Ryan Paradis | Game Design Director @ Bungie | Ep 20 - Out of Play Area

Episode Transcript
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John (00:02):
What's good.
3000 plus listens in 19 episodes.
Later, here we are at episode 20 of thegame developers podcast Out of Play Area
where we feature fellow Full Sail alumniand Bungie boomerang design director at
Bungie on Destiny, Ryan Paradis, Brianand I both graduated from Full Sail's

(00:23):
game dev program way back in 2006.
And we finally got to work togetheras designers on red, dead redemption.
The undead nightmare hit DLC GT fivebefore he made the move up to Seattle
to be a designer on bungee for destinyafter which he made the jump over

(00:43):
to 3 43 to work on halo, infinite.
And now he's boomerang back toBungie as a design director.
while a bunch has changed since werecorded this episode way earlier in the
year, we still get into all the things,leadership design, game development, and
what it means to be a great teammate.
Please welcome the amalgamation of upstateNew York, rustic, Maine, and Florida Senor

(01:10):
Ryan Paradis the let's start the show.

Catherine (01:16):
Bienvenido Bienvenue Welcome to the out 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 (01:40):
Where are your roots with your family?
Where's your stomping grounds?

Ryan P (01:44):
so my, my mom's side of the family is from French Canada, from Quebec.

John (01:50):
Shout out to Quebec qua.

Ryan P (01:52):
Yep.
They moved down to a rustic Maine.
So just like imagine the most Northerntip of anything you could possibly have in
the most Northern state you could possiblyhave, like, that's a rustic Maine.
Uh, and my, my grandparents lived thereuntil their, until their dying days.
Uh, my mom then met mydad in Syracuse, New York.

(02:16):
So upstate New York.
Uh, and moved down to Florida andI lived, I grew up in Florida.
I
grew up in Florida.
So I've learned everythingabout Florida, man.
Like I could embody that if Iwanted to make the news, but I'm not
going to make the news in that way.
But I've, I've
been lost between Syracuse and New Yorkat a restaurant Maine, uh, including

(02:39):
like some very near the borders.
And Santa got four kids, pressguile, caribou, like some
Northern hubs of Maine, I guess.

John (02:49):
so, um, you know, New York city, native stomping grounds left to finish
college and full set in Florida.
but I was so mad.
That a five, six hour drive Northor one hour flights, you know,
18 years of age, anything goes inbeautiful Montreal man, like for,

Ryan P (03:09):
Yeah.

John (03:09):
for a fraction of the cost of the dollar, right?
Like these amazing things.
Why didn't I have any friends that knewor would tell me they'd be like, yo
bro, let's, let's go over the borderinto Quebec and have a good time.

Ryan P (03:22):
so I, I understand that's more of an upstate thing.
Well, you grow up in Syracuse orBuffalo and that's just your jam.
Like you go across the board, I'venever experienced that myself.
I've never been
across the border to
Toronto or,
or.

John (03:38):
Florida.
Mm

Ryan P (03:39):
time I, I knew what's what I was already in Florida.

John (03:42):
Hmm.

Ryan P (03:43):
but I hear that you can get some Labatt blue, uh, and then go
across the border and get some, whatare Canadians during Molson Molson?

John (03:53):
Molson,
mostly

Ryan P (03:55):
you get some Molson

John (03:56):
of them owned by owned by Anheuser-Busch.
so here's another thing to throwonto the bucket list of shit to do
is Microsoft has compulsion games.
EA has motive.
So compulsion is like what?
We happy few and they'reworking on some other things.
And then we have motive and Ithink they put out squadrons.

(04:18):
So at some point somehow some wayI think they have MIGS, right?
Montreal, independent game summit.
If we need it, we need to somehowconverge whenever the world is safe
to travel again, to be like, Hey, I'mgoing to Montreal on some EA business.
You're going to Montrealon some Microsoft business.
Hopefully it aligns.
We're promoting some game and we can,we can get out and, chop it up with my

(04:42):
wife's roots and, your mother's side ofthe family blood and, and enjoy Montreal.
That'd be fantastic.

Ryan P (04:51):
that would be fantastic.
That would be, that would be a good time.
See some Canada, but getthe real family roots.

John (04:59):
play lay with some colored money,
you know,

Ryan P (05:03):
Look, I'm not going to lie.
Canada has some funny feeling money.
I don't know if that's becauseour money feels like clothing

John (05:11):
it's like paper,

Ryan P (05:12):
like probably more like legit paper.

John (05:16):
clothing.

Ryan P (05:17):
It's American money is made out of cotton.

John (05:20):
Hmm.

Ryan P (05:21):
is made at a petroleum.
So

John (05:24):
Oh, I didn't know the differences there.
I got some concoctions going on.
I'm curious what you ended up bringingdown into the recording studio with you

Ryan P (05:32):
I always liked to rock a rye old fashioned.
It's my go-to.
It's a little spicy, a little sweet.
I don't do the cherry mainlybecause I'm out of cherries,
but, also it's just not my thing.

John (05:42):
cherries, and now you think,

Ryan P (05:44):
Not in the old fashioned.
No,

John (05:45):
you're out of them because you, hit them hard every single day or you haven't
replenished, you haven't restocked.

Ryan P (05:52):
no, this is not an everyday drinker, John.
This is for you.

John (05:55):
Oh man.
I feel special.
I feel good about this one, Ryan,because, I've done them over the weekend
and it's a different vibe and I've donethem on long work days where I'm kind
of drained, but talking to the personkind of replenishes me and refuels me.
And I'm an introvert.
Right.
But seeing an old face talkingwar stories replenishes me.
But today.
I actually got somesweet shit done at work.

(06:17):
So I feel kind of pumped.
you know that feeling of when you,finished some shit, you put the ball on
it, you check it in you, you, fix thelittle submission notes and it's in there.
It's like, no matter whathappens, you can break it.
I did get a little warning thatsays, like, build this clean,
but now it's like stamps forever.
It's safe.

Ryan P (06:36):
that's
not a warning.
You generally see like, Hey builds.
Good.
This is just a warning.
What are you drinking, John?

John (06:41):
I got a white rum.
It's like a little French Caribbeanjoint, a Klemow I was inspired today
to come and do a little cool believerreaction, which is just a rum and
Coke with some lime and sugar.
Right.
That's all it is.

Ryan P (06:54):
Have you ever been to the police in Capitol Hill?
I want to say it's Roomba

John (06:59):
what street?

Ryan P (07:00):
it's on a pine pike,

John (07:03):
On the main, on the main
vein.

Ryan P (07:05):
And it's just a sweet little Caribbean joint, but it's a rum bar.
So they have just tons and tons and tonsof rooms they make some or drinks there.

John (07:14):
dude.
Remember when you, youhad just moved here.
I think you had just picked up thejob with Bungie and I met you and
Laura on the Hill at a spotlight,not too far from like unicorn or.
Or whatnot, but
I don't remember.

Ryan P (07:31):
Did we take you to Americana?
Was that it?

John (07:33):
Ooh, it might've been Americana.
It might've been it.
Yeah.
I have a feeling cause we were, we weredefinitely on the small table on the wall.

Ryan P (07:41):
yup.
Yeah.
And they come out with like a, theyroll out this sweet truffle popcorn
at that place is no more my friend

John (07:49):
when did you go last?
Because I get my hair cut bythere and I'm pretty sure they
are doing limited seating.

Ryan P (07:56):
I haven't been there in a while, but last I saw in the
stranger, that was one of theplaces that didn't make it through.
COVID
maybe we took you to a different place.

John (08:05):
well, Americano, I go there for brunch.
I will, in the, before days in the long,long ago, That was a frequent, brunch
place because it had the sweet baconin like any drink and bloody Marys and,
uh, awesome omelets and all the goodthings, all the good brunch things.
Catherine loved the mimosas,but that was a fond memory.

(08:26):
I was visiting Seattle.
I was in between work.
Right.
It was life after rockstar national,where the hell I'm going to be.
And you had already discovered thegolden land outside of rockstar.
Right?
I think you were one of thefirst guys to make the jump
to Seattle from the GTA five team.

Ryan P (08:43):
well, there was Danny Danny left to go to bungee.
just before me, not just beforeme, he'd been there a bit.
And, through talking to him for awhile, you know, after we shipped
GTA five, it was, it was justthe right time to make a move.
And Bungie sounded like

John (08:58):
Wow.

Ryan P (08:59):
an amazing place.

John (09:00):
Yeah, dude.
I mean, shit.
I mean, if you're a halofan, that's, the spot.
And then was destiny already out or okay.

Ryan P (09:08):
No,

John (09:08):
you know that was going on or coming or what?

Ryan P (09:11):
well, they had just released the trailer featuring their public
event with all the guardians
fighting with the spider tank.

John (09:18):
Oh yeah.
It was like five on spider or itwas like, it was like four on spider
and then the fifth guy drops in.
Right.
And he's like, let's go.

Ryan P (09:25):
So everyone was just like, what is this test to thing?
This looks a lot better sharing and,
and, uh, Yeah,
it was, it was a really cool place to be.
I loved working there.

John (09:34):
how big was it when you got there

Ryan P (09:36):
Oh, geez.
I want to say I was like number440 something, four 50 something.
So it was, it was a big studio.
Uh, and it was, that was quitedaunting coming from rockstar.
you know, we picked over 200 inSan Diego offices at one point, but

John (09:53):
at the peak?
Yeah, at the, heart of red dead

Ryan P (09:56):
Yeah.
Oh man.
Those are crazy days.

John (10:00):
seems like forever ago when
seems like forever ago.

Ryan P (10:04):
During someone, from full sail was talking to me.
Christina Meyer from fullsail was talking to me.
Uh, she's been out of full sail for a bit.
And uh, she made me realize that, uh, I'vebeen doing this for almost 15 years now.
This is my 15th year.

John (10:19):
Hey,
I'll throw one up to that, man.
Cheers to your 15 years in the game, bro.

Ryan P (10:24):
My hair
is not completely gray yet.
And it's mostly still there, so,

John (10:28):
you're looking good, man.
I'm I'm rocking more hats inmy zoom meetings these days.

Ryan P (10:33):
Oh man.
Yeah, I get that for sure.
Stress does something to you.
It does something to you.

John (10:39):
I think this is going to be awesome, bro.
I think, I think you're one of thefew organic people that just kinda
came up in one of our little catch-upsI was like, Hey, you want to do
the thing you want to come on thelittle podcast and share your tail

Ryan P (10:51):
Whoa.
So some bullets.
bullet didn't recommend me.
Uh, I don't know if you've hadBarasa but Zimmerman, come on.
He didn't even give me a shout out
that
guy.

John (11:01):
So to be fair, you definitely come up in conversation in, in a bunch of
the episodes that are on the way out.

Ryan P (11:09):
I'm

John (11:09):
And, And, I don't think, yeah, by the time this comes out, it will
be public knowledge, but Nick tag, DJ.
So he, picked DJ over you.

Ryan P (11:19):
That's fine.
those guys have always had a special bond.
Nick and DJ.
I love them.
Both.

John (11:24):
Yeah.
if I got to take a back seat tosomebody, I'm okay with it being DJ

Ryan P (11:28):
Yeah.
He's a good guy.
I haven't talked to him in forever, man.

John (11:33):
man.
I hope, as this shit grows, Iwould love to do some more panel
style or just like group event.
I don't know.

Ryan P (11:39):
Best of Pacific Northwest
podcast series.

John (11:43):
yeah.
Fuck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like do a recap episode.
Does something a reaction episode?
Who

Ryan P (11:49):
Yeah, get Barasa in here.
We got Bulla you know, Nick DJ.
You me.
Ricky is up here, man.

John (11:56):
Allen as well,

Ryan P (11:58):
Oh, geez.
Yeah.
Barton.
Yeah.
he's
out on the islands.

John (12:02):
I heard Leno's around here somewhere.
Lurking.

Ryan P (12:04):
I know he comes and goes and I know Laura talks to him a bit.
he's gotta be around.
I'm pretty sure he's around.
It's hard to know anymore nowthat we all just work out of
basements and broom closets.

