All Episodes

May 9, 2022 118 mins

Zach Mumbach is a designer & producer at the Wandering Band who spent 17+ years at EA as a producer on Dante's Inferno, Dead Space, Battlefield: Hardline, Godfather 2, Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, the Simpsons and more. We talk about his journey in and out of games and more.

Chapters:
  1. (00:00) Who is Zach Mumbach
  2. (07:21) Visceral Games  & Ragtag
  3. (18:28) Critical Skills
  4. (27:32) Managing External Teams
  5. (35:51) Being a Closer
  6. (47:37) Montreal Memories
  7. (56:10) Pitching at EA
  8. (01:05:56) Rag Tag
  9. (01:15:22) Time for New Adventures
  10. (01:27:34) Something Calls You Back
  11. (01:37:55) Publishing with Epic
  12. (01:45:50) Final Round
  13. (01:53:16) John’s Outro
Links:

Follow Zach on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zachulon

Zach’s MobyGames: https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,164514/

Connect with the host: http://elkingpin.com 

Come On The Show: https://outofplayarea.com 

Check out his latest game Airborne Kingdom: https://www.airbornekingdom.com/

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/out-of-play-area/id1550421307 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Da0qLAOBi6rV6ccSzx1gX?si=043f4ec5a6034bf0

Follow @outofplayarea & @elkingpin on Twitter

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
John (00:00):
What's good devs?
I want to take a moment tosay thank you for listening.
And if you could spare a moment of yourtime to leave a review or click subscribe,
or follow on your platform of choice.
That would help these recommendationalgorithms know that this is a show we're
putting forward on other people's radars.
As for me, I managed to sneakout over to New York city.

(00:21):
Checking on the family who I'mI haven't seen since prior to
the pandemic and report that Imanaged to make it over and back.
COVID free.
Thank goodness.
Damn New York city waslooking mighty fine and sunny.
It's rare that I get overaround this time of year.
I'm usually in like too hot forcomfort and high humidity, summer, or
super cold winters for the holidays.

(00:43):
while I was there, I was put ontothe hilarity in the Johnny Depp
and Amber heard trial, pure comedy.
Y'all.
in more serious news.
I've got to call up props to the countrieswho give their citizens freedom of choice.
And kudos to employers out here,like Amazon who announced a
new benefit that will pay for.

(01:04):
Travel for non-life threatening medicaltreatments, which include abortion.
I personally was raised in a Catholicfamily and totally get the pro-life
arguments, but seeing what it takes tocarry and raise a kid in this world.
I will tend to side with momson having the ability to choose.
Who saw that new Patterson, Batman.

(01:24):
I don't know.
Y'all.
I love the source material.
But did not enjoy the silverscreen execution, unfortunately.
With those current events out of the way.
Hey, my music.
On episode 32 of auto play area, thegame dev podcast, we sit down with
Zach mum buck and walked through hisjourney through this wild industry.

(01:46):
As he got started at EA in2000 as a tester and worked
his way up into production by2005, working on the SIM SIM's.
Godfather to Dante's Inferno deadspace, two and three army of two, the
devil's cartel and battlefield hardline.
Onto where he did a briefstint at crystal dynamics.

(02:06):
And now where he is today at thewandering band, where he's finally
getting to flex his design talentson games, like the airborne kingdom
and whatever they're cooking up next.
I learned about Zack solely fromreading press reset by Jason Schreier.
this was back when I was at EA.
So I wanted to learn more andconnect with him and learn about

(02:26):
the history of the company and theteams I was currently working with.
And I managed to reach outover Twitter and he hit me
back and he said he was down.
this interview was recorded onFebruary the 16th, this year 2022.
Coming to you from Bainbridgeisland in Washington, please.
Welcome.
Zack mum.
Buck let's fall the fuck out.

Catherine (02:50):
Bienvenido Bienvenue Welcome to the out of play area podcast, a
show by video game devs for game devs,where the guests open up one-on-one
about their journey, their experiences,their views, and their ideas.
No ads, no bullshit.
Join us as we venture far outof the play area with your host
seasoned game designer, John Diaz

Zach M (03:13):
They got there.
Can the mountains turn blue, they got thecold liner, they got the wide mouth top.
you know, they went reallyhard on the, gimmicks.

John (03:20):
I love that type of shit.
So be fair.
Right.
Anything that I could talk about or,
you know, commercial and experienceit, you know, even, even all the shit
that mountain dude did back in theday and be like, yo, extra limey this
time or whatever gamer endorsements.
Yeah.
I can

Zach M (03:34):
Yeah.
It tastes the call of duty in there too.
So good.

John (03:39):
dude.
I fucking love that.
The blue mountain thing that lets yousee how, oh yeah, this one's cold.
I want that one.
The gimmicks.
I'm a sucker for gimmicks

Zach M (03:49):
Why not?

John (03:50):
till the day I die.
How do I say your last name?
Is it?

Zach M (03:53):
it's mum like quiet, you know, like be

John (03:55):
mom,

Zach M (03:56):
Bach.

John (03:57):
Zack Moen, Bach,

Zach M (03:59):
The, the story of that name, it's like a German name and
it's supposedly somehowrelated to like Bach

John (04:05):
The composer.

Zach M (04:06):
yes.
And then the quiet Bach, right.
And Bach, I think is likestream or river or something.
But anyway, not actuallymy birth last name.
I picked this bad boy up.
Bombach.

John (04:17):
Wait, wait, changed your name?

Zach M (04:19):
I changed my last name when I was like five, me and my mom.
And then she got married to my dad,
but not my like biological father.
but my dad, the guy that raisedme and his last name was mum Bach.
And so when she married him, she tookhis last name and then they waited.
Cause I was like a baby.
They waited until I was like inkindergarten, first grade or something.
And I'm like, what do you want to do?
I was like, yeah, I'llroll with the last name.

(04:40):
Sure.

John (04:40):
Oh, you got to pick your own adventure.

Zach M (04:43):
have two brothers and they were going to have last name.
My mom had the last name, so it's like,they left it up to me, you know, pretty
young age to decide something like that.
But I was like, yeah,they will roll with that.
Whatever it doesn't matter.

John (04:53):
often in life you get to pick last name given you ownership at that
young age, must've created a bug in you.

Zach M (04:59):
Yeah.
It was, it was funny cause it's not like,so, you know, the, um, what is Gamescom?
So games come as in yeah.
As in cologne.
And so when I go to Gamescom cologne,they're always like mum Bach, but they say
it like all German, you know, mom Bach.
know, I don't speak any jury as amatter of fact, I'm no German German.
Right?
I'm not his side of the family is German.

(05:20):
Right.
And they're always like, oh, you got it.
There's some graveyard full oflike ancient Mumbox over there.
There's a town calledMombasa, all this shit.
just like, I don't know about any of that.

John (05:30):
So not in your blood,

Zach M (05:31):
Nah, but it's my last name.
I like it.

John (05:33):
you, you chose to inherit some of

Zach M (05:35):
Yeah.

John (05:36):
them.

Zach M (05:36):
I'll take that.
Some of the lore,

John (05:38):
Yeah.
I mean, you already kind of choosingyour own destiny playing RPGs at
a young

Zach M (05:42):
yeah,

John (05:43):
Select your name back in the day.
We were limited to what?
Four characters or something like that.
So

Zach M (05:48):
You
know, what's funny is they changedmy middle name also at the same time.
I don't know why.
so my middle, my old middle name andmy old last name, which I won't say
what they are because that's my alias.

John (06:00):
Your gamer tag.

Zach M (06:01):
No, my gamer tag Zacky lawn.
But like, if I'm in an RPG, if Ineed, or like specifically like sports
games, if I make like a character ina sports game, like UFC or Madden or
NHL or something, I'll use that name
or if ever need to likego on the run, you know,

John (06:17):
Ah, okay.
Okay.
W we'll
keep that off the
record for now.
I got to take a moment to Cheers.
Welcome to the show.
I think you inspired me.
I went to grab a Rainier.
I haven't drank aRainier in quite a while.

Zach M (06:32):
Yeah.
I'm drinking Coors light.
So we're going with thecheap water down beer today.

John (06:36):
Just to let the listeners know what to expect,

Zach M (06:38):
That's the
vibe

John (06:39):
show is going.
Yes, sir.

Zach M (06:41):
and that's good.

John (06:42):
Quenches, the thirst is
refreshing.
It's like water with bubbles.

Zach M (06:45):
yeah,

John (06:46):
it's almost like those fancy seltzer water,
What are they called, man?
The spike water.

Zach M (06:50):
A white claw.

John (06:51):
Yeah.
Why close the popular one.
Here you go.
This is why club
before white cloth.

Zach M (06:57):
that was there before, man.
to go all the way back to likethe seventies or whenever they
started coming out with this, it'sjust coming back in a new name.

John (07:05):
I have on that Rainier?
Right?
You pick it up and I find that it'snot even made in Washington anymore.
That's what internet told me.
I got

Zach M (07:13):
Wow.

John (07:13):
got to fact check myself on that, but I saw that I was like, man.

Zach M (07:16):
It's a major accusation.
You want to make sure
before you throw that out there?

John (07:21):
for people that don't know, I came across you from reading a
book, the Jason wrote, press reset.
I'm reading that over the break.
And I get to the chapter that talks about,I guess it was star wars, 13, 13, or,

Zach M (07:36):
No, it was, uh, it was called ragtag and it was,
I mean, it didn't havelike a release name yet.
That's
just kind of what we werecalling it internally.

John (07:43):
And that's the one with Amy Henning at the home

Zach M (07:46):
yeah.
And that was a visceral visceral
game.
Yep.

John (07:50):
or IP visceral And that was based out of, is it Redwood where they call it?
They call it years.
Right?
EA Redwood shores.

Zach M (07:57):
Yeah, it was, yeah.
I rode with shore.
So like really visceral was a studio thathad been around since the beginning of VA.
They just, rebranded it to visceral, butbefore visceral, it used to be the studio
that did all the, like Lord of the rings,James Bond, like all the, a lot of big
licenses were there, you know, tigerwoods was there for a long time.
Madden was way back inthe day originally there.

(08:17):
Right.
So,

John (08:18):
Tiburon.

Zach M (08:19):
they had like all these franchises that they would like send out eventually.
Right.
But the original man wasin the, in the bay area.
In Redwood city.
Yeah.

John (08:27):
as Redwood shores, then EA studio, number one, is that main HQ
like, well, the ship.

Zach M (08:32):
used to be like a different building the neighborhood.
I live right there.
So like, it was around when I was a kid.
That's why I know all this stuff.
they used to be in like a differentbuilding, like maybe like two miles away
while they were, I guess, while theywere building that campus or whatever.
But
yeah,
the main headquarters, is therein Redwood city Redwood shores,
which is like a little subsidiaryof Redwood city, I guess.

(08:53):
and that's like kind of where theoriginal like EA game studio was at.
Yeah.

John (08:57):
Okay.
So you live nearby

Zach M (08:59):
Yeah.

John (09:00):
I mean, people got to read this, I'm telling people they got to
go read this shit going to give thema taste, but it's legendary because
as I understand it, you just walk.
To the studio looking for a job.
You're just like, yo, I'm here for a job.
me a job.

Zach M (09:14):
Yeah.
I mean, the full storyis that I knew about it.
Its existence.
Like I was like as a teenager ata job and I worked at this place.
It was like a video arcade.
it was called fighter town USA.
We had these like hydraulicplanes that would like, they
were all networked together.
This is like the nineties before.
I mean, I guess kind of whenonline games were starting to come
into play, but it was like a bigdeal and people would come there.

(09:35):
It was right in the middle ofSilicon valley and people would
come there and, uh, and play this.
And so anyway, long story long,a guy that was like a regular at
the arcade told me about, Hey,like Sony and EA are right here.
Like we

John (09:48):
yeah.

Zach M (09:49):
games and how much I love video games or whatever.
And he's like, you know, you couldwork for one of them as a tester.
he had worked at EA as a tester.
I think he was like a program orsomething, but before he had worked
there as a tester and he was like, youknow, when you work there, you get your
own PlayStation and they have showers.
And the cafeteria, like, that'show he said it, you know?
And I'm like
in senior, in high school andI'm like, that sounds amazing

(10:09):
showers.

John (10:10):
got, food.
You got a place to cleanup and you got your gang.

Zach M (10:13):
Think about that though.
Right?
It's like, you're appealingto like the mentality of like,
I'm just going to eat game.
And once in a while I'll takea shower all at this place, you
know, and make money, man.
Like, so I rolled in there,I just rolled in there.
I was like, oh, tester, cool.
Like, I'm gonna, I'm going to do that.
and I looked them up onlineor maybe I looked on the box
and it said, like the address.

(10:34):
Yeah.

John (10:34):
the little publisher address.

Zach M (10:36):
And so I got on like Yahoo maps

John (10:38):
MapQuest.

Zach M (10:39):
math course, whatever it was at the time, you know?
I think I had like a collar shirtand I'm pretty sure I went untucked.
It

John (10:46):
sure.

Zach M (10:47):
not the move.
at this point now I had justgraduated high school, you know?
and this was by the way, like my plan,like I told my geometry teacher senior
year, you know, he's like on me,like, what are you gonna, you know,
cause geometry is a sophomore class,
was struggling in math, dude.
I'm not a

John (11:03):
okay.

Zach M (11:04):
He was like a cool guy, but he wanted, he was like on me, you know,
like I wasn't going to go to college.
I had like, no plan.
And I was like, oh, I'm going to go toEA and like, test these video games, man.
They give you a PlayStation,they've got showers, cafeteria.
And he's like,
dude, you know, he wastrying to be cool, but he
was like, this is not going to work outthe way you think it's going to work out.

John (11:21):
when I hear that I hear a guy with a plant.
That's much more for thelong than a lot of people.
I knew when we were
Right.
Like I was lucky to be like,Hey, think I know the major,
I want to declare for college.
Right.
And, and that was, probably it.
So for you to be like, yo, I know theplace I'm going to work on a while.
I want to work there.
what was he saying?
was it just because it was like, yono, not everybody can make games.

(11:43):
Is that what it was

Zach M (11:44):
so I graduated high school in like 2000.
there weren't like college, it wasn'tnecessarily like a clear career path.
And

John (11:51):
sure.

Zach M (11:52):
I should also mention that, like I was into like modding, like we
were, we were me and my friends werelike modding games and not in like
some, know, super sophisticated way, butlike, you know, there were some games,
duke Nukem, 3d specifically we could goin and like replace assets and levels
and do a little, uh, like rearrangingof assets, like do some like light
level design stuff like that, you know?

(12:12):
first of all, I think a lot of people havethis mentality that if you're going to
make games, you need to be a programmer.
And so he's like, bro, you're in, barelymaking it through geometry and you're
seeing here.

John (12:20):
is it that you're an artist you could draw or you can program?
Yeah.
it was all linked to

Zach M (12:25):
I think he just had this mentality that where are you going to go to call it?
You
thing.
Right.
was like the reaction I got frommost people, because everybody's
going to college, you know?
And they're like, what are you doing?
And I'm, you know, I'm like, I'm going togo do this and I had no idea how to do it.
I just rolled in there.
It was so dumb.

John (12:40):
but it's all dangerous.
And I love the fact again,you had a plan, right?
Like, yo, I'm gonna go work for apple.
I'm gonna go work for NASA.
Know I'm going to make game goingto go work at EA it's right.
In the hometown it's accessible, and in2000 is still kind of a well kept secret.

Zach M (12:54):
I wish I remembered or knew that that guy that told me about it, he was
probably 25 or 26, you know, and I was 17
met and he was a really nice, likewhen I think back on those times, it's
like that dude was really cool, man.
He was this customerat this place I worked.
And he sent me on a path beforehe said that, like I never
would've thought about that.
Like my original plan was, I'm goingto be the manager of this arcade.

(13:16):
You know, it's not as
good of a plan.

John (13:19):
what do they call it?
Man, the heroes cyclist like the helpfrom beyond the, whatever they, they,
they kind of put this mysteriousspirit in your path at this moment
in time to set you on the path thatyou're destined to be in kind of thing.
Shout out to that dude.
Uh, pour some out for

Zach M (13:35):
yeah.
Hit me up Twitter.
If
you, if you hear this.

