The Origin Stories of Elder Scrolls' Paul Sage

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul (00:01):
One of the things that I really wanted to do was let
people dress up their vendors,which doesn't seem like a
big system anymore, but thepeople loved it because they
loved customizing the things.
And so a lot of the guilds,they started to like build
uniforms for their vendors sopeople could see, you know,
uniforms and it, and it outgreweven what I had expected,
which is one of my veryfavorite parts of development.

(00:23):
It's when the playersoutsmart you as a developer.
That's really the kind of themagic where they do something
in a way you didn't expect.
And, and I think that'sprobably the coolest
things about our job.

Alex (00:34):
That was Paul Sage, the founder of Ruckus Games,
newish studio, working on theirdebut title, and Paul's got a
pretty storied past, back toThat sounds weird, doesn't it?
He's, he's very experienced.
Let's say that, going backto Ultima Elder Scrolls,
borderlands, some amazinggames talking about a

(00:54):
merchant play and just the,the, how satisfying it is
as a game maker to build it.
Feature or system tool,something that your
players go and do somethingyou weren't expecting?
It reminds me of thewarthog jump videos.
I remember we were at Microsoftafter Halo came out and it
must have been like earlyYouTube days or whatever.
Somebody posted thisvideo of these physics

(01:15):
jumps they were doing.
I like the grenadesstuff With the grenades.
Yeah.

Aaron (01:18):
Yeah.
I remember that.
There were some good ones.
The one I remember themost, there was one where
someone took a grenade,a sticky, they they did a
lot of stuff with stickies.
Yeah.
And then they would use thephysics to get the thing to
somewhere else and then thatwould do like something else.

Alex (01:32):
Or rocket jumping.
Yeah,

Aaron (01:35):
rocket jumping.
Yeah.
You know, that also remindsme of the COD videos.
Have you ever seen the oneswhere they would, players when
they start the match, theywould like just throw the knife?
Have you seen this

Alex (01:47):
like super grief?

Aaron (01:49):
Well, no, you, because you could throw the knife
like up in the air and itwould go across the entire
level or something, andthen it would like headshot.
Someone like this.
Ridiculous.
Like amazing.
Yeah.
Speaking of witch,I love that stuff.
What is that calledback by the way?
Whenever the, the journalism.
You remember that there waslike a, I dunno if that's

(02:09):
happening anymore, but there waslike almost, it almost picked
up where people were doinglike the in-game journalism
or in-game photography?

Alex (02:17):
Oh yeah.
There's, I, was hangingout with, so I was gonna
say I just got back from.
Gamescom.
Mm-hmm.
being in, in Germany for a week,still recovering a little bit
from jet lag, and I know youlived there for, some time.
Did you like livingin Germany at times?

Aaron (02:34):
There's pluses and minuses, let's just say that.

Alex (02:36):
I could, I could see, I could see.
I enjoyed, I enjoyed, youknow, I've only been to Germany
once or twice before, trip.
It's a beautiful country trip.
Beautiful country.
I got to do a, a nice longrun along the Orion River
and I did notice that.
and you know, cologne isnot the biggest city, but

(02:57):
it's, it's not a tiny city.

Aaron (02:59):
You know how you say Cologne in German?

Alex (03:01):
Koln?

Aaron (03:02):
Yeah.
Isn't that crazy?

Alex (03:03):
Amazing cathedral in the middle of town.

Aaron (03:07):
Yeah, those are great.

Alex (03:08):
Apparently the only building that didn't get
destroyed in, world War ii.

Aaron (03:11):
Yeah.
'cause it was a church.
Yeah.
They weren't shooting churches.
They were respectful.
Wow.

Alex (03:16):
Did you, did you see Masters of the Year?
I don't know how goodtheir aim really was.
You know,

Aaron (03:20):
but when you're dropping like bombs and stuff,

Alex (03:22):
just a couple minutes outside of town,
I hit the campgrounds.
I, my guess is

Aaron (03:27):
what does that mean?
in, in Germany, folksreally to go, hold on
mean the campgrounds?

Alex (03:31):
Camping.
Camping.
Like people were camping in RVsfor RVs

Aaron (03:34):
for Gamescom?

Alex (03:36):
No, I think just for fun.
Not, not like game devs,but like, you know, just
people, Germans, you know.
Off on a weekend with their dog.
They all have dogs.
Right.

Aaron (03:47):
That this is where it's like I wanted to talk
to you about, 'cause you'vebrought up camping before, like
that's just sleeping outside.
That would be like you, and I'msure you've done this with your
kids, where you just set up atent in the backyard and then
they sleep outside overnight.

Alex (04:00):
Yeah, I've, I've done that except for the
part where they actuallysleep outside overnight.
Oh.
They handle hours becauseusually a few hours in they're
like, "Hey, the, the, the, my,my wifi signal's not so good out
here. I'm going inside." Yeah.

Aaron (04:12):
And there's coyotes where you live in raccoon, but dude,
seriously, that's not camping.
Like in, like you have todrive, I would say, and I'm just
speculating, like someone canbring up Google Maps right now.
You have to drive athousand kilometers from
cologne in any directionbefore you get to a place.

(04:33):
Is it camping?
If you just park a, like you'resleeping outside at that point.