John (12:15):
where are you at right now?
Now what, part of the big stateof Washington you come at me from?

Ryan P (12:19):
I am hailing to you from Snoqualmie Washington,
where it is a sunny.
No, it's, it's pitch blackoutside and it's 40 degrees.
Even if the sun was here, youwouldn't see it behind all the clouds.
So

John (12:33):
how's your day, man?
What, what are you up to thesedays in the life after bungee.

Ryan P (12:37):
today was a pretty solid day.
I got to get a lot ofgood stuff done today.
I had a lot of good meetings.
I am currently sitting in therole as live design director.
On halo, infinite at three 43 industries,

John (12:49):
That's a dream.
The director role halo, infinite, right?
Like the world is waitingeagerly for this game.
They all got their series X and series S's
and game passes.

Ryan P (13:00):
they can find out.

John (13:02):
I got my people waiting, but I did manage to pick up a series S right.
So at least I got, I got that

Ryan P (13:08):
Congrats.
Congrats.

John (13:10):
it feels good.

Ryan P (13:11):
Yeah, man, if you had told just fresh entering the games, industry
me almost 15 years ago now, like,Hey, someday, you're going to have
ping pong through some of the coolestcompanies and, dream titles, from
red dead redemption to GTA five todestiny, destiny, two into halo.
Infinite.

(13:31):
I would have peed myself or something.
I don't know.

John (13:35):
that's a very real thing, right?
Like go back in time and talk toyoung Ryan parody and high school.
I don't even know what you'replaying at the time, man.
what is the world ofgames to you at this time?
Like same time 20 years ago,

Ryan P (13:50):
Oh man.
20 years ago,

John (13:53):
Ryan, 2000.

Ryan P (13:54):
Man.
I want to go back and say thatthat was around star craft

John (13:59):
Oh,
you are a crafter.

Ryan P (14:02):
yeah.
I played a lot of StarCraft.
I remember a carton, my PC over to mybuddy's house who lives right up the road.
And, we used to just landcrafted with a crossover cable.
Cause that's how you did those things
back then.

John (14:16):
man.
It's like five pins insteadof the six or whatnot, right?
Like

Ryan P (14:20):
Yeah.
like, you could hop on Battlenet or allthat, but battle that was still like
Mason and Oh yeah, it was,it was totally a baby.
We had an M player.
I remember that because I playeda lot of mech warrior too, as

John (14:32):
I got, a buddy, uh, Matt vari, who worked on mic warrior too.
And I think he'll be comingon in a couple of weeks.

Ryan P (14:40):
I put, thousands of hours in the back order here too.
So you're telling me that, that,and I was still like the worst
member of my clan, but, uh, Iput so much time into that game.

John (14:50):
A labor of love,
man.

Ryan P (14:52):
I remember closing out high school with my best buddy playing a star Wars.
Galaxy's Oh my God.
I consume so much of my life andstill love that game to this day,
even though I've not yet tried to hopon any emulated servers or anything.

John (15:08):
so you managed to jump on games that.
You were a fan of, right.
I think that's rare inthis industry, right.
Is to be able to jump into the, behindthe scenes and get to build on the
games that you would play, the gamesthat you're making games for yourself.
Right.
It's rare, it's a feast and it'ssomething to not take lightly for sure.

Ryan P (15:25):
I've been super fortunate all throughout my career to land at companies
where I get to make games I want to play.
And that is literally, budgies likeinternal slogan is we may games.
We want to play and I havenot had a misstep yet.
Knock on wood.
They've all been
amazing titles.

John (15:41):
halo is definitely one of those franchises.
to be honest, it's one of thosethings and it's right next to
like fighting games for me.
Right.
Where I love it too much that I don'twant to go behind the curtain on

Ryan P (15:53):
that is a danger.
I've talked about this before, but likeI've, I've definitely played all the
games I've worked on, but I've alsostruggled to do that all the time.
Like I think I've readdad for the longest time.
Once I got to Mexico, I just got.
Overwhelmed, I guess, like Ijust couldn't do it anymore.
I really struggled to playthrough the rest of the game,
even though I love the game.
same with GTA.

(16:13):
Like I've not beaten GTA five to this day.
I've played a lot of online.
I've played the campaignnumerous times, but I've never
actually beaten whole thing.

John (16:22):
It's a thing with these open world games.
Like, I don't know the scientificterm for it, but there is something
about it's too big and you cansee it in the production too.
Right?
Like we focus easily 50, 60% ofproduction on the first quarter of the
game because what most players see.

Ryan P (16:40):
yeah.
I think statistics show that likeonly I want to say less than 20%
of players actually beat your game.
I think it's, I think it'seven smaller than 10%,

John (16:49):
Yeah.
so what is it like being a livedesign director over there, man?

Ryan P (16:55):
right now it's kinda crazy because we haven't yet shipped the game.
So there's a lot of, uh, it's a littlenebulous, little floaty and a lot of
people talk about it in the world, likewell, what are we doing for sustain?
Or post release or how arewe keeping the game alive?
Like, what is, what isour engagement back?
You know, attrition, allthese metrics we're tracking.
we still haven't released yet.

(17:15):
So how do you, talk about thefuture of the game when you don't
know what day one looks like yet?
And that's the most terrifyingpart of being alive is like your
whole future is a live game.
Depends on day one, kicking some major ass

John (17:31):
which, you know, you know, we're going to come, you know,
everybody with the console and peoplewho are only getting the console
for that are going to be there.
They're going to be there salivating.

Ryan P (17:42):
I hope so, because that's going to make it way
easier to, plan for the future.
and we've got a pretty, prettybright future planned out right now.
So I, think things are looking reallygood, but it's, it's a lot of predictions.
It's a lot of like, well, weneed the game to do X, Y, and Z.
We need to target these audiences.
We want to be positioned likethis for the best success and to

(18:03):
do the right thing for the fans.
Like, really what it's all about is, yeah.
Should I talk a lot of metrics,engagements, activations win-back so on
and so forth, but at the crux of it all,like when you're talking as a design
group, Nobody's talking about that.
Nobody's talking about MTX dollars.
People are talking about like,what is the best player experience?

(18:25):
What is the right thingto do for the fans?
How do we get this in their hands earlier?
And how do we make it better for them?
And I'm not just, I'm not justgrandstanding or placating fans here.
I'm literally saying like, that'swhat our conversations are.
Zero.
because all too often, you know, as thelive game you get that rap of, this is
the team that's going to micro transactionwas to death or, Oh, they only pulled

(18:48):
this out of the game to make money on it.
No, that, that conversationnever really comes up like that.
I mean, I'm sure you've seenthis in the industry too.
Like
developers rarely sit around and say like,well, how do we, make more money off this?
Like, no,

John (19:02):
man.

Ryan P (19:03):
conversation we're gamers to, we make games.
We want to play.

John (19:08):
Yeah.
It's about building content.
That's compelling enough foryou to keep coming back to and
stepping you through that, right?
Like, giving you a chance to grow,giving you a chance to see things
in other peers that are again,dumping a bunch of hours in, right.
That kind of pull you in.
and the balance too.
Right.
There's that balance of like, you're ina class and you're in a group, and you

(19:28):
got the old puppy, max level people andyou're kind of coming in fresh, right?
Like how do we balance that experience?

Ryan P (19:35):
how do we make sure you're having a good enough time that you want
to make this game, your, third place?
and, uh, borrowing that from one of myfavorite friends and mentors, Emmy Chung,
who's always called it that it's likeyou have your first place, you know,
work, you have your second place home.
You gotta have a third place, yoursocial space, your place to unwind,

(19:55):
you place to just be with yourfriends, do whatever you want to do.
And I know that that's a veryforeign concept right now with COVID.
We're not allowed to be with our friendsand do what think we want to do, but
it's, if you, if you look inward, it'sactually a really important concept.
It's time to yourself to rechargeand, not focus on a task at hand

John (20:16):
Yeah.

Ryan P (20:17):
it's super important as a human being to have that.

John (20:20):
Hell, hell yeah, man.
And I think a lot of us arerealizing that at this time.
So shout out to man, man, Ithink that's a powerful one.
I haven't really heard that before.
Like we want to be your third space tobe fair, all the AAA studios are trying
to get into that land, grab of like, bethe live game, that everybody hangs out
in when they're not working and whenthey're not doing the family thing.
Right.
So it's pretty cool to wrap it around.

(20:41):
Hey, your third space, yourthird happy place kind of thing.
yeah,

Ryan P (20:44):
been insane to kind of watch the industry.
you know, I say, watchthe industry do this.
it's not like, this isa sudden thing either.
If you look back to the muds, themus, even, early EverQuest, that was
all about establishing that third
place, that third place
for you, you just have your social hub tosit unwind and, you know, do your thing.

(21:07):
And it's a new, it's a neutral ground.
Like there's no expectations of you.
You're just there, thehome away from home.
often been a thing, but I think moreso recently it's kind of become a
games industry, like a annoying thing.
and yeah, it's, it's totally apt for,what modern games we're trying to do.
Your fortnights, your, your apexes,your leagues, like yeah, sure.
They all feel sweaty, but there'salso this, this version of those where

(21:31):
it's just like, no, I'm just hereand I'm being me and I'm socializing.
I'm hopefully playing withfriends because that's
the best possible experience,for any game really.

John (21:42):
Yeah.
Where are your
friends hanging out at?

Ryan P (21:44):
Yeah, exactly.

John (21:46):
what's it like, I think director is definitely an aspiration,
I think there's a fork, right?
You can either go down the, IC,you know, I want to be senior.
I want to be principal, whatever.
Or you can, go down thepeople manager side, right?
Hey, I want to direct, I want tomanage, I want to lead a team.
so being on that director side, leadingthe team, What does that entail?

(22:07):
Right?
Is it, does it mean like fullhands off and you're just kind
of shepherding and guiding andleading meetings and managing time?
Or are you a little hands on or how doesthat look like in your current role?

Ryan P (22:18):
that for me was the hardest jump in my whole career to make from
the senior to lead IC, basicallyjust crushing content getting cool
things in the game all the time.
And, there's the natural inclination towant to promote, want to be better, want
to do a bigger job, have a bigger rolewith 10 more meetings for some reason.

John (22:40):
I love when you started the whole conversation by saying you,
I had awesome meetings today.
It's rare.
So it's great to hear that.
It's great to hear that thatexists, especially middle of the

Ryan P (22:49):
okay.
No, I have a really good team.
So that, that definitely helps, but yeah,in the games industry, and I think this
is changing now, but what I was kindof rising through the ranks, that was
the, promotion path of like, yeah, youdo really good at executing content.
You're really killing it here.
We want to give you somereports, more responsibilities.
You're going to lead a team.
You're going to direct a team like that.

(23:12):
Right?
There was the curve.
There was no, or it was rareto see someone who like, I
want to go into expert icy.
I want to be a principal as adesigner that was common for
programmers.
That was common for artists,but for designers, like what
exactly is a principal designer?
I think now the industry isstarting to get it, or at least

(23:32):
more places are starting to get it.
that, that is a valid career path.
Like you could have a guy who justcrushes content and who doesn't
need to have a team under him.
As a matter of fact, that'lldetract from what he does.

John (23:43):
I've definitely felt it.
I've definitely seen it.
I mean, I may have been on a teamof two, if you were, it was like the
best guy at crushing content does notnecessarily make the best people manager,

Ryan P (23:54):
no matter of fact, rarely makes the best people manager.

John (23:57):
So it's great that the industry, as, people have matured
and, Hey, man, I've been here for10, 12, 15 years, where do I go?
And don't pigeonhole me to force meto manage a bunch of direct reports.
Right.
And then hate my life and hate my job.
so I'm glad that we'reseeing that split happen.
And I'm being identifiedas is creating these roles.