John (13:40):
so you go in to EA, you got a collar shirt untucked,

Zach M (13:44):
Yeah,

John (13:44):
you, did send in an application, you had an interview lined up.
What?
Who was

Zach M (13:48):
no, I, what my idea was is that like, Hey, I'm going to go there
and ask for an application in person,up until this point, because I had
worked all throughout my teenageyears, I'd have jobs since I was 13.
Right.
And traditionally, like people now,kids now probably think this is insane.
It sounds crazier thanit really was though.
Because traditionally in like thenineties, that's not that crazy.

(14:10):
Like, if you wanted a job at like,McDonald's, you would go into McDonald's
and talk to the manager of McDonald's andget an application and fill it out and
go in there for an interview or whatever.
So that was my mindset.
Like, I'm going to go in there and there'sgoing to be like a front desk person.
I don't understand like how.
The difference, you know, so I'mlike, there's my front desk person.
I say, Hey, I want this job.
I'm gonna apply for this job.

(14:30):
And everybody here's the application.
And maybe there'll be a manager aroundthem, like, Hey, nice to meet you.
And I'll make a good impression.
like, that's how, how, or there'sa lot of stories, like maybe from
our parents' generation of like,I walked into that office and I
introduced myself to the manager and

John (14:45):
sure.

Zach M (14:46):
that kind of thing.

John (14:47):
Yeah.

Zach M (14:47):
so that's what I like in my mind was like that it
wasn't that crazy, you know?
Like, I think now itsounds crazier, right.
Because ends up happeningis I walk in there.
I'm like looking as spiffy as I can.
And I'm like, Hey, I'm here.
I want a QA job.
I'm here for the QA job.
And they were like,yeah, go right in there.
okay, I just roll it.

(15:08):
And it's a big old conferenceroom with like, they hire QA
and like huge batches of people.
And so there's like, I don't know.
I've seen this room.
Like, obviously I was part of thehiring process later as I worked there,
I've seen this room have 20 people.
I've seen it have like 50 people.
Like literally they're, they're,they're starting 50 people in one day.
Right.

(15:28):
remember many people it was, but itwas a lot, it was 20 or more probably.
Um, and I just sit down in this room fullof people and they're going around with
a checklist talking to people, you know,like giving out paperwork and they come
to me and they're like, what's your name?
And I'm like, they're not on their list.
And they're like, oh,you're not on the list.
And you just give me the paperwork.
It's not, you know, the, the pointis, is like, there's an interview

(15:50):
before you get to this partthat like, I just circumvented.
I just rolled in

John (15:55):
you didn't apply.
Yeah.
All right.
So let me, let me, let me step back then.
So this is a group of people thatprobably already been vetted.
They went through the phone

Zach M (16:04):
Yes.
They came in and had interview anddid like a little test and everything.

John (16:09):
Okay.
So then it's like, Hey, Monday, youknow, May 15th come in at this time
and we're gonna, you know, you'regoing to go through your onboarding.

Zach M (16:17):
Yes,

John (16:18):
you as like the kismet and stars, the line came in
with an initial onboarding team.

Zach M (16:26):
yes,

John (16:27):
guard sees you as a receptionist season.
Like, oh yeah, you mustbe part of this onboarding

Zach M (16:31):
yes, yes.
They're not checking names.
They're like anotherone of you going there.
Right.
And then

John (16:38):
Fantastic.

Zach M (16:39):
the onboarding is like, you're filling out paperwork by the
way, when I'm 18, like you don'tunderstand any of this, you think
everything's so official and like it's

John (16:48):
Yeah.

Zach M (16:49):
and like everything's on security camera and some guys behind
the curtain watching it all and like,

John (16:54):
Yeah.
If they're telling you todo this, go here, sit here.
You got people checking you off.
You're like,
all right, this is the process.
Right?

Zach M (17:00):
So like two hours later, I have a badge, like a badge with my picture on it.
And I'm a team and it's 2000.
So like maybe now that's normal,like having a badge with your
picture on it that scans these doors

John (17:14):
Did you get access to everything?

Zach M (17:16):
man, that was like some star Trek, crazy shit.
Like I have this badgewith my picture on it.
I scan it on the door and itunlocks all these doors and they
can like walk around this place.
Right.
Like,

John (17:26):
came home with that thing.
And like, everybody was justlike high five and you and

Zach M (17:29):
yes,

John (17:30):
yay.
You official.

Zach M (17:32):
for sure.
And honestly, like later, like maybe twomonths later I flowed like at least eight
or nine other people in there, you know,

John (17:43):
The put on the put on, right?

Zach M (17:46):
because it was QA.
What ended up being was QA and like,the way it works is they hire a bunch
of people on temporary contractsand there's like a training period.
And if you don't cut it after thetraining period of like a month or
whatever, they just let you go anyway.
So like, you know, that vetting out,but I still had to like, prove myself.
I got on a team, I wrote up a bunch ofbugs, you know, like I, I did a good job.

(18:06):
Right.
But a lot of people, I did get a lotof people there that didn't make it.
I
had no business in there.

John (18:11):
there you go.
That says something about you,

Zach M (18:13):
Uh,

John (18:14):
just anybody can walk up the street and can walk in and maybe survive one day.
But you know, to hold on, yougotta be busting your ass.
You gotta be actually doing the joband keep that analytical eye and

Zach M (18:24):
Yeah.

John (18:25):
writing practices or writing acumen.
what did you learn on the job versuslike, what did you just already have?

Zach M (18:33):
Well, I ended up doing QA for five years.
I didn't really know much aboutmaking video games other than
like how to swap out art files.
Right.
I figured out like, oh, yeah.
Modding like really basic, like I wouldsay like junior level design task type

John (18:49):
Okay.

Zach M (18:50):
you know, like go place this object here, you
know, like that kind of thing.
so over the time I was in QA, whichwas five years, I learned everything
about how to make a video game, like

John (18:59):
Everything.

Zach M (19:00):
yeah, for sure.
Cause you can see at EA, like it's great.
Like the QA teams, at least where I wasat, which the head was, the headquarters
is like the QA teams are reallyintegrated with the development teams.
And so if you end up working with adevelopment team, they're cool people,

John (19:14):
what shipped games did you QA for?

Zach M (19:16):
the first one ever was James Bond.
The world is not enough, whichwas on the PlayStation one.
And it also came out of the Nintendo 64.
I mostly worked on thePlayStation one version.

John (19:26):
That was probably the one after golden.
iREIT
like a golden.
I was, yeah.
Yeah, Cause it was like, I thinkI remember it was like, oh yeah.
Anything James Bond aftergolden, I want to play.
And then playing and belike, oh, it's different.
It's
different.

Zach M (19:39):
Yup.
after that I did a knockout Kings game.
I did a couple Sims expansion packs.
I did Shogun, total war.
I did majestic, which wasan all online ea.com game.
Um, yeah, it's a reallyweird, like augmented reality.
It's funny if you look backat it now, it might do okay.
In this current time, but itwasn't, it was, it was weird one.

(20:03):
I did a whole bunch of SIM stuff,so I did like, all the Sims handheld
games, like the Sims busting outthe Sims to herb Sims in the city.
Right.
So I worked at Max's for awhile.
I did battlefield too.
I was an assistant leadon battlefield two in QA.

John (20:22):
Yeah.

Zach M (20:22):
there are a few, there are a few more, you know, I
did a five-year so that there's
probably a few more, but thoseare probably the big ones.
Yeah.

John (20:27):
like, I know a few people that might have one ship game in.

Zach M (20:31):
Right, right.
I mean, and there's the advantageof it is that you see in QA you're
on it for the last six months.
And so what would happen for me is like,I'd shipped two games a year, you know, or
it's like, I'm on a game for six months.
Cause at the time EA was justshipping out so many games.
This is back when you could make atriple a game with like 20 people

John (20:52):
That's right, man.
Yeah.
You told them about

Zach M (20:53):
for like
20
million or 18 million or 10million, you know, AAA games.
Right.
And so,

John (20:59):
one P

Zach M (21:00):
yeah.
No, X-Box one, the original X-Box
PS two just came out.
It was brand new.
It was the new hotness.

John (21:07):
by the way.
Fuck the damn X-Box naming conventions.
Right?

Zach M (21:11):
They're
terrible.

John (21:12):
I mean to say the original Xbox and I say Xbox one, that's incorrect

Zach M (21:16):
terrible.

John (21:17):
like third Xbox.
Yeah.
Thanks for correcting me.
X-Box with the duke controller
and PS two games.
Uh, you're shipping themby about two a year.
Learning how games are made.
I love it.
Like, cause have to tip my hatto Zach because I feel like you

(21:37):
were paying attention in there.
Taking notes, learning, talking topeople, developing that blueprint to
then you move into lead and management.
how does that change it up for you?

Zach M (21:52):
Well, yeah, I'd always wanted to be a designer.
So I did have, in my mind, once Iwas in there, like I had this idea
of like, I need to actually figureout what a designer does because I,
I know it's not what I think it is.
Right.
Like, it's something similar to what Ithink it is, but you know what I mean?
It's like a designer designs, a game.
Okay, cool.
But what does that mean?
Like day to day, hour to hour,minute to minute in some way, right?

(22:14):
Like what is the actual job?

John (22:15):
Did you get to connect with developers like in
your day to day?

Zach M (22:19):
Yeah, for sure.
Cause like, you know, They're justends up being like interactions
for whatever, you know, you'rewriting a bugs, they need to see it.
You know, it's like, uh, I wouldspecialize in like hard to find like
real specific bugs, you know, whereyou need to come down and look at this.

John (22:37):
I get that FaceTime.

Zach M (22:39):
Yeah.

John (22:40):
I want to see your face.
You got to see this happen on my screen.
I can't even write it down.
I can't even.

Zach M (22:45):
yeah.
And, and when I found out while Iwas working is like, honestly, that
like maybe like I was more suited forproduction, which at EA production is,
is, is really more designed, adjacent
than a lot of other companiesbecause EA has this role
called a development director.
Right.
So at every other, I'm not sure, Ishouldn't say every other because I've

(23:06):
not worked at that many companies.
But from my understanding producer at mostcompanies is like the person that does
the budgeting and the scheduling and themanaging of the people, and also runs the
meetings and takes notes and make surethat all those notes get communicated
out to everybody and all that.

John (23:25):
I agree.
I agree.
Yeah.
They don't have a hand in the creative,whereas at EA and a few other places,
producers are heavily involved in the

Zach M (23:35):
They, the producers are less involved in the schedule.
There's these development directorsthat do the schedule and some of
the more like management type stuff.
And the producers more focused.
They're still in the meetingsand they're still the ones taking
notes and making sure all the workgets done and coordinating a lot.
But they're also likethey're designed adjacent.
They're very, you know, likeconnected with design and in this,

(23:57):
the idea is supposed to be that theproducer is the one, like in charge
of quality, like, Hey, this is good.
And so if you're a designerworking on something, I'm, uh,
I'm the producer working on it.
My job is supposed to be tosupport you and to make sure
you have the things you have.
And if your design isn't up to snuffto kind of like push you to like,
Hey man, this part needs work or whatever.
And that's a tricky job

John (24:17):
you have veto power to just straight up cut content as A producer.

Zach M (24:21):
of times, yeah.
That's
the production is making that decision.
You try to make it withthe rest of the team,
my feeling on like a good produceris that a good producer is an
advocate for people around them.
they're really like anenhancer for everybody else.
It's not my design.
It's your design, but I'mhelping you get your design made.
Right.

John (24:38):
Thanks for saying that, man.
it makes me feel good, right.
I mean, if you're like Yeah, an ally, asopposed to like, an antagonist kind of
thing, you actually, the first game yougot to work as a producer on was the.

Zach M (24:49):
Yeah, that's right.
I was a QA lead at Max's and, what hadhappened was Max's used to be its own
studio in EA like shut down the buildingand moved all of them to headquarters.
it's like a smart business move.
Why are we paying rentin this other building?
Let's just have you hereat the headquarters.
The facilities are great,
but it was like awkward for us.
Like I worked at the Max's studio.

(25:09):
And so for us, it's like awkward cominginto this like different environment where
we're like the separate team or whatever.
Long story short, they gavea bunch of Max's people.
They said, Hey, we're going to haveyou guys make the Simpsons game.

John (25:21):
oh, wow.

Zach M (25:22):
it'll be EA, but like, you know, break off and, and, you know, do
something, not Maxus there's, as you canimagine, like at Max's after a while,
there are a lot of people there andthey're like, yeah, I love the Sims.
I love some city, but like,man, I've been working on this
for
a long
time.

John (25:37):
You need a breath of creative, fresh air.
Yeah.

Zach M (25:39):
Right.
And so they came to me and theysaid, Hey, would you want to be
a producer on the Simpsons game?
I had had experience working with.
an external developer that they weregoing to use for the Nintendo DS version.
you know, I was like just areally well-suited for the, job.
And so that's how I moved over.
Yeah.

John (25:54):
Because you had relationships working with outsourcing team
that they were going to bring in.

Zach M (26:00):
She lived there, they were up here.
they were up in the Seattle area.
They were called griptonite.
yeah, so it was griptonite and
so I actually came up here andstayed up here for a whole summer.
at that point, I was reallydoing a producer work,
but I was still in QA, you know?

John (26:14):
Before having it in your title kind of
thing,
right?

Zach M (26:17):
I did that for a long time.
That's been the curse of my career.
Is that like, I always do the next job.
I'm not good at asking forlike raises or promotions.
I don't care to be honest with you,I'm trying to make a good game.
And so if I see something thatneeds to be done, I'll just go do it

John (26:29):
that's kind of the hack though.
Like a

Zach M (26:30):
right.

John (26:31):
always push for like, how do I get to the next level

Zach M (26:34):
We'll just do it.

John (26:35):
just do the fucking job.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You see a job that needs to be done.
do it.
show people that you do in it, makingtheir lives easier, filling this gap.
And then it'll be a natural no-brainermore often than not to be like, Hey,
you're doing the produce job here.
You're producing.
Hey, you're doing thetech design job here.
We have a tech design slot.
want it?
It's yours kind of thing.

Zach M (26:55):
Yep.
A hundred percent.

John (26:57):
Dope.
So you are living in Seattle,managing grip tonight as a
producer on the SIM Sims.
What was it?
All the skews?

Zach M (27:07):
No, they just did the Nintendo DS.
So they were like, handheld,I think that's the name?
Right?
Grip, like grip

John (27:12):
Um,

Zach M (27:14):
guess they did, like, they were handheld specialists.
Like they did like GBA, Nintendo, DS, PSP.
Right.
That was back when you know,before this is a pre switch times.
Right?
Like

John (27:23):
yeah,

Zach M (27:23):
like a whole thing.
And so, I worked on that and it waslike back and forth, you know, I
lived in the bay area at the time.
So it was like, I would come up here, stayup here for awhile, go back down there.

John (27:32):
I'm always curious, right?
Because I'd never been in that capacitywhere it's like, I'm at a studio, but I
get to like be in all sorts of studio.
Are you in there in person?
Are you on there?
Just kind of virtually, to mewhat it's like producing and
managing an outsource house.

Zach M (27:46):
Yeah.
So the way it kind of works is thatat the beginning you settle on like
a contract and then you, you, youbasically detail at these milestones
and the milestones are like, Hey, onthis date, you're going to have this.
It's very detailed out.
Like this level is gonna work.
This character is gonna have theseanimations, this pages of details of
what each milestone is composed of.

John (28:03):
milestones or like what two, three months,

Zach M (28:06):
yeah, whatever, it depends on the project, but like three
months, every three months usually.
Yeah.
So there's like four milestones a year.
You know, in the end, like what happensis these milestone dates come up the
mechanism at play in the office is likefinance comes to production and says,
Hey, did they achieve this milestone?
or no.
And if you say yes,they send them a check.

(28:26):
And if you say, no, they don't.
okay, that sounds really easy.
Right.
But like, it's the producer's jobto like really track all the things
that are in that milestone and workwith the developer to make sure
that they hit these milestones.
You don't want to like tell thedeveloper, oh, you didn't hit it.
You know, that's not a cool thing.
You don't want to do that.
Like,
that means people mightnot get paid that month.
it's not a good time to be that person.

