James Kane | QA Manager & Designer @ Raccoon Logic | Ep 27 - Out of Play Area

Episode Transcript
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John (00:02):
On episode 27 Out of Play Area, the game developers podcast.
I sit down with a good buddy in arms frommy days at WB Games Montreal, James Kane.
He's a game designer and QA manager overat Raccoon Logic based out of Montreal.
We talk about his journey into theindustry where he worked up through
QA, let alone even finding thatthat was even a valid career path.

(00:25):
We talk about how he made the changeand jumped into WB Games Montreal
out where we got to work together.
We talk about how he transitioned totyphoon studios, where he latched on to
being part of a scrappy indie team ofpros, where he got to wear multiple hats.
And he got to put his game designstudies to use on unreal, where he
worked on Journey to the Savage Planet.

(00:45):
We talked about what it was likegetting acquired by Google stadia and
then reforming up as raccoon logic.
Please welcome all the way across theborder from the Sub-Zero climate in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, James Kane.
Let's start the show.

Catherine (01:04):
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

John (01:28):
do you drink in friend?

James K (01:29):
So I got myself some four roses, single barrel,
Kentucky, straight bourbon whiskey.

John (01:35):
That seems like it's a special, thing to you.

James K (01:37):
I was in Tennessee visiting my mom cause she lives
out there and her husband justlikes himself some good whiskeys.
And he was like, Hey, have you.
ever had this?
Cause it's from Kentucky,like right next door.
And I was like, no.
And like every bottle is likesigned for it came from everything.
It's it feels a bit more personaland man, it just goes down so smooth.
There's no burn.
It's just a really good whiskey.

John (01:59):
when I

James K (01:59):
Yeah.

John (01:59):
four roses.
I don't know why I, I picture thatbuilding in Montreal and the canal,

James K (02:04):
Yeah.
I know.
and weirdly you can't getthis alcohol and Montreal.
if I ever wanted again, I haveto go to Ottawa to get it.
think maybe it's becausethere's no French on the bottle.
I have no idea.

John (02:12):
That'll do it.
You gotta localize.
Otherwise Quebec ain't having it.

James K (02:15):
but it's, it's a really good whiskey.
It's just super smooth.
It's like a nice, a chill nights whiskey.

John (02:19):
You take away the ice,

James K (02:20):
Oh yeah.
I've got
quite a bit of,

John (02:22):
especially in this.

James K (02:23):
yeah, especially cause we're in a heat wave right now.
So I mean all the ice helps.

John (02:26):
Yeah, buddy.
I Chis saute.
It feels like it has been foreversince we had like a happy hour Fridays
up in the Warner brothers tower over
in, what's the name of that?
Is it Barry?
You came, yeah.
That's the name of the Metro
stop?

James K (02:40):
you cam, and then up in the WB place that was Central perk.
named after the the friends cafe.

John (02:47):
That's special, man.
I got a bunch of familythat they love friends we're
always having the discussion.
Like, is it friends or isit how I met your mother?
And I'm definitely teamhow I met your mother.

James K (02:55):
Oh man.
That's a tough one for me, honestly.
Like they're both good in their own ways
for me.
Right.

John (03:01):
a thing, right?
Like they came at a different generation.

James K (03:04):
I think there's more episodes I would go back and just, I, I just love
watching from how I met your mother.
Cause like you can watch one-offsand they're just so well done.
And I feel like France has a fewof those, but friends, most of them
are more like up episodes, right?
Like, oh, it takes like two orthree episodes for, the big,
impactful thing to happen.
So it's harder to just drop someone intoa random friends episode where they don't

(03:25):
know context was how I met your mother.
It seems pretty simple.

John (03:27):
Each episode can stand alone.
As long as you know, the characters

James K (03:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.

John (03:32):
I get you it's been too long, but at the same time, it
feels like no time has passed

James K (03:37):
Yeah.
It's been a hot minute.

John (03:38):
so much has changed.
Where are you at today?

James K (03:41):
Oh, today?
Well recently announced I'm at a newstudio in Montreal called raccoon logic.
it's a lot of like ex typhoonguys who started up studio.
After our fun rounded, Google.
But yeah, so I'm going to be ajunior designer the head of QA.

John (03:58):
Okay.
So a hybrid role, but it makes sense ifit's a small team, you wear multiple hats.

James K (04:03):
Yeah.
Typhoon was the same thing,but it was the opposite.
It was, I was head of QAand a junior designer.
So I did like a little bit of design workand my main focus was to lead their QA.
Cause they were so tiny.
They just needed someone whohad pretty good knowledge.
And now it's like the role reverse.
It's like, Hey, they need someoneto help a bit with QA to get it
started, but I can finally do thedesign I wanted to start doing.

John (04:24):
Okay.
So more design than QA, whereason typhoon, it was more QA.

James K (04:29):
Yeah.
I think at typhoon it wasprobably like maybe 75%.
And now it's going to be more 75%design, but it really depends, right?
Like if they get to a point whereit's a huge crunch and they need a lot
of help QA style, I will put designon the hold because it's more, I'm
just there to help at the beginning.
Right.
So I'm there whatever capacity in enemy.
And they got some prettygood rockstars in that team.

(04:49):
So I'm you know, my designskills were a little low for my
QA skills are pretty damn high.

John (04:53):
I love how you always approach it.
You always willing to learn and tobe fair designers, once the game
is already set, we turn into QA.
Right?

James K (05:02):
Yup.

John (05:03):
at the point in the project where I imagine, right, a company hasn't even
opened yet, you're going to need design.
There's not going to be much QA.
And then as the life groves,

James K (05:11):
QAs interesting at the beginning of the project though, because you just
want to make sure that you can showcaseyour bill to the team without a break.
And that's all it's going to be.
I feel like early, a lot of peoplesilo their work and then just like
throw it in the build, like on likea Thursday afternoon, because they
want to show it in like, you know,the Friday show and tell or whatever.

John (05:27):
Yeah.

James K (05:27):
And I find like, yeah, when you're farther in
production, don't do as big silos.
And like now it's going to be like, allthe designers can be working on their
own maps, doing their own thing and theymight not be submitting to the branch.
So I gotta, you know, makesure that it doesn't break.

John (05:39):
standup those processes and like checkpoints.
Right.

James K (05:43):
Yeah.
It's more, I just make sure they'resubmitting more frequent than
they normally would just so I canmake sure the health stays good.
So that's going to bemy, my role as QA there.
Just make sure that builds up busted andmake sure it's working so everyone could
assess what's going on and you know, getthe ball rolling as fast as possible.

John (05:58):
I want to ask you what it feels like now that you're building content.
How would you empathize with peoplethat are like holding on, not wanting to
show anything don't want to checkanything in until it's perfect.
You know what I'm saying?
But then also fighting your alter egoof like check it in rapid iteration.
You know, don't hoard anythingthe sooner it's in the sooner
we can identify any conflicts.

James K (06:18):
I don't hoard anything in my design again.
Maybe it's a junior thing, but I'm fast.

John (06:23):
yeah.

James K (06:24):
I prefer to get it in quick and then get people's
feedback as fast as possible.
Then take like a week to think I did agreat, and it not be as good as I thought
it was and then have to redo at anyways.
Right.
but it's interesting because I havethat QA background, I'm really trying
to check my stuff as much as I can.
So, like, say I build a quest, asimple quest to put it in the level.
I gotta make sure the rest of thelevels still flows properly and make

(06:46):
sure my question break anything.
And then once I finished triggering,I can keep triggering other quiz.

John (06:50):
yeah.

James K (06:50):
Right.
like, not, everyone's going to do thatbecause you make sure your thing works
and then if it works, you're good.
Right.
But been the difference with likeme becoming a designer from QA is I
feel like I QA my work a lot and it'snot like I'm even thinking about it.
I'm just doing it without thinking.

John (07:05):
It's second nature to you,

James K (07:06):
Yeah.
And it hasn't slowed me down at all.
if anything, like, I love pushingmy workout as fast as I can.
I'm still giving itthe best quality I can.
Right.
but I try putting in a fast, becauseI really want to get people's eyes on
it because I've seen too many timeswhere someone takes two weeks and I'm
like, Hey man, that just doesn't work.

John (07:22):
Yeah, absolutely so much can change over that time.
By the time you submit thismerge conflicts, love it, bro.
that takes veterans years to learn, right?
So the fact that you already put it intopractice, but you're a veteran yourself.
You've been in the gang for awhile.

James K (07:37):
Yeah.
Just a different field.
Right.

John (07:39):
Hell.
Yeah.
You've seen enough wrongto know how to it, right.

James K (07:43):
Yeah.
You just see the things you're like,Hey man, this is just going to cause
some weird stuff down the line.
Let's just fix this now.
Or it's also what I found reallyinteresting coming from the QA side.
So at typhoon for a good example,cause I did design their QA their
game for like a year and you know, youknow, the game inside and out and I
can speed run that game pretty fast.
So then it's like, if you're makingsomething, I know if it's gonna

(08:04):
the level at all, like, you'd belike, oh, it's a new mechanical.
Yeah.
But it doesn't feel good.
Right.
Or it's Ooh, that feels really goodbecause it flows with this and that.
And like it doesn't hinder my playing.
Right.
Which is, which is interesting becauseit's like, you know, most people
just either design something ontheir own and like, Hey, it's cool.
Cause it's, you know, a fun thing,but they don't have the whole scope of
the game that they're thinking about.

John (08:22):
Remind me the name of the game.

James K (08:24):
Oh, a typhoon who was journey to Savage planet.

John (08:26):
That's right.
How fast could you get through that guy?

James K (08:29):
I'm no speed runner.
I think I, I get it in like under an hour,

John (08:33):
Damn.

James K (08:33):
okay.
So there's two ways to beat that game.

John (08:35):
I know it's on game pass right now.
I've been meaning to get into it.

James K (08:38):
You can either blast off the planet or beat the
bosses to wind conditions.
One takes a little longer than the other.
I think the fastest one I can dojust to get the credit screen and,
you know, I, when I think is underan hour and then the full game.
I think it takes about if we domultiplayer cause it's co-op we can do
it in about like an hour and 20 hourand 30, but like, that's just, you

(08:58):
have to know where every single thingis, divvy up the work and just blitz.

John (09:02):
For what you do for someone on the outside being like, Hey,
what does a QA director handle?
What does a junior designer handle?
How would you break that down?

James K (09:11):
I'll start with the junior designer, cause I've
been doing it so short, but thatside was doing small things.
So it was like implementing small questionto the game placing collectibles resources
and a lot of tuning, I think for typhoon,I did like all of the creature, health
tuning player tuning for damage andhealth, you know, things that are simple
and don't require me to break the game.
And then I left the heavy liftingof like building all the systems and

(09:33):
everything to the other designers.
And on the QA side, That was managinga team of, we were only two people
internally, but then externally we had atmost, I think, 15 and at least maybe six.
So it was making sure internally wewere you know, smoking the builds making
sure that if a programmer had somethingbig, they were going to be checking in.
We had to create you know, make ourown build with that specific change.