Ryan P (24:17):
absolutely.
And coming up through the ranks, like Isaid, I struggled at that the hardest,
because I did the route into managementbecause the other route was fuzzy or
we're not super well-planned for, and Iremember all through my, my lead career
at Bungie, like the common thread I gotin every single review was, Hey, you know,
you could be a better lead if you justtook your hands off the content a little

(24:40):
bit more and, did your job properly.
and
it wasn't wrong.

John (24:45):
No, I'm glad they called that out because usually what I've seen to be
fair is like, you have to do two jobs,Like, and, and that's totally unfair.
That's totally unfair and not sustainable.

Ryan P (24:55):
no, that's, that's the road to burnout.
Right?
They're doing more than one person iscapable of doing like that's inhuman,
you, you could be an awesome lead, butyou're still doing, you know, an I C role,
and you really shouldn't be doing it.
Right.
You need to be focusing over hereand it's still to this day, like you,
you mentioned it at the beginning.
They're like, I still have to have myhands on something, whether it just

(25:17):
be specking or even some very lighttechnical work, which is super infrequent
now, because like I said, I have anawesome team that kind of kills it.
I just have to have my hands onsomething, otherwise I go a little crazy.

John (25:29):
That's cool.
So It's your choice to stillbe hands-on but your, your top
priority is managing the team.

Ryan P (25:34):
Definitely.

John (25:35):
awesome.
So making it to director, managing ateam, fighting your urges to be hands
on and, do, two roles just becauseit's always been something you did.
Right.
it sounds like there's adelicate balancing act, right?
Of wanting to do everythingto make the project the best.
It can be wanting to throw it all onyour back and then getting to a situation

(25:58):
where you're like, yo, I need vacation.
I gotta move jobs.
I, you know, I'm doing too much.
I'm burnt out kind of thing.
I think that's valuable experience toshare with all of us in this industry.
Right.
It's it's that fine line betweenbalancing, giving it all you got.
But sustainability, especiallyin these live games, right.
These games are just going to keep going.
how do you sustain?

Ryan P (26:19):
I generally hate the word sustained as it pertains to live,
because that implies that the game,like you're just maintaining the status
quo and that's all you need to do.
Like that's never the case,

John (26:30):
That's true.

Ryan P (26:30):
at a more personal stake Lake sustaining personally is, difficult
because, and you know, this, like thegames industry is passion driven industry.
everyone is here becausethey want to do it.
They're not here because it makes themthe best money or because it's the
most stable lifestyle or anything else.

(26:51):
As a matter of fact, when youget into this industry, you're
basically told, like, you'regoing to work some extra hours
here and there it's going tobe tough sometimes, but you
know, we try and maintain like ahealthy work-life balance here.
And that's, generally true.
Companies do try and dothat for their employees.
But, employees don't alwaysdo that for themselves.
People

John (27:11):
That's true.

Ryan P (27:11):
at recognizing and balancing their passion with their responsibilities.
and yeah, it really stinks to seeit because that leads to super
early burnout in the industry.
and I've gone through it myself,where you just need a month
off and that's a huge amount oftime, but you need some time off.
I had a great design manager atBungie who recognized it in me.

(27:32):
His name was Johnny Everett.
he saw it in me.
He saw like, uh, justhad a kid at the time.
I was still working on the livegame and he came to me one evening.
I think it was like six or seven,maybe eight o'clock at night.
And he's like, dude, We need you
to take some time.
We need you to takesome time for yourself.
why don't you just take this amountof time off and go be with your family

(27:54):
and and just relax and unwind fora bit there, because I was tired.
I had a kid at home.
I was burnt.
like you called it out.
It was a live game.
It's non-stop there's never a awesomedownbeat to like, I'm going to unplug
just right now for like a couple of weeks.
Like, no, you don't get to do that.

John (28:11):
Okay.

Ryan P (28:12):
you, but it's, is super important as a, as a human being to see that in
yourself and literally tell your boss,your manager, your peers, like, Hey guys,
I really need to take some time becauseI'm not operating at a hundred percent.
And I promise you if I take this time,I'll be back at a hundred percent.

(28:32):
It will be able to keep going,but need time to be a human

John (28:36):
I like that.

Ryan P (28:37):
it's a passion based industry
the end of the day, it is still a job.
And you, you can't let your job erode yourpassion for the very thing you're doing.
that is the worst position to be in.
yeah, you can perform heroics andyou can be the hero at the job
and like really crush content andeveryone will love you for it, but

(28:58):
you're not going to love yourself.
Well, you're going to come out.
You're going to be tired feel gross,and you're not going to be ready to
do it again in a couple of weeks.

John (29:07):
it's easy in your twenties.
It's super easy.
I always make the joke that we'reessentially Bulletproof in our twenties.
Like, I don't know how we can surviveoff the loose sleep we did and go
out and hang out and still maintainrelationships and then come back
to work and do the thing we did.
Or I can only attribute that to, Hey,that's the shit you do in your twenties
and your thirties?

Ryan P (29:27):
I don't know.
how we did those nights at like yeah.
We're going to work untilwhenever it's dark outside.
Who knows?
and then, yeah, let'sall go down to D street.
It's what Tuesday?
Yeah, we'll be fine.
We'll be fine.
In the morning, know, out till two,am waking up at seven and rolling back
into the office and pulling another longday is we're trying to ship the game.

(29:47):
You know, we did that way too muchand I, I couldn't do that now.

John (29:52):
Yeah.
that's definitely a viable.
Team building manager, real tactic, right.
To be like, all right, I need totake my team out to blow off steam.
Let's take them out to unwind inwhatever situation that may be.
Right.
Like I think there's some new throwinggyms out there right in the before times
is like to drink people like to dance?

(30:14):
What have you?
Right.
I think it's totally viableto help people blow off steam,
um, and get out of the office.
now that we're home, toodamn easy to stay plugged in.
You know, like I amgoing to roll out of bed.
I'm going to go plug in.
Hey, I'm having dinner with the family.
Oh, I got an email.
me go answer this and letme go jump on this thing.
so that, that's something careful.

(30:34):
I, I, I really love that you had yourboss, your manager catch that and
come to you and tell you you'll run.
You got to unplug, bro.
You just had a kid.
You need to take time.
that's super valuable becausethat's something that usually
falls on the employee to call outlike the industry or the project.
We'll keep taking everything yougot to give until you raise a

(30:58):
hand and be like, I need help.
I needed the time.
can we hire another hand?
Can we contract, you know, things likethis are definitely always on the table.
think that those are not options.
So that makes you less capable

Ryan P (31:12):
that's exactly it.
if you work for a good place, youhave a great manager, a good boss.
That's the kind of person youshould be capable of going to and
saying like, Hey dude, I can't.
And when you say that they should becapable of listening and not, it shouldn't
trigger this gut visceral reactionof like, what do you mean you can't

(31:32):
like, no, we're, we're all humans here.
Like I've been lucky to have some,stellar managers through my time.
they've rockstar, I bungee and thenmoving into three, four, three,
like, I've always had people havelooked out for me as a person.
but the number one thing they'vealways told me is, Hey, look out
for yourself as a person too.

John (31:52):
Yeah.
I mean, and to be fair,take ownership of your life.
You know what I'm saying?
Like the manager only knows as much asyou share with them and, and your point,
they're always to be open, should be open.
Sometimes it may come as a shock, right.
It may come out of left field and all ofa sudden they have this roadmap and the
schedule in place, then they have to shiftthings around but much like anything.

(32:13):
Right.
Walk through it together.
Step through that.

Ryan P (32:16):
yeah, exactly.

John (32:17):
have you had to do any kind of like crazy rescheduling, a rebalancing
or allocating resources or opening upa head count or anything like that?

Ryan P (32:25):
We have to reschedule all the time because you, develop
your schedule in a vacuum to
some extent, like everyone, plansthe future, thinking that like,
well, it's going to be perfect.
And

John (32:39):
Rebuilt in sequence and it's going to be all good.

Ryan P (32:42):
all these words I'm writing on paper right now,
they will come to fruition.
Like, no, they won't knowthat you will not every game,
every game I've ever been on.
Like, you have those tough conversationsabout like, well, you know, we
thought we could do X, Y, and Z, butactually it turns out the workflow
was harder or, you know, X, Y, andZ, like this person had to be gone.

(33:04):
He had a kid who like, I
don't know how we didn't schedule that.
Like this year in COVID, mid-winterbreak, snuck up on a lot of people.
That's the weird week that kidsget off now that you and I probably
never got, but kids get now.
Yeah.
you get off Christmas, you go back toschool for half a minute, and then you
get another week off because of reasons.

(33:27):
that snuck up on some of myteam and that's real life, man.
That's what happens.
So, yeah.
It's you go back to the drawingboard on some things you, you
made some promises you can't keep,and that's just the way it is.
Like
maybe I've cut so many things In my rolesin this industry that I'm kind of immune
to the, like, what do you mean recording?

(33:50):
every junior game developer goesthrough that, like, Oh, we're cutting.
We're scaling back.
No,
I'm going to do it all.
I'm going to do this.
I promise you, we're going to get a job.

John (33:58):
I don't want to cut anything.
Cutting is the scariestthing in the beginning.

Ryan P (34:02):
after 15 years you're like, Oh, we're cutting that.
All right, cool.
Let's put it on the backlog.
Maybe we'll bring it back later.
Who knows?
And if was that important from the get-go,you'd shuffle things around, but if, if
it's not, or if you can afford to put iton the backlog, we'll get there someday.

John (34:18):
for sure, this age of patching and live updates, right.
You build these games because peopleare going to be playing them for awhile
and they'll, they'll come back to them.
so it's not the end of the world to cut.
And in fact, for some reason it feelslike it's just like, well, kept secret.
Like, Oh my God, we can cut.
And then like, and then ourschedule, all of a sudden
fits, you know what I'm saying?

(34:38):
Like, it's like, I don't understandwhy that's always a surprise spade up
the sleeve to a lot of teams that havebeen doing this for so many years.

Ryan P (34:46):
It still stings every team every time because people use the word cut.
And I think for that, it has thisemotional visceral reaction of
like, we're cutting,

John (34:56):
Especially when it's your, feature, right.
Or
your content.

Ryan P (34:59):
I guess that's it like, it's your baby?
Like no one wants to sendtheir baby down the river.
and you called it out like gamesare never really done nowadays
and it's scary and terrifying.
Like I am playing right now a threeyear old game, kingdom come deliverance

John (35:14):
Okay.

Ryan P (35:15):
and it is a single player open world game.
another one that I've never actuallybeen, but it's a, it's basically
set in like 15th century Prague.
I want to say.

John (35:26):
Prague's a great game world, man.
That none enough people build stuff in.

Ryan P (35:29):
well, it's like, imagine you have Skyrim

John (35:32):
Okay.

Ryan P (35:33):
only.
There's no dragons, zombie spellsmonsters or, or mythical elements.
It's real world Prague.
So you're some farm boy wieldinga sword and learning as you go.
it's insanely hard.
but it's also a lot of fun.
And the reason I mentioned this isbecause they're still patching this game.
because games are never done nowadays.

(35:54):
it's a phenomenal game.
It looks gorgeous.
Even though it was made three years ago.
I still can't run it at max settings on
my rig.
that's Warhorse studiosout of, uh, Prague,

John (36:03):
Yeah.
Prague in the Czech Republic
make what you know.

Ryan P (36:06):
Yeah, and it's a phenomenal game, but they're still supporting it There's
no live elements.
There's
no multiplayer.
There is nothing of the store, butthey're still rolling out patches
and updates for this content.
I just bought all the DLC the other
day.

John (36:20):
You're there.
Well,

Ryan P (36:22):
games aren't ever done.
you can cut something.
And like I said, it's never cut.
It's just put on the backlog until sucha date when we can realize that vision.

John (36:32):
That's how you maintain your community, right?
As you keep showing them that you'relistening to them to improve the game
and then hopefully word of mouth spreadsand more people come to the game.

Ryan P (36:42):
this studio out of Prague, like I'm excited for what they're doing next.
Like I'm probably going to buyit day one because I'm still
playing the last thing they did.