(28:47):
And so you're really trying tohelp them hit their milestones.
And like, I, you know, it putsyou in a weird position, right?
Like, like I've been in a positionwhere there's milestone where like they
didn't hit it, but they did get someother stuff done where I just said,
yeah, they hit it, you know, like pay him.
Right.
But like they did,

John (29:03):
shit.

Zach M (29:03):
it's a hard thing to manage because like, well, games
change as you're making them,

John (29:07):
Yeah.

Zach M (29:08):
and so what we thought was like a big, important thing, you know,
when we signed this contract, isn'tnecessarily an important thing anymore.
And so you hopefully want to workwith people that are just cool
like that, and you don't haveto constantly modify contracts.
Right.

John (29:19):
that makes sense.
In the ever-changing landscapeof making games, that contracts
usually sign and they're iron clad.
It's like, well, actually it was likesome gray area that you can kind of
grade things by, as you were working withgripped and I get in, Simpson's done.
what do you do?
What essentially, you're like an outsider
working with the team.
Right.

Zach M (29:37):
Yeah,

John (29:37):
of control money.
what advice you have for peopletrying to build that relationship
and the strength in it?
Right?

Zach M (29:45):
yeah.
I mean, that's why I would, I would goin person and like, I think that the main
thing is having the focus on like, Hey, weare trying to accomplish a goal together.
This isn't adversarial in any way.
Right.
So I think that it's just too easy toget into, like something doesn't go.
Right.
it's so, and so's anidiot or whatever, you
know, it's just easy to like,

John (30:04):
news.

Zach M (30:05):
and for sure, like the other thing about like, dealing with that is like,
you're going to deal with like differentcultures, depending on where the studio
is, or who's working there or whatever.
Right.
There's all sorts of differentpersonalities and cultures and all
these things you're gonna deal with.
You know, I've worked with studiosand in other countries as well.
Right.
And so it's like, you're trying to help.
You're trying to

John (30:23):
Yeah,

Zach M (30:23):
the same thing.
The main biggest thing.
And all of it is giving people the benefitof the doubt, like not doing the thing
where just get mad at me, you know,like assume the worst about people or
assume, oh, they didn't get this done.
These morons are that, you
know, lazy.
Lazy is like the worst
one.

John (30:39):
bus, right?

Zach M (30:40):
Yeah.

John (30:41):
it makes sense that like, if they don't finish that job,
it's essentially your fault.
But you know, I think when you throwthem into the fire, it's easy to
throw other people under the bus.
Oh, it's then let's workwith somebody else next

Zach M (30:51):
Well, the other part of this is like, we're playing the
game that they're making, or we're
making this game together and we'regiving them all this feedback, do this, do
that, do this, do that, do this, do that.
And so there's a valid argument tobe made of like, Hey, we're doing all
this and that instead of these things.
And so you're the reason we're behind,but you're saying like, Hey, no,
those things you had to do otherwisethis game, isn't going to be good.

(31:12):
You know, the agreement we're tryingto make a good game, you know,
like

John (31:16):
fuzzy area.
Good.

Zach M (31:18):
Right.
That's tricky.
Cause for some people it is just work.
And specifically when you hire an externaldeveloper, they might not be as passionate
about what you're doing as you are.
They're just trying to get the work done.
It's, you know, nine to five,Monday to Friday, just get it done.
And that gets tricky, you know?

John (31:33):
one of the projects you're most proud of is Dante's Inferno.

Zach M (31:36):
Yeah,

John (31:37):
I have that game prominently featured at the top of my queue to be
like one day, I'm going to get on this.
I have my EA play account.
It's like
the first one on the list.
So to fire up and play because onpaper, the setting is fantastic.
The game style, right.
Which is, I think it's meant to belike a God of war style game was
like, oh yeah, give me more of that.

(31:58):
Hell yeah.
Tell me about how it was gettingthat thing off the ground.
Getting that thing out the door

Zach M (32:04):
when I say that, that's like one of the more proud ones I do,
like the game, but it's also like thecircumstance, you know, it's like,
I know what went into making it andthe circumstances around making it.
And so sometimes, like, I think that gamehas a Metacritic of like 70 something,
right?
Like, Hey,

John (32:19):
pretty average.
Yeah,

Zach M (32:20):
but it's good.
Like, I would agree with that.
It's not doing anything crazyinnovative or over the top.
It's not the game of theyear, but it's a good game.
Like
it's worth playing.
Yeah.
It's a solid game.

John (32:30):
the way you wanted it to play.

Zach M (32:31):
Right.
and so I think that like just the,the challenges in making that were,
what was cool about working on that,you know, we, we made that in like two
years, we made that game really quickly.
that game runs at 60 framesa second, the whole time.

John (32:44):
That's nuts, ground up fresh IP, probably new team.

Zach M (32:48):
Yeah.

John (32:49):
years.
No way.

Zach M (32:50):
It was a lot of people from the Simpsons game actually.
Like
it, it was kind of a
yeah.
Well, cause it is like 3d platform.
Yeah.
You know
what I mean?
It's like, okay, what were wedoing in the Simpsons game?
It was 3d platforming.
Yeah.
It's
shaded like, right.
The
combat's very different.
And, and I, you know, they just had likereally good combat design and, and really

(33:13):
good engineers at that time that studio,like the engineering horsepower at that

John (33:18):
I don't know.

Zach M (33:19):
Like we were on our own tech, that was our engine.
And we had like,
some heavy hitters.

John (33:24):
blowing my mind to think the Simpson's 3d platformer is under the hood.
It's very similar
to what ship.

Zach M (33:32):
in there.
Yeah, for sure.

John (33:34):
I love it.

Zach M (33:34):
stuff from like godfather in there, you know, like, cause that was
another thing that that studio did.
And were really good atlike that engine man.
really, that was one of the things whenwe went, everybody went to frostbite and
I like frostbite and I, and I understandlike as a company, why you would want
all your teams on one engine, all that
like, but I, man, I miss working on that,

(33:55):
that engine we had,

John (33:57):
Did it have a name?

Zach M (33:58):
I guess we call the tools like Neo, but no, we didn't, it
didn't really cause no, we weren'ttrying to like, you know, sell
it or anything.
It was just, yeah, it wasour engine that we used.
Yeah.

John (34:07):
speaking of making the jump to frostbite your first
time on a frostbite project,

Zach M (34:11):
our first frostbite project was.
I guess it was
it was battlefield
hardline.
I had gone to Montreal for ayear to help them ship army of
two, and that was on frostbite.
So that was actually myfirst experience with it.

John (34:23):
devil's cartel

Zach M (34:24):
yup.

John (34:25):
I think I know a bunch of people in Montreal that worked on their game.
were you out in Montreal

Zach M (34:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I went there for a year.
Yeah.

John (34:32):
Was there like a, reach Snyder or like an Alex Hutchinson

Zach M (34:36):
They're
left already.
They worked on the second one.

John (34:39):
This is the third one.

Zach M (34:40):
This is the third one.

John (34:41):
Okay.
The second one is what?
The 40th day
there ones devil's cartel.
Oh shit.
Okay.
Okay.
I,

Zach M (34:48):
like, look, I don't know all the details, but like that
was their game, their franchise.

John (34:54):
when you say there, we tell them,

Zach M (34:56):
the guys, you just mentioned my understanding, right?
Like the read is specifically wason it from the first one, if I'm
wrong about that, I apologize.
But that's my understanding.
Something had happened therewhere like they left, they all
like all that leadership left.
And so they went through like abunch of EPS by the time I got there,
they were on like their fourth EAP.
you know how what that mustbe like is like, oh, you don't

(35:18):
have your like tone setter.
it was kind of like an emergency,Hey, this game needs to ship.
And the team has just been having allthis turmoil and there's not really
like a lot of like leadership there.
And so for me, it was like a chanceto go there and be in a much more
elevated leadership position than I wasvisceral in that, like, I went in the,

(35:40):
you know, I hate to say like, cause Idon't like, I don't see myself as like
a boss or like power or authority.
It's not that it's just like, I went inthere and like had a lot of influence on
the way that we were gonna ship that game.
I went, I was sent in thereto like close that game out.

John (35:54):
you are closer.
That's a
There's people in this industrythat are known as closers are sent
to get a game out the damn door.

Zach M (36:03):
Right.
And so that was my role on armyis to go be the closer and like,

John (36:07):
is there discussions ahead of time to be like, Hey projects
I don't even know the word.
Right.
I wouldn't say turmoil.
Right.
But it's just kind of like, doesn't havedirection or it's kind of spinning, right?
Like, Hey, we need you to go help getthis thing a trajectory to finishing
what conversations are happeningat HQ to kind of set that up.

Zach M (36:29):
for sure.
We knew that there were some problems.
And then Because we're a headquarters.
There's like big meetings that happen orthere's like executive views and stuff.
And because we're the studio there, a lotof the teams that come through, they come
through and they like, they meet us, you

John (36:43):
Yeah.

Zach M (36:44):
and, maybe sometimes they need some help with something.
And so they had like a senior producer,had come in for one of these meetings.
And like, let's just sayit wasn't impressive, man.
Like to the point where like, I startedlike running my mouth a little bit
me and my buddy, like not to him, butlike, you know, we have like the GM
of the studio sat like right next tous, like, and he's very approachable.

(37:05):
It was a very like casualvibe in that studio, you know?

John (37:08):
meaning it's accessible.
Like it doesn't matter what your role is.
Everybody can

Zach M (37:12):
You could just go talk to him.
Right.
You could just go talk.
It's an open door policy.
Everybody's sitting out in there.
There's no offices, everybody's in cubes.
and I start, you know, me and my buddy whowas like a noted, like shit talker, you
know, dude, that doesn't look good, man.
What the fuck?
Like, they need to get that shit together.
Like they're not running that project.
Right.
Like, is that who's running that project.
Like, whoa, that must be in trouble.

(37:33):
No wonder it's in trouble.
Those kinds of comments.

John (37:35):
that's always surprising to me Right.
now.
I've lived through it and workingon SQLs And things of that, but
it's, Hey, it's an established IP.
already done two of them, you know,kind of the core pillars, is this?
so off the mark

Zach M (37:48):
right, exactly.
The specialty, like, dude, thisis the third one, like, come on.
This is not that hard.
anyway, like, you know, I gotpulled into a conversation where
was like, look, we need someone togo there and close this thing out.
You've had experience working with thatstudio before, because I went there
during dead space too, because theyhelped us with DLC during dead space two.
And I was the producer that managed that.

(38:09):
So I
already had like some
relationships.
Yep.

John (38:13):
there calling out to be like, yo, thing could be better.
in the,

Zach M (38:17):
I could

John (38:17):
the one complaining.

Zach M (38:18):
right.
Okay.
Why don't you go do a
better than which
is.
like, all right.
Yeah.
Which I like that let's do
that.

John (38:24):
Okay.
Cool.
Cool.
Cool.
So you knew, you knew the studio,you worked with them before and this
phase two, a big fan of dead space.
I'm looking forward to that.

Zach M (38:31):
yeah, me too.

John (38:32):
but you go out to Montreal.
So you had been there before,

Zach M (38:36):
And I had lived there for like brief, like four weeks, you
know, like I stayed there for fourweeks, I think was the longest.
And then another time Iwent there for two weeks,

John (38:43):
what time of the year?
Was it out of

Zach M (38:45):
oh yeah.
So like the time summer,
right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was cool.
Right.
And it, dude, that, by the way, likeMontreal, like if anybody's looking
for somewhere to go in the summer,Montreal is one of the best summer cities
in the world.
Montreal is great.
Go
to Montreal.

John (39:04):
Yeah.
I love it.
Right.
Especially where we're both Americansand we go to Montreal and it's just
like, life-changing, eye-openingdamn near religious experience,

Zach M (39:14):
Yup.

John (39:15):
the vibe, the life, the way people just hang to just do things

Zach M (39:20):
Yeah.
So I was into it, like I was into theidea of like, oh yeah, go up to Montreal.
You know,
like, yeah.
And I'd been there my whole life.
And I had, at this point, I'dbeen at EA for, I don't know, 10
years, you know, like a while.
and I'm married and, and you know,they're gonna like rent us in apart.
My wife gets to come andshe's kind of like in between
things is before we had kids.
So it was like just a good, Ijust turned 30, you know, like,

John (39:41):
I forget the name of the location that visceral was at.
Is it like Plaza dissolveor something like that,

Zach M (39:48):
yeah.
Plus the arts or
whatever.
I can't
pronounce it.
You know, like,

John (39:52):
in English, if You read

Zach M (39:53):
yeah.
Place
D R

John (39:56):
but you know, if you want to put the little twing on it, uh, pluses are, and
it's a Metro stop and everything, andyou can kind of walk to old Montreal,
which is kind of like the really cooltouristic hub area with a lot of history.

Zach M (40:09):
Yeah.
Yeah,

John (40:09):
Nice,

Zach M (40:10):
it's a great city.
I miss it, honestly, like by theend I was ready to come home,

John (40:14):
sure.

Zach M (40:15):
but now like that's been awhile,
you know, I would like to go
back to Montreal.

John (40:19):
it, how do you even approach this team?
That's like, kinda like thecapability to make a great game
because they've done it before

Zach M (40:28):
yeah.

John (40:29):
and you're coming in to help them.
Like you've always done, right?
You be like, yo, I am aligned with you.
I want to make a good game.
That's all that matters.

Zach M (40:36):
Yep.

John (40:36):
we get to it, let's get there.
How do you approach that?
What do you, what do you set out.

Zach M (40:41):
was an interesting one because there was a time box thing.
was like, you're not going to make a 90,this isn't going to be the best game ever.
Like you have exactly one yearor I think it was even 11 months.
Right.
You have 11 months to get this thing done.
And there was an end date and ithad to be for like, whatever reasons
that are not there by all my control.
And so it's like, okay, so you get, I getthere and then it's like, figure out what

(41:04):
we have, figure out which of it's good.
Which if it's not, who'smaking the good stuff.
Okay.
And then I'm on them.
First thing.
Oh, you're Steven.
Steven is the designer of the decel.
Oh, this level's good.
Let me go holler.
See what, Steven, you wantto go to lunch dude on me?
Let's go to lunch, Steven.
Hey man, your level's good.
What's up?
How are you doing that?
Who are you working with?
What are your struggles?

(41:24):
You know, it's like, justget right into like, okay.
Figure out who the best people.
How can I empower them more?
Can this guy do more?
Is he, is he happy?
You know?
Okay.
Now figure out.
And then from them, I'm going tojust hear from the conversations
where his pain points are.
I go, I figure out wherethose pain points are.
Who else are they dealing with?
Are they having the same pain points?
Soon enough, I run into Veekan thetechnical artist on the project.

(41:45):
Okay.
Once I have this, I haveeverything because he knows,
who's checking in everything.
He knows who's touching everything andhe knows who's good and who's not good.

John (41:53):
Um, that's true.
TTA is usually always having totouch things after the fact that
we like the Mies.
This has overloaded.
This is too much memory.
This is sloppy.
Yeah.
This is
causing crashes.

Zach M (42:03):
should clarify, at this point in time, there's kind of like
two big aspects of designing a game.
There's like all the mechanicaldesign of the game, and then
there's the level design, right?
Like,

John (42:12):
Yeah.

Zach M (42:13):
I guess you could also say, Hey, there's also like special moments that
aren't necessarily like they're in alevel, but it's not the normal mechanics,

John (42:20):
Yeah, yeah.
What'd we call those man.
I don't even know what you callthose metals, like cinematic cutesy.

Zach M (42:25):
to call them epic moments at visceral.
But my focus at this time is ongetting the levels for this game made.
and specifically the levels are being donein Montreal, which is like half the game.

John (42:35):
Wait, it was co-developed then there was like a few
studios doing

Zach M (42:38):
we're just other studios helping with some of the levels.
Yeah.
you know, it's like figuringout who's doing what who's,
how are they making it good.
And then just plotting out howwe're going to get the rest done.
Right.
And the technical artist, when it comes tolike levels and who's making the levels,
they're going to know who's, who's who,and so once I knew him, you know, it's
like, I'm gonna take this scout to lunch.
I'm going to figure out what's up.
He's going to tell meeverything I need to know.

(43:00):
As far as like what all thepain points are on the project.
Now I just need to go eliminateall those pain points.

