to my childhood

John (53:32):
because

Yesenia (53:33):
I love Pokemon growing up.
It was like amazing.
And then to go into the office withall the statues, I, I there's statues
of Bulbasaur, Pika, Chu, chars arethen it's just like, yeah, exactly.
It's like, amazing.
So that is the field I had when Iwalked into the office, I was like, oh
my God, I can't believe I work here.
And it's like,
so cool.
And everyone's like lovesthe product that we work on.

(53:54):
And it's very, family-oriented great.
Work-life balance.

John (53:57):
that's all the things.
Yeah.
I mean, like, I don't care who you are.
If you're a game developer, have alittle part of your soul that goes
out to Nintendo and would love tobe able to say that, Hey, had a
time as an intended game developer.

Yesenia (54:13):
I will say me personally, cause I don't want to take the credit.
I did not work on the game boy games.
like no Nintendo games overthere, but I worked on like some
other apps on the Pokemon side.
oh man.
I, do miss my discounts.
It was really good.
This council

John (54:26):
towards
anything.

Yesenia (54:28):
Pokemon and also like Nintendo.

John (54:30):
Dang.
How, how was it structuredout of curiosity?
is it like what you wouldexpect from a development team
or what what was the role?
What were you responsible for?

Yesenia (54:41):
So the team structure is a little bit different over there.
So.
For as long as Pokemon's been around,I think now it's like 25 years.

John (54:49):
geez.
yeah.
like mid nineties Early
nineties, probably.

Yesenia (54:52):
Yeah.
So the main, pillar and product fortheir company is a trading card games.
Those are still going really strong.
and so when I joined there, there wasstill no, internal game studio develop.
And then maybe like a year laterwe add an internal game studio.

John (55:07):
Wait, is that because of what the games have made in Japan or some,

Yesenia (55:11):
yeah.

John (55:11):
okay.
That, helps me understand betterput some context around it.

Yesenia (55:16):
like, people forget, they'll realize that Pokemon company is
its own company because it's not,everyone's like, oh, Nintendo.
I'm like, no, no, no, the Pokemon company,but like our sister companies, aren't
in 10 though, we got game freak and

John (55:27):
brass right game freaks.
Okay.
Okay.
Bet, bet, bet.
I'm sorry.
I was all confused.
I should know better.
So Pokemon company is more on thephysical games and the trading
cards and things like that.

Yesenia (55:39):
Yeah.
And they did more of like allthe international sales and
everything on the us side, andcoordinate between us and Japan.
So think of like the PR the marketing,like all of that lives there too.
And so we started, an internal gamestudio within Bellevue, and that's
when I left the marketing departmentand I went over there again because
I wanted to get back into games.
and our team was maybe like 12 people.

(56:02):
It's a really small team.

John (56:04):
Yeah.

Yesenia (56:04):
but the team structure was really cool.
Like I was the main producer on thewhole team running multiple projects.
so I worked on, the Pokemon TV app.
I Help kind of launch, the new app.
Cause it launched after I left, whichis digital version of trading card.
I think it's called a polkadecks or something like that.
I forgot what the app name is called,but it lets you like keep track
of the cars that you actually get.

(56:24):
And it just looks cool.
kind of like a journal.
And then I also worked on thetrading card game, online version,
and so that required a lot ofcoordination with multiple departments.
so yeah, I pretty much kindof built the process for our
internal game studio as well.
And like, figuring out how to havethis game studio run within an
already established business model.

(56:46):
And so I was the person runningback and forth between all the
different departments to kind offigure out what the process is with.
Like what's our processwith our localization team.
What's our process with marketing,what's our process with business and
product development and kind of makingsure everyone's talking to each other.
And then I'm like working withour business partners across
the seas and making sure that.
I'm helping them with the process andthey're following our process yeah.

(57:08):
If I were to like put team sidethat I was managing and it was like
over 40 people, just because they'relike, a lot of like all these other
departments and places that I'mworking with and business partners

John (57:19):
you are not kidding when you talked about cat hurting, right.
Cause it's one thing when it's yourteam, your department, but when you have
to go cross bridges and to these otherboroughs or cells or worlds, right.
And have these people soft to eachother, that's pretty challenging.
Right.
People are used to their ownlittle habits and, and processes.
So that's no small feat.