John (36:50):
crazy.
I typed in Warhorse studios andthe first Google autocomplete
thing was like next game.
Right.
So I think that's a popular thing.
People are typing intothe, to the AI gods.

Ryan P (37:03):
man, it's, it's a good feeling to be at that level of desirability.
Oh yeah.
All the top searches arelike, what are they doing now?
What's their next game?
Will
there be a kingdom come deliverance to
Yeah, man.
Cause it's, an awesome game.
I strongly recommend it.
If you're into thatopen world, kind of vibe

John (37:24):
Hey bro.
You know, a thing or two aboutopen worlds, your own halo.
You've worked on a bunch ofdestinies and DLCs GT five red dead.
think you have very, special insight onthe design thinking and how that changes
between those vastly different worlds.
Right?
So curious to get your thoughts or takesof how you approach designing content for

(37:47):
single single-player open world versus.
shared world shooters.
I think you put me on to them, right?
Cause I would have called destiny,like an MMO FPS kind of thing.
And you schooled me, youcalled it shared world shooter.
I haven't even heard that.
The acronym bro.
SWS that, that could, that can catch on

Ryan P (38:05):
yeah.
It's, it's becoming more of a thing now.
I think it would have been more aheadAnthem, uh, done something different,

John (38:14):
bro, that hits me right in the heart man.
Cause

Ryan P (38:16):
you work on your Anthem.

John (38:17):
I did not work on
Anthem, but I got, I got, I gotin, and I'm like, yo bro, how
can I support you guys on Anthem?
Let me know how I can support.
Because that Ironman S feeling islike, first of its kind, right?
Like let's go.
and you know, when the, you know,nobody was telling me anything, You
know, those like closed door meetings.
And then they make the announcementwhere it's like, yeah, we're

(38:38):
not gonna support it anymore.
It's like, no, no,
man.

Ryan P (38:43):
So working on destiny at the time, like that game coming out as a
shared world shooter into the future wassimultaneously like a really cool thing to
see and a really terrifying thing to see.
because destiny hadlargely reigned Supreme.
At that point you had thedivision was there too.

John (39:01):
Division got me for a bit, man.
I was digging division
just cause it was in New York, right?

Ryan P (39:05):
yeah, I've dug in super hard on both division one and two, but it's
always a very short period of time.
And then it's kind of like,well, I felt what this game
had to do and I've moved on.
Like I've gone to pick up something else.
but yeah, Chevrolet shooter,I think is a super popular and
under explored, games, genre.

John (39:25):
man.
It's young.
It's less than 10 years old.
This young.

Ryan P (39:28):
but destiny is, is, been really cool to see that and I have
taken part in multiple aspects ofthe development of destiny there.
Like I bounced arounda lot at bungee, yeah.
Cause
I started there in the open world.

John (39:43):
Yeah.
I thought you were likea sandbox designer.

Ryan P (39:45):
no, no, I could never, I could never do weapon balance and tuning.
Like there's such a good team.
That's in charge of that.
Uh, over there, I would never hold a
candle to anyone

John (39:55):
they have a bubble shield around them.
Don't mess.
Don't mess up the, the mojo.

Ryan P (39:59):
just know exactly what they're doing and like, you can make suggestions,
but they, they own their craft.
Um, so yeah, at Bungie, I cameon board originally because of my
open world experience at rockstar.

John (40:11):
Yeah.

Ryan P (40:12):
Uh, I came on board originally to, uh, do more of
OpenWorld systems kind of things.
So my onboarding was like, yeah, itwas, it was a pretty solid fit cause
I'd had good experience in red dead.
And then moving into GTAfive, like I maintain most of
the systems side of things.

John (40:30):
that seems tailor made, they were looking for that, and then you will, all
of a sudden, just hand in an applicationor something it's like perfect fit.

Ryan P (40:38):
I like to think I got lucky, but, maybe they got a little lucky too.
No, I came in originally to do thatin the very first thing I was handed
was like, Hey, we got this thing.
It's called patrols.
Like, we don't know if it's gonnamake it, take a crack at it.
Let's see what happens.
So my onboarding was basically that,like I learned a script a little
bit in their proprietary language,and then I kind of just took on

(41:00):
this thing of like, all right, let'ssee what we can do out of this.
And it eventually became likesomething we could ship super early.
And that was, that was exhilarating.
Like I had a lot of freedom on that.
Thanks to my boss and, uh, and theorganization writ large, but it was
kind of my onboarding exercise and

John (41:18):
wow.

Ryan P (41:19):
super worked out.

John (41:20):
That's a hell of a, an opportunity right there.

Ryan P (41:23):
Yeah.

John (41:24):
That's kind of clever too, you know, from a managerial perspective
to empower Your new blood to be like,Hey, here's this thing, it's all yours.
If it makes it or gets cut it's on you.
We don't have any expectationsgiven what you got.
You're going to get thebest damn work of that guy.

Ryan P (41:47):
I said I've had some really good bosses throughout my career.
I've had a couple of bosses thatI butted heads with, but it's also
helped me grow a pretty good amount.
So.

John (41:57):
that's a good topic of conversation is, um, constructive design discourse?
I'm biased.
Right.
I can only speak towards the zine.
I haven't been too deep into engineering.
I always feel like engineeringis less subjective than design.
Right?
It's like, it's either superoptimal down to the tick, right.
Or it's not right.
Or it saves memory or it doesn't

Ryan P (42:19):
know, those guys have their own art, but, uh, it's certainly different.
It's a different language.
No pun intended.

John (42:27):
I like to get into this conversation with other senior
veteran director people, right?
Like you kind of have the powerto just the foot down and be
like, Hey, I got seniority.
This is what we want to do.
Right.
But actually of the best decisions madein games comes from, being forced to
see things from a different perspective.

(42:47):
Right.
Or try things that you didn'tforesee being the right approach.

Ryan P (42:51):
Absolutely some of the best designs I've ever seen have been
from, either a designer who cast theirnet super wide, like gets literally
everyone involved and not to like adesign by committee situation, but
just sources the best ideas from everysingle powerhouse peer they have,
or one of those ideas directlycomes from someone in engineering,

(43:14):
someone in QA like production, orjust an org you wouldn't expect,

John (43:20):
Yeah.

Ryan P (43:20):
or an org you wouldn't commonly go for like all too often
as the designer, you think you haveto bear the weight of the ideas
on your shoulders.
Like everything's got to come fromme or I'm not doing my job and
I've got to be thisawesome, like visionary.
And maybe that was true once upon a time.
but nowadays it's allabout inclusive ideas and.

(43:45):
Being sure.
We have a diverse ideaset that we can draw from.
And like I said, some of the bestideas do not come from the guy whose
job it is to put the ideas on paper.
They come from the world from peers.
You wouldn't expect from loved ones,like just off the wall sources.
So it's your best designer is one who hasan open mind, not one who is the star hero

(44:08):
of like, no, I can do this all myself.
Like, no you can't, that's notthe world we live in anymore.
A million games sold.
Isn't going to cut itfor a triple a title.
Like

John (44:18):
that's a

Ryan P (44:19):
to have.
That is it's sad.
But yeah, that's a flopfray, truly AAA title.
But when you add 500 peopleon it, of course that's a flow

John (44:28):
Yo, I love that, Ryan.
I love that a lot, bro.
I love you calling out the fact thatin this day and age, to encompass
largest player pool possible, wewant to include as many different
voices and perspectives as possible.
and I've heard it said that likedesigners wear this producer hat
and I've always wondered like,Hey, what does that really mean?

(44:49):
I think I'm seeing that moreand more these days, right?
Where like as a designer, wekind of played this glue role.
Where we're kind of trying to kind ofbring out ideas from all the different
areas and get them comfortable withsharing their ideas and being able to
kind of that in and highlight it andempower that communication, right.
To be like, Hey, give me your ideas watchthem manifest themselves in the game.

(45:11):
Right?
Like watch them contribute to the design.
Right.
Creating that, uh, open communicationand, and, nurturing that

Ryan P (45:17):
I mean, you nailed it there, you took the words
out of my mouth when you said
the glue, because best designernowadays is not, not the idea.
Guy idea.
Guys are a dime, a dozen, you'll encounter30 of them on the walk to your base.
As you go to work, depending on where youlive, it might be your house might be.
but yeah,
see idea guys all the time.

(45:38):
There's no such thing asan idea designer anymore.
No one,

John (45:43):
That happened to you.
And you'd be like, Oh yeah, make games.
I'm like, Oh, I got an idea for a game.

Ryan P (45:47):
you know, it's happened only a handful of times in my career.
have gotten pinged on LinkedIn afew times for like, Hey, I have this
awesome idea and I want you guys totake it in X title, but I want credit.
And I want to negotiateterms with my contract.

John (46:03):
damn.

Ryan P (46:04):
I got to give it to them.
that's some hospital right
there.

John (46:07):
I like that word first.
I'm on the show.

Ryan P (46:11):
that's some drive right there, but, I hate to break it to
those people, but everyone has ideas.
I could go to my grandmaand get some cool ideas.
And that's not to say, like, I'm gotto arrive at your idea and your idea
is garbage, but it's, more to say, likepeople generate ideas left and right.
The job of the game designer is to absorbthose ideas, sharpen them, and then write

(46:33):
them down on paper in such a way thatyou can sell everyone on that vision
and get the engineer excited about it.
Get your client dev excited about it.
Go get your services,folks excited about it.
Get your UX UI people excited, likegenerate such a buzz that this is
no longer an idea it's a must have.

John (46:52):
have it.

Ryan P (46:53):
yeah.
That is what your job is.
You are, Oh God, you're a sales person.

John (46:59):
don't put it that way.

Ryan P (47:00):
No.
Oh, it's not that because along theride, you have so much fun doing it.
Like you're
still generating cool ideas.
it's, it's fun.
It's a fun job, but you have to be ableto do the legwork, but you can't just
generate an idea and hope like, everyone'sgoing to see this and it's going to be
the greatest thing they've ever seen.
Like, no, they've probably thoughtof something similar to you, bro.

John (47:22):
especially when you surround yourself with like a lot of veterans.
Right?
A lot of people who'vebeen doing this for awhile.

Ryan P (47:27):
absolutely.
And every company's gottheir level of veterans.
So every company is going to have thoseguys who are good at selling ideas are
good at coming up with cool ideas, butit's, it's getting everyone on board.
It's selling it.
and then afterwards, after you'vesold it, and everyone wants to do it,
it's making sure they're doing it.
It's like, Hey man, this thingwe're doing, remember that thing

(47:49):
like, well, your part was this.
And like, it's not doing that thing.
So like, could you do it, but ina, in a super polite kind of way,
obviously, but you've got to be thefeature owner for that thing and

John (48:03):
Got to drive it.

Ryan P (48:05):
Yeah.
Make sure your baby gets outthere in the best possible light.
cause no, one's going to be moreexcited about this than you,
period.
No matter how good you are in selling it.

John (48:13):
That's true.
there is the possibility that someonecan, put it on their back burner.
Right?

Ryan P (48:19):
that is how the coolest pitches, the coolest ideas die.
It's like, well, you know, we boughtin 80% of the people, it's all in their
backlogs and it's working, it's in flightexcept this one super critical piece.
And now they can't build that.
I guess we have to backburner the whole thing.

John (48:36):
Jeez.

Ryan P (48:37):
we'll deal with it in post release.
Like, well, that
stings, like
it's things.
Not because it's going tocome out a little later.
It stings because to some extent youcould have been the designer that
made sure that wasn't going to happen.
You could have been the guy that justtrack the whole thing and made sure
that daddy made it out into the world,

(48:57):
you missed one Lake and ithappens all the time and it's
not horrible, but it happens.