John (43:05):
and if you, on the other side of that, no one turns down free lunches, man.
You know, they say there's no suchthing as a free lunch, but if you're
doing your job produces combinedvalue, it's called till lunch.
You're like, hell yeah, man.

Zach M (43:15):
Well, in this particular case, let's be honest.
They don't like me by default.
I'm this American guy coming in totheir place in this position where
it's like, What is this guy here for?

John (43:27):
odds are, you gotta know something's up.
you gotta have a temperature,a pulse of the project to know
that, Hey, things could be better.
And here comes this guy from HQ.
I don't know why Zach, before, whateverreason, anytime somebody comes from the
mothership, just kind of always kindof walking on eggshells and be like,
oh shit.
Oh shit.
Sums up.

Zach M (43:44):
Right.
what it is is like someone sendsan email, Zach is going to be here
and he's going to meet your helpand support, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like all this corporatetalk, but what they say is
like, oh, here's the closer,

John (43:53):
Okay.

Zach M (43:54):
guy's going to be some ruthless, mean you know,
hurry up all that kind of guy.

John (44:01):
Yeah.

Zach M (44:02):
everybody's guard is up,

John (44:03):
Nobody likes

Zach M (44:04):
Like, Ooh, what's up with this guy.
And so if you can take peopleout to like, take people out
to lunch, I know it sounds so

John (44:10):
to let their guard down right.
To
ease out.
They'd be like, yo, I'mnot here to kill anybody.
Yeah.

Zach M (44:15):
I'm here to help.
I work for you, the easiest, bestpart about this too, is even if
there are people that are working inthe studio and there's some kind of
political things going on about who'sgoing to do what, and who's going
to be the boss or whatever, nothingto do with me, I'm here to do this.
Then I'm going back home.
Like

John (44:29):
yeah,

Zach M (44:30):
here to replace anybody or like this studio or any of that, you

John (44:35):
yeah.

Zach M (44:35):
like I'm just here to like, try to help you guys make this good.
What are your problems?
Okay, cool.
Let me go see if I can helpyou with some of your problems.
And as soon as I can takeone thing off of your list of
problems, now you're my friend.

John (44:46):
Yeah.
Hell yeah.

Zach M (44:47):
showed up and helped you with something.

John (44:49):
Hell yeah.
You making my life easier.
Why wouldn't I appreciate that.
And continue helping you help us.

Zach M (44:55):
Right.
for sure, there's going to beconversations where it's like,
Hey, I've been playing yourlevel a bunch, check this out.
Like, I don't think this is good or that,you know, I'm not gonna say it like that,
but like, Hey, what's going on here?
What, every single time in myexperience, good designers are
of course, receptive to that.

John (45:10):
That's the job is taking feedback and extrapolating from it.
to make the experience less frictional.

Zach M (45:17):
I'm not the type of guy.
Anyway, when I give feedback,I'm not like it should be this.
I'm more like, Hey, I feel this.
And I think this is why or whatever.
If they ask for suggestionson what I do then.
Sure.
But like, I'm not trying to tellanybody how to do their job.
It's just more
like, Hey, spend some time over here.
Like just over here, spend some time

John (45:35):
This could use some more love.

Zach M (45:37):
yeah.

John (45:37):
difference, man.
The key choice, words, and languagethey get, especially your Zach.
We haven't even touchedon the impact that it has.
Being in a, in a differentworld, different culture, right?
The way that they used to talkingto people in the way we are used
to talking to people, there can bethis language barrier thing, right?
like you mean something a certainway, but it comes out or it gets
interpreted a completely different way.

Zach M (45:58):
that came up a couple times because I only speak English.
A lot of people there speak French.
and so like, what would happen is I'm ina meeting where like, we're talking about
how to solve some problem and some peoplestart talking French and then somebody
else says, Hey, you know, that's rude.
Can you guys talk in English?
So my thing with that was like youdo, if you need to talk in France,

John (46:17):
yeah.

Zach M (46:18):
that because like, maybe you can express something.
that's your thing, like solvethe problem however you want.
what's the rudeness of it, is that like,oh, they're talking to the language so
that they could be talking about me.
I don't care.

John (46:29):
Oh, you're just not included there.
They're excluding you.
Right, Like in this dayand age of like inclusion
and everybody has anequal seat at the table,

Zach M (46:37):
I get that.
but I just made it really clear thatlike, Hey, you need to, if you need to
talk in French, that's cool with me.
I'm not trying to like, that on anybody.
You

John (46:46):
cool.
cool.
shout out to the person that stoodup for you though, Like just to
set that precedent to be like, yo,keep in mind, keep dude included.
He's here to help solve the problem.
And he doesn't speak the language.

Zach M (46:58):
it's an interesting thing in Montreal, the whole language thing.
And like some people are really seriousabout it and you know, they kind of get
upset.

John (47:05):
I picked up a few things, right.
You can't not pick up a few thingsif you live there long enough.
And, I love it.
Right.
I'm with you on like, yoman, express yourself.
However, the heck it is most efficientto you just so long as it either solves
a problem, moves the needle or someonecan break it down for me after the fact.

Zach M (47:22):
Exactly like that.
And that's mainly what it is.
It's like as if two engineers start goingoff in France, let them go when they
figure it out and they can come back andtell me, we're going to solve the problem.
tomorrow or it's going to be Wednesday.
Great.
That's all I need to know.
Awesome guys.

John (47:37):
yeah.
Yeah.
I'll call out to man.
A lot of people will always askme and be like, yo man, how the
hell was it working in Montreal?
How the hell did you do it?
was it tough with the languagebarrier and everything like that?
And I, S.
English is kind of the main language

Zach M (47:49):
Yup.

John (47:50):
You know what I'm

Zach M (47:51):
Yup.

John (47:51):
no matter what language is saying, PlayStation X-Box in ripe or Perforce or
unreal, it's it always comes out the same.
It sounds the same.
and you're able to do

Zach M (47:59):
Yeah.

John (48:00):
able to
get shit done.

Zach M (48:01):
that was like one of my most enjoyable years of my life, but
also like one of the most importantyears of my life, because like, I
lived in California my whole life.
Like I'd never done anything like that.
it was like a really eye-openingexperience, you know?

John (48:13):
that's dope that they let you bring out.
Yo, your wife

Zach M (48:16):
Yeah.
No, I didn't have a kid at the time.
My dog, we brought our dog out.

John (48:20):
Hey, that's, that's even harder.
I think a dog to Montreal iseven harder than if you had a kid

Zach M (48:25):
Yeah.

John (48:26):
That's cool that you that happen so you can kind of be
more efficient at your job.
You don't have to be on the phone,especially with the time difference.
That makes it tough.

Zach M (48:33):
Yep.

John (48:34):
you ship army to you get the shit out the door.

Zach M (48:37):
Yeah.

John (48:37):
Compared to Dante's Inferno in terms of the things you had to do and what ended
up going out the door better learn from.

Zach M (48:45):
it's just different, right?
Like I don't think the game is as good.
I think that the game is like, it'scompromised because like we were
in a rush to get it done, you know?

John (48:52):
You said you had a year

Zach M (48:53):
right.
Yeah.
And it wasn't, they didn't have much,you know, like it was, it was tough.
a lot of people had to like work reallyhard just to get that out and like, it
definitely, it's not like an amazing, it'snot terrible, Dante is, is a better game.
I was in a very senior role.
It was like, the most influenceI've ever had was on army up
to that point in my career.
And so like, that was like a big dealfor me, like to be in this position

(49:16):
where I went from, like, I startedat EA right after high school.
And I worked with a lot ofpeople, like the same people.
And so I was always like the youngguy, the funny guy, like, and so it
like elevated me, you know what I mean?
It was, it felt like Ileveled up after all.

John (49:31):
Yeah.
Cause you were entrusted tohelp this to close, right?
I

Zach M (49:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.

John (49:36):
not every role is created equal.
You can be a producer, but dependingon the point in production, you
are a producer has different value.

Zach M (49:44):
they send me out to a foreign country.
They pay for a year of lodging,you know, they like rent me a car,
they fly my wife and dog out there.
They like pay for like my bills, youknow, like, so that their show is like
investing, not just what they pay me,but like more like, so it's like, Hey,
we think that this guy brings value.
Otherwise you're not goingto spend all that money.

(50:04):
Right.
And
it's like, that's like a big, and thenI delivered, I did my job really well.
Like I did a really good job of that.
Like,
you know, I came back and everyone'slike, you did a good job, you know,
which like, that feels good, you know?

John (50:16):
Fuck.
Yeah,
man.
Shout to you.
I got to ask about battlefield hardline.

Zach M (50:20):
Yeah,

John (50:21):
believe it or not.
This was the first battlefield.
I really sunk my teeth into just becauseit was, you know, single-player narrative,
had a really gritty story thatanybody who watches Narcos Miami
vice bring in bed, any of thosethings man can, can, can relate to.
I dug the entire narrative and Iloved the presentation of that game.

(50:45):
and anytime I got stealthmechanics, I could not tell you
how much I loved drop getting thedrop on somebody be like freeze.
Right.
And then

Zach M (50:53):
Right.
Yeah,

John (50:54):
them.
I love that

Zach M (50:55):
yeah,
yeah,

John (50:57):
help to me about that game.
And I'm just, I'm geekingout right now, right?
Like, uh, how, how was it working with,was that a pure visceral production?
Was you, were you workingin tandem with dice?
How was that?

Zach M (51:08):
that, um, it was mostly visceral.
I mean, dice did work on itand some other studios helped
out, you know, how it is at EA.
A lot of other people pitch in, butmostly it was a, it was visceral.
Um, I worked on, so I came backand I got, I was basically the, the
main producer on the multiplayer.
So like, I didn't
really have any involvement in thesingle-player, although I agree.

(51:31):
And I knew that that's whatwe were going to focus on.
Mostly was nailing that single-playerexperience because up until then, like
it, the, the single-player experiencesfor battlefield were like bad.
Like

John (51:43):
well, you bought that game for the multiplayer

Zach M (51:46):
that game for the multiplayer and they just weren't, you know, they hadn't
put, and we were known, visceral is knownfor like, making, like, you know, dead
space, like campaign games, you know?
And so, um, Th that was like a, really,this is like another level up because I
man for a lot, like I got left alone andI don't mean obviously a lot of people

(52:08):
worked on multiplayer, but like from aproduction standpoint, you know, like
management was so focused on the campaign
that like, we really got to,like, we had a pretty young crew
working on the multiplayer and wejust got to go, you know, like,

John (52:24):
That's the best.
Isn't that?
The best?

Zach M (52:26):
yeah.
it
was it

John (52:27):
Like no

Zach M (52:28):
fun.

John (52:29):
No attention.
You can kind of run offand make something awesome.

Zach M (52:32):
It's just that, like the there's only so much time in the day and that
they're, they're reviewing, like they justhad so much focus on the single player
and when you're reviewing single playerand like, you'll do these dailies where
you're playing a level and like walkingthrough every little bit and Hey, fix
taking notes and fix this and fix that.
And we're like doing daily playtests where people fill out a form,
you know, but it's like, great.

(52:53):
It's just data for us.
You know, we just keep

John (52:55):
Yeah.

Zach M (52:56):
Um, and so we had like a big E three demo right.
Where they announced the game and it waslike, and the demo is live right now.
It was like a surprise drop.
And so there was a lotof focus on us for that.
Like all of a sudden, all the,you know, it's like a big demo
at all the execs, including dicewere like really paying attention.

John (53:13):
I could easily call out the logo and like the bald cop with
like the aviator glasses, Right.
Like

Zach M (53:19):
Yeah.

John (53:20):
that, branding all over the buses and the sides of The buildings

Zach M (53:24):
Right.

John (53:25):
three and all this

Zach M (53:26):
The rooftop.
Yeah.
They landed the helicopter, somenonsense, they were going big on it.
And so, but as soon as that was doneand we delivered that one map, the
heat was off and we just went andmade a bunch of maps and like, no
one, I mean, we just got to, you know,like the team made that without much
influence from any outside forces.
And so like, as far as working atEA and I was like the most pure

(53:50):
experience I had had as far aslike, just game development.
Like, dude, no, one's bugging us.
Like, I'm the, I'm the manager, I'mthe one that's bugging, you know what
I mean?
It's like, if I just I'm runningthis the way I want to run it and no
one's telling me otherwise, like thedevelopment directors are all, like,
I don't wanna say a junior to me.
I don't mean it in like a way of like,I have more authority or whatever,

(54:12):
but they were like, they're less, youknow, they were or, or my same age and

John (54:16):
less.
experienced.

Zach M (54:17):
And they were taking cues from me.
Like I was the one like day to daykind of like calling out like the
direction we were going to move.
Right.
And so it's like, awesome.
This is like the dream, you know?
Um, and so, yeah, like thatwas, that was a rad experience.
Like, you know, it's a multiplayerfor a battlefield game and we did

(54:38):
some like really cool, innovativestuff that hadn't been done in
battlefield up until that time.

John (54:43):
Well, like what?

Zach M (54:45):
Um, I just think like, so specifically, like
how fast our vehicles were.
Right.
So we brought an element of speedto that game that hadn't been there.
I think obviously taking it out oflike the military context period.
It's like the onlybattlefield that's done that.
And you could say whatyou want about that.
And maybe that wasn't a good idea.
I don't know, but likegetting to do it was cool.
You know what I mean?
Like trying to figure out how we'regoing to adapt this formula for

(55:07):
like, not a war zone is, is, isa fun and interesting challenge.
And then I just think like some of thestuff it's like small little stuff, you
know, little features, like being ableto take ammo off of the guy that carries
AMA without him putting the pack down or
the way we outline theconquests zones on the mini map.
Right.
Like a bunch of little stuff.
And then, know, I know that we reallypushed forward the overall net code

(55:30):
for the battlefield as a franchise.

John (55:32):
Sick sick.
Hell yeah, man.
You, you had your stamp on thatfranchise and move the forward.
Cause you know, the last one was 20,48 definitely is a better experience
because of some of that work.
Right.
Like
nudging that stuff forward.

Zach M (55:47):
yes, like there's work that went into that game that then
was reflected in future games.
And my favorite thing honestly, is whenit's not, and then I'm getting tagged
on Twitter by people who are like, whydon't you have this thing from line?
Cause they know I'm like thehard line I'll defend hard line,
man.
I'm a, I'm an advocatefor battlefield hardline.
Uh,
so I get tagged in a lot oflike Heartline conversation,

(56:09):
I love it.
After battlefield hardline,most of the people went to but a
small group of us stayed on andstarted like prototyping things.
I just pitched skate.
so I ended up talking to financeguy and he was like really into it.
yeah.

John (56:22):
like in between projects at EA, is there a mechanism that you can
kind of run ideas up the tent pole tobe like, Hey, what if we build this?
Or what did we build a

Zach M (56:33):
Um,

John (56:33):
What happened to this franchise?

Zach M (56:35):
sometimes, sometimes not.
Right.
So it prior, like my experience hadbeen like, not necessarily, like, for
instance, when I got done with, army oftwo, I came back, I arrived back home and
like, we were doing battlefield hardline.
This is your role on bathroom, hard line.
Right.
There's no like downtime.
It's like, you're going right into this.
Right.
And
so, and maybe that's just like myperspective, you know, as, as I

(56:56):
worked my way up the ladder, itwasn't until after Hartline that I
had the opportunity to like pitch, you
know, like, Hey, you're not
assigned to anything, likecome up with some ideas.
Let's talk, you know,like that kind of thing
had never happened for me.

John (57:10):
they gave you the kind of a, what do you call it, man?
Like green grass pastures to be like,

Zach M (57:14):
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, And that I'd never been in that position before.
And so that at that time,me and some other people
put together like a

John (57:22):
it.
You earned that.

Zach M (57:23):
Yeah.
I've been there a long timeand I'd worked really hard EA.
I worked really hard there, so

John (57:29):
this is our, what?
Like 13, 14 years.

Zach M (57:32):
no, I mean, this is, I was only on ragtag for like the last
year and I, I was there for 17 years.
So this is like 16 years at this

John (57:37):
Dan it 16 years of putting the, paying your dues from the
ground up.
Finally, you got a chance to belike, yo, what do you want to do?
What do you want to work
on?