(57:40):
I'm curious what you would adviseto anybody having to tackle
a situation similar to that.

Yesenia (57:46):
interacting with like multiple departments and stakeholders.
Like how to advice for likebeing the bridge essentially.

John (57:53):
think that would be handy.
I think that would be

Yesenia (57:55):
Yeah.
So something that helps me, someadvice that I give is be very
personable and don't bullshit peopleand be transparent, like an ass.
Yeah.
Be transparent and be fearlesswith questions because you have to

(58:15):
ask a lot of questions sometimes,and sometimes it's intimidating.
You have to ask the questions in orderto get a better understanding of what
you're trying to get at, or make surethat you're understanding a hundred
percent what that person is tellingyou, because as the facilitator, making
sure you're the bridge between all ofthese people, you have to make, to make
sure that you understand what everyoneis saying so you can deliver a concise

(58:36):
message.

John (58:37):
I like that.
Okay.
So when you say be fearless and yourquestions, it's more about don't
fear sounding stupid, There reallyare no stupid questions you have
to be able to understand exactly sothat you can take that information
over to another group, apartmentpass on that information, right.
To, to convey that knowledge to someoneelse that doesn't know it at all as well.

Yesenia (58:59):
yeah, absolutely.
And like one of my super powersis that I can talk to anyone.

John (59:04):
A that's an awesome.

Yesenia (59:07):
yeah, and so it's really comes in really handy cause it's.
one thing that I've alwaysdone and I always advise new
producers, especially coming in.
And it's like, don't always talk to people
about only tasks

John (59:17):
Hmm.

Yesenia (59:18):
because eventually if that's all you talk to them about people are going
to be like, oh, here she comes again.
And she's going to ask me like whatmy status update is on this and that.
But if you keep it more more

John (59:28):
I can empathize.
I

Yesenia (59:30):
yes,

John (59:30):
Oh shit.
Producers hit me up.
I know what they want.

Yesenia (59:33):
exactly,

John (59:34):
late thing.

Yesenia (59:35):
exactly.
And so I always advise new producers tonot be that way and be like, bring it to
the mix, your own personal personality,like, and talk to them like a regular
person, like, Hey, how's your day going?
And you'd be surprised at how often taskand status updates come naturally into
the conversation without you even asking.

John (59:53):
Wow.
That's powerful.
Just saying, yeah, that's powerful.
you set up a mechanism just bybeing More personable that the
information you would normally haveto hunt down just comes to you.

Yesenia (01:00:07):
Yup.

John (01:00:07):
then that way, when you interact with the person, it, it gets to be more
fun, more meaningful, more positive.
Yeah.
As opposed to like, give me the work.
Where's the work I need
the work.
Yay.
That is some executiveproducer level type stuff.
Right?

Yesenia (01:00:24):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And so that's how I gotinto the games industry.

John (01:00:30):
yo, I love it.
So coming from, an anesthesiologist,pursuing biology in college, to halo,
pro gaming, making the move to beinglike yo, I'm going to work for bungee
and ends up working for like every damncompany out in the Pacific Northwest.
And now it's going to leaveus because she's working for

(01:00:50):
brass line in New York city.
And she's going to move down to LA.
I see that.
That is, that is an amazing trajectory.
I love the fact that the New York citygame development scene growing is thriving
and is building games and telling storiesthat I don't want to say can only come
from New York, but like makes sensethat they're being incubated in New York

(01:01:11):
city being the Mecca and the meltingpot of so many cultures and immigrants
and things like this, that it is, I'ma big fan rooting in the background.
Right.
I hope I can get someswag and rep you guys

Yesenia (01:01:23):
Oh, absolutely.

John (01:01:25):
I'd love to understand or call out any tools that are like
your besties or your gold tos, or itdoesn't matter what you do always.
It's like y'all use whatever,whatever, anything that you would
people to brush up on if they wantto get into this kind of thing.

Yesenia (01:01:42):
if they want to become a producer, I really recommend people
sign up for newsletters I think it'scalled game industry game dev industry.
You just get daily emailsand updates about what's
happened in the games industry.
And that's somethingthat's really good to do.

John (01:01:58):
the game industry.
DOP is.