Alex (04:37):
Oh, whatever.

Aaron (04:38):
I'm not trying to shoot it down.
I'm just anti camping.

Alex (04:40):
You are, you're like in a negative mood today.
I don't know what-

Aaron (04:43):
I don't, I don't, don't, I don't like camping and school.
Really?
Those two things.
I can't

Alex (04:46):
Camping and school, huh?

Aaron (04:47):
Yeah.
'Cause think about it, camping.
Like you, what is the point ofair conditioning at that point?

Alex (04:52):
Nature, is,

Aaron (04:53):
you know what I mean?
Like, it's like we've gone sofar and you're like, you know
what, okay, I wanna rough it.
Don't wear clothesfor a day, do that.
That's like realgo sleep up weird.
You know what I'm saying?

Alex (05:06):
That's a leap.
That's a different-

Aaron (05:08):
that's a leap.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
So you saw the camping,you went jogging out there.
I'm sure.
It was very nice.
The air is very good there.

Alex (05:15):
We've really have gone far, far afield here.
Games- It was my first timegoing to Gamescom, which, having
been in this industry for solong, surprised even me that
I realized I had never been.

Aaron (05:27):
What surprised you?
Hold on.
What surprised you?
The camp?
Like the

Alex (05:29):
no, that I, that I have never been to Gamescom.
Okay.
You would've thought.
Yeah.

Aaron (05:34):
Have you been to the Ja Japanese one?
No.
You haven't been to theJapanese ones either, right?

Alex (05:37):
I've been to teach, I've been to Tokyo Game
Show a long time ago.

Aaron (05:39):
Tokyo Game Show.
Yeah.
Was it Halo related?

Alex (05:42):
I think before that, we were working on,
on the Marathon games.
Yeah.

Aaron (05:47):
Wow.
Okay.

Alex (05:49):
I mean, that was an amazing trip.
We had a greatdistributor over there.
Okay.
Well, thank you for hangingout with us again this week.
I hope if you went to Gamescomand you have a story to
share, about something yousaw, come on over to Discord
and share it with everybody.
That'd be fantastic.
And, excited to be able to sharea conversation with Paul Sage.

(06:09):
Hope you enjoy it.
I will just say real briefly,Paul does tell a, very personal
story about, that sort of, Iguess suicide is mentioned.
Just wanted to call thatout in case anybody wants
to be aware, that that'smentioned in this episode.
Hope you enjoy it and we shallsee you on the other side.

(06:33):
Welcome to this week's editionof the Fourth Curtain, friends.
Today we are so lucky to bejoined by journeymen game maker
and entrepreneur, Paul Sage, thefounder and CEO of Ruckus Games.
That's gonna be my firstquestion for you, Paul, is how
you came up with the name there.
Don't answer it yetthough, 'cause I still
have more Intro to go.
If you aren't familiarwith Ruckus, that's A-OK

(06:54):
because you're probablyfamiliar with Paul's work.
He's old school and I spelledthat with a K 'cause he gotta
start back at Origin Systems.
Working on things like UltimaOnline and has worked on
things like Elder Scrollsonline, Borderlands 3, both
in creative director roles.
So we're gonna get intothat a little bit 'cause

(07:17):
Borderlands is one of myfavorites, that series.
Yeah, just a few smallgames right there.
His current studio Ruckushas raised, I did the simple
addition, I think it's about25 million bucks from Venture
and also from Krafton, thePub G guys for their inaugural
game, which is quite afeat in this day and age,

(07:39):
so great to see you Paul.
Welcome to the podcast.
How are you?

Paul (07:42):
I'm good, I'm good.
Thanks for having me.
And just, it was 24.5 roundup, you know, 500,000 there.
500,000 here.
That's five up at some point.
Yeah, exactly.

Alex (07:53):
Good.
good on, if you hadthe extra 500k, what
would you spend it on?

Paul (07:57):
Oh my gosh.
Are you an investor now, or

Alex (07:59):
next question?

Aaron (08:01):
He wants line items.

Paul (08:03):
Yeah, let's, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Snacks is a great one.
Yeah, there you go.

Alex (08:08):
I wouldn't spend it, I'd save it for a rainy day.
true.
But yeah.
I did wanna ask you, we'vehung out a little bit, and
I've been on your site andI've seen some of the stuff
you're working on and I keepwanting to ask you where the
name Ruckus Games came from.
I'm feel fascinated at howpeople come up with naming.
For me, it's always about whatURLI can get, but I'm just
curious, how'd you come upwith the name for the studio?

Paul (08:30):
What we did is we had a whole bunch of names
that we kind of like, it'snot putting it in a hat.
And then we did, what wecalled the final four for,
for the basketball, you know,Uhhuh kind of drawing uhhuh
and, we all voted on it.
And, and Ruckus.
I, I wanna say that oneof our founders, Kevin
Penrod, he's actually justawesome, like 3D modeler
an artist, it was his name.
And I think everybody wasjust really drawn to it.

(08:52):
And, you know, I, I don'tthink it was really that
close to anything else.
kind of the way we're,we're doing our own, a
name for the game, which Ican't talk about yet, but,

Alex (09:00):
Hmm.

Paul (09:01):
And that was it.
It was, it was like,we really liked it.