(09:55):
Make sure everything worked perfectlyyou know working with the devs, just
to make sure that all their featuresworked internally before we sent it
out to the QA teams to then them dotheir huge test passes that we'd be
monitoring and we'd make for them.
So we would give them you know,Can you collect all the things
in the game argument scanning.
So is everything scannable?
Does it work?
is it beatable?
Can you get all the upgrades?
You know, we'd give them their,their big test plan to do.

(10:16):
And then they just churn through thattest plan as fast as possible, give us our
results and then we'd see what happens.
So it was just managing them and thenmanaging my one tester in generally.

John (10:24):
do you go about laying out a test plan out of curiosity?

James K (10:27):
I mean, you could do it a thousand different ways.
Yeah.
I know.
So an example on a Batman game, right?
You can make a combattest plan, which is huge.
Cause it's, basically every single thingthe Batman can do beat every ability
against every single enemy in the game.
Right.
So that just looks like a giant matrix of.

(10:47):
Fun.
across that it's every upgradeand then can everything be,
canceled if you get hit?
So if you have a five chain combo,what happens if four, three to get hit?
Right?
So those are like your combat test plans.
Then you have like AI test plans whereyou can make sure AI don't break.
I've done that working with you
and they're fun.
So you give us the toolsthat we need to monitor them.
And we, you know, there seems to be likea lot of soak tests involved where we'll

(11:08):
leave the game overnight, perched up.
Like Batman's a great example.
Cause you can like perch above theenemies and then we just watch them
and make sure they don't break.
And that if we come back in themorning, they're still functional.
And if you try to engagewith them, they work fine.
Right.

John (11:20):
that's a good

James K (11:20):
then there's destructive test plans where we'll just say
break everything into zone, hitevery wall you're checking for,
you know, collision issues.
test plan.
It could be anything you can think of.
You can turn into a test plan.
My test plan for typhoon isreally what was my smoke test.
And it was just every abilityin the game scan and kill every
creature then do a request.
And then I just kind of took that,gave it to them and said, Hey,

(11:40):
this is the base version of it.
You know, do all that and kindajust do a bit of halo testing
around everything, just to makesure that we didn't miss anything.

John (11:46):
I don't think I've ever heard the term halo test.

James K (11:49):
as you got ad hoc testing and halo testing can just go do
stuff with just it's off the books.
So basically let's say Igive you a combat test plan.
There might be stuff I didn't thinkabout, or there could be stuff that is
super situational that may never happen.
Like in Batman, you can use a gadgetoff of a car to kill an enemy.
That's stuff.
because it's procedural havesome of the world loads, so maybe

(12:11):
that stuff would never happen.
So I'm like, Hey, you're thecombat expert, testers go nuts
and break combat, you know, yourtest plan is your, your guideline.
But some people don'tlike doing a checklist.
Some people are way better.
If I just say, Hey, youdo combat, go break it.

John (12:25):
Yeah,
totally.

James K (12:26):
So we give them like the ad hoc or the, the halo
testing that they do For the day.
people really don't like checklists.
I personally love them, but some people,some people thrive without it so much
better because they get super creative.

John (12:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it allows them to be creative in ajob where you wouldn't normally think
that's a thing you get to unleash.

James K (12:44):
Oh, a hundred percent.

John (12:45):
How do you empower it better?
How do you spot it?
You know, to be like, okay, He,she, or they are on my team and okay.
There are list person versus, okay.
They're more of like a free reign person.

James K (12:56):
So I WB I was only a senior there, but I had some
control over some people and wedid a lot of test plans on Batman.
you would see how peoplewould act throughout the day.
Is it someone who is going through theirchecklist and like two hours or a day?
Right.
Is it someone who likes it?
Cause some people will loveit and they'll, they'll say it
like, like, Hey, I just finished.
Can I have more, like, I'm enjoying this.
Some people are like, Hey yeah, it's done.

(13:18):
And like, that person.
doesn't want to be doing that,

John (13:19):
Dead in the face.
Yeah.

James K (13:21):
but then you have to see like, because there's a lot of, you
know, the publisher wants bugs, right.
And the whole point of thischecklist is to find the bugs.
if I give you the ability to go do your adhoc, you bugging, are you finding useful
things or are you finding more usefulthings when you're on the checklist?
Right?
Cause art's a big one.
Art will have like Hey bug,everything in like Yeah.

(13:41):
Right.
And then you go there and itwill be whatever severity we say.
Okay.
And it could be as low as grass clippinginto a wall to, oh, we only want big
objects that are higher than your knee.
Right.
And you know, some people thrive withthat, but other people just want to run
around and not be stuck in a zone andfeel like they're not really moving.

John (13:58):
Okay.
Interesting.
That
makes total sense.

James K (14:00):
if you're good QA leaders talk to your testers and make sure they, they
want to be open with you too, becauseyou don't want it to be a crappy job
that, you know, you don't like doing.
Cause there's, there's alwaysgoing to be a part of it.
That will be fun for someone,

John (14:12):
yeah.
It's always slotting in your, people,
in the right spot.

James K (14:15):
yeah.
Cause some people love looking forthose weird art bugs and they have
an eye for it too, because they know.

John (14:22):
Mm.

James K (14:23):
Right.
And that helps too.
And some people don't and thenyou put it on it and you see the
huge difference in what they findand how their, their week goes.

John (14:31):
Yeah.
You know, it's interesting.
I've always felt that you were avery approachable person, open to
communicate, give feedback, takefeedback, always wanting to learn.
And so I find you were a leador director of my boss, it was
kind of an open door, right?
Like I should feel no hesitationto come over and talk to you about
like, oh, I want to do somethingelse, or I want more of this.

(14:51):
curious, how have you feltyour team and that culture?

James K (14:55):
Oh, I love it.
Yeah.
I love it.
Like I've had bad leads and I only saythey're bad leads because they don't
want criticism on what you give them.
They don't want you to come talk to them.
They just want you to do your job.
And like, I get it.
You want the job done?
Me.
Tell me everything, man.
if you don't like what I gaveyou, just tell me you don't
like it and we'll figure it out.

(15:16):
know, it has to get done someway shape or form, but if we can
find a better way to get it done,that makes you enjoy your job.
I'm all yours.

John (15:22):
Yeah, man.

James K (15:23):
And, this is weird thing where outsource QA they feel like they don't
have a voice a lot of the time, becausethey're just in this giant machine of
you give them a build from a randomcompany and they write bugs, right?
and when we were on journey, noone was talking to us really.
Cause I feel like they had this, theythought that everything they said had
to go through their lead and theirlead would have to be very specific

(15:43):
on how they would word things to me.
Because for some reasonthey think I'd be insulted.
I guess they might've workedwith people in the past.
And we saw that, like theyjust weren't talking much.
And we were like, Hey,please tell us everything.
I don't need it to come from your boss.
I know if that's weird for you guys.
Just talk amongst yourselves, but like.
Anyone could say anything.
You guys can DME specifically, youdon't even need to talk in the chat.
If you feel like your question is stupid.

(16:03):
For some reason, like there's no dumbquestions, but if you feel like it is
poke me directly, everything matters.
And that team became so talkative andtheir bugs started changing dramatically
because we started saying like, Hey,if you think our systems are bad, bug
them, but don't just say it's bad.
Give me your reason and think as adesigner on how you would make the
system better we may not fix it, butwe might, and some other suggestions

(16:25):
came through and we fixed like certainquests that felt weird for them.
And but normally you can't do that as anoutsourcer that no one lets you do that.

John (16:33):
Yeah, I've seen those dynamics.
I've been in those dynamics, right.
Even when you are a supportstudio to a primary studio, right?
Like an example is a rock steady toa WB working on Arkham night rockstar
San Diego supporting rockstar northas they're working on a GTA, right?
Like it's funny initially upfront,even though we're all kind of the same
team, the fact that we're separatedby a physical building creates these

(16:56):
invisible little barriers and we alloperate like super like, okay, I'm
going to talk to you through my manager.
And my
manager is going to relate the thing.

James K (17:04):
I got worse for you though.
Okay.
When we were at WB, we were a floorapart and we had those problems.

John (17:10):
Yes.
I

James K (17:11):
Yeah,

John (17:12):
and it was, it was amazing to me because I would journey
between the floors, right.
Be it for snacks, for meetings.
I'm coming back from basketball andchecking up on some of the people
and you could totally feel it.
It was like a force field.
It was

James K (17:26):
yeah,

John (17:27):
your badge not open the same doors that my badge does?

James K (17:30):
It doesn't.
Yeah, us.
We were not allowed to go on your floor.
And I think if I'm correct, therewas this thing where we were
technically two different companies.

John (17:38):
Oh

James K (17:40):
you guys were WB games, Montreal.
And we were like, Whidbey.
It was like WB interactiveentertainment or something.

John (17:47):
yeah.

James K (17:48):
And it was weird enough that that's what it was.
So like, they separated us inthat way, but it was so annoying.
Cause we were testing your game.
You guys were downstairs and I couldn'ttalk to you and we weren't even allowed to
like message you on the internal messaging
systems or anything.

John (18:02):
Which is crazy to me because I come from the same mentality that you have.
I'm

James K (18:06):
Yeah,

John (18:06):
playing my content.
Tell me what you feel, bro.
And it's up to me as a designerto interpret it work back and
forth with you to see like,okay, what do you really mean?
What do you feel?
Where are you seeing it?
How does it work?
Right.
You're like any feedback is good feedback.

James K (18:21):
of course.

John (18:21):
it's up to, me, as the creator to give you the vocabulary, to let me know
exactly what I need to know kind of thing.

James K (18:30):
you know, typically dev QA comes in in these situations where you guys
will be, you know, super close to the devQA, cause they're on the floor with you.
They could be embedded on yourdesign team and then it's their
job then relay all that info to theoutsourcers or the publishers QA

John (18:46):
Okay.

James K (18:46):
building or another building.
it's just, it's awkward becausethat like singular dev QA has a job
to do, they also have to manage abunch of information, take requests.
Like it's just, you get bogged down.
It's a weird system.

John (18:59):
So you mentioned dev QA.
again, this was, this was a wholedifferent world for me, right?
Like I just thought QA was QA,there's apparently a single tree
with many different branches on that
sucker.

James K (19:10):
you want?
a few little breakdowns.

John (19:11):
Yeah.
Please

James K (19:12):
I don't know everything.
I'll tell you what I know.
So you got your outsourcers, they'reyour big, your big powerhouses of QA.
They can take huge contractsand lots of contracts.

John (19:21):
Okay.
They usually juggling a
bunch of
different projects.

James K (19:24):
yeah.
And it's usually where you start as QA.
started that like 13 years ago at a placethat doesn't exist anymore in Montreal.

John (19:32):
What was the name?

James K (19:33):
It was a VMC, but they got eaten up by the big keywords
and they're like keywords.
It's like a powerhouse of QA right now.

John (19:38):
Okay.