John (49:02):
yeah.
There's this goes back towearing that producer hat, right?
Like tracking tasks, checkingdisciplines outside and making
sure that they are unblocking.
The other people that are waitingfor assets and things like this,
you talked about selling anddocumenting and things like that.
And so in the little bit that I've beendoing this and having conversations with

(49:23):
people, every, everybody has their ownparticular tool or way to convey ideas.
And I'm curious, what,what have you found?
Right.
Cause at rockstar, rockstarwas a different beast, right?
Rockstar.
We, you know, we, our tools were sopowerful that we can kind of just
like build the thing and put it inyour hands in a controller and be

(49:45):
like, Hey, how's that feel good?
Okay, cool.
Let's edit rate.
But at other places I'vebeen since then, right?
It's much more you're in the paper world.
You're in the PowerPoint world.
You're in the flowchart world.
Curious what, you will have foundto be your preferred way of design
and ideas and things like that.

Ryan P (50:05):
nothing beats the utility of a whiteboard.
I get asked, not all the time, butfrequently enough, like, Hey, if
I want to break into the industry,like, what is the best skill set I
could have and ensure like you and Iwere brought up on, coding on coding
and being able to execute

(50:26):
in

John (50:27):
Just build it.

Ryan P (50:28):
super technical designers.
I would say programmers, we werebrought up as programmers that
both.

John (50:34):
Gameplay programmers, man.
Yeah.

Ryan P (50:38):
advice to new designers trying to enter the industry are really,
this is pretty broadly, applicable.
you need two skills.
You need to be able to convey an idea ona whiteboard and sell people on that idea.
I don't care if it's a stickfigure fighting in a.world.
As long as it conveys whatyou're trying to sell.

(50:59):
And this gets back tothe salesperson thing.
But as long as you can conveyto other people, like this
is what I'm trying to do.
And this is the genius behind this idea.
Like, cool, need to be able to do that.
secondly, you need to be a person.

John (51:16):
What does that mean?
Ryan?
Of course we're people.

Ryan P (51:21):
not all people are people.
it's the idea of like, you can be themost technically savant person out there.
You could be an awesome programmer.
You could be an awesome artist,but if you're not sociable, if
you're not, well-rounded like, Ican't train you to be a person.
can train tools.
I can train you to script.

(51:42):
I can train you to code.
To some extent, it's kind ofgotten away from me in later years.
I can train you to draw, stick figureson a whiteboard, but I can't train
you to be a outgoing personality.
I say somewhat, becausewe're all truly introverts.
As you called out at the onset ofthe program, John, like we're, we're

(52:03):
all truly a little introverted, ifnot a lot introverted, but you've got
to be capable of talking to others.
You've got to be capable of workingwith others and you got to be someone.
That, when I talk to you, I can saylike, yeah, would go get a beer with this
person in talk, the industry, talk games,talk, what are you doing this weekend?

(52:24):
Like, I want to hang out with this person.
That's what makes the best team.
That's what makes the best icy.
That's what makes the bestemployee in the games.
Industries is a person whoother people can relate to.
Other people can talk to it.
Other people can share with,because in the end again, you
called this out earlier, man.
Like you're going to be in the trenches.

(52:46):
This is going to be a band of brothers

John (52:48):
yeah.

Ryan P (52:49):
great.
And we're all going to have to bein that trench each other's backs.
And you're going to have totrust the person on your right
and the person on your left.
And if you can't trust the personon your right, that's really going
to hurt that person on your rightmore than it's going to hurt you.
So
being just a well-rounded sociable

(53:10):
person,

John (53:11):
it was recent.
We had the conversation about, youknow, 2020 was a great year for
games, not necessarily for the world,but a great year for games and the
outlet of letting people connect andescape and all of the in between.
didn't really hear of any massivelayoffs except for like Google stadia
with their short-sighted strategy andcooling down the homeys studio, Montreal,

(53:34):
which I'm never going to let them forget.

Ryan P (53:36):
that was super unfortunate.
really, really loved the pitch of stadia.
The idea of stating go buy this50 to a hundred dollars console
with a controller and for a low,low price of nine 99 a month or
free, you just get access to games
like you just get it.

John (53:53):
no console limitation, right?

Ryan P (53:56):
Okay.

John (53:56):
made out pretty good off of that stadium deal.

Ryan P (53:59):
Yeah.
I was proud to see destiny tobe part of that whole thing.
Like that seemed like such a promisingfuture and it still does to me clearly, I
still think that legs,

John (54:10):
Oh yeah.
you know, they closed down all theirfirst party and they're just going
to cash in on third-party production.

Ryan P (54:16):
I'm just, I would be so scared to be a third-party
person in their world, man.

John (54:22):
Mm.

Ryan P (54:22):
you see stadia this awesome promising thing, a company like
Google throwing its weight behind it.
And then all of a sudden, some of thatweight lost to intermittent fasting,
like.

John (54:36):
well, that's a good way to put it.

Ryan P (54:37):
I'm really bummed out for my peers over at those first party studios,
because I really believed in it.
And I actually wanted to bea part of that ecosystem.
I applied over there for a bit.

John (54:49):
Hey dude, I always had aspirations to get my name on a
Google business card as well, man.
yo, for real, I'm like, you know, nowthey've lost credibility to me, man.
I was like, yo, you want tocome talk to me about games?
I don't trust you Google.
You don't know what it
takes, man.
Say what you want about Amazon's games.

(55:10):
At least they're writing it through there.
They're fucking going to see this shitthrough no matter where it ends up,
they're going to see this shit through.

Ryan P (55:18):
I am very glad that they're still pushing through a new world because that
is the first MMO in a while that I'm like,no, this has got to have some legs for me.
And I played the beta, which admittedly,I think it was a year or two ago

John (55:32):
Yeah.
The first one.

Ryan P (55:33):
and they had some weird vibes in there that I cannot get behind.

John (55:38):
Yeah.
I'm curious.
Cause you, you would be a resource.
I would hit up for any kindof MMO recommendations.
Right.
But Hey, did you find anysticky aspects to new world.
cause that's gonna make a break.
Yeah.
Right.
there anything about new world that, yousaw promising for longevity sake, right?
Something to keep you?

Ryan P (55:57):
So it had a lot of aspects of trying to be a super social MMO.
Like there was a lot of communitybuilding, like you have your little
town, you have, everyone has theirrole, everyone's doing a thing and
it's kind of a symbiotic relationshipand that open world MMO aspect.
And I only briefly gotinto that in the beta.

(56:20):
Like I joined a town and I was, I wantto say a weapon's Smith or blacksmith.
I can't remember whatthey called it exactly.
and took me back to star Wars, galaxies
days of like, I am in this world andI do this thing and that's my role.
I was a weapon Smith back then.
Maybe that's why I gravitatedtowards it, but I was a weapons,
Smith and star Wars galaxies, andI wasn't the best, but I was good.

(56:43):
And I was, fairly priced I carvedout an identity in this world.
the first time I've seen thatsince has been new world.
I don't know how the game hasmorphed and changed since then.
Like I said, this has been a while.
Maybe that aspect doesn't existanymore, but that is the kind
of game that speaks to me.

(57:04):
Like you have this MMO world, youbuild a circle of friends, and you
have an identity in this world.
Cause I think that is the mostimportant part and not just an MMO,
but really any game you come across,
is your personal identity.
And maybe that's why single-playeropen world games kind of speak to me

(57:25):
like the red Dead's like the kingdomcomes Skyrim's, as well as the MMOs,
that more speaks to that aspect.
Like you don't get to build yourself.
It's not about building you.
It's about building aperson from the ground up,
man.
I don't know if I've ever realizedthis about myself until I said it now.

John (57:45):
Some of the self realizations, it's powerful, man.
And it's helpful.
Right?
I always tell everybody, thankyou for coming on, sharing your
experience for the benefit of others.
there's a secret.
Benefit for yourself, really, as youtalk about these things maybe not this
year, but maybe in a year or two or fivefrom now, when you go back and listen to
this, you can recollect of where you wereand take inventory and be like, Oh shit.

(58:09):
You know, I didn't, I didn't realize theseconnections, but I, so it's, it's cool.
It's cool.
Ryan.
I'm glad to hear there's somebenefit because I always kind of
tell people that, Hey man, it'smore, you're giving of yourself for
the betterment of the industry downthe line, but it's, super cool.
If there's some, self benefit.

Ryan P (58:28):
Yeah, I mean, COVID has been, I want to say COVID has
been the year, but it's carriedon for much longer than that now,
but it's been the timeof self-realization.

John (58:38):
Yeah, a lot of that, bro.
A lot of a, what do they call it?
Self-reflection

Ryan P (58:42):
Yeah.
Like the first time I realized that inseven months it's going to be 15 years.

John (58:47):
yeah,

Ryan P (58:47):
I to realize I'm not a kid anymore, I'm getting old.

John (58:52):
we still have our best creations ahead of us.
we're not even close, man.
Would this still so much more leftfor us to give to this industry?

Ryan P (59:02):
just really a great way to put it.
I love that John

John (59:06):
we ain't done shit yet.
Ryan, we ain't done shit yet.

Ryan P (59:10):
we've talked some shit,
but.
You only need that so that you can thenknow that like, yeah, you've done some
shit, but you're going to do more shit.

John (59:18):
yeah, there you go.
We, we had done, man, this there'sa lot of more problems to fix and
resolve and, like you said, backto your point, like this shared
world shooter space is super young.

Ryan P (59:31):
Chevrolet tutors are just in their nascent stages and there's not been
someone to take Destiny's throne, butthere've been several solid attempts.
Even.
I was excited for Anthem.
I wanted to see their reboot man.
Their reboot

John (59:48):
Me and you.

Ryan P (59:48):
was going to be awesome.
Like, okay, cool.
Get that out in the world.
Get us your vision.
Because I realized that game was probablya little rushed, a little harried and
it

John (59:58):
yeah.

Ryan P (59:59):
what anyone wanted it to be.
It didn't hit that chef's kiss
of games.

John (01:00:04):
and yo like, there's still so much market share less, right?
If, if one person is doing theirfirst person, there's another market
that is all about that third person.
And I felt that's what Anthem had.
and we can look back identify wheredestiny was when they first came out
and see where they ended up being manyyears later, when it finally kind of hit

(01:00:25):
the initial vision or the initial goal.
Right.
It took support.
It took bigger team.
It took more hands on that.
Right.
And so I was on the team oflike, yo let's support it.
Let's get it to where it can be and
powers that be said, otherwise.

Ryan P (01:00:39):
it's really weird.
Cause industry, we live in feed somuch off the social media hype beast,
and you go to the Reddits, you goto the Facebooks and you see a lot
of negative commentary about maybeit's the game that you worked on.
I really it's any game.

John (01:00:54):
Yeah.

Ryan P (01:00:55):
And it's such a weird thing to see someone want a game to die.
Like just, just to be what I commented.
It's like, would peoplestill play this game?
What
this game like, thisis the games industry.
You should be happy that so manypeople are playing that game.
They might not be playing with you.
You might not dig on that,but do you hate checkers?

(01:01:16):
Because chess came out.
I don't, I actually don't knowwho came first, but you can.
There's no reason to hate X because youlove Y like you're never going to convince
someone that what they like is wrong.

John (01:01:31):
I, spent a little time getting to know the marketing side of things
and, when it was like, Hey, you know,I worked on GTA, blah, blah, blah.
They would always come over and belike, yes, you can look at a GTA and
be like, Oh shit, I gotta get the hellout of the way of that release window.
I don't want to be next to aGTA when it hits the market.

(01:01:52):
But what actually the perception was fromthe marketing standpoint of all the other.
Studios it was like, yes, whenever a GTAor a destiny or a halo hits the market.
it does is it creates this, groundshaking earthquake that expands the
games industry, the number of gamersthat are playing games from, 10 million,

(01:02:16):
20 million to another magnitude.
Right.
So it's, it's always, it's a, I don'tknow what they call it pro, but there's
some type of like something event

Ryan P (01:02:24):
butterfly effect,

John (01:02:26):
fuck it.
I'll ride with that.
Let's call it a butterfly effect thatthen all of a sudden you have new eyes
that had either outgrown or were notpaying attention, or we're caught up in
some other thing that are like, Oh, Iwant to go buy a console or upgrade my
PC or subscribe to cloud gaming and pickup a controller and check this thing out.