Alex (09:03):
You don't wanna share the name of the game?

Aaron (09:04):
Yeah.
You could make ithere exclusive.

Paul (09:06):
Not yet.
Yeah, not yet.
Yeah.

Alex (09:08):
What was the, pardon the, it's not a pun, I guess, but
the origin story of Ruckus.

Paul (09:14):
I, I, I wish I had a, a seventies sitcom theme song
for this, because it wouldjust be so much better, like
the Brady Bunch or something.
but what it really was, was,you know, that we, we had
all, well, not all of us,but, but six of us had worked
on Borderlands 3 together.
And you're, you're gonnahear this, it's gonna sound

(09:35):
almost like I'm talkingabout what, what's going on
in the industry right now.
But you've gotta remember thisis 2021, that we got together.
And there were, there werea lot of things that were.
You know, I, Iwouldn't say like.
I, I loved working in gearbox.
I think it's a great studio,but the things we saw, we were
just unable to believe that wecould sustain the way we were

(09:58):
making games at the AAA level.
I'd worked on Borderlands 3, I'dworked on Elder Scrolls Online
and we just saw so many, likeideas get crushed and killed
for various reasons, right?
As, as you know, you,you have to respect
the IP in the, in that.
But we also saw a lot of otherthings, like how much spending
happened, how much you know,of, of people who were all part

(10:21):
of a decision making processwhere you literally, if, if
the sandwich was developers,then you were like the lowest
part of that sandwich, right?
You have this piece of breadhere where, where like everybody
else was kind of at this upperlevel and it just doesn't
seem sustainable to us, right?
And so we're calling this outlike, this is just not going to
be something that's sustainable.
And also, as you know, ifyou're working with creative

(10:44):
people, they wanna be creative.
And so if you've got them kindof hemmed into an IP, you've
got them realizing that even ifthey're wildly successful with
that game, that that game maynot actually make them money.
Then there's a problem.
Hmm.
There's a huge problem.
And we saw that on a numberof games, not just the ones

(11:06):
we were working on, buta number of games where
the studio would sell.
I don't know.
You know, pick out anumber that you think is a
successful number of unitsthat a game should sell.

Alex (11:16):
5 million copies.

Paul (11:18):
5 million copies.
That's a huge hit.
It's a huge hit, right?
We'd all like to believe that,but most AAA games, if they
sell 5 million units are, aredone for, you know, underwater.
yeah.
And, and that's what we saw.
And it was gettingreally scary, right?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And so we all talked about itand we said, what if instead

(11:38):
we made a smaller game?
Like we see indie studios,they're, they're, they're
coming out with more creative.
You know, ideas and what theyhave to do and probably because
of some of the constraints thatare on them and we think they're
making like better games.
Mm-hmm.
And so it wasn't, you know, thatwe were in such a bad situation.
It's that we think or wethought at the time this is

(11:59):
not gonna be sustainable.
And we want to enjoy some ofthat success that we think
should come along with gamesand not just have everybody else
who's taking pieces of the piepeck away at it to where even 5
million units isn't successful.
And there's a wholebunch of reasons, right.
Why, why 5 million-

Alex (12:14):
Yeah.
And this was 2021?

Paul (12:16):
Yeah, it was 2021.

Alex (12:17):
I think you were probably a little bit ahead of the curve.
'cause you know, in that time,like 2020, you know, during
the pandemic there was justa huge influx of investment.
A lot of excitement about videogames, people like- play time
was going up and up and up'cause people were at home.
They had nothing to do.
They were playing games.
But then I'm kind of curious,I, I totally agree with you.
I'm just, I'm kind of curiouswhat you think was the
difference between sort ofthe period of time we're in

(12:38):
right now, like 2021 to nowversus like, I don't know,
the late teens where itseemed like everything was
just up and to the right.
You know, 'cause there'salways gonna be Call of Duty,
you know, there's alwaysgonna be the big thing.
But the idea that there'sthis whole segment of AAA
games that are investible.

(12:59):
Like, I, I agree with you.
I think that equation haschanged and the new stuff is
gonna come from other pla.
Like, what do youthink happened?
Like, what changed?

Paul (13:07):
A lot of things happened, right?
but even, even back longbefore this, if you think
just about how long ittakes to make a video game.
And you, you putthat on paper, right?
A lot of people are gonnatell you it takes three years
to make a video game, right?
And, and they, and theythink they're, they're
like, I got this.
It's gonna take three years.
And that's a long time.

(13:27):
But we know the answerisn't that at all.
A lot of the successfulgains are, are like taking
up to six years or, or evenlonger than that to make.

Alex (13:34):
Why is it six now?
Is it because it just,it it's takes longer.

Paul (13:39):
It's six for a lot of reasons, but, but let me try
to break it down at least howI see it, which is if you tell
somebody you have to sell 15million units to be successful.

Aaron (13:51):
Am I having a panic attack?

Paul (13:53):
Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
We should all have panic attacks'cause of how difficult that is.
Then they're going tokeep spending chasing
that dragon, right?
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And they're gonna keepinvesting the time and knowing
that that's what it is.
And so it takes longer andlonger to do cinematic to, to
get, you know, all of thesefeatures in that you want in.
And it's, it's no longer okayto say, I wanna make a game

(14:14):
that's 12 hours right now.
You have to say, I wanna makegames as a service, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so all these people aretrying to like re tinker and how
they think about these things.
And so it takes them a longtime to get this right,
because one investmentyou have to get, right.