Zach M (57:46):
to be clear, like I, if I had had some idea and really pushed it before,
then I probably could have got someone tolisten, but I had never had them come to
me and say, Hey, why don't you just spendsome time, you know, working on an idea?

John (57:57):
So what'd you do with it?

Zach M (57:58):
Well, we pitched a, like a, basically a sequel, not
necessarily SQL to hard line.
I don't know if you'd callit a spinoff or whatever.
We, we, we basically came up withlike another first person shooter
multiplayer game that we could do.
And at the same time, I worked witha guy in finance on like a skate,
basically just pitching like, Hey,why skate was because I didn't know.

(58:19):
My thing was never thatI wanted to make skate.
Like it's not for my studio.
I just, my favorite game of all time.
So I literally asked him, Hey, Ibefriended this guy who was like
pretty high up in EA finance.
And I was like, Hey, like, howcome we never made another skate?
Like, what's up with that?
And he's like, yeah, you know, what'sinteresting is like the numbers on skate
three, we should make another skate.
Like, what do you think?
Like, would you pit youshould pitch it or whatever.

(58:41):
And so he and I like put together likesome numbers, presentations, and, uh,
and then I reached out to some guys inVancouver and figured out what they had.
Like, of course theguys that made the game.
Cause I'm not trying to, like,I want, I'm just trying to make
it so they can make the game.

John (58:54):
yeah.

Zach M (58:55):
it's literally as a fan, I'm just trying to enable this game.
Not like I'm necessarilytrying to make it.
I would love to work on it, but
like, Hey man, if they justmake it, I'll be happy.
And so I reached out to them,

John (59:04):
been your, your emo, right?
Your,

Zach M (59:06):
right?

John (59:07):
has always been like, yo, I just want to help things get made.

Zach M (59:10):
Yes.
For sure.
I want to make stuff too.
But at EA, especially, it'slike, my job is producer.
I had that in my mind.
Right.
And so it's different nowthat I'm like, I'm a designer,
you know, but yeah, for sure.
Back then, it's like, I just want to help.
And so I reached out to them andlike, Hey, where are you guys at?
Like, do you guys haveanything on the side cooking?
You know, like of course they did.
Yes.
All right.
Cool.
so I started putting on a presentation.

(59:31):
I didn't get that high.
And like, honestly, I got to thisguy who was like, kind of like,
I would say the gatekeeper forgetting it pitched to publishing.
Like

John (59:40):
Okay.

Zach M (59:41):
down for it, then I could have gone to publishing.
And he said to me, man, Ooh, skater,you know, we know the skaters
only spend their money on weed.
Just some dumb prejudice,weak ass shit, dude,

John (59:51):
Damn man.

Zach M (59:53):
thing was like, Hey, this is in 2016.
And so it's like, Hey, infour years, skateboarding is
going to be an Olympic sport.
We need to start workingon this right now.
Like get out ahead of it.
So we can drop this game whenskateboarding is in the Olympics and
it's on prime time television, like thisis the time to like seize it, you know?
And yeah, you get that this week, dude.

(01:00:15):
And not that that's not, by theway, like I'm not knocking EA.
That's just like one dude that workedthere that had a bad attitude, you
know?

John (01:00:22):
I mean, that's it right?
Like I think you know, I'm an a, and I'llpreface this by saying I've never really
been in on the business side of things andthe financial side of things, my outside
interpretation is they play it safe.
They look at what's hot.
Now they don't give a shitabout what's going to be hot.

(01:00:42):
Right.
So that's the problem.
Right.
As developers, as creators, we'relooking ahead, we're like, yo,
where are people gonna be the line?
Right.
W w you know, and, and that'sthat's that, that's what this
whole, I'm gonna say about that.
like, you, you
were where you should've been, but

Zach M (01:00:57):
it's part partly because they're a publicly traded company
and so there's the stock and theyhave to like perform on this stock.
And so they're scared, you know, and they
only want to do things that theythink they already know for sure
being a success, but you cannever already know for sure.
So it's a little bit foolish.
I think that.
You know, ultimately what happens.
And this has been the history of EAas like someone else innovates in

(01:01:19):
a space and then EA comes in afterand does something in that space.
Right.

John (01:01:25):
Yes.

Zach M (01:01:26):
And, so like, like call of duty is going off.
We need to get one of those.
Let's go buy, you know, uh, diceand, and we'll battle and we'll
push battlefield and that'd be all,that'll be our competitor to that.
Right,

John (01:01:37):
Yeah.
And they did a bunch ofmobile acquisitions last year.
I mean,

Zach M (01:01:40):
right.

John (01:01:41):
look where we are today.
right.
they spin off a studio inVancouver called full circle and

Zach M (01:01:47):
Right.
No, for sure.
But like, look at like, they'relike price modeling, right?
Like the con like premium, right.
This idea that you're going to buya game and you're going to subscribe
to premium, which everybody did,but EA was the last one to leave it.
You know, like they, they haveto cling to it because it's like,
we know this is going to make Xdollars and like our shareholders.

(01:02:10):
And so it, it sucks because like youhave designers there that like are
trying to push the medium forward
and EA is always reactionary.
And the longer we go here, the worstbeing reactionary is because it
used to be like, okay, like we'remaking games, dude for the Atari.

(01:02:31):
And we see Pac-Man, we're like,Pac-Man make us one of those.
Well, dude, I can make youone of those in a month.

John (01:02:36):
yeah,

Zach M (01:02:37):
Right.
And then it got to like the Nintendodays and you see Mario brothers,
like Mario brothers, kids love theseplatformers, make us one of those.
I can make you a platformor like five months,
eight bit farmery we could do this
with like 10 people.
I can make you a platform or five minutes.
And then it became like,you know what I'm saying?
And so the games are getting more common.
You do it takes years to make a game now.
So when they see like, oh,battle Royale is popping off,

(01:02:58):
that's what's going on, you know?
And then they go, let'ssee, let's wait on it.
And they go, it's been going fortwo years, battle rounds, legit.
Let's make a battle route.
And then it's like, man,you're so far behind already,
you know,

John (01:03:09):
Dude, shout out to apex, apex, legends.
don't know anything about how thatgame was put together, but all I
know is when it launched and it justshocked the world, I gripped into it.
I was like, oh shit, I'm loving this.
And

Zach M (01:03:21):
I know something about it.
Apex legends, EA didn'tknow they were making that.

John (01:03:26):
what the hell do you mean?
They didn't know theywere making that way.
Wait, are you
saying that.
it was like Titanfall threeor something like that?

Zach M (01:03:31):
yeah, it was just, they made it at respond kind on the download.
Wasn't like an official project on thebooks with the budget and all that.

John (01:03:39):
That's why there was no marketing.

Zach M (01:03:41):
yeah, they just showed up and they were like, Hey, we have this.
I'm really sure about this.
I can't say reveal my source, butlike showed up and we're like,
because Vince knew they wouldn't,or maybe they had said no already.
It was like, no, we don't want to do that.
And so they just did it
and they were like, Hey, we gotthis and it's ready to go right now.

(01:04:01):
I was like, okay.
Otherwise, it still wouldn'tbe in the battle rail space.
They'd be like developing one right now.
You
know?

John (01:04:06):
Yeah.
Try failing and trying man.
That's crazy.
I mean, there's a, You know?
story tale of doing something in theshadows against all laws for the skeleton
crew, because you know, it's the rightthing, but never in a million years,
but I'll tell you that would happen atbig massively, publicly traded company.

(01:04:27):
Right?
So shout out to Vince,
which I think,

Zach M (01:04:30):
bought, they've just been bought.
They
got nothing to lose.
They're probably notstoked on being bought.
Anyway.
You want to lay me off?
Cool.
I already got my money.
I don't know how it all works.
I'm speculating.
Like even the thing that isspeculation, I'm really sure
about it, but it's speculation.
I don't
know.
This is a fact.
I'm not, I don't work at EA.
Like I don't have some insider,

John (01:04:48):
me neither.
Me neither.
And I think they, I think Vancenow is heading up everything
like battlefield related.

Zach M (01:04:58):
How about make him CEO?
We can get these marketingguys out of there.
Let's go.
Let's have some game developers run the,how about the biggest game developer?
Because they are, again, like the biggestnon first party game developer, right?
It was Activision, but theygot bought by first party.
So let's have the biggest game developerout there run by a game developer.

(01:05:19):
And I'm, I'm not marketing or anymarketing is super important, but like,
have like an actual developer run.
Yay.
I
promise you it'll be.

John (01:05:29):
Let's go.
Let's go.
Let's

Zach M (01:05:32):
moving up, dude.
I get excited.
Every time I see him, they announced himin like a bigger position at EA because

John (01:05:37):
Oh yeah.
massive, man.
It's basically like, Hey, everything.
First person shooter related.
like, you're the guy now.
Apex

Zach M (01:05:45):
like corporate business people.
They're making decisions when you have somany, like, other people that could do it.
Yeah.
Come on.
Let's go.
Let's bring up the game developer.

John (01:05:56):
I want to get to life after EA, definitely have to touch on ragtag

Zach M (01:06:02):
Yeah.

John (01:06:02):
and, and, and that product, right?
Just from the outside, looking in, it'slike, it gets a powerhouse team Amy
Henning, red coming over a fresh fromnaughty dog and uncharted games and be
like, Hey, come bill and uncharteredinto star wars, universe, you know, first
person story campaign, carte blanche

Zach M (01:06:20):
And we're giving you the, the visceral team,
right.
Which is known for these like CII90 rated third person, action.
I guess the horse of survivalhorror, but you know, they're
like third person shooter action
games.
Right.
So it's like Match

John (01:06:35):
match made in heaven was this lady tied to it?
Um, Jade.
Raymond,

Zach M (01:06:40):
Yeah, kind of, they had hired her to run that Montreal
studio and then they made her incharge of like multiple studios.
And so she was like in chargeof our studio as well, but
she didn't sit there anything.

John (01:06:50):
Okay.
Cause Yeah.
cause she was alwaysbased in Montreal and I

Zach M (01:06:53):
Yeah.

John (01:06:53):
EA had closed down portion of the Montreal studio and then
reopened and rebranded his motive.

Zach M (01:07:01):
Right.

John (01:07:01):
Okay.
Okay.

Zach M (01:07:03):
Yeah.
So she was involved in that, like,she was like our general, our studios,
general manager reported to her, I think
so like, but not she wasn'tinvolved in the day-to-day.
It was, Amy was like that creatively

John (01:07:16):
She's like creative director of studio, head kind of thing.

Zach M (01:07:19):
yeah, she wasn't the studio head.
She was creative director.
So

John (01:07:22):
cool.
So on paper,
this project as all the good stuff.

Zach M (01:07:27):
the rub though.
So like visceral is a studio that'sknown for third person, like highly
detailed high quality, perfect for Amy.
Right.
Narratively driven, you know, likeall that, except here's the thing
three years before that they toldus to make a battlefield game.

(01:07:47):
And so like a lot of people thatwere really into that, like narrative
driven, they left, you know, becausethey don't want to make battlefields.
Right.
And we went and hired a bunch of peoplethat are experts at like multiplayer.
You know, we went and got the bestnetwork engineers and we went and got like
really good multiplayer game designers.

(01:08:08):
Cause we were gonna make a bunchof new game modes and all this.
And then we made battlefield for, youknow, two and a half or three years.
And then they're like, okay, now we'll goback to making the thing you made before.
But the people that were like reallycritical to making that thing we made
before a lot of them left when westarted making battlefield, because
you just had, and we hired a bunchof people that are experts at making
battlefield now, like what made forthe sense for the studio at that time?

(01:08:32):
Like it or not was tokeep making battlefield.
And that's not a knock on Amy.
It's just like, you're, you're nowyou're giving Amy a battlefield team.
Right.
And it's like, that's a totallydifferent deal than what blows my mind.
To be honest with you is that theydidn't have us make Battlefront.
we're there, we're ready to do star wars.
We had just made a battlefield game.

(01:08:54):
You know what I mean?
Like dice can never ship anything on time.
Like, so let, let them just focus onbattlefield four or five or whatever it
was they were working on at the time.

John (01:09:03):
yeah,

Zach M (01:09:04):
Right.
And then we could do that becausethat could have like the cool Amy
story on the single-player andthen we can use all these people.
We just hired for the multiplayeranyways, just like kind of the team.
And it wasn't, the team was a bad fit.
It was like, it really wouldhave been a perfect fit.
Three years earlier, we lostpeople and she, before she came.
That really would have helped the teamwhen she came, because now we're trying to

(01:09:25):
make this game that we're not really like
specialized
for, you know?

John (01:09:31):
the thing.
And you've touched on some that I don'treally hear a lot of in conversations.
It's like, you know, you, youwant to say I'm a game developer.
I can do whatever game, buttruth be told in this day and
age with the skill of using.
You do have specialists, you know?
you have people
are great shooters, great at, atcrazy AI or open world or simulation

(01:09:54):
or racing games and things like that.
So for you, enlightening to hear thatyou had a team that specialized in
multiplayer first person shooter,

Zach M (01:10:04):
Right.
And like,
especially with like level design, you
know, it's like, that's like a big, likewe had like really good level designers
for multiplayer shooters and it's notlike they can't make single player levels.
They can, but the guys that werejust making single player levels
for, you know, the last in charteror whatever, they're so far ahead
because they were just doing it.

(01:10:25):
It's like you're asking someone to dosomething that's like completely different
and to Excel at it at the highest levelwithout like that, that takes years,
you know?

John (01:10:37):
yes.
I'm going to add a bunch of years.
So you production.

Zach M (01:10:40):
So it's just kind of like a business look, you know, we're just
going to hire Amy and have you make this.
And so of course it didn't go well.
And then we're going to like, youknow, the business can be super evolved
and we're going to have Vancouver.
Half the team be in Vancouverand the executive producers
going to be in Vancouver.
But the creative director isgoing to be down in California.
They're not going to get along, youknow, like all these types of things.
Right.

(01:11:00):
Like

John (01:11:01):
okay

Zach M (01:11:02):
it was just not set up for success that game.

John (01:11:04):
dude.
So then, as legend goals and youknow, people could read about
this, it has a whole bunch ofinterviews of stories online.
You have a great and press reset.
Ragtag gets canceled.
now here you are, at this point inlife were you've ever known is EA

(01:11:25):
your whole circle was here, right?
This is a, did you meet yourwife at EA while you ADA, you
got married while you were at EA.

Zach M (01:11:32):
Yeah.
And I wasn't, I didn't meet her at EA,but I w I was working there when yeah,
man, I met, I was starting when I was 18.
Like I met her when I was 20, so yeah.
I already been there a couple of years.

John (01:11:41):
And by this point, you starting a family?
You have a family.

Zach M (01:11:45):
Yeah.
At this point I have, well, when,when that studio got shut down was
two days after my second son was born.

John (01:11:54):
Oh shit.

Zach M (01:11:55):
Yeah.
So, uh, yeah, it was right, right then.
Um,

John (01:12:00):
So, so now it's like you're at a crossroads, right?
Yeah.
I gotta make a move.
I gotta make a decision.
Where do I want my life to be?
What do I want to do?

Zach M (01:12:10):
yeah.
And like, I knew that that day would come.
Someday.
I'm like, I'm not stupid.
You see it, you know, like peoplegetting laid off all the time, students
are getting closed all the time.
I figured like, okay, mytime will come at some point.
And I always had said like, oh,when that time comes, like maybe
we'll, you know, we'll move away.
Who knows?
Right.
Like what the plan will be.
Um, but when it happened, I ended up,I didn't have time to think about it.

(01:12:34):
Cause I was like, it kindof came unexpectedly.
We had this game, I thoughtwe were gonna make that game.
They hired Amy.
They made a big deal out of it.
Publicly of hiring Amy.
Like, it's pretty crazy to walk that back.
Um, so it was definitelya surprise for me.
What happened was I immediately hadlike a job offer at crystal dynamics,
which was like right down the road.
And so, because I had just had akid, I like, I like accepted, you

(01:12:58):
know, I didn't sign any papers oranything, but like, you know, the,

John (01:13:00):
verbally,

Zach M (01:13:01):
yeah, the guy that runs the studio called me up, he
was like, Hey dude, I got you.
There's a job here for you.
Hit me up whenever Iknow you just had a kid.
So like hit me up whenever.
And so like,

John (01:13:11):
take a step

Zach M (01:13:12):
yeah,

John (01:13:13):
weren't laid off.