Ryan P (01:02:47):
I still would never want to release a game season expansion.
Within a week of a reddead GTA destiny March.
I wouldn't want to do that becauseall the oxygen in the room is
going to be somewhat diminished.
At least by those titles.
I mean, look back at red dead, thethe one red dead went up against was

(01:03:10):
aloe Lake, which was a solid title

John (01:03:13):
actually as well, another that I'm on the inside.
I like to nudge this.
it was basically mass effecttoo, or red dead going for all
those 2010 game of the year.

Ryan P (01:03:24):
but even the devs of Alan Wayne came out and said,
Hey, we would have done better.
Had red dead, not shippedthe same day or week.
I can't remember which,
they said that publicly, likewould have done better had this
not happened at the same time.
So there's, not a whole lot of upsideto releasing the same day or week

John (01:03:45):
It was literally the same week because we came out May
10th and Alan wig was May 14th.

Ryan P (01:03:53):
That was a solid game.
I
played Alan wake.

John (01:03:57):
I
love, remedy games.
You know what I'm saying?
I love remedy.
I love the shit out of control.
That was an awesome game.

Ryan P (01:04:03):
Have it.
Now that it's on game pass,
which by the way, the newest, mostphenomenal thing you can be a part of.
And I'm not saying that because I workat Microsoft, I'm saying that because.
For $15 a month, you getlike a bajillion D games.
I don't
even know how

John (01:04:20):
and, you get a free complimentary EA play subscription right along with that.
Right.
So it's all good.
We all winning.

Ryan P (01:04:27):
I bought squadrons the week before that was announced.
And I did not know that was goingto happen, but I bought squadrons
because I love me some VR and I love
me.
I would fights.

John (01:04:39):
dude, that game is so much better in the goggles

Ryan P (01:04:42):
What goggles do you have?
What, what do you play a job?

John (01:04:44):
I got my PSVR goggles and I have my vibe goggles and for whatever reason,
bro, like my rig is bad-ass and itruns way better, my computer set up is
not as comfortable as my couch in P S

Ryan P (01:04:57):
I am lately a PC player at heart, man.

John (01:05:01):
I would say you've been PC
primary.

Ryan P (01:05:03):
I think you might be right.
I've had a preference for PCgames pretty much throughout.
I don't fully know whybecause you're right.
A console is a more comfortable way to be.
I have a bigger screen.
I have a better setup, but I'mstill predominantly a PC gamer.

John (01:05:21):
everybody has their preferences I've always noticed that you are
super adept of like jumping in andaround the edge of a game or web
browser or whatever the hell, bro.
You're able to just like all tab, play agame, jump in, jump out, like no problem.
and I don't know.
I don't know why.
He's just like, I like to, I like topunish myself and have to things up

(01:05:44):
and wait for a front end and downloadupdates and all this nonsense.

Ryan P (01:05:48):
you know, it's the newbie and me, John it's because on my first
monitor, which needs to be a leasta 4k monitor, I got a rock the game,
I got a rock for the game, but onmy second monitor, I'm over all on.
Whatever that game is, Wiki is
try to look up, how doesshit do I do this quest?

John (01:06:09):
there it is.

Ryan P (01:06:09):
at its core, like I'm a hardcore gamer on the left and a
complete new blue on the right.

John (01:06:14):
I like it, dude.
I like

Ryan P (01:06:15):
and that's how I roll, man.

John (01:06:16):
Hey men and Maxine you making the most out of every second,
you're spending an experience toget the most benefit out of it.
I like it.

Ryan P (01:06:26):
I talked about this before, but like, real hard to
get into serious games anymore.
It's easier to jump intothe, the Haiti's the,
uh, monos, the,

John (01:06:38):
Haiti's

Ryan P (01:06:39):
Hades.
Oh my God.
I gave him is so good

John (01:06:41):
so good at
bro.

Ryan P (01:06:42):
The art style, just, I want to just cry blood.
It just it's that game.

John (01:06:48):
I've always been a super giant fan since bastion I think I bought transistor
and I always been meaning to get toPyre and then Haiti's came out on the
switch and it was the perfect timing.
And the perfect storm waslike, yes, a little mobile
thing that I can take with me.
And it looks comparable to what itlooks like on the council's MPC.
And, and I was in, I was hooked,

Ryan P (01:07:10):
I played so much bastion
and for whatever reason, I justcouldn't vibe with transistor

John (01:07:17):
I'm I'm right there with you, right?
They wish you

Ryan P (01:07:19):
I'm not gonna lie.
I'm just looking at Pyre right nowand I should have gotten on this,

John (01:07:26):
have.

Ryan P (01:07:26):
but I didn't, I don't quite understand why

John (01:07:30):
that's the benefit.
let's highlight that aspect of yourstudio who is known for certain things
and you just keep, banging out yourformula or keep holding true to your DNA.
And your catalog will eventuallypersist, players will come back
to your catalog, maybe not rightaway, but they will get there,

(01:07:50):
So as a director on this gamethat will hopefully go on for the
lifecycle of the console and beyond.
I think you're going to always belooking for new talent or helping as
people in your team grow up to otherlevels and moving on to other aspects
of the game, or maybe the next project.

(01:08:13):
What do you look for when you're bringingpeople onto your team or when you're
hiring or when you're interviewing.

Ryan P (01:08:20):
So the number one thing I look for in a person I want to bring onto my team.
I don't even consider the role.
I go back to the, I want a person
on the team
because you can largely trainedany skillset in the industry.
You can train scripting, you cantrain a white boarding, you can train

(01:08:40):
a lot of things, but what you can'ttrain is the, Hey, do I want to hang
out with this person outside work?
Like, are we at that level in IRregardless of whether or not I actually
hang out with you outside work thatspeaks to something that says that
I want to be around you longterm.

John (01:09:00):
Which making it a game man.
It's years,

Ryan P (01:09:03):
Oh yeah.
We're going to be aroundeach other for a long time.
So you've better be able to bethat person I want to be around.

John (01:09:11):
Yeah.

Ryan P (01:09:12):
second to that is, I like to establish how people feel about
flexibility and generalization, because weare largely, an industry of specialists.
And I know we don't like to admitthat we like to feel like, well,
we're all kind of flexible to somedegree, but to be brutally honest,

(01:09:32):
we are only flexible in so far asit relates to our core, common area.

John (01:09:36):
Uh, huh.

Ryan P (01:09:37):
if you're a scripter well, and you're just kind of always going
to Emory scripting languages, we'recoding languages or things like that.
If you're a programmer, likeyou're not probably going to
lower yourself to the ranks of thedesigners and things like that.
Okay.

John (01:09:51):
There's a few that like to make the jump over.

Ryan P (01:09:54):
Oh, absolutely.
And those that's literallythe thing I like to see

John (01:09:59):
Mm.

Ryan P (01:10:00):
Is the person that is willing to make the jump between things like we are
a very flexible industry and you haveto be able to say like, well, I want to
be here, but the industry needs me here.
So let me flex myself in such away that I can realize both because

(01:10:22):
personal goals are still super strong.
I am a strong believer in making sureyou, you find yourself in the industry and
that your no killing yourself that thisis still a gratifying industry to be in.
So you always have to find yourself,but being flexible, being fungible,
being a little more genericin your skillset is for price.

(01:10:46):
Just because that is the kindof person I know I can present
with a challenge and they will rise to it.
It's not necessarily me saying,Hey, I need you over here.
So go be over here for a little bit.
It's no, no, no.
I say, man, we have this problem andI don't know how to deal with it.
Hey org, what do you think about this?

(01:11:07):
And you're the person who saysI would love to take that on.
I would love to tackle thatand then get back to my core.
Role and responsibilities becausethis is where I want to be and always

John (01:11:18):
but, uh,

Ryan P (01:11:20):
second part.
The, because this is where Iwant to be is super important
because I want you to be flexible.
I want to know, I can count on you totackle important spar the mole, the
challenges, but I also need to know whereyou're going to land longer term and where
you want to be so that I can keep thatup in the noodle and say, okay, cool.

(01:11:41):
We're going to makeyou do this real quick.
You're going to deal withachievement so you're going to deal
with something, not super sexy.
That isn't the core game.
That's not your responsibility set.

John (01:11:53):
I'm 100% with you is whenever I'm sitting across the
table, looking at somebody'sresume, listening to their story.
Drilling them on the thing I wantto see someone who's curious, right.
Someone who can lift an eyebrowwhen it's something they don't know.
Right.
I'm always drilling in an interview.
I want to keep drilling until I findsomething you're not a professional at or

(01:12:15):
an expert at and see how you treat that.
Right.
Oh, I don't know about, AIsystems or behavior trees.
I'm curious about those.
I know a little bit,I'd like to learn more.
I welcome an opportunity, right?
Like I like how Halo's, captainsand grunts behave with each other.
Right.

(01:12:35):
Um, so, so that's the type of thing Ilook for and I'm with you 100%, right?
I want to see somebody who'scurious, who wants to reach over
their immediate comfort zone

Ryan P (01:12:45):
well, well, look, let me ask you this, John

John (01:12:47):
stop.

Ryan P (01:12:48):
interrupt you, but, uh, when you graduated from
full sail, did you want to be?
did you see yourself fitting in?

John (01:12:56):
And that's a good one, Ryan.
honestly, I thought I wasgoing to be like a UI or tools.
Programmer is what I thoughtI was going to be, man.
So I was only kind ofapplying for programmer jobs
and that's where I was sending my resume.

Ryan P (01:13:10):
Okay.
I did the same when Icame out of full sail.
I was good at network andoptimization programming,

John (01:13:18):
Hey, that's a special skill set, man.
That'll get you
some big books.

Ryan P (01:13:21):
absolutely.
But, Then to that point,you went to rockstar.
No, you went to midway first,
going to

John (01:13:28):
first I took DJ's vacant seat when he jumped from midway to rockstar,
there was a, a wide open seat and Imanaged to get in at the perfect time

Ryan P (01:13:38):
But then you came to rockstar and I know we build
you is more of a mini games.
Uh,

John (01:13:45):
mission.
Mission.

Ryan P (01:13:46):
you were, you were a technical scripture though.
Speaking broadly,

John (01:13:49):
Yeah.
Yes.

Ryan P (01:13:50):
one of our technical scripting specialists.

John (01:13:52):
yup.
Yup.
Yup.

Ryan P (01:13:53):
and now, what are you, John, describe your role to me.

John (01:13:56):
I am a technical designer on the engine team.

Ryan P (01:14:01):
So you're technically a designer on the engine team

John (01:14:04):
Hmm.

Ryan P (01:14:05):
now, man.
but that's like, that'sexactly what I mean is

John (01:14:10):
point.

Ryan P (01:14:10):
in the industry has this vision of where they think they slot in best
and more and more people are findingslash need to be open to the fact that
other people might see this spark in you.
There's this role you playthat you don't necessarily see.

(01:14:30):
You need to be willing to embracethat and speak to your history.
always speak to where you came fromyour desire to be a UX UI programmer.
Network programmer youwill always have them.
That's not going to disappear overnight.

John (01:14:46):
That's true.

Ryan P (01:14:48):
the years.

John (01:14:50):
that's interesting you bring that up, right?
Because it was like, I never wouldhave applied for a game design job,
even though, you know, a good thirdof our curriculum at full sail taught
us design, you know, to say tools,programmer, UI programmer, right.
Lends itself pretty well towhere the hell I ended up being a
technical design on an engine team.

(01:15:10):
Right.
Like really trying to hone in on UXdesign and improving workflows for
the studio designers or whatever.

Ryan P (01:15:18):
Well, and that's what I'm saying is realize what other people identify
opportunities in you and to not be scaredof those don't necessarily embrace them on
day one, but be open to the consideration.
Be open to the flexibility you may
have

John (01:15:34):
Yeah.

Ryan P (01:15:35):
and just embrace the fact that this is a rapidly shifting
industry.
And just because you may want to be a UXUI program or doesn't mean that you're not
going to be an awesome technical designerand may rejoin those ranks one day.