Alex (14:28):
Yeah.
That's making me think aboutDuke Nukem, Duke Nukem forever.
Yeah.
And I, I remember that game wasin development for years and
I'm fa I'm fascinated by thatstory at some point, right?
We, we got a, we have to doan episode about that game,
but I remember after that gamewas in development for years,
they switched game engines.

(14:51):
Yeah.
And it, and it was in thattime where everybody's
kinda like one up.
Yeah.
It's exactly what you're saying.
It's like, Hey, wehave to be the best.
We got, you know, we haveto have the latest, we're
gonna switch engines inthe middle of development.
I was like, right.

Paul (15:05):
Actually, one of our founders worked on Duke
Nukem, that's Keith Schuler.
So he was, he wason that project.
I wanna say he wason it for 12 years.

Aaron (15:11):
Wait, the first one or the second one?
The first part of it,or the second part
when they rereleased?

Paul (15:16):
Yes.
I, I think the answerto that question is yes.
I think he was on

Alex (15:19):
12 years, he was on everything.

Paul (15:21):
Yeah.
I think he was onboth iterations of it.
and so yeah, I, I thinkthat, that's exactly right
because everybody knowsthey have to have a hit.
Right.
And that's one of thesicknesses is that we
all look at it for a hit.

Alex (15:33):
Yeah.
That's a thing that is exciting.
But else punishing aboutthis industry is that like,
if, if you don't make ahit, it's almost like it
doesn't even matter, right?

Paul (15:42):
Yeah.
But if your challengeinstead is we have to
break even at 500,000.
That's a completelydifferent challenge.
Yes.
Right?
Yeah.
And that, that's, that'sset by leadership.
And if you set that up as,versus we have to make the hit
versus we have to be profitablebeyond 500,000 units, then we
have a completely differentstate of the industry.
Right?

Alex (16:02):
Yeah.

Paul (16:03):
You know, my, my belief is that the heyday
of the industry was reallythe, the late nineties.
you saw a ton of innovationduring that time.
You saw a ton of newtypes of games come out.
studios were very healthy.
You had more independentlyowned studios at that time.
So it was, it was really good.
Yeah.
Not, not perfect by anystretch of the imagination,
but it was a healthy industry.

Alex (16:24):
I, I kind of think based on what you're saying, and
I agree with it, that we'regonna see a new renaissance,
you know, because a lot ofthe investment that's coming
in is coming in to projectskinda like yours, where, hey,
we realize it's not reallyinvestible to take one shot at
50 to a hundred million dollars.
We have to take smallershots that are, have an

(16:45):
angle, a hook, something,they're doing something new.
And when you're sort of like,if you have an investment
thesis that's aroundproviding something new, then
that seems exciting to me.
We're gonna see new stuff.
I assume that's what you'reworking on is not a clone
of in a game that's beenin market for a while, but
something new and different.

Paul (17:02):
That's right.
That's what we're hoping for.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
You know, and I, I know thisis, you know, I don't, I
didn't just come on to, to,you know, promote Ruckus,
although it certainly is nice.
But that was, thatwas definitely it.

Alex (17:12):
We, we we're gonna get into the time machine.
Don't worry about it.
It's just this is, this is a,it's fascinating to me, and
I'm, I'm always curious abouthow things kind of get started,
you know, so like, yeah, the,the seven of you and six of
you are on Borderlands, andyou had this realization that.
You were working on a projectthat it doesn't fit a future
facing sort of format or moldor, or setup and you want to

(17:34):
have more skin in the game.
Like from that, wereyou guys like going
out to lunch together?
You don't have to give out anyclandestine secrets, but were
you like, Hey, we gotta getout and start our own thing?
Or, you know, like, wereyou, were you like grabbing
boxes of diskettes outof the supply closet to-

Aaron (17:50):
That's what Alex does!

Alex (17:52):
-Set up the new company.
What, what was happening?

Paul (17:54):
Yeah, so the, the, the interesting thing
about this is I think wehit a number of people who
were going to just leave.

Alex (18:03):
Hmm.

Paul (18:03):
That, that, you know, and again, that sounds like I'm
saying something so bad about,you know, the previous company.
And I'm not at alllike, in no way.
I think they're a great studio.
I really lovethose people there.
but it was, we've kindof had, you know, we
want something different.
And when all of us gotconnected, you know, we,
we talked a little bit.

(18:24):
We realized, oh wait,you're thinking about
leaving and you're thinkingabout leaving and you're
thinking about leaving.
Right.