Zach M (01:13:15):
no, no.

John (01:13:16):
ragtag, I shut

Zach M (01:13:17):
Yeah, that's a good point.
And that's like a, you know, one ofthe things that like EA does get a
lot of crap and so they should, theyshould get credit when credit is due.
When they close the studio, it's like,first off, they're like, Hey, nobody's
fired today or anything, you know, thisis October, they paid us, like, we're
just on salary for the rest of the year.

(01:13:37):
Right.
No matter what.
Um, and then in that time theylike did a whole bunch of work
to place us at different studios,either at the same location.
Cause we were headquarters ofMax's studio was there, there was
a mobile studio there, a coupleof mobile studios there, you know,
there's like a bunch of stuff there.
Or you could, you know,they place people at Tiburon

John (01:13:56):
Yeah.
I mean, that's the coolthing about EA, Right,
You got a great net to this.
There's no shortage ofprojects that needs resources.
So

Zach M (01:14:06):
right.

John (01:14:06):
project cancels, a guest coals down.
You got other projects thatleverage that resource.

Zach M (01:14:12):
And there was, I mean, I'll say this like, cause in the end, like
basically after that year was up,if you didn't have like a position,
then they would like lay you offand give you a severance package.
Right.
But, But, here's the thing.
It wasn't that like that wording, right.
It was like, if you did it, becauselike I did, like, I got multiple offers
from other projects and I just said, no.

(01:14:35):
Right.
So like at that point,like I'm kind of quick.
Yeah.
Still gave me a severance, you know,which, and a 17 year severance, which is
a pretty, you know, it's based on likehow long you've been there, you know?

John (01:14:47):
shit.

Zach M (01:14:48):
Um, and so it was like a nice severance, like they did,
they treated me very fairly.
And you know, they basically were like,look, anywhere you want to work at
the company you've been here so long,you know how to like work within this
company, just call, say it, you know?
So it was like, they were, they were cool.
And I was like, yo, what's up on skate?

(01:15:09):
I did.
I said, what's up?
How do I tell them the HRperson let me make skate.

John (01:15:16):
Like it, like they can make the call

Zach M (01:15:18):
Right?

John (01:15:20):
Dan.
One more, one more savingthrow one more hail

Zach M (01:15:22):
Yeah.
I just didn't.
At that point I felt like,I dunno, I'm done here.
Like the positions that were availableto me or the idea of relocating
I wasn't into it.
And I was kind of like the stuff we talkedabout earlier, the fact that like, there's
these corporate people running things,and they're not necessarily like gamers.
or game developers, even.
They're just like business people.
I didn't like that.
You know, like it
rubbed me the wrong way.
And I felt like, Hey, like this iscool time to go see something else.

John (01:15:46):
And yeah, it makes sense, bro, if the 18
years.

Zach M (01:15:49):
you know, there's closed my studio at right.
Like

John (01:15:51):
Sure,
sure.

Zach M (01:15:52):
I'll just, I'm going to go over here to this other place.

John (01:15:54):
The wounds are fresh.
And so you had a buddy at crystaland so you had the off the job on
the strength of a phone call, like

Zach M (01:16:02):
Yeah.
He was like, got you.
This was the executive producerfrom the Simpsons game.
He's now the head of thestudio at crystal dynamics.

John (01:16:08):
what's his name?

Zach M (01:16:10):
Scott Amos.

John (01:16:11):
Oh Yeah.

Zach M (01:16:11):
Yeah.

John (01:16:12):
Oh shit.
Okay.
Dope.
So job, new opportunity, butstill some familiar faces

Zach M (01:16:18):
A lot.
Because then a bunch of people fromvisceral came over there, they were hiring
up, they did the Avengers game, theywere doing the Avengers game at the time.
They're hiring up for that.
And so, yeah, I came over,uh, and you know, I took like
all the time until January.
Right.
I
just like it.
Cause I had the baby, I had a newbaby, so it was like, all right, cool.
That, that was the good part about it.
It was like no stress of worryingabout, am I going to get another job?

(01:16:39):
And I did, like, in that time Iinterviewed for a couple other jobs
and it just didn't like, man one,uh, one was at Lucas and it would
have been super awesome, but like Iwent there and I interviewed, and the
interview ended at like 5 45, you know,
like a normal Workday.
And I was like, dude, Iwas like, oh, this is sick.
And they were, they were reallyinto it and they needed me and

(01:17:00):
it was like a perfect, it feltlike it was going really well.
Um, and I was like,yeah, dude, this is sick.
I'm like, I'm working it you know, wars.
Like I'm working at Lucas artsand like, dude, that's the arm
or from the movie right there.
I don't know if you've everbeen there, but it's crazy.
It's
like a museum.
It's so nice.
And like, this is amazing.
I'm going to my car.
Like, yeah, I don't do it room.

(01:17:21):
I get out, I drive and I get onthe freeway and it's like wall
of cars and it took me like anhour and 20 minutes to get home.
And so like, I left there thinking like,I'm going to work here at Lucas arts.
And by the time I got home, Iwas like, I'm not working there.
I can't do, I can't do this.
I can't do this every day.
I can't do it.

John (01:17:38):
The traffic,

Zach M (01:17:39):
I couldn't do it.
Yeah.
I was like, nah, cause Ilive like four miles from EA.
So I didn't know about like,I'd forgotten about that.
You know, like I knew, but Ididn't, you know, I didn't like

John (01:17:50):
Ooh,
shit.

Zach M (01:17:52):
it one time and I'm glad I did.
I'm glad my interview didn't getout at like noon or something.
I just cruised home ona beautiful sunny day.
And I was like, that was great.
Took the job and then realized,oh shit, I'm miserable.
You know,

John (01:18:02):
Damn.
Yeah.
Our commute, man.
We'll do that to you for sure
to,

Zach M (01:18:06):
was eight miles away.
And I knew a bunch of people thereand they're making a third person
Avengers game and I was just workingon a third person star wars game.
So it's like, not that far of a leap, likeI'm already in that like mode, you know?
So,

John (01:18:18):
but, but producer at crystal

Zach M (01:18:21):
uh, yeah, it's
not

John (01:18:22):
at EA.

Zach M (01:18:23):
yeah.
Producer crystals likescheduling and like.
You know, it's like,and I can do that stuff.
It's like, I don't, I don't mindit, but like at EAI, like really
wandered toward the like designend of the spectrum, you know?
Um, and
so like, man, I was working directlywith Amy and Amy's like, shit, like

(01:18:44):
you'll level up just by sittingin the room with her because she
like, know, she's really thoughtful.
has a reason for doing everything.
And like, she's really, like, ifyou're in the room with her, when
she's working through something, you'regoing to see her work through it.
She's like talking out loud.
She's like, you know,riffing off of people.
And
so like, you you're just like, yeah,like feed me this, like that wasn't
even though we didn't ship that game,I'm like glad for that experience.

(01:19:05):
You know?
Cause
like I got in there, I got to, I wasthe manager of all the level designers.
And so I got to be in like all thesemeetings about the level design of
the game, which like really likethat's where all the game, the level
is, how the game comes to life.
That's how it's delivered to the player.
Right.
So it was hot and it was nice.
It was nice times there until that that
happens.

John (01:19:26):
invaluable.
I mean, there's so much.
So many games that never seenthe light of day that I canceled,
but indirectly led to a lot of us

Zach M (01:19:33):
Yeah.

John (01:19:34):
up and learning and being able to carry those skills some other game.

Zach M (01:19:38):
That's really the only one of those that I had like a cancel game, like,
so.

John (01:19:44):
something worth highlighting, man.
That was your first canceled production.

Zach M (01:19:48):
There was other things that we talked about maybe doing a SQL to this
or that, but like never like, oh, itwas, we were making it, it was announced.
And then they canceled it.
And that's pretty lucky thatI went that long and that

John (01:20:00):
Yeah.

Zach M (01:20:02):
You know?
So like

John (01:20:03):
Yeah,

Zach M (01:20:03):
that was, you know, it's not the end of the world.
Like it's, it's stunk at the time, you

John (01:20:07):
sure.

Zach M (01:20:08):
it's pretty, it's pretty bitter, but
you
know, it is what it is.
And yeah.
So I had to go to crystal andlike producer, there is not,
you're not designed focused.
It doesn't matter.
Like I'm all up in there anyway,
but there were a lot of cooks inthe kitchen there, you know, like,
uh,

John (01:20:22):
on that project.
it was

Zach M (01:20:24):
yeah, especially on that
project.

John (01:20:25):
than tomb Raider,

Zach M (01:20:26):
Right.
And so, and some of it was just like,it was a little bit of a, a step back
for me, like professionally in thatlike, man, I was like, I'd become
like kind of a big deal at EA and

John (01:20:38):
18 years.

Zach M (01:20:39):
guy.
Yeah.
Crystal.
And so I only ended upworking there for four months.

John (01:20:46):
Wow.

Zach M (01:20:47):
Yeah.
And, and really after two monthsI resigned, they just asked me to
help them out for the two months.
You know, I was
like, yeah, I'll stay like, yeah,They're like, look, I mean, they, you
know, it's hard man doing, you know,I'm, I am like, I'm good at my job.
You know, like if you assign mesomething to manage, it will get
managed well, and it will get done.
It will be organized.
And I'll be able to liketell you what's going on.

(01:21:10):
And, and you know, all these thingsthat like leadership is looking.

John (01:21:13):
Hmm, dude.
So you leave crystal and you take a hiatusor a sabbatical from game development.

Zach M (01:21:23):
I mean, at the time I would have told you that I was
like retired from game development.
I was done making games.
Like I got,

John (01:21:29):
as fuck this.

Zach M (01:21:30):
got a job offer shortly after crystal.
Someone hit me up and I got a job offer.
And it was like kind of a once in alifetime type of deal where it's like,
Hey, there's this new company starting.
And there it's a construction company,but they're really approaching
construction in a way that no oneit's a new company, it's a startup.
And they need someone to comein and do a couple things.
One of those things is likeorganize how the architects are

(01:21:54):
going to like manage process.
And they're like, Hey, wewant you to bring like agile.
You know, if people want to lookthis up, I'm not going to like
explain what agile development is,
but it's, it's, it's, a developmentprocess that we use to make video games
are often used to make video games and,you know, and using a database to track
issues and how the, and ownership of thoseissues and all the, you know, severity

(01:22:14):
and priorities and all these things.
And then set up, uh,architect studio in India.
So I don't know anything aboutarchitecture, but that's fine.
There's architects that I'm working with.
My job is just to like, kind ofbuild out the like structure of
the design department of thisgiant new construction startup.
Right.
that sounds crazy.
And they gave me a whole bunchof stock options and like.

(01:22:36):
You know, it was like a unicorn,meaning they had raised like
billions of dollars, you know, it was

John (01:22:40):
what's the name of This
Are they still
around

Zach M (01:22:42):
uh, no funny story.
They went bankrupt after Ileft, they were called Katara.
and it's crazy because they ownso much because their construction
company, like I know how much landand buildings and stuff they owned.
It's like, I wonder what happens.
I left before they went bankrupt.
So I don't really know what happensto like these giant, you know,
this had all the backing of allthese big VC firms and stuff.
So it had, yeah, yeah,

John (01:23:05):
technology?
I mean, what you told me about itis it makes total sense, right?
It's like, Hey, what happens whenyou bring in some type of tech
backend organization thing tomassive construction projects,
right?
Like for sure

Zach M (01:23:20):
Well,
and the way that construction worksis a construction and design and
manufacturing are all separate,
like completely separate.
And so this company combined allof them, so it's like, Hey, we
supply all our own materials.
We do all our own design.
And so there's all sorts of bullshitthat happens when you're like
building a house or building anything.
We're like the architectblames the construction guy,
and like surgery guy, blamesarchitect, and the materials are wrong.

(01:23:42):
And so we just like, Hey, our wholething was like, we eliminate all that.
Like you come to us, we give you a bid.
You give us that money.
We build your shit.
We give you keys.
Real simple.
There's no like change orders aregoing back and forth on this or that.
They just couldn't pull it off.

John (01:23:57):
compared to game development, what was it like?

Zach M (01:24:00):
Yeah.
It's interesting.
It's like, they're notworking as hard for sure.
architects and like they'reworking hard, don't get me wrong.
what they're doing in constructionis like really complicated.

John (01:24:09):
People's lives, man.

Zach M (01:24:11):
there in lies, the thing is like the consequences of construction are much
higher than a video game development.
The consequences,
however, video game development islike landing a rocket on the moon.
it's so complicated.
Like, so for me, my job is goingto set up these teams and like, I'm
dealing with like five architects, youknow, 20 guys on a construction crew

(01:24:33):
that ain't shit I'm used to dealingwith 250 person development teams.
And some of them are in Chinaand they don't speak English.
And some of them are in, Canadaand somewhere in the U S and
they're all over the place.
Like you're telling meeverybody's right here in the bay.
Like, it was pretty, I felt likeit was easy and it's like a nine
to five industry, you know, it's
like the Flintstones and everybody's off

(01:24:54):
dude.
And so like,
yeah.

John (01:24:56):
you can measure everything.
It's not really going to have anycrazy setbacks of delays outside
of like production chain, butit's a pretty understood story.
And I love hearing it as often aspossible when people dabble in things
outside of game development where it'scompletely different and not as hard or
not as difficult for whatever reason.

Zach M (01:25:17):
The organizational stuff I did.
Which like you as a game developer,if I showed you like the JIRA that
we, I set up for them, I set upJIRA and like used that, you know,
used it.
I understood.
I took a lot of time to understandthe process of architecture.

John (01:25:30):
To learn that.
Yeah.

Zach M (01:25:31):
Yeah.
Like, Hey, like in whatorder do you build things?
Like, man, I, where I read,I've got still textbooks, man.
I studied like to learn to understandthis and then broke it all down into tasks
because this is not how architects work.
It's like, I'm just gonna gooff and design this thing.
And it's all in their head.
Like there's not necessarily like tasks.
And so like, you can'tshare work really easily.
oh, You haven't done the, youknow, the window straight.

(01:25:51):
Okay.
I'm going to sign it to this person, youknow, or you haven't done the flashing.
Okay.
I'm going to send to that person.
Can't do that.
Cause like, you don'tknow who's doing what

John (01:25:58):
Well, no, that's how it was for games back in the day, right?

Zach M (01:26:01):
sure, but we figured this out a long time ago.
Cause it's complicated.
Right.
And so like, if I showed you thedatabases that we had for these
projects, you would say that it's likea database for like a Nintendo game.
It's pretty simple.
Like as a 20 person team,there's not that many issues.
There's not that much going on every day.
There's not, you know, it's you,you would think it was pretty.

(01:26:23):
Right.
Any game developer, would
people in this industry treated it?
Like it was a revolution.
Like I was some kind ofprodigy genius, right?
Like, they were happy with my job.
They're like, I did good work there.
They thought like, wow, like thisguy like really knows his stuff.
And like, I'm like, this is so easy.

(01:26:44):
This is so easy comparedto like a video game.
Again.
it's hard.
It's architecture.
It's hard.

John (01:26:48):
Yeah.

Zach M (01:26:49):
like we're like landing people on the moon over here.
Like,

John (01:26:53):
engineers have figured it out.
A lot of people figured it out, right?
Like you can take what you've learnedand accomplished in video games to
any other industry and did you getpaid twice as much for like half the
work or something like that?

Zach M (01:27:05):
Yes.
That's literally exactlywhat happened to me.
I got paid twice as much and endedup being, and I was ready to work.
I wasn't
slacking off,
but it ended up being like half the work,
You know,

John (01:27:14):
you would done early, right?

Zach M (01:27:16):
it just wasn't.
Yeah.
And it wasn't.
You know, it was the pace, the like
frantic pace and like the evolution,like every week in game development, it's
like this new development, like there'sa new thing, a new problem or whatever.
It just, that happensin that industry too.
But not at the same like levelof complication, you know?

John (01:27:34):
so you live in the good life.
enjoying your game, devretirement something happens.
You get itch.