John (01:15:50):
It's true, man.
Like UX, when I see UX design asa thing that wasn't around, when
we were looking at jobs and roles,so, to your point look at roles
holistically, And, and apply to them.
Right.
If you meet any requirements or criteria,or it interests, you apply to them
because, and be willing to learn for sure.

Ryan P (01:16:12):
well, and that, that speaks to getting hired in the industry too.
the only reason I got in at rockstarwas because I saw a role that I wanted
wasn't necessarily a good fit for.
I think I applied for gameplay programmer

John (01:16:26):
Which is what the hell I would say we were doing.

Ryan P (01:16:28):
yeah, exactly.
But someone saw something in me onlybecause I applied for that role and I was
offered a technical designer position.

John (01:16:38):
did you interview with?

Ryan P (01:16:40):
Oh gosh.

John (01:16:41):
So Alan was
in
there

Ryan P (01:16:42):
I remember Alan

John (01:16:44):
maybe a Tom shepherd.

Ryan P (01:16:45):
Canon Mesa.
I
want to say Tom was there,

John (01:16:49):
when I went through Tom and Ella did my technical side and then
like and Tony did my design side.

Ryan P (01:16:57):
Tony, you had Tony gallon.

John (01:16:59):
Well, cause I got there pretty late.
Right.
so the leads guys was already on board.
and Tony was like head multi-player.
Right?

Ryan P (01:17:07):
Oh man.
I thought you were earlier than that.
I'm
sorry.

John (01:17:10):
I was like, what?
June, 2009 May, 2009, I think,

Ryan P (01:17:15):
Oh man.
So you got a credit underyour belt in a year.
Fuck you

John (01:17:19):
Hey, Hey, I was in there for the whole Polish production
man.

Ryan P (01:17:25):
we all worked on that game.
It was a band of brothers feeling

John (01:17:29):
Yes, it was,

Ryan P (01:17:31):
and that wasn't bad.
It was not healthy, but it wasn't

John (01:17:37):
we paid our dues and, and it's paid off because that thing on my resume and
the experience we talked up, can speakto anybody anywhere that wants to know
how these games are built and we canimmediately carve ourselves a little role.

Ryan P (01:17:55):
I won't even build it as an experience because yes, it was.
I learned so

John (01:18:01):
Oh yeah.

Ryan P (01:18:02):
timeframe,

John (01:18:03):
Yes.

Ryan P (01:18:04):
but when you frame it is an experience that frames it like,
well, I would never go back to that.
I've done that once.
Like it's at the point now whereI would look back at rockstar San
Diego and say could work thereand want to be at that place.

John (01:18:18):
You could, you could bring back your experience outside
you would help them grow?

Ryan P (01:18:24):
it's tough being
Their formula, as lucid, as it may bemakes the best games in the industry or
some of the best games in the industry.

John (01:18:32):
I liked it tools, man.
I haven't seen a better tool set.
Yeah.

Ryan P (01:18:37):
never had so much scripting power.
We were scripting network handshakeson the multiplayer backend

John (01:18:45):
Oh, I was, I had access to like headset, like easy when I would be
like, Oh, if I'm online, I could, Icould pick up, you know, it was binary.
It was like, Hey, are youmaking a sound or not?
But, uh, you know, that was enough topromote open world sex worker gameplay.
Right?

Ryan P (01:19:03):
wow.
That's those are words you can applyto what you were doing for those of
you who don't know are different.
John here worked at the strip clubfor the better part of multiple
years, making sure that digitaltitties got put up on screen now.

John (01:19:21):
Shout out to Barton, shout out to Evan.
they had big hands on those fronts.

Ryan P (01:19:25):
we had a super robust tool set.
There were in scripting could doalmost as much as programming.dot
dot would enable us to do.
Cause I'll never, I'll never, saythat we had more power than Cree
Han or shepherd or we're Frederick

(01:19:46):
like, Oh my God.

John (01:19:47):
Shout out to Frederick farms from you.
Oh, he damn I still connect withMike regularly on social media
and I've run into Tom all the

Ryan P (01:19:55):
I feel like you have to, just because Mike will get in your face.
If you don't connect with them,

John (01:19:59):
That's true.
And it shout out to my friend.
Oh, shout out.
Yo Korea is the man, dude that guy'slike directing movies on his spare time.
And, he's in heaven at Google

Ryan P (01:20:08):
He's a senior software engineer at Google.

John (01:20:12):
the good life living that catered food life taking shuttles to work

Ryan P (01:20:17):
I hope he's not there as long enough for catered food.
Cause catered food is one ofthose like blessings and a curse.

John (01:20:24):
well.

Ryan P (01:20:24):
Convince me otherwise, bro.

John (01:20:26):
I had the fortune to visit a few times and so their lunch is
a fully staffed, catered kitchen.

Ryan P (01:20:33):
We have that at Microsoft too.
What I want to zero in on is their bar.
Have you been to the bar in Fremont?

John (01:20:42):
I know the Google buildings on this side of Lake union.

Ryan P (01:20:45):
Yeah.
Just as you get North over thebridge, boom, immediately to your
left, there's a Google facility.

John (01:20:52):
Wait, where is the bar open to like non Googlers.
Okay.
Okay.

Ryan P (01:20:57):
I had, I had a producer friend who walked me through there and you
have to go through a secret door, butDougal has a fully stocked by employees.
Mind you?
I, I feel like Google kicks somethings in, but a fully stocked bar

John (01:21:11):
Oh, say no more

Ryan P (01:21:13):
I don't know how they encourage or discourage

John (01:21:17):
You gotta balance it
out.

Ryan P (01:21:19):
but, uh, I would participate

John (01:21:21):
Heck yeah.
Do with your little monthly

Ryan P (01:21:26):
if it wasn't like a Snoqualmie to Fremont

John (01:21:29):
damn

Ryan P (01:21:30):
which is the only thing worse than my current commute.

John (01:21:34):
dude.
So that makes sense, man, because,shelling cider houses there.
That's my, I love that place.
And then Fremont brew ring is nottoo far from there, so I'm sure
they're kind of like the two primarysuppliers for the Google stockpile.
If
case.

Ryan P (01:21:51):
dude, you should hit up.
Yeah.
The barrel fif

John (01:21:54):
Oh, I love me some barrel thief.
I love me barrel thief.

Ryan P (01:21:59):
man, I miss.
Hi, miss your neck of the woods.
I'm not going to lie.

John (01:22:03):
Eventually one day, man, you can come see the house and then we can
go walk down and get some, patients.

Ryan P (01:22:09):
I want to come see you.
I want to give a hug slash highfive to Catherine, depending on how
familiar she is with me and how many
drinks she's had at the
time.

John (01:22:18):
remembers you fun.

Ryan P (01:22:20):
I want to give Maui a Pat
cook who is just a gorgeous boy.
Okay.

John (01:22:26):
He loves that shit.
That's just shit sends hislittle shipper, tail waggling.
I like the way that, know, just beingcurious, being open, being flexible makes
you, a great just overall team player.

Ryan P (01:22:43):
yeah, just to open your eyes to the opportunities a bit around you.

John (01:22:48):
Don't, don't be so kind of tunnel vision
on it, for
sure.

Ryan P (01:22:52):
to do a thing, but this is a whole game.
Let's talk about the whole game

John (01:22:56):
teammates and managers will often reward you and give you a chance to,
to broaden out and explore these areas.
Right?
Because ultimately it's all about growthand bringing value to the project.
when you are looking to joina design team, games team, you
know what, what's kind of likethe biggest tip you would offer.

Ryan P (01:23:19):
so I'm going to, I'm going to zero in on the games team bit
there, because this is the oneI see that struggles the most.
we're a passion-based industry.
And I talked about that a bit earlier,So everyone has a tendency to over zero
in, on their area and making sure thatthis guy is doing the right thing and
this person's doing the right thingand marketing is doing the right thing.

(01:23:42):
And.
Making sure everythingcomes together exactly.
As someone would expect exactlyto their specifications, you
need to pull back a step.
You need to trust the process.
You need to trust your peers, everyonearound you was hired because they
are good at their jobs and they arebetter than you are at their jobs.

(01:24:07):
You need to make them aware.
You need to educate them on what it isyou're doing, not what it is you're trying
to do, but what it is you're actuallydoing, and then trust them, trust them.
They're going to take that visionforward and manufacture the best
possible marketing campaign.

(01:24:27):
Best possible community response,best possible engineering effort.
Like realize that you are a person inthis process and you've got the vision
you're going for, but everyone else isbetter at their jobs than you could be.
So trust the process, trust your peers.

(01:24:50):
That has been beateninto me over the years.
And it is the most true thing I'veever realized is don't expend too
much energy trying to massage orbend or break your peers are doing
And by peers, I mean, everyone frommarketing to QA, to engineering,
to design, like you have to trusteveryone involved in the process.

(01:25:14):
You cannot assume that you know,better than them because they
are experts in their areas.

John (01:25:21):
dude.
I love that, man.
That that's powerful because I'vedefinitely been on teams where directors
or producers want to micromanage.
They want to get in there and theywant to have final say, because
they feel like the success of theproject is on their shoulders.

(01:25:45):
Right.
They're the ones that have to goback to HQ and explain why the
game is in the state it's in.
Right.
So I love you as a director.
Who's learned this time and time againand carried it with him that, you know,
it's all about trusting your team, right?
You've put in the legwork to go throughthe resume, put them through the interview

(01:26:06):
process, onboard them, integrate theminto the team, empower them, give them
ownership, trust them to do their job.
And definitely challenge them.
Definitely sit with them, make themstand up and, advocate for the state
of the thing that they're building, butthen take it from there and carry that

(01:26:28):
flag, And, take it to HQ and take itto the publishing team and be like, Hey
Ryan parody, live services director.
And his team built it thisway to serve this purpose.
And this is what we're bankingon and I'm backing them up.
Right.
And like, boom, you know,

Ryan P (01:26:46):
absolutely.
You've got a vision in your head.
You've got the best possibleplayer experience in your head.
You need to sell that up to yourdirector above you is the like, no,
this is where we're going to land.
This is what I want things to be like.
And I've got, I've gotall these gears moving.
Give that to them, because that empowersthem to go beyond and say, Whoa, no,

(01:27:12):
I'm stopping your direction here.
I'm going to let X, Y, and Z go do theirthing because this is their vision.
And if you can't supply that vision,you've just made their job impossible.
So you need to trust the process,trust your peers, but you need
to supply your peers with the AMOnecessary to realize your vision,

(01:27:37):
realize what it is you're trying to do.
And God forbid they try and question it.
That is just somethingyou should talk through.
this thing.
You work with your peersthrough your experience because
maybe they have better ideas.
Maybe they don't, maybe your ideasbe executed in the time box you have.

(01:27:59):
That's totally finebecause things get backlog.
They don't get cut.

John (01:28:05):
yeah, for sure, man.
It's not, it's not abattle Royale last man.
Standing wins thing.
It's uh, the game of designis an awesome game of.

Ryan P (01:28:15):
It's not a game, it's a boxing match and you've got
to go 12 rounds, but no, and
that's,

John (01:28:21):
true.

Ryan P (01:28:21):
like you're going to take a lot of punches to the face.
You're not going to take alot of punches to the face.
You're going to be dealt withsome, unfortunate circumstances.
And all you've got to do reflectinternally and saying, well,
how could I make this better?
Better does not always mean better.
As in let's execute morefeatures, it means better as in

(01:28:43):
how can I support my engineers?
How can I realize the struggles weare under as a design, as a QA team,
as an art team, any team that you'rea part of, because you are part of
a game team, you're not part of adesign or engineering or R or QA team.

(01:29:03):
How can I realize the strugglesthat my team is going through and
play my part in those struggles?
Make sure that I am building abridge through those struggles.
Not, not something peoplehave to struggle through.