Yesenia (01:02:00):
yeah, that,
so that's a really good thing that I,I like to just because if you don't
have a lot of time, you can actuallysee at least at a high level what's
happening in the games industry.
Cause they give you all the headlinesand then you have the option to go
in and look read a little bit more.
so I look at that, Iread various articles.
I also look at the GDC vault.
If there's a way you can getaccess to that from someone.

John (01:02:21):
Yup.

Yesenia (01:02:21):
Cause there's some, a lot of good talks.
I also recommend looking on YouTubeand like other people, producers in the
industry because most of us have websitesand sometimes they link to their talks.
So listening to them talk also recommendgetting into like communities and
like the discourse, like shout outto Latin X and gaming this court.

John (01:02:39):
Shout outs.

Yesenia (01:02:41):
common join us.
Like our community is large and thriving.
And like I met a lot of people and that'sactually how I found out about brass line.
Cause someone posted inthere like yo they're hiring.
And then they got a job there andalready I've helped, like so many
people get a job just by mentoringthem within that, this core.
Then I'm like not to brag, butI'm like super proud of that.

John (01:03:00):
No, no, let's not understate that I've, gotten like three
or four people jobs this year.
And that's kind of the, someof the past 10 years, right?
Like, I think I'm doingmore now than I did before.

Yesenia (01:03:13):
Yup.

John (01:03:14):
feels so great to your point.
This is kind of addictive and I could seehow people a become recruiters or some
or mentors, Because feels so rewarding
to help people get put on.
That's really a big reason why I'm puttingthis show together is to tell the story.
To help people see that we come fromall different walks, shapes, sizes,

(01:03:36):
backgrounds, experiences, right?
You have a very uniquestory just sending us.
So I love the fact that you're heretelling it let people know that, Hey,
there's no clear one path to get on,but it definitely involves sacrifice.
It involves getting out of your shell,talking to people, trying different
things and being kind of relentless,
keep going and taking opportunities andhaving a goal to your point, picking up

(01:04:01):
and moving across the country, right.
To be like, yo, this is the thing Iwant to get into and never stopping.
and now it's going to kindof come full circle because
you're connected back to your hometown.
So

Yesenia (01:04:12):
know.
I, that has also made me kind of Siri.
I, when I joined the team, like,wow, I found full circle and it took
me like 14 years, well, 11 years inthe industry and I'm full circle.
And so It's wild.
But yeah, no, like I recommend topeople like trying to get in, it's
like read up as much as possible,subscribe to that newsletter know
what's happening on the industry.

(01:04:32):
this doesn't sound so cheesy, butTwitter, there's a lot of things that
you can just follow them on Twitter.
Like all the game that people arein there and talking all the time.
definitely take don'ttake everything as gospel.
Um, cause everyone has opinions.

John (01:04:46):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I got to connect with you throughTwitter, but actually that brings me to a
good point is you were nominated throughhope to become a better homie with, but
I want to call him a good homie, Vaka.
He dropped your name onhis episode of the podcast.
So I got to ask how do you know him?

Yesenia (01:05:05):
I know Juan from Latin X and gaming.
so yeah, I met him about back inSeptember, October of last year.
And yeah, I saw him randomly onTwitter and he had the Ecuadorian flag.
because I saw the flag, I followedhim because I was like, I've never
seen anyone from Ecuador before.

(01:05:26):
And so

John (01:05:28):
Okay, well, for context, like online or like in gaming

Yesenia (01:05:34):
in gaming,

John (01:05:35):
okay, fair.
Boom.
Good, good, good, good.

Yesenia (01:05:38):
Yeah.
Like I was like, holy shit.
You exist.
Like, cause I haven't seenthat since I moved over here.
and so I got very excited and then hefollowed me back and then like posted
something back in like I was like,Hey, I posted a wide net to sweater.
I was like, I want to get moreinvolved in like mentoring and like
doing panels and stuff like that.

(01:05:58):
Cause I haven't done itbefore, but I really want to.
And he was like, you should sign upfor a needle's online and do a webinar.
And so I did.
And so there's a YouTube videoof me talking about production.

John (01:06:11):
Oh, I'm going to find this.
I'm going to post it in the show notes.

Yesenia (01:06:15):
and so yeah, that's how I know Juan.
And so we've become homeys.
He's me, my Familia since then.
And yeah, I love that crew a lot.
Like I've, I've gotten to meetso many other wonderful folks.
My next community.
And I've, told them already before,but I'm like, this is the first time
in a while that I felt truly at home

John (01:06:35):
Yeah.