James K (19:39):
Not saying this is bad thing.
Just that's what they are.
So keywords is a huge outsourcer.
Outsourcers can also havesub-departments of localization.
So you have your low
QA.
Sometimes those are in-house as well.
Like they could bloke can really be in.
does your studio want tohave a full-time Loke?
Probably not.
Does your publisher sometimes becausethey have the money for it and maybe
they're, they're doing a lot ofgames, so it makes sense, but usually

(20:01):
they're, your outsourcers, thenyou get your compatibility testers,
which are just for PC usually.
I've done that too.
It's basically, you're building computersall day and you're testing hardware you'd
usually do a really big pass and you're,you're trying to find the min specs.

John (20:15):
Yeah,

James K (20:16):
So you're trying to find out what this game can run on what the
lowest settings could possibly be.
But it's so hard because it's testingdifferent amounts of Ram different
motherboards for processors, all thegraphics cards, internal graphics
cards, It's a lot so compatibilities,if your game works on PC, be happy.
Those people exist becauseit's a lot of testing.

John (20:34):
As you talking about this, it makes me think of this amazing platform that is
stadia and all the cloud gaming platforms.
Right.
That X-Factor is now kind ofcompletely taken out, right?
Like,

James K (20:46):
Yeah, there was no compatibility testing on there at all.
It turns into being more Like,
a Microsoft or a Sony orNintendo at that point.
Right.

John (20:52):
there's one skew

James K (20:54):
Yeah.
It's, it's the one build and that's allyou need because you're streaming it.
Whereas I mean, Sony and Microsoftare a little bit different now because
they have, you know, now it's like,Hey, does it work on PS4 and five?
And the pros, like, there's a littlebit of testing, but it's normally not
that bad because all they're reallydoing is giving you more Ram usually.
So it's just, if it works on the basespec at work on the best on the high-end

(21:14):
spec but PC is just a whole beast.
So yeah, I, I actually, Iliked that about stadia.
It was interesting.
Cause I really love the idea.
as a dev making something on PC,you don't have to worry about it
not working on someone's computer.

John (21:27):
Hm.

James K (21:28):
Right.
That was cool.

John (21:29):
Even in this work from home remote setup, man, like

James K (21:32):
yeah.

John (21:32):
to a bunch of deaf friends and they all test off of stadia.
Like all the reviews are done on stadia.

James K (21:38):
Yeah.
I mean, you just know you're going to getthe same performance as the other person.
Right.
So it's, it's interesting.
it's not the best it's got its hiccups.
But liked that for likea testing standpoint.
It was really cool.
Plus I don't need any special hardware.
I can test it on my cell phone.
Like it just worked so easily for testing.
It was very fun to teston that for a year.

John (21:56):
What you were testing on your cell phone?

James K (21:58):
Yeah, man.

John (21:59):
What do you do?
Like a, Xbox controller, Bluetooth to
your cell phone

James K (22:03):
you could,
but it has touch control.
And there are not great forevery game and they were janky
at best for ours, but it worked.

John (22:10):
That's
bro.

James K (22:12):
I thought it was so cool that I'd be like, cause it was like, Hey,
can you make sure this build boots?
I'm like, yeah, it's Saturday.
like, I'm eating dinner.
Sure.
I'll just quickly pressthe button on my phone.
It takes a second.
Like,
it's no big deal.
Hey, look at work.
Here you go.
Thumbs up.

John (22:25):
yeah.
Can you imagine where we are today?
Like I never thought we wouldever get in this position of like
developing from home, developing atour leisure super flexible hours.
Right?
Like being able to do our job

James K (22:35):
yeah.

John (22:36):
the clock, you know, as needed, you know, being

James K (22:38):
And

John (22:39):
kind of fit life in

James K (22:40):
I remember early days of QA, I think it was like when
the PS two was still pretty bigand it was almost PS three time.

John (22:46):
what's.
This is like early two thousands.

James K (22:48):
Yeah.
And it was more waitingfor disks to show up.
So it's like,

John (22:52):
for people to burn them and

James K (22:54):
well,
sometimes cause if itwas a normal build, sure.
The build master would get a disc andthey would burn a disc and give it to us.
But if it was like a gold mastercandidate, we would have to wait for
the studio to FedEx them to our buildingbecause we couldn't burn those in house.
They had to come from a special whatever.
And I was
like, man, that
was
crazy,

John (23:13):
the difference between the gold master and the ones you burn in house?

James K (23:17):
man.
I don't know some weird Sony on that

John (23:20):
Okay.
they're burned by
console heads.

James K (23:22):
Yeah.
Cause it's more like it'sa legit copy of the game.
Just not, you know, fully real.

John (23:26):
But it's like the certified sone or certified X-Box with
the little seal of approval.

James K (23:32):
Yeah.
I like that went away pretty fast.
Cause even PS three, we had somedownloads too, that we were able
to do, like, cause we can downloadbuilds, but that was crazy.
Cause I remember sitting in
the office.
like 10:00 AM and the guys like buildshould be here and I'm like, come on, man.
He'd be here for hours.
And then it a noon.
And they're like, okay, we have tolet you go because there's no work.
I'm like, all right man.

John (23:49):
Dan.
So that's just burning money, right?
Like the hours are ticking away

James K (23:53):
Yeah.
And all that's gone.
So like that was horrible.
It's so much nicer now.
and then the stadia, just mymind exploded thinking back
about how ridiculous that was.
And now it's like, Hey, just goto the website and press play.
It's like,

John (24:05):
I love that.
That's the thing that got me.
I was at Amazon testing out Lunaand that was the, main thing
that kinda hit me in the face.
It was like, I pressed thegame and I'm loaded in.
Yes.
I mean,
that's what sold me

James K (24:18):
it was nuts.
I know.

John (24:19):
and the resume.

James K (24:20):
Oh, yes.
yeah.
yeah, yeah.
The, the state, the state, the same thingwhere you could just go back and press
play and you're back to where you were
SI and stadia was cool withthat because I would start on my
cell phone, make sure it worked.
And then I could just go on thePC click and I'm back in game.

John (24:34):
That's the best shit ever.

James K (24:36):
That was nuts.

John (24:37):
Going back to the branches of the QA
tree.

James K (24:40):
so we got your publisher QAs,

John (24:42):
Oh, so these are these like first parties, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo

James K (24:46):
yes and no.
Cause it's also like WB nowrockstar will have their own.
It's more, your in-house queue.
but not dev QA.
So it's more that weirdstructure we had at WB?
where, they own the QA themselves.
So it's a little bit nicer of a jobcause it feels more permanent because
that's also the fear of outsourcing isa lack of jobs and a non permanency.
It's a big one.

(25:06):
Whereas publisher is more oflike, you know, when you feel a
bit more secure in your job, butit's still, you're not dev QA yet.
Right.
And then sub part of thatis the certification QA.
So that's your, your Microsoft, your Sonyand your Nintendo is, will be where you
send your builds and you have specificQA who test them to give you your, your
certification results to see if yourgame passes and is able to go live.

John (25:26):
Gotcha.

James K (25:27):
So you have a specific team for that.
you have your dev QA.
So your dev QA are your, embedded team QA.
So usually there'll be, youknow, a dev QA for the audio team
and for the programmers, if itdepends on how big your team is,
right.
And usually you
can.

John (25:42):
Per feature.

James K (25:43):
Yeah.
bigger your team, the more dev QA youwant, because you really want them to be
testing everything you do and make surethat It's as clean as possible because
you have so many hands in that pie.
You gotta make sure it doesn't break.
And that's my favorite part is the dev QA,but it's also one of the harder ones to
get into because there's not as many jobs

John (26:01):
Yeah.
It's my favorite man.
I mean, it's

James K (26:03):
I know.

John (26:04):
the homeys, right?
Like you guys are in the trenchesright there alongside us, hearing the
pain, helping us conquer through that.
Right.
And, and troubleshoot,

James K (26:13):
Yeah.

John (26:14):
a big proponent in our reviews and all of our meetings.
Right?
Like we kind of look to you tomake sure that the build is loaded.
It's it is where it needs to be be ableto call out whenever we see something.
Right.
Like you guys kind of save ourasses a lot of times, but oh yeah.
We've seen this.
This is known blah, blah, blah.
Right.

James K (26:31):
Yeah.
I'll give you a little,little story for dev QA.
Cause like I haven't beenthere for here for that long.
I think my first time was at WBon a game that doesn't exist.
Metallica.

John (26:39):
Oh my God, my heart

James K (26:40):
I know.

John (26:41):
strings.

James K (26:41):
that was my, that was my first dev QA job.
I did like an internal one where Iwas at a studio and I helped them out,
but they didn't treat us like dev QA.
They treated us like QA who wereliterally sitting next to them.
It was very bizarre, but this was myfirst time really doing deputy work.
And I remember chatting to someoneon the team who, I won't say names.
I don't want to call anybody out, butthey don't like QA had a bad taste for

(27:03):
QA and we were chatting because therewas only two of us on dev QA up there.
I'm like, we were like, Hey,we don't want to be hated.
So like, what's up?

John (27:09):
Was it you and Christian

James K (27:10):
Yeah, it was me and Christian

John (27:11):
or shout out, shout out,
to that main.

James K (27:13):
the first, two dev QA up there.
And yeah, they were like, QA, you guysjust write all those stupid bugs about
like grass clipping and walls and stuff.
Like, you know, you flutter databasesand give us these dumb bugs.
We don't want, when all wewant is, the big issues.
And then I was like, man, wedon't want to write those either.

John (27:28):
Yeah,

James K (27:28):
The only reason, the only reason those bugs exist is because your
producer, your manager told my boss thatyou want like 30 bucks a day per QA.

John (27:37):
there's a quota.

James K (27:38):
Yeah.
man, it's hard to find 30crashes per tester a day.
And like, for example, when we wereon Batman, there was like over a
hundred of us in-house then there wasanother team of over a hundred, right.
So let's say, let's say 200 testers a day.
They want like 20, 30 bucks each.

John (27:54):
even with a game as big as Arcam was depending on the
stage of production, right?
Yeah.
That
is.

James K (28:00):
it was buggy.
Sure.
But like
it's hard.

John (28:03):
Especially that PC one.

James K (28:05):
the PC to be fair.
Wasn't that bad?
that came down to compatibility?

John (28:09):
yeah.
It was like the endvideo cards or whatnot.

James K (28:11):
well, we looked at a lot of those crashes and they were like, there
was no graphics card in that system.
We're like, oh, that'sprobably why you crashed.

John (28:17):
I could see that I can see that game, the hype, the hype level of that
game, and people kind of downloadingit they can get their hands on

James K (28:24):
Oh yeah.
yeah.
You're like, whatever my,my, my system can run it.
I got two gigs of Ram.
But yeah, so we were basically like,look, you tell these giant groups
of testers, they need these bugs.
And the threat is, Hey, ifyou don't, you're fired.
That's really all there is to we'll findsomeone that will get us bucks a day.
So what am I going to do?
I'm going to go, and I'm goingto find my 20, 30 bucks.
And it's going to besome crappy art, right?

(28:44):
Like I don't have time tospend three hours looking into
a crash, which I'd love to.
But if I do, I potentially lose my job.
Like that's a terrifying.

John (28:53):
Absolutely.