Zach M (01:27:41):
yeah.
Like, I don't know that Iwas like super enjoying it.
Like at first I was, butI'd done it for like a year.
And I was like, okay.
You know, I did it.
Like the thing they wanted me to dowas just come in and like apply a new
process and roll it out to the company.
It's like, okay, I did it.
What's next.
And they like had some, like things thatI just wasn't interested in, and then like

(01:28:02):
I had like friends that sent me a demo.
you know, it's people thatI worked with at visceral.
They were like, we started likea little indie thing that really
founded, like fully founded thecompany, but we're starting a thing.
And we got this demo, what do you think?
it was just a private, noannouncement or anything.
And so I played the demo and it waslike, Dan, it was airborne kingdom,
which is the game we ended up shipping.
And so I really liked the demo and Ithought, oh, this is like, you know,

(01:28:24):
the flying city builder I'd never seen.
And I play city builders.
I enjoy these type of games andI'd never seen anything like this.
It's like different for that John rhe.
And I like that John HRA.
And I immediately, I was like jealous, youknow, or like, man, I need to be involved.
Like that was kind of like my angle on.
It was like, you know,they're looking for feedback.
And I'm like, my feedback is that Ineed to be involved in this somehow.

(01:28:47):
And so I hit him up and I waslike, you know, I basically just
said that, I think like what youguys have is fucking awesome.
Like I think it was really cool.
And like, I want to be involved in anyway possible if that means, like helping
you guys with schedule or helping youguys on the business end of things.
Or like, you know, I have a full-timejob, but like, you know, I I'm looking
for like something else, you know, to do.
So it wasn't like about thisis going to be my new job.

(01:29:09):
It was just like, can I help you guys?
As a matter of fact, I was like,let me invest money in the company
because they didn't have money.
And I have a bunch of money now
because I worked for this rich company.
So let me invest some of mypersonal money into this company
so you could pay for some stuff,
you know,

John (01:29:23):
So be like an investor

Zach M (01:29:25):
Yeah.
Whatever, like anything.
So we came up with like kind of a deal,like how I could like, and I invested
some money and like just started helpingthem on like the presentation, like just
getting it to a publisher, you know,like, Hey, we're going to go to GDC
with this thing and announce it and putout a trailer and have a website like
announce it and then try to go get apublisher to fund it because we don't
have any money other than the moneythat I put in, not enough to pay people.

(01:29:46):
It's more to cover expenses, you know?

John (01:29:48):
yeah.

Zach M (01:29:49):
Um, and so I was like, okay, cool.
I just kind of like took the lead on,like reaching out to publishers and
negotiating publishing deals and, thensetting up all these meetings at GDC.
And then we go and we get that deal.
And like, now I'm likereally involved, you know?
And then it's like, okay,we gotta make the game now.
and then I'm like helping them scheduleout the game and breaking it down.
And there's all thislike level design work.
And I'm like, yo, like I can dothe level design work, no problem.

(01:30:11):
You know, like, cause the other designer,it's like, he's also an engineer and
he's got like all the systems design,it's mostly systems design, right?
Like the city builder.
So the level design at the time,we didn't even know what it was.
We just knew, Hey, it's a flyingcity and you can move around and
gather resources on the ground.
Right.
But it's like,

John (01:30:28):
You kind of your core pillars are your core gameplay

Zach M (01:30:30):
right.
But there's no progression.
And so we, we finally figured out like,that'd be, my job is just coming in and
like, it's, doesn't need to be super deep.
It just needs to be alight experience, you know?
Cause the deep part is the city builder.
So it's not like a full-time job,but then like, you know, I'm like,
this is what I need to be doing.
The more I'm more I'm working on it.
And now I'm like working in design,which like flashback to like now

(01:30:51):
20 years ago when I started it EA Iended up going into production, but
I always wanted to go into design.
now it's like, okay, I'm a designer.
And know, we have this companyand we got this deal with epic.
And so there's some money andI can like afford to do this.
I'm still working at, through the job now.
I'm not happy now.
I'm really not happy at the other jobbecause every minute I'm working at the

(01:31:11):
other job feels like a waste of time.
now I'm like in a conference room atthe other job on my video game laptop.
Right.
And like, dude, this is the best part.
One of our, one of the partners, oneof my founding partners I set up a
studio for this construction companyin a city called , which is an India.
One of the partners on the gamejust so happens to be from ...Right.

(01:31:38):
And so I would go on trips out thereto and then be like, you know, doing
double duty, like doing work at thearchitecture firm during the day.
And then at night during the videogame from then, like I'd be back
in the office here in a conference.
My video game coworker on the screen.
Cause no one knows here.
They just see me talkingto some Indian guy.
So they assume they're like,yeah, Zach's in charge of the
studio that we set up in India.

(01:32:00):
So like of course he's talking to someguy that looks like he's from India.
Like

John (01:32:05):
Oh, my gosh.

Zach M (01:32:07):
the thing.

John (01:32:07):
I'm supposed to like a fishbowl where people could see

Zach M (01:32:10):
Yes.
And I'm just working on the gameand they think I'm like a director.
So like, no, one's, there'svery few people at this
office that were senior to me.
No, one's like questioning what I'mdoing, but I guess to the point where
it's like, okay, I can't be doing this.
Like, this is a bad look just
personally, I'm not trying tosteal a rip off from a company,
you
know?

John (01:32:29):
your duties.
There were complete, you had the

Zach M (01:32:31):
Yeah, for sure.
Like, I was like, it was easy.
So I had this extra time, but
still right.
I shouldn't be doing that.
And so, and so then I'm like,I need to get out of this.
I need to get out of this.
And I'm like, I try to get out of it.
And they like try to giveme more money to stay.
And so I'm like thinking thatit's like literally at this
point and my dad passes away.
And then when that happened, like forwhatever reason, that just gave me

(01:32:53):
clarity, like almost instantly of like,I need to be doing what I want to do.
when something like that happensto you, you know, you lose
somebody close to you or whatever.
The thing that happens to everybodyis that you're going to early on like
have that realization of like life.
Like, oh, man, life is short.
We're all like, every time you're aroundthe reason, like it's so uncomfortable
to be around death, obviously first offis like the sadness of losing the person.

(01:33:16):
But also it's likehighlights your mortality.
Right?
It's like, it's a reminder, like,damn, like that's how we all end
up, you know, like time is limited.
Right.
And so anytime you're in like a situationwhere that happens and you're close
to it, you're going to have that likefeelings of like time is limited.
And so like when I'm having thesefeelings of time is limited and like I'm
working on some shit I don't care about.

(01:33:37):
And like that's takingaway time from my kids.
you know, all these feelings that you'regonna have when something like that
happens, what do I need to be doing?
And so like, it just became like veryclear to me like, oh man, um, I need to
do this, like this game, I believe inthis game, epic believed in this game
enough to give us a bunch of money.
I need to do this game.
And so basically like rightafter that, I just, I resigned

John (01:33:57):
it takes those times to question life, evaluate priorities.
You know, you lost your dad.
And everything is pointingto the thing you care about.
Right?
The thing that excites you, the thingthat passionate you're passionate about,
it's easy decision and you did it, man.
And so today, what are you doing?

Zach M (01:34:13):
So the company, we made it all official.
Right.
So we, you know, it's like,oh, we're a real company.
There's all this paperwork you have to do.
Right.
Because we're just somedudes making a game.
Right.

John (01:34:21):
yeah.

Zach M (01:34:22):
so we founded the company, the wandering band, it's called the wandering
band because we're an all remote studio.
and we try to make gamesthat we can make on laptops.
We try not to make anything that'slike really pushing, like graphics
cards, too hard or anything like that.
We want our games to look nice andall that, but we also want people
to be able to run our games and wewant to be able to work on them on
laptops so that we can work on themfrom wherever we are in the world.

(01:34:43):
The idea is like we couldtravel and make games.
our goal is like, we try to gettogether two or three times a
year and like different locations.
Now, the last time we did that, literallythe last day was when COVID hit the U S

John (01:34:57):
It's like March 20, 20,

Zach M (01:34:59):
Yeah.
March, 2020.

John (01:35:01):
That's the last time you guys all saw each other and convene in person.

Zach M (01:35:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
My point is like the wandering part,having all remote studio was like
really revolutionary at the time.
And then like a month later, youknow, now it's not at all right.
Like everybody's remote.

John (01:35:15):
Yeah.
Visionary

Zach M (01:35:16):
Right.
Like revisionary is by like just barely.
and so we haven't been able to gettogether, but that's the idea of
wandering band as we travel aroundwhen we're making these games.
we, made our first game airbornekingdom, we released it about a year
ago, on epic game store for the PC.
And then we spent the next sixmonths, porting it over to console.
So it's now out on X-Box it'sout on PlayStation, on it's

(01:35:37):
out on the Nintendo switch.
and then yeah, we continue to kind oflike support that game, trying to add
some new content to that game while we'reworking on, just whatever is next, right?
Like new ideas.

John (01:35:46):
I've been meaning to check it out.
I, love hearing when gamesare on switch, cause it's just
like the portability and being

Zach M (01:35:52):
Yeah.

John (01:35:53):
with me, until the, what is it?
The, valve shield thingcomes out or whatnot, or the

Zach M (01:35:58):
Yeah.
That thing, man.
I don't remember what it's called.
It's the giant brick.
It looks like it'sgonna suck up batteries.
I'm a big fan of the switch.
When I was working at the architecturecompany, it was over in Seattle and
I live across the water from Seattle

John (01:36:12):
We're at

Zach M (01:36:12):
Bainbridge island.

John (01:36:14):
Bainbridge
jump on the ferry.

Zach M (01:36:16):
we moved up here after like basically when we moved
up here, I took that job.
They're like, okay, you got tomove to Seattle, do this job.
I'm like, cool.
I was ready to get out of the bay area.
Anyway, I came over here.
To look where we were going to live.
And I, I was walking up first,you know, over by like Pikes
Martin, you know, like the
touristy area.
And I saw the fairies and I waslike, what's up with that ferry?

(01:36:37):
Cause I could see where it was parking.
And I could see that like theoffice I was working at was
like three blocks from there.
And I was like, oh,what's up with that ferry?
Like where does that go?
Right.
And so I just, I asked someone andthey were like, oh, Bainbridge island.
And I wrote over the ferry oneday and like looked around.
I was like, this placeseems really nice, you know?
And like apparently Bainbridgeisland is really expensive,
but I came from the bay area.

(01:36:57):
So I sold a house in the bay area.
So to me, I was like, man,everything's like half the price here.
how affordable?

John (01:37:06):
Yes.

Zach M (01:37:06):
So yeah, it's a, it's been good though.
And so I used to play my switchevery day, riding the ferry
across.
So
I got really into the switch.

John (01:37:14):
to your point, right?
Like a long commute where you don'thave to be actively driving where

Zach M (01:37:19):
Mm

John (01:37:19):
a book, listening to out of play area.
Podcasts are

Zach M (01:37:22):
yup.

John (01:37:23):
That's a different commute, man.
That's a

Zach M (01:37:25):
It's so much better, so much, like I would either play my switch or like,
you know, the summers up here, just So
nice.
So like in the summers, sometimesI just be on the top deck and like
have like listen to a podcast orlike music or whatever, and just kind
of like mosey around the top deck,like looking at boats, you know,
looking at the mountains,

John (01:37:44):
a great sight line.
Yeah.
it has great views.
Was there anything about epic that made itlucrative or just said, Hey, we're going
to publish on the epic games store first

Zach M (01:37:55):
Yeah.
So they offered us like an exclusive deal.
And so what that meant was like,they were going to fund the game.
And so at this point in time,we were talking to, a bunch
of different publishers.
You know, we had offers, went toGDC and like, we really came out
of GDC, like with a lot of hype.
And we really had our shit together.
Like a lot of indie teams
don't, they're just not organized.

(01:38:15):
They don't have likethe idea of milestones.
And like,
we had broken our project down intasks and the thousands of tasks
and made milestones and said, Hey,this is what we're going to deliver.
when we went and pitchedour game to publishers

John (01:38:27):
what you brought to the team then?

Zach M (01:38:28):
yeah.
That was
like my role in it.
It was like, Hey, we have this cool demo.
And like, we actuallyknow what we're doing.
we all worked at EA.
We've been making, you know,and it's like, it's not a
knock on other indie teams,
but like, we have like, a pedigree.
We know how to make games.

John (01:38:41):
Yeah.
Cause w when people are goingto give you money, right.
They want to know, Hey, when can Iexpect a return on my investment?
And you're kind of giving them that.
Roadmap and timeline.
Hey, by this day, this year game's out.
This is when you canstart seeing some money.

Zach M (01:38:53):
an indie publisher, you're always taking a lot of risk on that stuff.
A

John (01:38:56):
Hmm,

Zach M (01:38:56):
that, these guys aren't going to get it done or they're going
to get, not get it done in time.
Like it's hard.
Like making games is really hardand it's hard to finish them.
It's especially hard to finish them.
The deal with us was like, Hey, all thesepublishers are offering these deals.
we felt really good.
Like everybody wants us, but these deals,man, it's like, you want to get this
funding and they want 50% of your game.

(01:39:17):
And so like, my thing is like, okay,so I'm going to work and make this
game and I'm going to put it out.
And the store steam is going to take 30%.

John (01:39:26):
Yup.

Zach M (01:39:27):
So now there's 70% left
and going to take your 50%
of that.
Right.
Right.
Which means that I'm getting 35% ofthe money that my game makes like
that seems not equally not valid.
Like in my understanding was like 70,30 was kind of the industry standard,
72, the developer, 30 of the publisher.

(01:39:47):
That's not my experience of whatwe were being offered by like
a lot of different publishers.
Publishers have clearly likepushed the needle in the direction
of like more publisher share.
And I understand partly whythey are taking a lot of risks.
They're putting up moneyin some of these teams.
It's like kids have never shipped agame before they have a cool idea.
They have some skill and talent,but like, that doesn't ship a game.

(01:40:07):
You know what I mean?
Like a cool idea.
Cool.
Prototype.
Doesn't ship a game, but I'm not somekid that's never shipped a game before.
My team is not someamateur group of modders.
Like we're serious.
We know what we're doing.
We have a plan to shift this.
Why would I give up 50%?
Right.
So epic comes on.
Epic says, Hey, we'll just give you likemore than you need to make your game.
And all you have to do is putyour game only on our store.

(01:40:29):
Right?

John (01:40:30):
so like a time exclusivity deal.

Zach M (01:40:33):
Yup.
so like, for me, it's like,well, why not take that?
Like now I don't have to go into debt.
Like I don't have to borrowmoney from some publisher.
It's going to take half mygame, by the way they recoup.
So if they give you a million dollars,then the first million dollars
your game makes, they just recoupthat all the money they gave you.
And then the split goes into effect.

(01:40:53):
So what did you risk?
First one, I risk not,sorry, not the risk.
What did you put in versus what I putin, in the end you put in nothing, you
got back, everything you put in, you justmade money off of all my hard work, right?
Like, and so do we almost had totake one of the civil war for epic.
We would have had totake one of those deals.
Someone else would ownhalf of our game right now.

John (01:41:14):
the epic deal is different because there is No, recouping.
it's just a

Zach M (01:41:19):
No,
here it's a grant.
It's basically like, Hey, we'retrying to boost our store.
We're just gonna give you this money and

John (01:41:25):
Wow.

Zach M (01:41:25):
to our store, but we're just gonna give you this money.
It's free.
I shouldn't say that there it is theway that the, the mechanism for delivery
of that money as a sales guarantee.
So what they say is, Hey, we'regoing to give you X dollars,

John (01:41:36):
Yeah.

Zach M (01:41:36):
sales, just get, give it to you.
your game doesn't ever make that.
Cool.
That's our loss.
We take, we take the L

John (01:41:43):
Yeah.

Zach M (01:41:43):
makes that, once it makes that money back then of
course you get your spread.
So like as Arab working themselves,right now, they're making that money.
I'm not getting any money.
Cause I already got that money up
front,

John (01:41:55):
okay.

Zach M (01:41:55):
but more they gave us a very good deal.
Honestly, the only thing I'll say aboutepic, the whole thing is like, I signed
an NDA with them that prohibits me fromsaying how awesome of a partner they were,
because there's more to it than that.
Like they did good stuffthat I just can't say,

John (01:42:11):
Yeah, because I'm sure that every team comes to them differently and they
have different terms foreach team and product.