Yesenia (01:06:36):
a community like this in the gaming industry this whole time.
I
feel like I've been siloedand away from everyone.

John (01:06:43):
absolutely, I tell them the same thing.
Whenever I get a chance to tellwhat any of those people was
like, man, where were you guys?
Like
years ago?
You know, this is fantastic and beautiful.

Yesenia (01:06:54):
Yeah.
Now we helping people get jobs,

John (01:06:57):
If you're ready for the lightning round, we can jump into this thing.

Yesenia (01:07:02):
all right.
Let me We do have to shoutout also person the next
podcast,

John (01:07:07):
Oh yeah.
That, comes at the end

Yesenia (01:07:09):
sorry, spoiler for all you listeners.

John (01:07:12):
alert.
He don't listen to the show guys.
that's the thing, So, okay.
We're going to make her a fan it's okay.
okay, let's go.
go.
Let's get into this.

Yesenia (01:07:20):
All right, let's
go.

John (01:07:21):
What is the last game that you finished?

Yesenia (01:07:24):
I'm so bad at finishing games nowadays that I like
jump in and out all the time.
Like right now I started picking up

John (01:07:33):
Oh, it's so good.

Yesenia (01:07:34):
yeah, once I like ignore the male gaze genus of it, it's a really
good game, but it's really hard forme to continue it because of that.

John (01:07:42):
Call that.
out.
I mean, be fair to call it out, right?
Like we can't give the easthemisphere developers a pass
all the time to do that thing.
character.
I'm glad she doesn't smashbrothers, but we should be able
to hold them to a highest standard

Yesenia (01:07:55):
I love the combat and Bayonetta and all of that, but all my God, I have to
stop because it was just like, wait, what?
She's
naked.
And her hair is like, what?
Okay.
I couldn't play anymore.
I don't even know whatthe last game I finished.
So next question.
It was a long time.

John (01:08:10):
What's The last book you read

Yesenia (01:08:13):
I actually have started reading his new book that I found
out this bookstore last weekend.
It's how to think, like a game designer.

John (01:08:18):
what
is this?
I don't know about this book.
it going?
How are you liking this so far?
What do you like about it?

Yesenia (01:08:24):
it's by Justin, Gary.
he's in the industry as well.
he's worked on like, well, the Warcraftand miniatures game and Ascension.
So he's, he has some creds forsure, but no, so far I'm really
liking it because it's reallyeasy to read also on top of that.
And it's just fun and it's one of thosethings that it's not necessarily for me,

(01:08:45):
or like, I want to be a game designer andlike I want to make my first game, you
know, but What I find interesting is how,what he listened his book is intersecting
with like how I work as a producer.
that's, what's been interesting for me.
So I just started reading that.

John (01:08:58):
I need to do my homework on this just in Gary character and check this out.

Yesenia (01:09:03):
Yeah.
so so far I'm a few chapters in,and now I'm enjoying it and it's
a nice read and it's exciting.
And it's just like, ohyeah, this makes sense.
And this is how I run myproduction team as well too.
I'm like, oh yeah.
I just liked seeing the correlation.
And then I always like learning newthings and what people are saying,
even if it works or it doesn't work.

John (01:09:20):
Yeah.
What, what type of
idea is in there in terms of like runningyour production team that you found?

Yesenia (01:09:26):
So one of the things that he mentioned in the book.
Essentially like, okay, you want tomake a game, you want to be a game
designer, but you get overwhelmedbecause you have this high level idea
of what you want to do as a game.
And then he like breaks it down,like start at this level and then
break it down into small chunks.

John (01:09:43):
That's that?
upside down pyramid.

Yesenia (01:09:44):
yup.
So I
just kinda like saw that.
And chuckled, he's like, makesure that you write your goals for
what you want to do in the design.
Like yep.
That's kind of what productiondoes too, is like, what are
our goals for this deliverable?
What is the goal?
Oh, now we make featuresout of those goals.
So I like that like, oh,goals, equal features.
Like these are what thegoals are for this milestone.
And these are what the features are.
So

John (01:10:06):
Okay.
So what is the thing that youenjoy the most about the job?