James K (28:54):
Like quotas are horrible.
So when, when we explain that and weexplain like, Hey, like we're, we're here
to help you guys, whoever you guys want.
if, what you want is for us to do anart pass for you, tell us the parameters
of what you want And we'll bug it.
If you want an audio passor an AI pass, we'll do it.
Just tell us the minimum bug you want.
Cause if you don't say anything,we're just going to treat it like you
want everything and bug everything.

(29:15):
We'll get the big onesout of the way, but then,
we're going to go granular and go small.
But if you tell us, like inBatman, it was don't bug anything
below the knee, anything clipsbelow the knee, we don't care.
Cause it's too small.

John (29:25):
yeah.

James K (29:26):
And it's like, cool.
Tell us that.
Like, if you don't tell usthat we're just going to start.
And like, we don't want to getlike 4,000 invalid bugs in a day.
It looks really bad.
Right.
And I feel like a lot of devsdon't know this their producers
and their managers know this.
But the devs don't.
So the devs are the ones that get swarmedwith all these bugs and they just get
this weird perception of QA and they justlike running, writing crappy bugs all day.

John (29:46):
That's why I bring you on to the show.
Hey, well, a, I bring onto theshow to drink with you, but

James K (29:50):
Yeah.

John (29:51):
thing is I bring you on the show to set the record straight
man, and let people know whomay not know that these are your
marching orders as they come down.
Right?
And very often they arethis made up figure.
That seems to make sense onsome spreadsheet of like,
Hey, I have these many bodies.
And if I asked them for thismany bugs, odds are 10% of those

(30:11):
are going to be super important.
And you know, we're fixing kind of thing.

James K (30:15):
Yeah.
or it comes from a, another weird pointwhere It's a dev plays a game one day and
is like, Hey, this area is real buggy.
Why aren't QA doing.

John (30:23):
That

James K (30:24):
And then they're like, Hey, the producer found nine bugs.
Everyone who plays shouldbe able to find nine bugs.
And that's how a weirdquote it gets imposed.

John (30:32):
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Producers are often kind of like inthere trying to earn their paycheck.

James K (30:36):
Yeah.
But then what the producersdon't get is like that build will
never see dev QA because the devQA are going to bug at first.
And like, it's just this, it sucks, man.

John (30:44):
How would you fix
this dilemma that plagues QA which in theform of quotas or the miscommunications
that developers feel right?
Like I've, always appreciated you guys.
I appreciate QA everything you do and.
When you guys come over in yourinquisitive nature to learn, right?
Like to what I see in front of metoday, It's turned you into this

(31:06):
super powered designer, right.
That, checks his work before it goes in.
And I just see an awesome evolution in
front of me.
So,

James K (31:14):
I think it's a hard one to fix.
Cause there's a lot of like,problems You need some good
leads in the QA side, right?
You don't need people who just wantnumbers and cause there's a lot of those.
Cause there's a lot of people who gothired as a lead who have never done QA.
Maybe they got some sort of degreefor something that, whatever
management degree they took somewhere.

John (31:33):
what's a management degree.

James K (31:34):
Yeah man.
Well, you can do like amanagement course these days.
It's like a weekend courseand you get a, like a little
degree you've you are a manager.
I know at WB you need to do thatif you want to be a manager.

John (31:45):
Oh shit.

James K (31:46):
Yeah.
Crazy world.
But I mean, I just feel like,or some people get promoted
really fast for reasons,

John (31:51):
Yeah,

James K (31:52):
but you just don't want people who only want numbers.

John (31:55):
for sure.

James K (31:56):
And then those people just have to have real talks with the devs and
the devs have to be open with it too.
Right.
Cause then, then you're talkingto the producer on the dev side.
Right.
And that person has to be notagain, just about the numbers
and that's the big problem,

John (32:08):
Don't just be about the numbers.
Be about the quality.

James K (32:11):
yeah.
But I get it.
Like if, if you see that it's been aweek and there are zero bugs come in from
your QA team, this is probably a problem.
Right.
And that's another thing, like bad thing,as I told you, outsource QA, it's like,
people are worried about losing the job.
It's also pretty low paying.

John (32:24):
Oh shit.
Yeah.
So
super volatile, high turnover.

James K (32:28):
Yeah.
But, people also justwant to get out of it.
no one wants to stay QAbecause the pay is bad.
And that's a big problem because ifyou're like, Hey, going to be QA.
So I can be a designerbecause there's a path there.
And a lot of people do that path, butthat shouldn't be your reason for Like
it shouldn't be like, Hey, I want to bea designer so I can live and make money.
It's like, no, man, QA shouldbe good enough to be able
to pay you to do your job.
you want good QA because if youdon't, what's going to happen is

(32:50):
the people who become good QA leave

John (32:52):
I definitely agree with that, man.
Like wish it was a path that was nurturedand fostered and had a long road to
grow fried to go through the wholeladder of like senior principal director
ways to be better at the craft, right?
Because an experienced QAperson is worth, five juniors,
if not more, you know what I'm

(33:12):
saying?

James K (33:13):
but they don't see it that way usually.
Right.
They're like, well, we'lljust get five juniors.

John (33:16):
Yeah, exactly.
why
pay this person this much moneywhen we can get five people?
Five bodies
with a pulse.

James K (33:23):
Like I love QA is great.
And I feel like when I, got hiredat raccoon logic, they were like,
Hey, yes, you're a designer,but also could you do some QA?
I'm like, yeah, man, it's fine.
Like, I like it.
Like, it's not a bad job.

John (33:33):
Well, it's funny.
I feel like at a small team at a smallshop, everybody does a little QA,

James K (33:38):
yeah, everyone does a little, but there's things like running daily
smokes just to give the health of thebill that people can then like a backlog
of, and they'd be like, Hey, well,they build those great two weeks ago.
Why did it start being crappy?
And then I can be like, well,that exact build number that
we tested on had this change.
So we can look quickly andstart seeing what, what broke.
Right?

John (33:56):
Supervisor.

James K (33:57):
whereas yeah, everyone on the team could check their stuff, but you
want someone on the team to be givingyou guys and gals and people the info.
Right.

John (34:05):
Yup.

James K (34:05):
So, yeah, I just, I feel like it sucks that we don't get enough
respect because we just doing our best.

John (34:10):
Hell yeah, man.
We're all doing our best.
And that discipline is as essentialas any of the discipline in
making the games that we get out.
We cannot be done without that discipline.

James K (34:21):
and I love it.
Honestly.
It's really fun too.
If you get a good team,

John (34:24):
Yeah.
Like that Metallica team, bro.

James K (34:27):
Metallica team was fire the whole team the whole time I was at typhoon.
I never thought like,oh man, I'm only a QA.
I want to get out.
But I was also in school to be a designer.

John (34:37):
Mm.

James K (34:38):
and they saw me going to school every day and my lead came up to me like,
Hey man, do you want to do some design?
And I was like, God, I don'tknow, man, you guys are,
there's like only four of you.
And you're really good.
Like I'm just in school.
They're like, okay, well howabout we give you something small?
Like.
Okay.
And at that point I wasalready fixing bugs myself.
Like I was a very strange QA who wouldjust, I had access to the editor.

(34:58):
So if I saw an art bug, Iwould just fix it and then
submit it.

John (35:01):
Was it
unreal?

James K (35:02):
Yeah.
It was unreal

John (35:03):
Yeah.
Which makes it superaccessible to jump into

James K (35:05):
oh yeah.
So they were like, well, you'realready in the engine fixing
little bugs here and there.
how about we just, give yousomething small to work on.
And they're like, nothing crazy.
Just like we're adding thesecollectibles that we don't
really have many around in level.
Just start placing them and like,you know, submit it, have fun.
that's yours.
I was like, okay.
And I was like,

John (35:23):
was typhoon,

James K (35:24):
I wear like 24.

John (35:25):
man.
You see there's something tobe said for themes, right?
Anything under 40, because.
These opportunities for growth,exploration learning, right?
Or just like so plentiful that youget these opportunities that you very
likely would not get at a huge AAA

James K (35:43):
Oh,
2000%.
I remember just, I showedinterest in like, what was it?
I was like, Hey, thisenemy's kind of cool.
How does it work?
And the guy who made thecreature was like, oh, you want
to know how, how this works?
I'll show you the behavior trees.
You want to mess with it.
I'm like, what?
And he's like, here, like this,one's not done, have fun with it.
Like you can submit whatever.

(36:04):
It's not gonna be more broken than it is.
I'm like, okay.
then that got me into playing with.

John (36:10):
Boom.

James K (36:11):
I'm no AI designer, but I got to tweak a lot of them and it was fun.
And it was just little thingsthat every time I would show
interest to someone, they weresuper ecstatic to tell me about it.
Cause again, we're small and they have
time And they're like, Hey, doyou want to know how to do it?
Cause I can use a bit of help, butif I teach you how to do it, you
can give me a little bit of help.
I'm like, Yeah.
man.

John (36:29):
Strategic, bro.
How do you feel aboutoffering behavior trees?
Talk to me about exposure to them.
How intuitive are they?
What you like, what youhated, what didn't make sense.
Just cause I have to talk to peopleabout these from time to time
and I always want to understandhow I can break them down better

James K (36:46):
I mean, they scared me looking at it at first because some of our
creatures were a little all over the place
in that.

John (36:52):
50 leaf nodes.

James K (36:54):
Yeah.
And I was like, man, Idon't wanna touch that.
But some of our very simple ones whereit was very straightforward, was easy
to just drag and drop behaviors thatthey made connect things up, testing.
It was super easy.
I wouldn't want to messwith bigger things.
they, just looks intimidating.
I feel like if I did it, maybe itwouldn't be so bad cause I do it.
But I found the behavior tree andpretty simple at a base level.

John (37:19):
fair.
So start people off small,

James K (37:21):
Oh yeah.

John (37:22):
and then kind of stair step them through it, right?
Like, okay.
Here's the next guy?
Here's like the

James K (37:27):
Hundred percent.
Right.
cause if you throw someone in withanything bigger than that, and
they've never seen it before, it'sjust going to look intimidating now.
Again, some people love.
But for me, that was like,I don't know about that.
they're like, okay,here's the simplest enemy.
I'm like, oh, I understand that.

John (37:41):
yeah.
Yeah.
regular.

James K (37:42):
then I can understand it and how it works really easy.
I'm like, oh, okay.
This node does that.
And if I tweak these parametersin this node, I exactly see
the outcome very simply becausethis enemy only does one thing.

John (37:52):
Yeah, bro.
Can you believe that behaviortrees have been around since what?
Like mid two thousands?
I think they came out on the scene sincelike, Hey, little tool or something and
they're used everywhere to this day, bro.

James K (38:04):
Yup.
Yeah.
I know.

John (38:06):
All right, James, I need to know about your story, man.
Like how did you comeinto the game industry?

James K (38:13):
It's not that exciting, but.
I think when I was like 18, I hada friend who was working in QA and
I messaged him one day cause I wasplaying gate, dark Alliance too.

John (38:23):
Okay.

James K (38:23):
I kept, breaking that game was pretty buggy on the two.
And broke it a bunch and I was justchatting to him about it one day.
Cause he was like a friend wewere playing like I think we
were playing wild together.