John (01:29:18):
man.
You're you're functioningas the glue, right.
We go back to designers or theglue, bringing all these disciplines
and departments together, bringingthat vision forward for sure, man.
I like your boxing analogy, right?
Like, uh, you can look atit as, Hey, there's one.
Champ there's constantchallengers coming in.
So it's, there's a current best designidea and, and, you can definitely, uh,

(01:29:44):
use the metaphor of, of iteration is,is challenges coming into the ring and
roughing up the champion and sculptingand molding going into the body.
And the end of the day, eitherthere's a new champ or the
champions much more hardened.
Right.
And so the idea, or the ultimateimplementation is, is the best
thing for the project and forthe player base or whatever.

Ryan P (01:30:07):
Yeah.
And, and this is a grossterm in the industry.
And I want to introduce thishere and now embrace the MVP.
And what I say that VP isnot most valuable player.
It's minimal viable product.
And that inherently sounds gross, likeright off the right off the board,
you're like, Whoa, wait a minute.

(01:30:28):
I've got to think in termsof product in minimum
and viable,

John (01:30:33):
that's not like blockbuster, AAA multimillion playing game.

Ryan P (01:30:39):
Snyder doesn't have to deal with his shit.
He gets to make a fourhour and two minute movie.
And I'm going to go watchin just a few moments.
no.
It's It's minimum viable productbecause that is the minimum of bar.
This feature is willing to accept,to get out the door and anything
below that, we should just cut it.

John (01:30:59):
Okay.
But

Ryan P (01:31:00):
say
that it's like at teacher mini game,what is the barest possible form of this?
You could ship andstill make players happy
because that is the number onemetric above anything else.
It doesn't matter what anyone else says.
That is the number one metric.
What is the minimum thing you could shipto increase that while still maintaining

(01:31:24):
the fact that we need to ship this.
And if you can't meet that well,then you should just cut the feature.

John (01:31:31):
Yeah, I liked that.
I liked that.
Like, what is, what is the featureor game mode in its leanest, right?
Like

Ryan P (01:31:37):
Exactly.

John (01:31:38):
to have fun, to be a challenge, be something that and vice players back fat
that doesn't have to be there, right?
What's like, Oh, I need more dialogue orI need more VFX, or I need these other
like 10 different levels or whatever.

Ryan P (01:31:55):
every dialogue, every VFX, every design spec, every mini
game, every mission, every featurein a game, every game has an MVP.
And it's, it's not, it might not becommunicated across the same terms,
but everyone knows what you're saying.
When you say MVP of this is the bareminimum we could ship to do the things

(01:32:20):
you've asked us to do to hit our goals.
Don't view that as the enemy view thatas an opportunity to draw clarity to
your design, to your execution, to yourart, to your implementation of affects
implementation of anything to say, this isthe bare minimum I think we can do before.

(01:32:43):
It starts to be a negative.

John (01:32:45):
Heck.
Yeah.
Heck

Ryan P (01:32:46):
Because at the
end of the day, you arethe expert in your field.
You should be capable of saying thosethings and you should be capable
of having people listen to you.

John (01:32:58):
it's easy to come with like a thousand page manifesto and it's,
it's hard and challenging to have50 page, compelling, through a
ride read from beginning to end.
Right?
it's hard,

Ryan P (01:33:14):
John DNS, I'm going to rail against you in that one,
independent of whether you'reat a thousand pages or 50 pages.
I am not going to read your shit.
If you can't sell me on your visionwithin one page, you need to GTF
because I do not have time to read 50pagers by 50 people, every single day,

John (01:33:38):
amen.
To the one pager for the sake of our timeand sanity and even a to the resume, bro.
Like if you can't get
through a shit down inone page, it is not good.

Ryan P (01:33:49):
and your spouse, the one pager at rockstar or the one pager, I do include
everything from vision to goals, togameplay, walkthrough, to two things.
We're leaving off the table in apage, which is not a lot of words
considering you can't make it fourpoint font like you did your resume
the first time you walked through it.

(01:34:09):
Yeah,

John (01:34:10):
old college essays, man.

Ryan P (01:34:12):
By the way your first Adam college resume should not be in four point font.
Don't fucking do that.

John (01:34:18):
mind is not that good anymore, bro.

Ryan P (01:34:21):
Okay.
Exactly.
The guy who's going to read this as John'sage, which is approximately 47 years old.

John (01:34:29):
Oh shit.

Ryan P (01:34:32):
community, your design, your whatever, the shit you're doing
clearly succinctly to get peopleto buy in later, later, go develop
the 20 page design manifesto.
The engineering manifesto.
I can't think of a better word.
Manifesto
is a good word.

John (01:34:49):
I put it out there now and now it's stuck.
Amen.
I had had a blast at you, Ryan.
I always love shop with old rockstarbrethren, and then seeing what you
guys have gone on in the industry.
had some good times at rockstar.
We, I don't know how we madeit through that rock star,
red dead redemption push, man.

Ryan P (01:35:09):
so there was a period and I'm going to give a shout out here.
Uh, there was a period that was prettydark at rockstar and we, we picked up
some good humors, some good rituals withour new studio leader, who is Gordon
hall, and he's recently passed and I'dkind of want to give a shout out to him.
He inspired many of the designers thatrockstar in so many different ways.

(01:35:34):
and it was, a brightertime under his purview.
Gordon
Gordon was really influential and hedid so many good things for that studio.
So I want to give a shout out to him.
the late Gordon hall.

John (01:35:48):
A lot of people would say we should have a white Russian in his honor.

Ryan P (01:35:51):
that is very happy.
That was his favorite drink.
And I will go for it and havea white Russian in his honor.
So I know where this is going to go.
Having listened to past podcasts.
And I want to nominate someone here,
John,

John (01:36:03):
Okay.
Shit, man.
I don't even got to say anything

Ryan P (01:36:06):
I'm going to nominate someone who I think, uh, learned a bit from
Gordon hall And was there a longwith the red dead design crew, the
whole way, helping us close out thebest possible design experience.
I'm going to throw Anthony gallonin the hat for the next one.

(01:36:28):
We learned a lot from this guy.
He is now gone on to do someamazing things that I've
played in many of his games.
He just released something,I think, two weeks ago

John (01:36:40):
well on the switch, he did like a switch port or something.

Ryan P (01:36:42):
he did, I think the John wick, I think he was in the John.

John (01:36:46):
Yo, I would love to bring him on, not only to talk about
like GTA, you know, mobile Liberty,city stories and Chinatown Wars.
But I, I, I be happy to have awhole episode just talking about
John wick as a, as a, character.
Right.

Ryan P (01:37:05):
How can I have a whole podcast talking about John Wick's dog?
that that was the match for so many fires?
No, I'm going to, I'm going to throwTony Galen in there as the next possible
inclusion in this podcast, just becausehe's shaped me as a great designer.

(01:37:26):
He was always there when I'veasked anything of him and he's gone
on to do some phenomenal things.
And in keeping with, uh,Gordon Hall's passing.
I know he worked heavily with Gordon hall.

John (01:37:40):
Yeah,

Ryan P (01:37:41):
That would be, that would be a phenomenal opportunity.

John (01:37:43):
dude, thank you for blessing me with that opportunity, man.
I, I, I would definitely, I waslooking for an excuse to reconnect with
Anthony and that's going to be dope.
Cause what I liked about him was thathe, he was even keel man, and, and you,
we had every reason to be emotional and,

Ryan P (01:38:05):
we were all very fiery at the time.
As much As Gordon helpedcontinue those flames and keep
us fiery towards our passion.

John (01:38:15):
yes.

Ryan P (01:38:16):
Tony was always there to help guide our flames into something that
was execution oriented, somethingthat was refined to the Razor's edge.
That is a rockstar game.

John (01:38:29):
That's all I ever want out of any director.
Right.
And so, you know, guide me, my passionin the, the right direction, trying to

Ryan P (01:38:39):
Absolutely.
And I I'd carry his, uh, hislessons forward to this day.

John (01:38:44):
I told I'm coming for you, bro.
You're going to be the nextguy to fall out of play area.
So Ryan bro, it's been an absolute blast.
How can the listeners out there keepin touch with shoes, see what you're
working on and things like that.

Ryan P (01:39:00):
well, I've still had the blessing of being on some high profile stuff.
So you can always catch up onhalo, infinite, and a halo way.
point.com.
If you want to interact with mepersonally, I am a poor, but we'll
attempt to get better LinkedIn user.
Uh, so reach out to me there.

(01:39:21):
I don't think I'm that obviously skated.
So yeah.
Hit me up on LinkedIn.
I'll be there.

John (01:39:25):
perfect, man.
LinkedIn profile and halo, infinitewebsite will be in the show notes.
Click on those things, Brian, bro, youhave the lifetime pass to come back on.
Whenever the hell you ship that beast.
I'll be curious to bring you back on.
See how it went.
any last words for the listeners?

Ryan P (01:39:46):
I have to John, number one, I want to be the handy Richter.
When you bring on Tony Galland, ifonly to shadowed him from the couch,
number two, this is your passion.
Embrace your passion.
Embrace your personality.
At the same time, you always wantto be cognizant of your life of

(01:40:07):
your limits as a human being.
Draw passion from what you're doing, butblossom that passion into what you do.
And that's all I got

John (01:40:18):
Mike drop, man, which what you do into what you be.
I like it.
That's deep.
I brother, till next time, my friend

Ryan P (01:40:28):
until next time, my friend, uh, this was awesome.
I've loved the time here.
I'd love to everything we've talked about.
I can't wait till we can do thisagain and I can't wait until
I can be your Andy Richter.

John (01:40:43):
I can't plan these things any better.
Somehow these guests in particular, Ryanalways leaves us with some amazing gems.
There's a lot of goodtakeaways in this one.
And I'm curious what resonated with you?
A couple of points of emphasis forme were the delicate balance that.
We as well as I find myself teetering onis sticking with what you know, and being

(01:41:07):
an IC, meaning an independent contributor.
Always relying on what, you know, beingable to get hands-on, you know, just make
things happen and make the game or productbetter by iterating on it and using your
technical know-how versus that hard step.
For many of us, I'd love to talk topeople who it just comes natural to is

(01:41:30):
learning to let go and take a step back.
Using your team as your hands,working through them and playing a
more strategic and managerial role,you know, playing tank for all those
meetings and championing the vision.
And most importantly, guiding yourteam, uh, allowing them to harness
their strengths while working on theweaknesses and letting them get all the

(01:41:54):
shine and continuously fighting yourtemptations on yourself, getting in
the pilot seat and doing their work.
The other one is the whole idea ofscheduling and scoping and how no matter
the fact that we all know better, wecan't help the insistent desire we have
to make the game, all that it can be.

(01:42:15):
I find myself these days, repeatingthe mantra of less is more and
that tried and true, uh, idealof addition by subtraction.
I'd love to hear your experienceswith those production challenges
and that never ending ballad.
I eagerly anticipate bringing Ryan backonto the show in the future and discussing

(01:42:37):
what has boomeranged back to blingy.
It was like on destiny after leavingto work on halo, infinite for 3
43 industries and what that was.
On episode 21, we continue our QAappreciation and invite Anhelica.
Vaka a UX designer, intercept games,makers of Kerbal space program.
And we go in on her journey into games,bobbing and weaving from desk jobs

(01:43:01):
to QA contracts all around Seattle.
Then making the jump into UX designand more, make sure you follow the
podcast that you don't miss out.
When that debuts on Monday, November day.
Thank you for listening devs.
If you found this informative, Iask that you pay a link forward to a
developer to help grow our listenercommunity, as well as everything.

(01:43:27):
If you're a game developer for story youthink could help a fellow dev, please
go to out of play area.com and click onthe Calendly link at the top to meet up,
please make sure to get approval from yourmanager or studios PR HR team beforehand.
Out of play area, the game devspodcast releases new episodes every
other Monday on all the major players,including Spotify, apple, Google.

(01:43:48):
Please make sure to follow us, to seewhat developer pushes out of play area
next time until then I'm your host.
Stay strong.
Stay true.
Stay dangerous.
Mega ran.
Bring them home.

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Ryan Paradis | Game Design Director @ Bungie | Ep 20

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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;}Ryan Paradis | Game Design Director @ Bungie | Ep 20