Yesenia (01:10:11):
that I'm surrounded by black and brown people.

John (01:10:14):
Hell yeah.
What's your favorite partabout working from home?

Yesenia (01:10:19):
My favorite part about working from home is that I don't
have to wash my hair every day.

John (01:10:24):
You have a lot of hair, man.

Yesenia (01:10:25):
And

John (01:10:25):
It'll take a while to clean And
dry.

Yesenia (01:10:27):
also I get to wear sweat pants every day,

John (01:10:30):
Amen to that.
What is the thing that you missthe most about being in the office

Yesenia (01:10:35):
by being with people like I am with you right now, I'm a huge extrovert.
And so I love like shootingthe shit with people in person.

John (01:10:43):
virtual, it's a different energy than like in-person

Yesenia (01:10:47):
Yup.

John (01:10:47):
Yeah.
That's pretty, unanimous across the board.
Every time I asked this question,it's been like, yo, the people
hanging out the energy, you know,play testing in person, eating,
whatever things like
this.

Yesenia (01:10:59):
Cause it's all those casual moments and connections that
it's easier when you're in person.
Cause it's like, sitting at yourdesk and then you hear two people
having random conversation.
And you're like, what the fuckare you guys talking about?
And then it's just like, startsbeing a stupid conversation
about like chicken or whatever.
I don't know.

John (01:11:16):
how does your job change at all, as a result of being kind
of like full remote virtual.

Yesenia (01:11:23):
doing my job.
Virtually rather than anyoffice takes a lot more work.
because what I find myself doing isthat I'm in a lot of more meetings.
just to make sure that we're allaligned on goals and it's a lot more
documentation over-communicatingmore than I would have in the past

John (01:11:40):
Shout out to oval communication.
That's a thing for sure.
Say it seven times.

Yesenia (01:11:45):
Over communication, over communication, over communication,
I'm done.
because it's like words on texts justreads differently than in person.
So that's how everything changes and thenyou also have to be more in what you're
saying and what you're telling their team
and explicit and everything like be superclear because you're also missing out
on body language I've been doing thisnow for a little over a year and it's

(01:12:08):
definitely has changed since last year.
And I feel like it's more manageable now

John (01:12:14):
you got a better,

Yesenia (01:12:14):
yeah, I've gotten better at it.
And it's like, oh, okay.
We can do this remote.
that's another thing that's greatabout brass line is that we can all
work remote permanently if we want.

John (01:12:22):
that's a huge perk

Yesenia (01:12:24):
yeah.

John (01:12:24):
recruiting tool,

Yesenia (01:12:25):
Yup.

John (01:12:26):
people that would take a reduction in pay if they can fork remotely time.

Yesenia (01:12:31):
Yeah.
And so it's like, well, I'm goingto LA I'm like, okay, I'm leaving.
that's something I've noticed whereit's, a lot more talking to people
and making sure like I'm followingup on people more often because I
don't get those natural conversations.
I will usually get.
If I'm in the office and Ihear someone talking or like,
I pass them in the hallway.
So sometimes those hallway conversationsis a real thing where it's like, you

(01:12:52):
pass them and like, oh, how's it going?
It's like, oh shoot.
I forgot to ask you.
How's this going?
And you're like, sometimesdecisions are made in the hallway,
so.

John (01:13:00):
totally.
It's a thing.

Yesenia (01:13:01):
Yeah.
So that's, really, what's changed fromlike working in the office versus at home.
It's just lots more documentationand, but it's been good.
not bad.
figured it out.

John (01:13:11):
There we go.
It was just another problemto solve and game developers
were good at solving problems.

Yesenia (01:13:16):
Yeah.

John (01:13:17):
it's is great to hear that this whole work remotely thing, build
games remotely, virtually sustainable.
real.
We can do it.
Cause I think a lot of people you wouldhave asked before the whole pandemic,

Yesenia (01:13:29):
Oh
yeah.

John (01:13:30):
up and down like, no, no, no, no, it can't be done.
It's impossible.
Don't even try.

Yesenia (01:13:34):
yeah.
that was always the excuse given tome when I started to like, oh no,
we don't, remote's not an option.
We can't make games and remote andsay, that's the silver lining out of
those whole pandemic, like oh, yep.
Told you we can make it

John (01:13:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, and you know, a lot ofindie people have figured it
out way

Yesenia (01:13:49):
yeah, way Yep.