John (38:33):
Yeah.

James K (38:33):
And he was like, Hey, I just got a job at this company called VMC.
Do you want in they're hiring right now?
I'm like, I dunno, man.
He's like, well that's cool.
Like you're breaking the game already.
Come get paid to break a game.
I'm like, all right, that sounds cool.
And they sent me like this reallyweird test where it was like, Hey,
we're going to show you this 32ndvideo and tell us all the bugs.
And I was like,
all right, man.

John (38:52):
off a video.

James K (38:54):
I watched this, I don't know what game it was, but it was
super weird and buggy and it wasbasically like a QA bug they found.
And then they were like, Hey, justtell us what bugs are in this.
And yeah, you had to get X amount.
Correct.
And you got the job and I guess I did.
So I started workingthere did that for a lot.
I think I was there forlike five, six years.

John (39:14):
Dan, that's a good one.

James K (39:15):
Yeah.
Then I was like, I'mgoing to get out of QA.
Cause we don't get paid money in my,my work is scary cause I'm constantly
like on-call and fearing for my job.

John (39:22):
How common is that to be at that place at that time, for that long,
it seems
like you're like
you have to be 20% tostick around that long.

James K (39:30):
yeah, I mean back then there wasn't like as many people as there are
now and I was giving it my all man, Iwas just wanting to be, I want it to
be like a senior or a lead there, butthere was just never positions open
because there were so few of those.
So eventually I left that studioand then I, was another studio in
Montreal called enzyme and they werelike, Hey, don't have like an office
that we're gonna put you out, butwe're going to put you in a store.

(39:52):
And I was like, all right.
So they embedded me at WB.

John (39:55):
Yo that's right.
felt like enzyme sounded familiar now.

James K (40:00):
Yeah.
That was like the big QA house thatwas helping to be, be for a long time.
And I think now that they're keywords, there there's that now, but
yes, I was there and it was great.
And then getting to actually devsaround and, know, chatting with
you guys during lunch and stuff.
It Was pretty cool.

John (40:15):
Was there anything that surprised you once you were in house, like
compared to what you imagined gamesor like when they were in development?

James K (40:22):
I mean, I didn't get to see the much, we would get to see like teaser
trailers of what you guys were workingon downstairs and stuff, but I just
wanted to see more, but because I waslike an outsourcer, we just were allowed
because of our, how our NDAs worked.
they eventually worked my way up to justworking at WB, then gave me access to come
down to your floors and see your stuff.

John (40:40):
Yeah.

James K (40:42):
Cool.
And then I was like, Oh I want that.
And then I met a greatperson named John Diaz

John (40:47):
Oh shit.
That's me.

James K (40:48):
yeah.
And he inspired me to become a designer.
Legit.
True fact

John (40:52):
Get the fuck outta here,
bro.
Like

James K (40:54):
working with you you were Like
one of the first people who reallymade me want to go into design.
There was another person, there wasa, it was you and Jeff champagne.

John (41:02):
shout out to a sham playing.
I think that fool was likecreative director on that, like
and dragons
game.

James K (41:08):
the new, Boulder's gate.
Dark Alliance.

John (41:10):
Yeah.
It all comes full circle,

James K (41:14):
Yeah.
No, but like it was you YouTube.
Cause you didn't, I don't know.
You were just so different withhow you interacted with us.
You guys were both super, just friendlyand it really made me love the design side
cause like, man, Sit down with either ofyou and check out your work and stuff,
or JF would make me play test his levels.
And and it was just super fun.
I loved it.

John (41:32):
remind me where that was, man.
So that was already, I think.
Post Metallica.
It was like Sabbath orgot them nights now.

James K (41:41):
Yeah, it would be, it would be like the, the early, early, early days of
Gotham night, like in its prototype phase.

John (41:47):
Okay.
And if I remember correctly, we wereall in the same pod or strike team
and we would be in stand-ups together.

James K (41:53):
Yup.

John (41:54):
I forgot how it was, man.
I don't know if we had like amorning one and then the evening one

James K (41:58):
I think we just had a morning one.
And then like, well, there was a morningdesign one, and then there was maybe
the sub-teams that you had an AI one
specifically,
um, that would break off.
Yeah.
And then JF, I think had likea missions one, cause he was
on the missions design team.

John (42:13):
Yeah.
The crime scene, I

James K (42:14):
Yeah.
And yeah, I mean, it was just super cool.
Cause I'd get to be in all those meetings.
all you guys.
And I was like, man,this is just super fun.

John (42:21):
I need to ask you because I want to make sure that I keep that
essence and that I keep that energy.
What did I do so that I can keep doing it?
So I
will cause like you said, man, you inthere kicking ass as a designer now.
So I want to know what I didso I can keep doing that thing.

James K (42:35):
I think you were just being you man.
It was it wasn't no corporate Diaz.
You know what I mean?
Like

John (42:43):
Yeah.
You ever watch wrestling,

James K (42:44):
yeah.

John (42:45):
this makes you think of what are they called, man?
The, the Alliance,

James K (42:50):
Oh yeah, yeah,

John (42:51):
the fuck it is.
Right.
You know, they wear a suit,they bring the briefcase out

James K (42:54):
yeah,

John (42:55):
corporation that used to work with McMahon,

James K (42:57):
you didn't feel like that.
Right.
And some people, some people werelike super siloed and they didn't
really want to talk about their stuff.
And if I would ever come up to themwith, like an issue, they would kind
of take it as like an insult, almost
like how dare I criticize for design.
Right.
But some people aren't good.

John (43:12):
Yeah.
To be fair, It took me a bit to load.
Right.
This goes back to kind of the, Idon't want to check something in.
I haven't like dotted all the I'sand slash all the T's and haven't
checked all the possibilities.
unsure, I'm insecure.
I'm not ready to be criticized, youknow, what we learn is fuck all that.

(43:32):
While trying to make a good game,the sooner you get it in the
faster we can iterate, right?
Like everybody knows it'sgoing to not be perfectly.
It's going to be broke as hell.
Right.

James K (43:40):
And,
I think you and Jeff were justthe most real people on that team.
And I felt like anything I wouldcome to either of you with you,
you actually actioned on orwould take me seriously, right?

John (43:50):
you know, you, a veteran bro, you got saw, you got great eyes.

James K (43:54):
Yup.

John (43:55):
for how games should work.
Right.
Or when things are off.
Right.
So it would be stupid of us notto have listened to you for sure.

James K (44:02):
but just a lot of people, don't a lot of people don't
I find, I find more designers do.

John (44:08):
Okay.

James K (44:09):
It's harder to get through to a lot of the programmers.

John (44:13):
Interesting,

James K (44:14):
because at that point I literally don't know the programming.

John (44:17):
true,

James K (44:18):
I just see there's a bug and then they're always
like, well, it's not my bug man.
Go away.

John (44:21):
you bring up a good point to be fair.
I think there's times where I don't getthrough to programmers as well, man.
It's so
you and I in the same boat,

James K (44:29):
get it, most likely is not that person's fault, but somehow
their system is interacting withsomething that's causing a bug.
Right.
So I just found that you and JF werejust super down to earth and made me
feel like part of the team a lot more.
And didn't make me feellike I was QA in the team.

John (44:44):
Okay.

James K (44:44):
Right.
You guys made me feel like.

John (44:46):
All right.
So the moral of the story there is makepeople feel like they're part of the.

James K (44:52):
Yeah, Yeah.
Just try not to just make them feel likethey're not like, especially with QA,
like just don't be like, Hey, QA person.
Cause I've had people, I've hadpeople say that on the teams
like, Hey QA, come check this out.
I'm like, man, I have a name.

John (45:03):
Yeah,

James K (45:04):
Like that's rude,

John (45:06):
crazy.

James K (45:07):
just, just nice to people.

John (45:09):
Hell yeah, I
like that.

James K (45:10):
That sentence has to Be

John (45:12):
Be nice.
Don't be a Dick.
There you go.
What were you studying in college?
Like for the design side, I'mcurious what they were teaching
you, what you were learning on.

James K (45:23):
so my course was independent game design.
So we learned a lot of stuff.
we learned in unity and we had animationclasses or art slash animation, but it
tended to be more animation than we did.
Design started at paper.
We all had to build board gamesall the way up to, you know, make
your own little Ferny sash games.
So we made like a VR game.
Then we had programming and like thelast class was like a history of the

(45:46):
industry and then how to self-publishyourself if you want to go into,

John (45:50):
Well, like on steam or something.

James K (45:52):
but, but more just how to, like, if you want to,
how to kickstart how to get a
publisher, how topromote yourself properly
more of
that.
So,

John (46:00):
that's pretty sweet, man.
I didn't get that.
When I went to my curriculum.
Shit.

James K (46:04):
yeah.
Well, this was supposed to be a class two.
If you want to be an indiedev, you have every tool.
If you finish thiscourse to publish a game.

John (46:12):
Smart was Osama your teacher.

James K (46:15):
No, but he was, he liked was the coordinator for the S the class.

John (46:19):
Meaning what he like built the curriculum.

James K (46:22):
Yeah, And you think, I think he was in charge of the teachers and stuff.

John (46:26):
Yeah, I think

James K (46:27):
But that was cool because I was also working with him at the time.
I was like, Hey man,

John (46:32):
Yeah, dude,

James K (46:33):
I'm in this now.
But he, he was great.

John (46:35):
you got, you got, like free office hours while you're at work.

James K (46:37):
Pretty much yet I got to use, I guess as much as I'm
as I wanted, but yeah, so it wasbasically, you know, how to be a pure
indie team and how to self-publish.
And some people from class are doing thatthey're 100% making their own titles and
they're, they've been working on it forlike a few years and they're doing great.
Whereas some of us, because of ourteachers, our teachers were all
like in the industry, there werefrom like Ubisoft or something.

(47:00):
So it's, Hey, if you did good in thatclass, you know, your teacher will just
try to, you know, help you get somewhere.
Or we had a really good way to get mentorsbecause you know, your teachers knew
people in the industry, which was super.

John (47:11):
What's the name of the school.

James K (47:12):
This was a Dawson.

John (47:13):
Gotcha.

James K (47:13):
It was a short two.
was great.
It wasn't anything crazy.
I would've preferred unreal over unity,but unity was cool because at least
it forced us to learn programming.

John (47:22):
The C sharp.

James K (47:23):
Yeah.
Cause you have to can't Doanything without it really.
like that I would have preferred blueprintcause it would have been faster and
I was just more comfortable with it,but I mean, unity was good to learn.

John (47:33):
Do you think that learning C-sharp has made you a better visual
scripter, AKA unreal blueprint?

James K (47:40):
I still suck at blueprint?
but Yeah.
it did help a lot because at leastI understand what's happening.

John (47:45):
Yeah.

James K (47:46):
A lot more than if I didn't like, cause I think before I went to school, I
was like, man, blueprint looks confusing.
I'm like, I don't understand anything.
Then you get there.
I'm like, oh yeah.
Okay.
I wrote that and I understand.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It makes perfect.