Aaron (18:29):
Can I, can I ask you a question about that?
Sure.
Actually, to interrupt you,sorry to interrupt you,
but Yeah, this is 2021.
So were y'all, y'all, I,I've been to your that
studio before at Gearbox.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And it's a verycomfortable place.
Was there like a, everybody'sworking from home era and
now you're at home, andthen did that have any
influence with the next,

Paul (18:50):
I don't know.
You know, they call it thegreat exodus around that time
of technology exodus where a lotof people left their companies.
I don't know.
I don't know that that wasthe big influencer, but maybe
it was, maybe there's some,something to the pandemic
of scaring everybody enoughabout like, go do the things
that are valuable in life.
You know, that, that weall, all thought that.
I don't know that that wasreally the catalyst, but I do

(19:10):
know that it was more or lessa group of guys who wanted to
go do something different andcreative, and they wanted to
be rewarded for doing that.
You know, Alex,you introduced me.
I've been in theindustry since 95.
I'm not rich.
I didn't, I didn't get richoff, you know, these, these mega
hit games that we worked on.

(19:31):
That's just not what happensto developers, right?
They, they're not the onesthat, that get that way.
And I really like to seedevelopers go back to being,
superstars not the right word.
It's, it's more orless, but stakeholders.
Stakeholders, yeah.
Stakeholders, getting thecredit for what they're doing.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, I thinkthat's really important.
Yeah.
I'm here talking to you.
I'm not the most brilliantperson on my team.

(19:52):
Right.
Like, I'm not, I'mnot the genius,

Alex (19:54):
but you are the ceo.
How did you, how did you get,how did you, did you draw the
short straw or were you like-

Paul (19:59):
I did.

Alex (20:00):
Who's the oldest guy in the room?
What was it?
What was it?

Paul (20:03):
Yeah, I, I think it was that everybody believed.
That I'd had enough experiencekind of dealing with, you know,
upper management, you know,the business people and things
like that, that I was thenatural person to go talk to.
And I also think my resume,when you say, oh, well he
was the creative directoron this hit and this
hit, showed, showed that.

(20:25):
And so it gave a littlebit more gravitas to it.
Mm-hmm.
I think.
Mm-hmm.
that's, you know,the, my team's smart.
They, they kind of know and,and it really was the, Hey, you
know, why don't you go do this?
And, and you'vesaid it correctly.
It's the short straw.
Right.
It's the, it's the thingthat takes me away from
the thing I love doing,which is creating games.
But at the same time, I reallydo believe that, that every

(20:47):
person on my team, they need tobe, you know, they need success.
They need to get, getthat taste of like, Hey,
your efforts matteredand, and you're awesome.
Right.
And that's, that's whatI really want to, have
everybody who works on myteam feel very much though.
Right.
Yeah.

Alex (21:04):
So you're in Texas, right?

Aaron (21:07):
Yeah!!

Alex (21:09):
Got Team Texas over here.

Aaron (21:10):
It's a great country.

Alex (21:11):
Did you grow up in Texas?

Paul (21:12):
Believe it or not, I did.
I I grew up in Dallas.
I was, my mom and my dad gotdivorced as, as kids, you
know, parents in the seventieswhere we're just starting to
have that happen a lot more.
So it's not an unusual tale byany stretch of the imagination.
I am a product of the DallasIndependent School District.
Right.
I went to kind of, you know,it was, it was a great school.

(21:35):
Like it was, it was fine, but itwasn't, you know, it wasn't the
rich kid school by any stretchof the imagination, right.

Alex (21:40):
So Dallas Independent School District, is that just
what they call the publicschool system in, in Dallas?

Paul (21:45):
That's exactly the public school system in Dallas.

Alex (21:47):
All yeah.
Public schools for the win.
Me too.

Paul (21:49):
Absolutely.
you know, I wasn't the, Iwasn't the most brilliant
student or anything.
I ended up going to UT.
But yeah, I, Ispent a lot of time-

Alex (21:57):
UT's a fantastic school! UT in where?
Which one?

Paul (22:01):
Austin.
So Austin, the real one.
Right.
It turns out, even if mygrades weren't spectacular,
I was pretty good at the SAT.
Right.
Like I, I did well onthe testing side of this.

Alex (22:09):
Okay.
It, and so whatwas like home life?
So your parents gotdivorced, how old were you?
Oh, I would've been six,right around six years old.
Six?
Yeah.
Okay.
Pretty, pretty young.
And so did you grow up likebetween two households?
Absolutely.
I'm kind of mostly curious,like what was that journey like,
you know, through high school.
Did you, was technology there?
Were you like, I'm, and thiswas probably, I'm guessing

(22:30):
eighties for you high school.

Paul (22:32):
Yeah, it was, it was definitely the
eighties in high school.
I mean, I got, You know,speaking of technology, like
I always wanted the beepsand boops, you know, of any
toy that, that you could get.
Right.
I had a Merlin, doyou remember Merlin's?
The old Uhr mer.

Alex (22:44):
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
That sounds so familiar.
What was the Merlin

Paul (22:47):
familiar with?
This little handheld, andthey had like little games,
like they had tic-tac toe,which wasn't important, and
then they had memory things.
It was just, it was just like,I had one of those, those

Alex (22:55):
alpha numeric displays where, where it was like,
it could do like letters andnumbers on each square or nose.
No, you're way too fancy.

Paul (23:02):
It was little LED buttons.
Okay.
It would just lineup the little LEDs

Alex (23:07):
red.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.