John (01:13:51):
And now the companies are catching up, right?
Like AWS, Google, Microsoft, they're allkind of building tools and infrastructure
and pipelines to facilitate allthis file sharing and cloud gaming
and bug reporting and all this.
know a lot of people beenparticularly joining Google stadia
for the ease of bills on there andtesting at scale and things like

Yesenia (01:14:13):
Yeah.

John (01:14:14):
what would you do if you weren't doing this,

Yesenia (01:14:18):
I'd be a doctor.

John (01:14:20):
you would go back, finish your medicine degree and go
back to helping people saving
people dope.

Yesenia (01:14:25):
Or I would be a producer and film.

John (01:14:27):
Okay.
You would take this out of thegame industry and into movies.

Yesenia (01:14:31):
Yeah.

John (01:14:31):
Is that why you move into

Yesenia (01:14:34):
No, it's not.

John (01:14:35):
Okay.
Just checking,

Yesenia (01:14:36):
Yeah, no, I almost got into that industry already
and then I turned them down, so

John (01:14:41):
Okay.
You had your opportunity.

Yesenia (01:14:43):
yeah.

John (01:14:43):
Okay.
this is where your, passions lied,

Yesenia (01:14:46):
Yeah.

John (01:14:47):
but we'd like to hear that you knowing what you know now in 2021,
what would you go back and tellyourself 11 years ago, when you were
first coming into the industry, Iguess doing QA what's information
you would tell your younger self,

Yesenia (01:15:05):
I would tell myself to always be authentic self and stop worrying
about what other people think, becauseno matter what you do right or wrong,
people will always have a reason to talk.

John (01:15:15):
and that's what you found out at brass line, right?
It's like, man, it feels good to beyourself and not spend all that energy.
Like you said, cold switchingand holding back on things.

Yesenia (01:15:26):
Yeah.

John (01:15:26):
Dope are you guys hiring at breast line?

Yesenia (01:15:29):
Oh, yes, we are totally hiring.
So please, if anyone is listening,please go over to brass light
entertainment com forward slash careers.
We are looking for programmers.
We need so many programmers, gameplay,audio network graphics build.

(01:15:49):
We're also looking for principalsoftware programmer, engineer.
Yeah.

John (01:15:54):
roles.
Those are valuable.

Yesenia (01:15:55):
Yup.
And we're looking environmentartists as well too right now.
So those are like our key crucial roles.
So please.
Yes, we are hiring.
come our way.

John (01:16:05):
I'll put that in the show notes.
I was going to ask, isit public knowledge?
What tool set you guys are on?
Right?
Like, is it something public thatpeople, Hey, if you have experience
in this tool set, we want totalk to you or does it matter,

Yesenia (01:16:18):
Yeah.
So some things that I can say isdefinitely C plus plus knowledge is good.
having some experiencein the industry is good.
Cause right now feel like it's more andsenior level roles and more than anything.
that is mostly what I can sayin terms of like tools it's like
definitely no C plus plus, and thenif you have experience with unreal,

(01:16:44):
that is, a bonus.

John (01:16:45):
question for you, what tools software do you use
to do your producery job?

Yesenia (01:16:51):
the main tool is Excel and PowerPoint.

John (01:16:54):
Spreadsheets

Yesenia (01:16:56):
Spreadsheets and PowerPoint.
but then also I use a combination,especially working remote.
I use a combination of mural board

John (01:17:04):
murals.
Great.

Yesenia (01:17:05):
I've been figuring it out a little bit over the past year.
It's like, okay.
Mural is really good.
And I'm still figuring it out where it'slike, it's really good for collaboration
and brainstorming because you that's,what you miss in the office is like
being all in one physical room togetherand like looking at a whiteboard
together, like writing things down andnotes and mirror board lets me do that.

John (01:17:23):
essentially for people that.
don't know, it's a virtual whiteboard.
You can have dragging And
dropping post-it notes, groupingand categorizing, drawing arrows and
circling things and highlighting things.
It's really cool.

Yesenia (01:17:36):
Yeah, you can, and there's even templates.
You can have put aroadmap together in there.
You can put a mind map together.
Like it has so many differentfeatures to choose from.
So I use a combination of that and I.
Have used tools like, Azure devops and JIRA for task tracking.