John (47:58):
I always have a sense that people jump into blueprint, prematurely,
and if they were to kind of pseudocode what they're trying to build,
you know, like, okay, I need theanimation so that I can play it.
And I don't want to stop it atthis point, you know, on paper or
as if they were writing C-sharpand then take that into blueprint.
I think they would havea much better time, but,

James K (48:19):
Yeah, the only thing I really loved about unreal is that if I wanted
to get something done really fast toshow someone an intention, I can just
build it in the sequencer so fast.

John (48:29):
Is that they're like little matinee cinematics
tool.
Yeah.

James K (48:33):
good because if I just want to show you my intentions really quick, I can
build something in the sequencer and haveit all play out where, when I'm running
into things, doing stuff, things happen.
And I did no coding at all.
I didn't touch the blueprint at all.
I can do it.
Minutes.
And I can show you what I want.
If you think that looks cool,then I can worry about actually
making it so it works properly.

John (48:52):
That's powerful, man.
I mean, for people out therenot understanding, right.
I would give them the visual of, put mein a mocap suit with cameras where I can
act out exactly what I want you to see.
And it just loads uplike instantly, right.

James K (49:09):
Yeah.
But on top of that, the sequence was alsolike, Hey, when I run into this trigger,
what you just make a tiny little triggerthat has like, when you enter in, which is
the easiest thing you can do in blueprint.
Right?
You bet.
Hey, when I do that, I want this wallto just vanish, to give the intention
that like, Hey, I finally did the thing.
I, or I killed the enemy.
When I walked into the zone, theenemies die, which is me killing them.

(49:30):
When I walked in this next zone,I progressed the wall crumbles.

John (49:33):
Yes.

James K (49:34):
to look, it's going to look rough, but like, I can show
you what I want really fast.
visually it looks nice versuslike saying it to you, right.
I didn't realize how much I lovethat until when we were doing
some prototype stuff at stadia.
And that was just so fun.
Cause I didn't realize how quickI can get my design across without

John (49:50):
Yeah.

James K (49:51):
jump into the blueprint.

John (49:53):
Walk me through getting the offer at typhoon.
What was the interview process likeand how did the opportunity for you?

James K (50:00):
I think I applied to typhoon when they went live.
So like when we were at WB, I appliedfor them when I saw their studio
come on line that I heard nothing.
And it was like two years later.
And then randomly, I gotan email from from Reed the
because he was the CEO I think,
or at least one of the founders.
Yeah.

John (50:18):
president of Warner

James K (50:20):
Yeah.
And then he, he basically ran typhoon andhe was like, Hey, saw you were applying to
be the, the lead come in for an interview.
And I'm like, all right,

John (50:29):
two years later.

James K (50:30):
Yeah, it was out of the blue and cause I think at that
point I forgot, I even applied.

John (50:33):
Sure.
The after that much time.

James K (50:35):
Right.
And then I went in and it was reallyjust, they knew who I was already because
worked at WB and read remembered me

John (50:42):
Yup.

James K (50:42):
which surprised

John (50:43):
You remember who guy, man?

James K (50:45):
Yeah.
And then it was some other people whowere there most, like a lot of the team I
had worked with as well, they were eitherartists or programmers or just, you know,
people who I've worked with in the past.
And they were like, Hey, yeah.
So have you worked in a real mic?
Yeah, it did it at a WB.
I've done it a bit at this other studio.
I'm like, yeah, I'vebeen working with that.
Like, all right, cool.
I'm like, I'm going to school.
Like, that's totally fine.
I'm not going to be designer like, great.

(51:05):
You want to fix bugs?
I'm like, yeah, sounds great.
They said that as a joke and I did it.
But that was pretty much it.
And then they gave me an offer.
They're like, how does that sound?
Like, it sounds great.
Like, I'll take it.
And they're like, all right, well, we'llget back to you if have you got it?
And I think they, they messagedme back like two hours later.
That I got the job and Iwas like, That's crazy.

John (51:23):
That's what something, man, like same day.
Boom.
You got to.

James K (51:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was nuts.
I think it really helped that everyonethere knew at least who I was,
um,

John (51:33):
you know, that's something we're talking about, right.
To people listening in is the importanceof your rapport, your relationships,
fostering those,

James K (51:42):
burned bridges, stone tone ever.
It doesn't matter what anyone says to you.
Don't don't ever stoop to that level.
Just always be nice.
Just cause people aregoing to remember you

John (51:51):
you know by the nature of what we do, right?
As creative, you open yourselfup to criticism, you gotta

James K (51:55):
Um,

John (51:56):
people, not always gonna like what you do and tempers
are going to rise, right?
When things are

James K (52:00):
oh, of course.

John (52:00):
right, we're gonna get into arguments, my buddies
call it creative discussions.
But that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about being ahuman, being able to get your
emotions out and apologize or.
meet up and howeveryou unpack that, right?
Like, Hey, let's have a tea, let'shave a coffee, let's have a drink,
whatever.

James K (52:20):
Yup.
So yeah, that really helped.
yeah, that was, it was crazy.
Starting there was, was crazy because
I don't want to, I'm not sayingthis to throw shade at nobody.
All right.
But the other, the, the old leadthere just was very different
from what I would've done.
So when I came in, I think itwas like they're like, Hey.
Yeah.
So here's what the leaddid for a smoke test.
I'm like, awesome.
Like how often do you guys want it?

(52:41):
They're like, well, I mean,like once a day, Okay.
And I looked at him like, that's prettyshort the games, not that big, my art.
Cool.
So I burnt it up in an hourand they're like, you're done
like, yeah, like, oh, okay.
And they were confused.
And I did like four in the day and they'relike, wow, how are you doing so many?
I'm like, man, your game is small.
You don't have many features yet.
Like, it shouldn't be hard.

John (53:00):
Yeah,

James K (53:00):
but I also think it's just, I know how to do that.
Well, because I've done it so many times.
And I guess I don't, I don'trealize that when I'm doing it
and I, yeah.
And I was able to blitzthrough their stuff.
And then I made a way bigger, robustsmoke for them with so many more
things, which they didn't think they'dbe able to have tested in a day.
And I was like, I'll doit three times a day.
And I'm like, get you oneearly morning by like 9:00 AM.

(53:21):
It'll be done.
They get you one from noon.
I'll get one right beforethe end of the day.
So you can have a history ofhow your check-ins are going.

John (53:26):
Yeah.
Cause I imagine the more smokesyou have is a better indicator
or a better way to create.
What has broken, right?
If you do

James K (53:34):
Yup.

John (53:34):
day, then you have 24 hours of check-ins to kind of

James K (53:38):
Of course.

John (53:39):
do three, the window is much smaller.

James K (53:41):
Yeah.
I can tell you, Hey, the game issuper stable at noon, and then
it stopped being stable at five.
it's not something thathappened early this morning.
It's something that happenedbetween noon and five.

John (53:50):
and that's great to know.

James K (53:51):
and that's why I was like, it blew their mind that I was able to do it.
And I was like, well, I mean,I built it myself, so I know
how to do my runs perfectly.
I know how to manage what I do in a smoke.
I can get the best out of my time.
So if it's like, Hey, I gotto make sure I test all the
abilities against every creature.
I'm also going to test, you know.
the metrics at the same time.
I'm gonna make sure I'm running andjumping as I'm burning through your level.

(54:12):
Cause also gotta make sureall the levels work fine.
I'm like, I'm just going to buildmyself this crazy course that
I can run through to make sureI check everything in one shot.
So.
Running through the level.
Okay.
Level works.
Okay.
Now I'll go check the creatures.
Okay.
The creatures work.
Okay.
Now I'm going to check the, the three CS.
Okay.
Those work, like make sureI do it all in one shot.
So I don't have to go back on myself.

John (54:29):
Yeah,
was it when Google came into the pictureand says, Hey, you want to be a Googler?
Here you are.
You're a Googler now.

James K (54:36):
Yeah.
That was weird.
I mean, it was cool goingaway from building three.
Well, more than three skews ofthings to just having the idea of
having one sounded super appealing.

John (54:46):
Oh, because
you guys became first party.

James K (54:48):
yeah, we were the, we were the first party.
studio.
I think
they would think there was anotherone, but, but yeah, we were pretty
much like a big first party and thiswas my first time working as a first
party dev, which was super cool.
So it was, yeah, our gamewas going to be stadium.
So it's one thing to worryabout, which really takes
headaches off of so many things.
You know, I don't have to worryabout testing the PlayStation,

(55:11):
the Xbox and PC and the switch.
right.
It's just, stadia.
Yeah, it was cool.
I liked it.
It wasn't, it was a lotof meetings and you know,

John (55:19):
I hear this.
one Scougal comes it's it'sbecomes a lot more processes and

James K (55:24):
yeah.
I mean, I feel like I don't know howit was for you to Amazon, but I feel
like that's just how big companies are.

John (55:30):
Amazon was similar.
I found

James K (55:32):
Yeah.

John (55:32):
a lot of writing, a lot of reporting, a lot of data and a lot of
check-ins man like validating any crazydecision or assumption writing games.
There's a lot of gut in games, Amazonand Google don't operate off the gut.

James K (55:47):
No.
I mean, I didn't see itthat bad from my side.
Cause again, I was just a designer, so Idon't know what my bosses saw, but for me
it was more just Google specific meetingsor Google specific talks we had to go
to because it's just Google wide things.

John (56:01):
okay.

James K (56:01):
there was just so many of them, but I think it
was also because it was COVID.
there was this bonus layerof just weird at the studio.

John (56:10):
There's a lot of learning, right?
Like just information,sharing, knowledge, gathering,

James K (56:14):
Yeah.
And because like, you know, we're asmall, we're a small little game studio.
We know how to make games.
It's fine.
But I feel like meetings weren'tfor us, they were for the people
who have never thought of workingfrom home because they need to be
in the office with other people.

John (56:27):
That's right.

James K (56:27):
up with it because we were part of Google.
So it was, it was a rollercoaster, but I liked it on it.

John (56:32):
You liked it.
You go back.

James K (56:33):
I don't know, because the thing is like, what, what would I go back.
to?
Is there, is there games to go back toif it's, Hey, it's a thing it's stadia.
Sure.
But I mean, I couldn't doanything else at Google.
I ain't no programmers.

John (56:44):
So here we are today, raccoon logic just opened up and you
guys got to re-acquire your IP.
I
thought it was going to in a Google volt.

James K (56:53):
So did I?
Yeah, it's not.
I mean, we have the IP, whoknows what that means, but we
have it, which is, you know, a bigleap forward, the not having it.
Right.
It's going to be, it's going to be nuts.
And at least this time I get tobe more design than QA, at least,
which is going to be a big.

John (57:08):
Talk me through that.
Right.
Talk with you.
You get to live kind of the bestof both worlds, essentially.
Right?
You get to do the thing, you know,and love as well as flex new muscles.

James K (57:17):
Yup.

John (57:18):
from pros and be able to bring your own juice to it, to the project.
That's a designer.
What do you enjoy about designing?