Paul (23:09):
It's like, hey, when LEDs came out.
Right.
All right.
And so that was, you know,but I was jealous when my
friends would have the littlemetel, you know, football
games that, that were, again,were LEDs and stuff like that,
but then I got an Atari 2600.
Oh, okay, man.
It was, it waseverything I wanted.
you know, it, it just, youknow, you're chasing ducks

(23:31):
around with arrows, you know,for those who don't know,
that's adventure, right?
and, and I just, I wasabsorbed, but I didn't
know what I wanted to do.
Really, because everykid played video games.
Every kid loved video games.
And I wasn't the bestkid at video games.
My friends would come overand kick my butt at combat
and things like that.
But I got a Commodore Vic 20.

(23:53):
Okay.
And then I started writingmy own games, right?
Like I used, I used basic,ooh, and this is gonna sound
horrible, but I, I had togo to an electronic store to
get a 16k expansion becauseI kept filling the memory.
Any other engineer would tellyou that The reason I was
filling the memory is 'causeI wasn't doing it right.
I was using basic,

Aaron (24:14):
And how old are you at this time?
With the basic?

Paul (24:17):
I'm probably 12, maybe 13.
Okay.
Or at this time,

Alex (24:21):
Hey, do you remember we had, I'm trying to remember
who it was, who was tellingthe story about he would go
to Radio Shack and write code.
That was, was thatBrian Reynolds?
Yeah.
He would go over to RadioShack and, and write a
game on the computer there.
'cause he didn'thave one at home.
Yeah.
And then he'd leave.
Yeah, you, he'd comeback and the code would
still be there somewhere.
That's brilliant.
So you, so you go, well you're,you're out at Radio Shack

(24:43):
buying a, a memory expansionfor your V 20 'cause your
basic coding skills were basic.
Is that basicallywhat're saying?

Paul (24:48):
I I wish it had been Radio Shack.
It was, it was literally ofsome like tiny electronic store
that nobody had ever heard of.
Right.
Okay.
And you had to flick likelittle dongle switches to get
the right amount of memoryon your, commodore rate.
20. And then my mom, shewas always invested in, in
this kind of stuff for me.
And so she got mea Commodore 64.
Okay, that's cool.
Big time.

(25:09):
And dude, that was the,the coolest thing ever.
And wow, this will dateme at that same Christmas.
I got a color tv.
For my room.
Whoa.
At the Commodore 64.
Could be not.

Alex (25:23):
Okay, so you, you're doing, I mean, public
school, but you're doing,doing pretty good in Dallas.
Here you got a 2600, thena Vic 20, then a C64 plus
a color TV in your room.

Aaron (25:34):
Did you have a trampoline too?

Paul (25:35):
No.
No.
So, so with a funny thingthat I'm telling you, and
the reason why this shouldbe impressive is because we
didn't have a lot of money.
Like all of this was,that's the sacrifice.
My mom worked at Die Marcus.
I mean, my dad, he had a, hehad a construction company
that he owned as well.
But you know, he's, hesplit on everything.
And so it wasn't the, thehighfalutin, it was just that

(25:57):
they were so invested in meat the time and I was one of.
Four kids at the time.
Okay.
Three siblings.

Alex (26:03):
And where were you in the order?

Paul (26:04):
Youngest by far.

Alex (26:05):
Youngest, okay.

Paul (26:06):
Yeah, until I got, stepsisters, which was later
on at the picture break.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so, and so that was,it was just learning
everything that I couldlearn about how to program.
I got compute magazines out,you know, and doing what I
could because it was great.
But the day I saw Ultimathree was the day I was sold.
And I think I was like, thatwould've been my 16th birthday.

(26:28):
Maybe, maybe my 15th birthday.
I can't remember exactly.

Alex (26:32):
Okay.

Paul (26:33):
I, I can't even begin to tell you.
Alima Ultima three.
Yeah.

Alex (26:36):
Yeah.
On the Commodore 64 or?

Paul (26:38):
On the Commodore 64.
Okay.
So they used to have this,this computer store called, it
was before it was Babbage's.
It had a different name and Ican't remember, but certainly
let's use Babbage's as the name.

Alex (26:48):
Okay.
I remember Babbage's,I remember that.
Is it Funko Land?

Paul (26:51):
I would know.
I wish it would've beenas fancy as Funko land.
I would, I would walkinto Babbage's and I would
just sit there and watch.
They had a video tape.
They just played over andover of certain games.
And then Ultima three wouldcome on, and you may not
remember this, but the Commodore64 had this thing called a
Sid Chip, which was music.
So you not only got the beepsand boots, you actually got real

(27:12):
music in the game, you know, forthe price of your Commodore 64.
And I'm just like, my, myface is just, and I'm drooling
'cause it's got, you know,this and this stuff going on.
And I'm just, I'mlike, I want this game.
And I mean, it's one of thosethings where like, you know,
you want something reallybadly and it turns out it's
just as awesome as you'd hopedit would be when you play it.

(27:35):
and I was sold at that point,like even writing on everything
else didn't send me over theedge like ultimate three did.

Alex (27:41):
So when you say you were sold and you're
still in high school.
Yeah.
You were sold like,oh, I love this.
Like when I went to go seeStar Wars kind of thing,
or like, I know what Iwanna do when I grow up.

Paul (27:51):
No, it's, I better get my butt in gear.
Get better at my classwork.
Start like taking math classesand things, start taking math
seriously, which I did not,you know, and doing whatever I
could to learn how to program.
There's, there was nocomputer game school.
Right.
Okay.
That didn't exist.