John (01:17:52):
JIRA's was popular in the streets for

Yesenia (01:17:54):
Yeah.
So those are mostly the tools, but Excelis always like fall back with like, oh,
is there a tool that exists for this?
No.
Over, I guess I'm going to use Excel.

John (01:18:04):
Yup.
Yup.
old tricks of the trade, if youlike living in spreadsheets,
consider a role in producing
Jesenia.
We made it we're at that point in theshow I would ask if you've had a fun
time falling out of the play area, andthere is someone who you would like to
nominate to fall out of the play areabehind you, who would that individual.

Yesenia (01:18:28):
that individual.
Mario.
And he is a data analytics person atGoogle and it's very gaming adjacent.
So I would, talk to him.
He's awesome.
Awesome.
Dude like met him through Latin X.

John (01:18:45):
Thank you for that recommendation, Mario.
I'm coming at you.
that's the beauty of this multi-billiondollar gaming industry is that there's
a lot of ways to slice the pie up.
And there's a lot of critical piecesin here and data is not going anywhere.
And that's a key part of how we buildgames these days for better or for worse.
Right.
We have to look at the data and seewhat players are doing when they're

(01:19:08):
doing it, how they're doing it.
and Google is a key player in that spaceand Googlers are pretty special people.
So that'd be dope to bring one on

Yesenia (01:19:18):
Yeah, he's, he's a special person.

John (01:19:22):
yo.
This is fantastic.
Jesenia.
Thank you so much for coming on.
I've had a damn blast.
I kid you not.
It's like reconnecting with a person.
that I grew up with.
You know, riding the seventrain rather than the

Yesenia (01:19:33):
You almost say.

John (01:19:36):
Hell yeah.
do you have any last wordsfor the listeners out there?

Yesenia (01:19:39):
Last words, brass line is hiring.
If you have any questions, youcan follow me on Twitter at Ms.
Yesenia C.
my DMS are open

John (01:19:55):
Thank you so much.
Have a good one.
I don't give enough credit to producers.
These days, you see a lotshifting to these PM roles as
program and project managers.
I still consider them producers, anybodythat saves me time from doing one of
the things I'm weakest at, which aretime estimates and telling leadership,
how long to anticipate I'm going toneed to spend on working on something.

(01:20:20):
And really the answer I always wantto tell them is I have no clue.
But I'm going to make up a number thatis way off and adjust it as we go.
And it's either going to blow thesprint up or down all that to say,
I'm grateful that they exist so that Idon't have to live in JIRA or jazz and
other platforms longer than I have to.

(01:20:42):
How did you enjoy the episode?
Do you want to learn moreabout producers and PMs?
You know, what's apparent andspeaking with just Sannia is
that this comes natural to.
And she enjoys what she does andit's infinitely better because she's
able to bring heart and take selfto work and be around people she can
connect with and learn from in hernative hometown, in New York city.

(01:21:04):
It's a wonderful thing.
And I can't wait to see whatcomes from that studio and team.
Please check out the show notes fortheir careers page and hiring as well
as just send your social media and linksto her production, webinars, and other
interviews where she shares her knowledge.
On episode 18, debuting September the27th, we sit down with my good friend,

(01:21:27):
Matt co-founder and CTO of aquifermotion coming to us from Austin, Texas,
where he and I worked together atmidway Austin, way back in the day.
And his company aquifer is creditedon the list of 20 startups to watch
last year, as well as Forbes list ofrising startups to watch with diverse.

(01:21:49):
We sit down and walk through his journeyinto, and around the video games industry.
As a game designer at day one studiosworking on mech warrior up through
his time at midway being a leaddesigner at foundation nine, then total
immersion and more make sure to follow.
So you don't miss out on thatepisode out a play area releases new
episodes every other Monday on allyour favorite podcasting platforms,

(01:22:14):
as well as YouTube as always devs.
I'm your host, John Diaz.
I'll see you on the next episode.
Stay strong, stay true and stay dangerous.
Mega ran.
Take them home.

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Being Authentic with Yesenia Cisneros | Lead Producer @ Brass Lion Entertainment | Ep 17

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Being Authentic with Yesenia Cisneros | Lead Producer @ Brass Lion Entertainment | Ep 17