James K (57:27):
That's a great question.
I just like building stuffthat people get to enjoy.
And I haven't done much design, likeI've said, like I've done a lot of
collectibles and secrets and stuff,and those are super fun because I
then go, when I jump on Twitch andweirdly people still playing that game,

John (57:42):
Yeah.

James K (57:43):
people like the journey Savage planet, and I love watching
them interact with my content that I.

John (57:48):
Yes.

James K (57:49):
fun.
Like, Ooh, do you actually like my quest?
Cause people at work tell me they do,but is it really good or it's Ooh.
Did you, did you find that collectible,that I'm walking, I'm watching you come
up to like, do you find it entertaining?
You know, I'm, I'm sure as I growand get to do bigger and better
things, just going to be evenmore of a fun feeling afterwards.
But right now, like it'sso enjoyable doing that.

(58:11):
And that's really whatI want to keep doing.
I just like, it sucks gamestakes so long to make.

John (58:16):
Yes.

James K (58:17):
But that's all I want to see.
I just want to see people interactingwith the content I'm building and
just, you know, see what happens.

John (58:22):
I like that, bro.
And the F for sure, all the streamersout there, we get to get that
feedback like right then and there,
to either things that we can only see onthe dead floor from, from our own team.
Right.
And we're all kind of to befair, we play it a certain way.
people in the, in the wild play verydifferently, you know, in a way that you
never could have conceived of on your own.

James K (58:42):
Oh, yeah.
Well, trust me.
I, I know, but you know, it's interesting.
I was interviewed for aspeed run, thing for IGN.
They did a speed run ofjourney Savage planet.
It was like me, Alex and ourcommunity manager, Dennis,

John (58:55):
Alex Hutchinson

James K (58:57):
yeah.

John (58:57):
Community managers, dentists

James K (58:59):
But yeah, it was, it was awesome because they were like, oh, does this
hurt you to watch people break your game?
Like, no, I find it so fascinating.
and they're like, well, you're the QA.
You don't find that weird.
I'm like, no, this is the best part.
Like the games I'm breaking,they're able to beat it.
They're doing it like 12 minutes.
It's so.

John (59:14):
the.

James K (59:15):
we didn't want to fix it internally.
One of the.
speed runs did get fixed,but we didn't try to fix it.
It just so happened to belike a an autogeneration of
like LDS that broke something.
And then when it got fixed, itsucked that it got fixed, but
we weren't trying to fix it.
We don't want to, take any funaway from the speed runners.
Cause it was so cool to watch
or like, how cool is it that someoneis dedicating so much time beating

(59:38):
your game the fastest, right?
Like that's just cool.

John (59:41):
helps the game live on to be fair.
Right?
There's this whole world of speedrunners trying to min-max and learn
how to be pixel perfect at a game.

James K (59:50):
Yeah,
So for me that was just like,oh, super fun to watch man.
And that's what I want to see moreof, like from streamers as I start
doing more design, like I just, I justwant to see people engage with it.
I don't care how you do it.
Like you want to speed, run it, have fun.
I love it.
You want to show me howyou can break that thing?
I spent a year making do it.
Like it's just going tomake me grow as a designer.

(01:00:12):
That's all.

John (01:00:12):
just like QA has so many different branches to does design.
Is there a particular area ofdesign that intrigues you the most?
Or where do you see yourself?
Like five years from now as a designer?
Where would you like to be?

James K (01:00:27):
That's a good question.
At the moment.
I'm just kind of vibing withlike a generalist designer.
I know, I know I don't wantto be a level designer.
Systems design sounds really fun.
AI is.
intriguing a little intense.
I
don't have the, the, John Diaz mindset.
thanks.
I read it, but yeah, it's,dunno where I want to be yet.

(01:00:47):
I haven't had enough time to play around.

John (01:00:50):
Okay.

James K (01:00:50):
I just know that when I watch people do level design and I'm
like, that is never going to be me.
It's

John (01:00:56):
that's a big learning point, right?
No, the thing that is not for you,
that's a huge learning point.

James K (01:01:02):
I love seeing it and I love seeing people who can do
it well, because it's so cool.
But
my brain does not work like that.

John (01:01:09):
for sure, man.
Like a game is only as good as thespace you get to kind of create in, you
know,

James K (01:01:15):
yeah.
That's, that's the only thing Iknow I'm not going to do and watch
five years, I'm going to be alevel designer would blow my mind,
but

John (01:01:21):
to be there.
You got

James K (01:01:22):
yeah.
Yeah.
But it put Noah it's I dunno.
So far just a generalist, justhaving fun or poking a few systems.
That's always really fun to do too.

John (01:01:31):
What was it about raccoon logic that Lord you in it?

James K (01:01:35):
The team a hundred percent.

John (01:01:36):
This is mostly the same people you work with at typhoon.
Yeah.

James K (01:01:39):
Yeah.
I just with them so well, gave goodfreedom to what I wanted to do.
Right.
These are the people who let mego from just being the QA lead
on their team to wanting me tobecome a designer on their project.
Right.
Like I remember anytime we go to likea San cassette, it was always like,
man, we're so happy you're in school.
You're gonna make such a good designer.
I'm like, oh, that's awesome.
So it's, it was always that it's like,these people are just so fun to work with.

(01:02:02):
I can't wait to work with them again.
And that's why it was really sadand Google shut down because they
were just so fun to work with.
They make really good games to make funcontent, but they're just good people.

John (01:02:11):
a group of people that believe in you that want to see you grow,
that are excited to work with you

James K (01:02:15):
Yeah.

John (01:02:16):
for what you bring to the project.
For sure, man, you want to vibeand rock with those people?

James K (01:02:21):
Yeah.
So that was, that was really it.
Like, why would I notwant to be with that team?
Right?

John (01:02:26):
I get, it makes sense to me.
Hi James.
I'm a hit you off withthe lightning round.
You ready?

James K (01:02:33):
Yeah.
Go for it.

John (01:02:34):
What's the last game you finished,

James K (01:02:36):
I think it was the new ratchet and clank game.

John (01:02:38):
Oh, that's a good one.

James K (01:02:40):
Yeah, What is it?
Rifton timer or something?

John (01:02:43):
Yeah, you can get
a lot of

James K (01:02:45):
rift apart.
Yeah.
And that's one of myfavorite studios period.
insomniac.
They make such gorgeous games, but Ithink that was the last one I finished.
I've attempted to beat a lot ofgames, but that one sucked me in
over the weekend that I couldn't.

John (01:02:58):
That's why this question is pretty powerful, man.
Like those, all the options that wehave on how to dedicate our time.
It's few and far between the gamethat compels you to complete it.

James K (01:03:07):
Yeah,

John (01:03:08):
Dope.
What's the last book you read?

James K (01:03:11):
It was called the art of game design.

John (01:03:13):
by Jesse shell.

James K (01:03:14):
Yep.
That's the one

John (01:03:16):
yeah, that's a good.

James K (01:03:17):
S as a big boy.
Yeah, that was, that was the last book.
I think every designer toldme I just had to read it.

John (01:03:23):
Yup.
Yup.
That
guy

James K (01:03:26):
yeah, I think I read it during school.

John (01:03:28):
anything that still persists in the memory from that book

James K (01:03:32):
No.

John (01:03:34):
you applied day-to-day

James K (01:03:36):
I, I, think, I
think it, it, did change the,
way I did design, but,how I could not tell you,

John (01:03:41):
how are you liking this whole work from home thing?

James K (01:03:43):
Honestly it's not bad.
I do miss being in a group of people.
I mean, like working as a small studiois so much easier to just run over to
someone's desk and show them somethingand work with them quick, then having
to see if they're online, see ifthey're not in a meeting already.
That's the only part I don't likeabout the work from home is how hard
it can be to actually chat with people.

John (01:04:04):
Yeah, you got to book it.
It's gotta be in the calendar.
Yeah.
Most of the time.

James K (01:04:07):
And that sucks.
Cause I was so used to just walkingover to a desk and talking to someone.
So Besides that if that somehowgets fixed, I would love it,
but don't, I don't hate it.
I just don't like being able toactually chat with people properly.

John (01:04:19):
What's your ideal situation?
Is it like a hundredpercent in the office?
A hundred percent at homeor some type of hybrid.

James K (01:04:24):
It's the hybrid.
And I, believe that's whatwe're doing at rec and logic.
I think we're doing a, three-dayin office two day at home.
So you schedule all the big meetingsin the office you know, do all that
over a three-day period and thenyou have, you know, I think it's,
I don't know what days it would be.
Let's say it's Monday, Fridayat home and then Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday in the office.
Right.

John (01:04:42):
Where's the.

James K (01:04:43):
it's on St.
Laura and Rachel,
so down near the mountain.
Yeah.

John (01:04:48):
Oh, snap.

James K (01:04:49):
But yeah, so that, that's my deal.
A few days in the office,a few days at home

John (01:04:53):
Okay.

James K (01:04:53):
with the, ability to, if the weather is horrible,
not come in the office.

John (01:04:58):
Yes.
In the winter.

James K (01:05:00):
yeah, Montreal winters is cold,

John (01:05:02):
Yeah.

James K (01:05:03):
all.
And I think that's the big thing thatworked from home did is give us the
ability to say, Hey, like it's bad.
I can stay home.
I can still do my job.
Right.
So that's my ideal, afew days in the office.
But with the ability to, ifreasons I don't have to go in

John (01:05:18):
okay.

James K (01:05:18):
work

John (01:05:19):
What would you be doing if you weren't doing this?
If you weren't making games.

James K (01:05:23):
well as I got my first job in the industry, I also was applying to go to
school back then at the exact same time.
And it just so happened.
They both happened at the exact same week.
So it was, I got acceptance toschool, but I also got the job.
I took the job.
I was going to go into learning to belike, I'm a systems administrator for PC.

John (01:05:41):
CIS admin was, so what's the, what is that?
Is that like standing up racksand managing networks and stuff
like that?

James K (01:05:50):
And like also it,

John (01:05:52):
Yeah.

James K (01:05:53):
worlds, I fascinated with computers.
So that's what
I wanted to go into.

John (01:05:56):
That's a, that's a cousin of what we do,

James K (01:05:58):
yeah, I had had both options and I decided to go with the, the
game one, cause it sounded cooler.

John (01:06:04):
yeah, you could probably do that for

James K (01:06:05):
Sure.

John (01:06:06):
Did, they give you an opportunity to like transfer to
another
team?
Okay.

James K (01:06:11):
were really helpful, but I mean, most teams are program centric.
There's not really When you saythe word design, it's more about
being like a graphic designer

John (01:06:21):
Yeah, product

James K (01:06:22):
or like a web designer.
I'm either of those,

John (01:06:26):
Yup.

James K (01:06:26):
but they were very helpful.

John (01:06:28):
Okay.

James K (01:06:28):
I have no ill will with these people at all.
They were great and they did tryto help as much as they could.
It's just, stuff and I think.
Even if there was a job, it wasyou'd have to move to the states.
And I really didn't wantto move to the states.

John (01:06:38):
They were getting damned.
They were gettingcompletely out of Montreal.