Zach M (01:42:18):
But for us it like, Hey, basically, we're going to make it so that
you can finish your game, make your game.
And you're going to have enoughmoney to make your next game.
Whether you sell zero copies or a millioncopies, you're good for two games.
Right.
And so it's like, okay, cool.
Now we get to put out thisgame and publish a game.
And even if it doesn't make any money,we already made this money on it and

(01:42:38):
we could get to go make another gamethat we won't have to borrow someone
else's money for the other game.
So now we can go publish on steam

John (01:42:45):
Okay.

Zach M (01:42:46):
nobody else is like, got their hand in our pie.
Like it's just us, you know,

John (01:42:50):
What's the split the epic store.

Zach M (01:42:53):
88, 12,

John (01:42:55):
Damn.
Compared to the 70, 30everybody else is offering

Zach M (01:43:00):
because Tim is basically saying Tim Sweeney, the CEO is saying, Hey.
This is what we need to make money.
12 is profitable.
Everything else is, we'rejust, it's more profitable,
guess the one thing about epic.
Cause sometimes epic gets like shit frompeople, but it's like, dude, they're
pro game developer, like epic is dumb.
Most pro game developer company,out there, period, you know how

(01:43:21):
many game developers exist becauseyou can just get unreal for free.
Do you understand like what unreal is?
Like how much unreal is worth and youcan just get it for free, in the store.
It's like, you can say whateveryou want about the store.
And you know, it definitely like, youknow, of course it's behind steam.
Steam has been around forever.
But like ultimately the idea thatlike what he's saying is like, Hey,

(01:43:45):
the developers should be making more.
That's not, he went to steam with Fortniteand they were like 30% is like 30%.
That's a lot.
What justifies that.
And then he went and looked into,he was like, you can't justify 30%.
We can justify 12.
I'm going to do my own store and do 12
that's dope.
I wish epic would do greatbecause I think that that's a
conversation that needs to be had.

(01:44:07):
by the way, Microsoft PlayStationand switch take 30% as well.
But you understand the differencethey're providing hardware.
Steam is just a software platform.
For them to take 30%.
It just seems like a lot, you know, itseems like a lot, whereas like for Sony
to take 30%, well, they invested allthis money and putting out hardware.
So oftentimes at a loss

John (01:44:26):
Yep.
That's how they make the money

Zach M (01:44:28):
it can exist for the software to go onto it.
You know what I mean?
Like, and I get it, Hey man, steamexists and you know what, I'm probably
undervaluing the steam community there.
Right.
Cause like, Hey,

John (01:44:39):
guaranteed

Zach M (01:44:40):
this community and like you're, you're trying to access our community.
We're going to take 30% for that.
And like, cause it's not the,it's not necessarily just the
service I guess is my point.

John (01:44:51):
That's a good
call and a fair shot.

Zach M (01:44:52):
But I would like esteem better if they went to ADA 12.

John (01:44:56):
Developers

Zach M (01:44:58):
That would be
cool.
I don't know.

John (01:45:00):
Yeah.
I think that'd be a bigone for epic, right?
If they're able to kind ofnudge those percentages.

Zach M (01:45:05):
that's what that honestly is like what it's crazy, but I think that's what
Tim is trying to, you know, it's like,it's less about epic store succeeding
and more about changing the landscapea little bit, which is, I mean, it's
the same thing with the apple thing,
right?
about fortnight, you know, likepeople can say, oh Tim greedy,
this and that, blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
Sure.
But it's not just about listento what the man is saying.

(01:45:27):
This is not just about Fortnite.
It's about like these app storegatekeepers and like their ability
to like monopolize the customer baseand then take whatever they have.
You know, and it's like, that'sa valid conversation we should be
having whether we change or not, weshould be having that conversation.

John (01:45:44):
there you go.
Hell yeah.
If you are cool with it and youare ready to enter the final round,

Zach M (01:45:50):
I'm ready.

John (01:45:51):
let's do it, man.
What's the last game you finished?

Zach M (01:45:54):
a way out.
I played, it takes two,which is the new game
from Hazel
light.
And then
we finished.
Yeah.
I finished that.
Loved it.
And so me and my buddy thatplayed it, we just wanted more.
And so we're like, oh, they did a way out.
We never played it.
And so we played a way out
right

John (01:46:09):
dude, you do that on like a Twitch stream.
Like people can go look that.
up if they want it.
What is it?
Red
dudes
gaming.

Zach M (01:46:16):
Yeah.
My buddy runs the channel.
And so sometimes it's just him,but sometimes we play together.

John (01:46:20):
sick, sick.
What's the last book you read?

Zach M (01:46:23):
I read the sounds like egotistic.
It's not, I read, press reset.

John (01:46:28):
Yeah, it's a good book.
Yo, if
you, if you give a shit at allabout the video games industry,
how games are made, how these teams

Zach M (01:46:36):
We grab this,

John (01:46:37):
press reset is a legit good read.
I'll give it to the Jason street.

Zach M (01:46:42):
before that it was, uh,

John (01:46:44):
It's a big ass.
Great book.

Zach M (01:46:46):
of professional practice, 15th edition by the American
Institute of architects.
I can't say I read it cover to cover.
It's a textbook,
but I read a lot of it.

John (01:46:56):
That's a college course right there.
G

Zach M (01:46:59):
right.
Like that's my thing, man, is youcan, you know that, with the internet,
whatever they're teaching you at thosecolleges, you could just go learn that.

John (01:47:07):
just get the book yourself

Zach M (01:47:09):
Yeah,

John (01:47:10):
a hell.
Yeah.
Oh Yeah, I like
it.
I'm pre

Zach M (01:47:13):
control the books.
AMA you just can go figure outwhat caught, how textbooks cause
you to go buy those textbooks.
Amazon has them.

John (01:47:19):
If I were to say, Hey, here's seven figures and I give you like a
two year runway, what would you build?

Zach M (01:47:29):
I want to escape.
I would want to make a skate

John (01:47:30):
Nice.

Zach M (01:47:31):
make it.
If the question, if what you'rereally saying is like, Hey, if you
could make anything you want to make

John (01:47:35):
Yeah.

Zach M (01:47:35):
you know, like I would want to make a skate game.
And I'm glad that those guys aredoing it and like, I'll play it.
I'm super stoked.
But I have some ideas skateboarding game.
I would like to Inscapespecifically, like that franchise
has done it the best I would liketo make a skate game someday.

John (01:47:49):
Could you do it in two years?

Zach M (01:47:51):
Yeah.
I could do it
with all the stuff they have,like most of my ideas around the
career mode and like just how thecareer mode is like structured.
I have the same thing with like Madden,although Madden does it better now.
It's like, I always wanted to like,you know that how Madden has that,
like face of the franchise mode where
you're just like, I I'd liketo take a stab at one of those.

John (01:48:09):
What would you tell 2000 Zack, if you can go back in time?

Zach M (01:48:14):
Probably like chill out a little bit.
I was like a really likeboisterous, like loud.
And maybe that served mewell, in some cases it
probably didn't serve me well in others.
You know, like part of it isthat when I started at EA and
I was 18, I was also in a band.
And so I was doing that whole like rockand roll party, you know, type of deal.

John (01:48:32):
I see a few guitars back there.

Zach M (01:48:34):
yeah, some of that like leaked over into work.
So like my first year, like I'd been therefour months that yearly award for the QA
department, I've been there four months.
I won the class clown awardfour months of the year.
Did I was there for a third of theyear, you know, like maybe just
chill out on that a little bit.
you know, like maybe you'llbe out of, out of QA in three
years instead of five years.
If you
just like, dial it back alittle bit with the dollar

(01:48:56):
personality back a little buddy,

John (01:48:57):
It's interesting to look back and apply our kind of development
hat to our career or lives.
I could look at it and be like,yo man, you had a rock solid
career and you accomplish a lot ofthings and You continue to do so
everything kind of panned out nicely.
It's interesting to hear you lookback and be like, yeah, but maybe
I could have done it at a two
x-ray.

(01:49:17):
Last question I got for you.
Traditional.
We got on the show is who would younominate to fall out of the play area?

Zach M (01:49:25):
Cause what I want to say is Amy.

John (01:49:26):
Amy.

Zach M (01:49:27):
have it like that.
Like I don't think that I

John (01:49:29):
You Don't got you.
Don't got

Zach M (01:49:30):
get her.

John (01:49:31):
your email is

Zach M (01:49:32):
get her to answer my text messages.

John (01:49:34):
Hey.

Zach M (01:49:35):
I love Amy.
We're cool.
could I get her to go on a podcast?
I don't know.
Cause she's very private.
Right?
She'd
never does stuff like this.

John (01:49:43):
true, true, true.
I mean, that's a consideration too, right?
Like odds are, you could get ahold ofher, but how likely is she to accept?
Cause I think last I heard fromher, I think she did one with
the homie Ted price and insomnia.
He has one called what?
The game makers notebook.
And I think that's thelast time I heard from her.

Zach M (01:50:01):
probably someone she knows personally, right?

John (01:50:04):
And I think it was probably for dice, you know, they were, they were all
out there and she probably comes on and,and that's a, you know, more notable
show

Zach M (01:50:12):
and I'll try, I'll try.
But

John (01:50:14):
fan.

Zach M (01:50:14):
it's a very, like, I want to hit her and be like,
Hey, I was on his podcast.
He's super awesome.
It's a really chill conversation.
You would enjoy it.
What's up.
It's she's going to probably laugh at me,
but I'm still going try

John (01:50:24):
I would be
super appreciated.

Zach M (01:50:26):
whatever, because the thing.
It might just be a seed in there.
She might even say no, butthen like someone just puts a
little water on that seed later,

John (01:50:32):
Later on, late on eventually, right?
Like, I mean, w we're goingto play the long game.
We're going to get AmyAnning on here on day.
I just got to pay my duesand get, get more notarized.
Yeah.
there you go.
I appreciate you, Zach.
I had a blast chatting with you.
Super happy that you put your lifestory out there for Jason, so that

(01:50:56):
people who read that book can learnand they'd be like, holy shit.
At the time I was working atEA, I was like, yo, this guy,
I got to reach out to them.
Just, just to shoot theshit, just to learn about yo,
what was he like back then?
And throw it out there to be like,oh, you want to come on the podcast?
And it just worked out magically

Zach M (01:51:13):
I'm glad you reached out.
I've been trying to like mashthrough all the episodes.
Cause I didn't know about the podcastbefore you hit me up and I'm always
like running my mouth about, it's notlike I listened a lot of podcasts a lot

John (01:51:24):
dope.

Zach M (01:51:24):
a lot of the people, the voices in our industry are like media voice.
Which that's cool.
That's fine.
Like I'm not knocking them, butlike there's no, like, the Joe Rogan
equivalent for game developers,which what I mean is like, Hey, just
like a long form where like gamedevelopers, just tell their story.
I wish we had that.
Cause all these podcasts I listenedto, it's like people telling

(01:51:44):
their story, you know what I mean?
And so like, I was stoked to likeout about your, uh, your podcast.
I think it's really cool

John (01:51:51):
Dude.
That's awesome to hear because that'stotally what I set out to do was looking
for filling a void that I couldn't find.
Right.
Like I found, I since found the handful,but it's very much that, you know, you
have no shortage of talk to me about thisgame with this studio or this studio had.
Right.
But very little aboutthe people behind the

(01:52:11):
scenes doing the things.

Zach M (01:52:13):
you know, there's these like, you know, I'll listen to like a music podcast
where they like dive into like a specificsong or a specific album and tell like
behind the scenes stories, Like we coulddo a show that's just about like one game

John (01:52:26):
Yeah.

Zach M (01:52:26):
one game for hours and hours and hours.
Right.
And like that stuff I want, I wantto hear from people that are telling
stories from games that I wasn't on.
That's the cool stuff.
whatever you're doing.
Keep doing it is the
main thing and just keep doing it
now.
you too.
Thanks, John.

John (01:52:43):
If you read, press reset.
I hope you got some nuggetslistening to our conversation.
If you haven't and love hearing aboutthese types of insider perspectives,
I highly suggest you check it out.
I managed to get my hands on itthrough my Libby app, connected
to the Seattle public library.
In that interview, he goes much deeperon star wars, 13, 13, AK ragtag.

(01:53:04):
And what made him want toleave EA and even then some.
Since I've been editing this episode,I've really enjoyed sharing the tale
of how he broke into the industry witha nice heap of lucky timing and being
in the right place at the right time,walking into the studio the same day that
they were onboarding a bunch of testers.
And managing to avoid thetypical phone screenings.

(01:53:25):
I don't know how many people I'vetold this story to, but it reminds me
that one of my first interviews whenI got out of full sail was supposed
to be for a QA spot at EA Tiburon.
When I lived in Kissimmee, Orlando.
I was told to be there at acertain day, certain time, and for
whatever reason, I was ghosted.
You know, nobody hit me back.
I was just there waiting atthe door, trying to get in.

(01:53:46):
No one was there.
looking back on it, I'm glad itdidn't work out because months
later I was started as a gamedesigner at midway Austin.
And the rest is history, but what if.
Luck favors the bold, as they say.
And Zack definitely gives methat air of someone who's not
shy to state their opinion.
In the name of greasing the wheelsand getting things moving that may
otherwise be stuck or at an impasse.

(01:54:09):
If you check out his mobi games,he's got a healthy list of credits
over his 16 plus year tenure at EA.
And it's hard to overlook the fact thathe was always jumping at any chance.
He got to connect or move on site.
When he went out to Montreal, forexample, to go help out on army of
two and some of the other projects.
I've always commended thosepeople, the ones that were you.

(01:54:30):
Ready to up and go out to thejob to help whatever it took,
to get the thing out the door.
I've seen this happen.
A bunch on max Payne three whenhomies like Alicia, therre reload
from rockstar San Diego to Vancouver.
Or Warner brothers Montreal.
When I see teammates get transferredto the bay area or Seattle at monolith,
or work on another realms project.

(01:54:52):
I always dreamed of getting insideof Rocksteady to work with them
when I was a Warner brother.
Even at EA I had my sight set on ahandful of projects, including BioWare
full circle in Vancouver and motive,Montreal that I was trying to set
up relationships so that I could getsome full-time dedication on site.
But, that's a multi-versethat I'm currently not in.

(01:55:13):
You know, being that closer, being thatthat story of the closer is a cryptic one
that tends to err, on the side of, youknow, hard-ass that is able to make the
tough decisions against popular consensus.
But.
Perhaps it.
It isn't always the case and itdoesn't need to be, especially
when talking to Zack, it gives me.
a good vibe hearing that.
I look forward to seeingwhat comes up next from the

(01:55:33):
wondering banned in the future.
I swear.
I did not force him to sayall those things about epic.
That was completely on his own.
I'm curious to hear about other listenersHow many of you are working on unreal.
Or have your game on the epic gamestore or make money through the
marketplace or Fortnite creative.
On the next episode, number33, about a play area.

(01:55:56):
We sit down with Kent Hudson, myold midway Austin colleague slash
creative director on criminal.
He was nominated in episode31 by Ben real time.
We talk about his journey intodevelopment, where he started
in design in the early twothousands on deuce X and thief.
Ion storm.
And even how he put his own indie successin the novelist to where he is today

(01:56:20):
at brass line entertainment, workingout of Toronto as a design director.
Major shout to Elaine Gomez fromepisode 22 for getting me in contact
after what has been damn near overa decade since we last connected.
That episode debuts in twoweeks on Monday, May 23rd.
Make sure to follow us so that youdon't miss out on that episode.

(01:56:41):
Thank you for listening, Deb.
If you found this episode informative,I ask that you pay a link forward to
a developer to help grow our listener.
If you're a game developer with astory you think could help a fellow dev
out, please go to out of play area.comand click on the Calendly link at
the top to meet up, please make sureyou get approval from your manager
or studios, PR HR team beforehand.

(01:57:04):
Out of play area, the game developers,podcasts releases, new episodes every
other Monday on all the major players,including Spotify, apple, and Google.
Please make sure to follow us, to seewhat developer falls out of the play area.
Next time.
I'm your host John Diaz untilnext time devs stay strong.
Stay true.
Stay dangerous
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