Alex (28:08):
So you saw that and you were like, oh,
this is state of the art.
Right.
I can't be writing crappybasic code anymore.
I gotta get good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry, I didn't mean,I didn't mean to, to

Aaron (28:20):
make fun of your basic code.
It's cool though.
It's fine.
But it's cool that yourecognize it at that time.
Like a lot of people,like they're much older.
Yeah,

Paul (28:26):
right.

Aaron (28:27):
You know,

Paul (28:27):
and so I went to college for that exact reason.
It's, I was a computerscience major.
Hmm.
And, and up until thatpoint, I'd actually been
a better English studentthan a math student by far.
And got into computerscience classes.
Proceeded to really findout something important
about myself, which isI'm a terrible student.
I like really, really bad.

(28:49):
I'm going to computerscience class.
I'm like, yeah, I don'twant to do this right now.
I was, was too into likeeverything else that was
associated with collegebecause one, my mom was
awesome at setting meup and all this stuff.
She's incredibly strict.
Right?
Like my bedtime was nineo'clock until I was a sophomore
in high school, and thenshe got lenient and I got 10
o'clock until I was a senior.

(29:10):
Nice.
Yeah,

Alex (29:13):
I mean, that's my bedtime now it's 10 o'clock.
Yeah.
Right, right.
Works.
That's voluntary.
Resting comes on at 10 o'clockin the night, at nine actually.
Sounds pretty good.
yeah.
But, okay.
You're in Austin, so you'reliving on campus, you know,
a few hours away from home.
Yeah.
And and why do you think youhad challenge as a student?
Were you antsy, bored, or wereyou like questioning whether

(29:34):
do I really wanna do this?
Like, what was it?

Paul (29:36):
Yeah, it was, it was all of those things
and, and rolled into one.
It was, again, I'm not blamingmy mother, but there was a
strict upbringing and when youget into a place where those
rules no longer apply mm-hmm.
And you realize you can goout and do almost anything
you want to do, it, it,it's, it's, it's a whole
different world at that point.
And, you know, I was, Iwas a student where like I

(29:57):
again was, didn't mean I wasgreat, but I was in choir,
you know, I was in all themusicals and I was in football.
Right.
Like, I was at school,like high school from

6 (30:06):
00 AM to like eight with extracurricular activities,
doing everything right.
Kind of nerdy for sure.
Not, not exactly.
And, and you know, also doingthe computer game stuff.
So.
But when I got to collegeand it's just like this, this
whole world opens up, you know?
And, and nothingreally too elicit.
you know, may Yes.
Drinking, of course, yes, goingto parties, but really just,

(30:30):
oh, I can sit here and playvideo games, you know, all
day long or, you know, I can

Alex (30:37):
Cause you had that color tv.
And were you still hadyour Commodore 64 then?
Or did you likeget an Apple two?
What'd you have

Paul (30:44):
The first year, I had the Commodore 64.
The second year I had a, a2000, or, sorry, what was it?
A, I'm trying to remember.
'cause it was basedoff megahertz.
It was a, a 16, I rememberit was a 16 sx, like it was,
what was the Intel chipscalled at that one of an

Alex (31:02):
early pc?

Paul (31:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was before

Alex (31:05):
that, before 386, like a 286 or three six.

Paul (31:07):
It was a 286 16.
286. Yeah.
Yeah, I think, Ithink that was it.

Alex (31:10):
Okay.
So that was like, couldrun Doom on there.

Paul (31:14):
Yeah, eventually you could eventually, but I was
playing games like CrescentHawks Revenge and that kind of
thing on, on that system, so

Aaron (31:22):
Is that mud, you were saying Muds earlier?

Paul (31:24):
Muds were, when you're supposed to have your time
on, you know, the differentspark stations or the sun
stations at school, do youknow, like development?
You, and then Yeah.
You took that time and thenyou're playing a mud instead
of actually working on lisc.

Alex (31:36):
Right.
So, okay.
So, like a Spark station ora Sun station, these are like
$25,000 workstation computersthat the university would put
there for students to learn howto do like hardcore programming.
Yeah.

Paul (31:50):
And, and they're networked together.
Okay.
There you go.
All right.
On this thing calledthe internet, right?

Alex (31:56):
Yeah.
Which early days.
Early, early times, right?
Okay.
So ut did you graduate witha degree in computer science?

Paul (32:04):
No, I did not.

Alex (32:05):
Did you graduate?

Paul (32:06):
Not at all.
No.

Alex (32:07):
Okay.

Paul (32:08):
No, no.
I, what, what happened?
What happened was shortly,I, I can't, I can't even
remember what year itwas, but I basically,
I was just outta money.
I, I mean, there's poor andthen there's what I was,
which is negative, right?
Like I was, I'dowed people money.
You wanna say people like,you know, you owe that.
I got a job as an apartmentmanager to, to actually pay

(32:30):
for my ability to live there.
So I never had to pay rent.
But that was aboutall that covered.
And then I had to findodd jobs to, survive.
you know, and I couldn'tafford school at all.
And so I had to drop outof school completely.
I had to.
Basically just find a way tosurvive, which I, I ended up

(32:50):
at the apartment manager job.
I did well enough to become,you know, a higher level
apartment manager at abigger complex where now it
wasn't just my rent, but itwas rent plus some money.
And I, you know, I thoughtI was gonna end up having to
go into real estate and Wow.
There.
Yeah, there was a girl thatI had met at a bar, and
this is a funny story, andI failed spectacularly.