James K (01:06:41):
Well, nobody is.
Cause it was more like what job yougo for dictates where that job is.
Right.
So it's like, Hey, let'ssay, let's say I found a job.
And it was like working for X division.
If
that division is in California,
I have to go to California

John (01:06:53):
Yup.

James K (01:06:53):
because I know they still have stuff in Montreal, but those
are very programmed centric jobs.
So anything designing, I think wasmore in California or in New York.
And Yeah.
those places sound expensive.

John (01:07:04):
yeah.
Oh yeah.
Oh

James K (01:07:05):
So that was more the reason for not wanting to do that.
But yeah.
they tried, they were nice.

John (01:07:09):
I, so closing this episode out, we try to leave it a little
better than the way we found it.
What words of wisdom would youimpart on us as an industry?
What could we do better?
Right.
If you had a wish to wave a wandor on a genius, something, what
would you change about the industry?
If anything,

James K (01:07:28):
I mean, the only thing, and I, this is again from the QA standpoint,
I guess, is just treat QA, likepeople and give them decent salaries.
And don't give them like one weekcontracts where they're constantly
on call and fearing for their jobs.
Right.
Because like, we help your games.

John (01:07:44):
Oh, yeah.

James K (01:07:45):
Like that's all there is to it.
Right?
So for me that, that's it.
And I think I watched one year, there wasa, a GDC conference from BioWare Montreal,
and they had a dev QA conference.
And they're basically saying, it's like,Hey man, where your, where your armor,
like where the studio is armor andyour shield like use us to your best.
Cause this is what we're there for.
We're There to protect youguys as much as we can.

(01:08:06):
Right.
And that's all like, justtreat us like people,

John (01:08:10):
I

James K (01:08:10):
that's all.

John (01:08:11):
I like it.
I that's a message that I caneasily carry forward and propagate
in my little daily activities.

James K (01:08:17):
Yeah.

John (01:08:17):
What do you wish you knew?
Or would you go back in timeuntil younger James Kane?
Maybe like mid nineties.

James K (01:08:26):
Mid nineties.
You can work in video games one day.

John (01:08:30):
Are, you didn't know, it was even a thing.

James K (01:08:32):
No, man.
and it's crazy.
Cause I see things on like I see likeyou do videos of like all the tare QA.
And I was like, I nevereven knew that was a thing.

John (01:08:40):
Yeah.

James K (01:08:41):
I just thought these games got made and came out somehow.
And like did not think therewas a QA point to this.

John (01:08:47):
It's funny to me, Jane is because I grew up in New York and there was
very little game dev in New York.
Right.
Everything was happening in westcoast or in Texas or something, but
Montreal is such a huge Devon man.
Like can't go to a bar and not bump into a

James K (01:09:03):
Yeah.
But, but were they in the nineties though?

John (01:09:06):
Fair.

James K (01:09:06):
cause now yeah, every game studios here in some way, shape or form,
like everyone's here,

John (01:09:12):
for the nineties.

James K (01:09:14):
Yeah.
But I also thought back then thatyou had to be like a programmer to be
in the industry, right?

John (01:09:20):
or a programmer.

James K (01:09:20):
Yeah.
I always thought thatwas, that's what it was.

John (01:09:23):
Yeah.

James K (01:09:24):
So I just never thought it was a thing.
And I think that's why whenmy friend brought it up, I was
like, man, I can't do that job.
But like, okay.
Maybe I can, like who knows?

John (01:09:31):
why I'm putting the show out there, man.
somehow some way you don't thinkthat there's a job for you in
game development, that's what I'm

James K (01:09:37):
Yeah.

John (01:09:38):
and putting them on and sharing this podcast for

James K (01:09:40):
And like, if I can tell.
I don't know, early two thousands.
Me, when I was in the industry, it wouldbe more like don't be afraid to go Indy.
It's not the end of the world.

John (01:09:49):
Like go make your own thing.

James K (01:09:50):
Either go make your own thing.
or go work in a smaller company.
Like, cause those were always scary, man.
It was always like, well I have tostay AAA because of job security,

John (01:09:59):
Yeah.

James K (01:09:59):
but indie make pretty cool stuff and you get to juggle more
hats than you would at the AAA.

John (01:10:04):
Yeah, like we mentioned earlier, right.
You just learn so much more and youmake yourself that much more employable.

James K (01:10:11):
Yup.
So that's more what I would tell myself.
It's like, Andy's not terrifying.
Cause typhoon was a risk because it wasan indie studio and I was going from a
job at a AAA that was secure to an Indi.
But yeah, it shouldn'tbe that, that scary.

John (01:10:27):
No regrets, right?

James K (01:10:29):
Oh, not at all.

John (01:10:30):
Hell yeah.
James, man.
I love kicking it with you.
You're welcome back any time.
As soon as raccoon city has got some funthings to talk about once you to come
back, want to bring Reed on the show.

James K (01:10:42):
Um,

John (01:10:42):
want to bring Alex on the show.
Where can people go to reach you connectto, to see what you're working on?
Anything like that?

James K (01:10:50):
connected me, just go to LinkedIn, easiest place,
sees these places to seewhat I'm doing and just chat.
I
feel like, LinkedIn is gettingso much more popular these days.

John (01:10:58):
is the shit, bro.

James K (01:11:00):
Yeah.

John (01:11:00):
It there's very minimum bullshit on there.
At least on my feed

James K (01:11:04):
I'll say.

John (01:11:05):
It's

James K (01:11:06):
Yup.

John (01:11:06):
things I can love and it's all love out there, man.
It's love, support and interestingconversations and ideas,

James K (01:11:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So a hundred percent just go there.
Message me if you want to chat.

John (01:11:17):
LinkedIn is pretty much responsible for almost all the work
I've gotten after my first gig.
So

James K (01:11:21):
Yeah, no, it's really, it's, it's so much better than people think it is

John (01:11:25):
oh, so good.
But I will link your LinkedInin the show notes for people
to click on and connect with

James K (01:11:31):
dope.

John (01:11:32):
We got a ritual on the show.
I don't know if you'veheard any previous episodes.
If you have.
It's if you had a good time falling outof the play area, kicking it with me.
there anyone you would nominate to comeon the show and fall out behind you?
And this is someone that you think couldmake for a compelling guest, someone
that you've looked at as a role modelor just someone you think is awesome.

James K (01:11:56):
I mean, get, get Jeff champagne on here.

John (01:12:00):
Awesome nomination.
I'm

James K (01:12:02):
Get that,

John (01:12:02):
happen.

James K (01:12:03):
get that, get that boy on your, He's he's such a fun, fun guy too.

John (01:12:07):
oh, he's the

James K (01:12:08):
Yeah, get them on.

John (01:12:09):
I'm a, I'm going to try to wrangle him, man.
I know he's super busy these days,

James K (01:12:13):
Yeah.

John (01:12:13):
to make him happy and I'm going to be like, yo, it was
not me, James tagged you, bro.

James K (01:12:18):
Yeah.
I mean, you, you, tell him that I'm down.

John (01:12:22):
but James.
Thank you so much, bro.
Do you have any closing words for thepeople out there before we wrap up?

James K (01:12:29):
I just Love QA man.
That's about it.
Like,

John (01:12:32):
QA put, put the hearts up,

James K (01:12:34):
yup.

John (01:12:34):
on.
Like there send a slack.
If you hearing this, a messageto your local QA, tell them
how much you appreciate them.

James K (01:12:42):
Oh, a hundred percent.
No one does that,

John (01:12:44):
there you go.
You make a

James K (01:12:45):
like you do that.
you make their, their year.
Yeah.
Ciao.
Ms.
Diaz.

John (01:12:58):
one of my favorite things about this show is just hearing the
perspective of people who are comingon to dev floor for the first time.
It's just so refreshinghearing the first time.
Perspective, especially as you becomea jaded veteran developer, we can
forget what it's like, that we havepretty special careers and that we
should not take them for granted.

(01:13:18):
People would honestlykill to do what we do.
And that's what I like capturing andsharing the insides of the industry.
It's glamorous.
It's tough.
It's taxing, but it's so damn worthwhile.
As long as you're working withgreat people who give a shit
about the product and the team.
I always say whatever you're doing, learnthe engine or the editor take initiative

(01:13:38):
to learn the tools and use them inwhatever way you can to help the team.
The majority of the time, if you'relearning and moving the needle,
getting changes, reviewed, andapproved and committed, that's
going to reflect positively on you.
And those are skills thatyou get to develop on the.
There's very few things better thanleveling up while getting paid at the

(01:13:58):
same time, I've worked at places thatseriously slapped my hand from touching
systems that I didn't author or right.
Even though it was a small enhancementthat was buddied approved, tested and
verified, dude came over with some, Godcomplex was like, yo, don't touch that.
No reason, no explanation, nodiscussion Russ, the shirt I never did.
And I got the fuck up outta there.
Cause that's not the type ofleadership that I want anyway.

(01:14:21):
Man, you know, reminiscingabout WTB games, monitory out.
We had such an amazing pool oftalent, such awesome people, super
passionate, super creative I'mrooting for the people who stayed
behind to pump out, got them nights.
But for the rest of us that made thetough decision to leave and jumped.
And go on to push out other games.

(01:14:42):
I love connecting with them.
If there's one guarantee in thiswild industry, is that it's very
likely that we may very well endup working together again someday.
Lastly, be nice member James Cain's words.
Be nice to your devs.
Be nice to your QA.
Let your fellow teammates and QA knowtoday, how much you appreciate them.

(01:15:03):
And if there's any way thatyou can help make their life.
Or even take an interest inhow they want to grow and help
foster that better teammates makefor a better development cycle.
On episode 28, debutingthe week of GDC, 2022.
I'll sit down with the speakerbehind 1000 hours of difficulty.
How destiny builds systemic challengeand a dear old friend and mentor in this

(01:15:26):
tech design space, a fellow all to the.
Alan Blain, a principal technicaldesigner at Bungie working on old things.
Destiny.
We go through his vast journeycoming up from Pasadena, working
on Thrasher skate his time as anelectronic artist at Westwood in loss.
Working on warriors for rockstar Toronto,and then making the jump over to rockstar

(01:15:46):
San Diego, where he was a huge part inbuilding out that design team for that
game of the year award winning red, deadredemption one, as well as helping us
get our footing on GTA five and more.
make sure to follow us so that youdon't miss out on that episode.
Thank you for listening, Deb.
If you found this episode informative,I ask that you pay a link forward to

(01:16:06):
a developer to help grow our listener.
If you're a game developer with astory you think could help a fellow dev
out, please go to out of play area.comand click on the Calendly link at
the top to meet up, please make sureyou get approval from your manager
or studios, PR HR team beforehand.
Out of play area, the game developers,podcasts releases, new episodes every

(01:16:28):
other Monday on all the major players,including Spotify, apple, and Google.
Please make sure to follow us, to seewhat developer falls out of the play area.
Next time.
I'm your host John Diaz untilnext time devs stay strong.
Stay true.
Stay dangerous.
Mega ran.
Bring them home.

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James Kane | QA Manager & Designer @ Raccoon Logic | Ep 27

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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;}James Kane | QA Manager & Designer @ Raccoon Logic | Ep 27