(33:13):
We went out on one dateand failed spectacularly
to impress her, right?
And then saw her at a baragain four years later.
So imagine this is me at20 or 19 when I met her and
then met her like three yearslater, something like that.
Maybe a little later than that,actually come to think of it.
And I asked her what shewas doing and she said,

(33:35):
oh, I actually work atthis company, just this.
Little, little, you know, thiscompany, they make video games
and, you know, my jaw drops.
I'm like, that's allI've ever wanted to do.
And she's like, oh, yeah, yeah.
It's, it's pretty great.
I'm an artist there.
And you know, and I knewthat she'd been in art
classes and things and and.

(33:56):
I'm like, is there any wayyou can get me in the door?
Like I would've saidanything at this point.
Right?
Like, you know, real estate'soutta my mind, you know, the
dream's back in front of me.
And she's like, well, theyhave this thing and it's
called an application andyou should go fill it out.
So that's what I did.
And this is now 1995 and we'reup to, you know, windows 95
is, is the, is the platformthat's, it's just taken

(34:19):
over and nobody knows how toget their games, their DOS
games running at Windows 95.
So they have to hire up allthese technical support people.
And I, you know, I think Imentioned to you earlier, you
know, I know you've talked toHarvey, so you know that he
went through this same thingof getting in, getting into
QA much the same way I did.
But, but luckily,

Alex (34:38):
Although I, I think he just squatted on the
softball team until somebodyinvited him in the building.

Aaron (34:44):
He was hanging out.
That's right.

Paul (34:46):
That was what I heard.
Yeah.
Mine was me.

Alex (34:48):
But you filled out an application.
That's impressive.

Paul (34:51):
I did.
I did.
And luckily Jenny had said,Hey, you know, I worked there
so you take pity on you.
And she put in agood word for me.
So it was still who you knew,she put in a good word for me.
But you know, people thathad worked in that same
technical support departmentthat, whose names you might
know, I don't know if youknow a guy named Monty Kerr.
Monty Kerr does a lot inthe mobile gaming industry.

(35:11):
You know, Harvey, I thinkeven Star got his his start
there, but also J. Allen Brack

Alex (35:15):
Starr Long,

Paul (35:16):
Starr Long, okay.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
J. Allen Brack.

Alex (35:18):
What a killer QA crew.

Paul (35:20):
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, it was, it was,honestly, it was one
of the best times ever.
Like that was, that wassuch a fun, place to work.
But it was also the place wherelike what we experience now,
there were a lot of layoffs.
We used to joke that therewas this tree that would bloom
in May in our parking lot.
Whenever the end of the fiscalwas this, this tree would bloom.

(35:41):
And it was like, oh look,the blooms were on the
layoff tree because weall knew the were coming.
I knew exactly.
That was, that wasthe running joke.
That was how bad it was.

Alex (35:52):
yeah.
Yeah.
We've got, we've gottentoo close to the EA
layoff tree, right?
Yeah.
Wait, this was, so this wasin 95, they set it on fire.
Yeah.
Origin was already partof Electronic Arts.
Is that right?

Paul (36:03):
That's right.
Yeah.
I think, I wanna tell you, I'mprobably wrong, but I wanna say
they got bought by EA in, in 94.
Okay.
So, so it was, it was justright after they got bought.
I, I could be wrong.

Alex (36:13):
Okay.

Paul (36:13):
It might not be exactly right.

Alex (36:15):
You know, I really thought you were gonna say that You met
this girl at the bar four yearslater, and now she's your wife.
Did you guys get married?
Yeah.

Paul (36:23):
No.

Aaron (36:24):
That's what I thought too, I'm so you said that.

Alex (36:28):
No, but, but, but also good story, you know, that
you got the application.
so, so you end up at Origin,you're in the QA department.
And.
Did you, what happened?
Did you get laid off orwas that just a joke?
You know, that it,it just cycled a lot.

Paul (36:42):
So it, it turns out, while I'm not great in academic
environments, once you haveno money or negative money
and you're struggling tosurvive, it kicks a gear in
you, you don't know you have.
And I hustled, but, inQA and, and just worked
myself to the bone.
I didn't care how manyhours I had to work.

(37:03):
It didn't matter to me thatthat was, was irrelevant.
What was relevant was I, Iwas getting closer to doing
the thing I wanted to do.
And the only way that I knewyou could do that, and, and this
is funny, one of my managers atthe time, his name is Richard
Zinser, and he said somethingthat I'll never forget.
He said nobody ever gotpromoted doing poorly
at their current job.

(37:23):
Now we all know that'snot exactly the tautology.
We would hope it would be,but it was actually true
with Richard and I just, youknow, I would put in hundreds
of hours, like when we weretesting Ultima online and
they pitched Ultima online tous as a game called Multima.
Right.
And none of us really knew.
At the time how big thisthing should have been.

(37:45):
But we were excited towork on it, you know,
for me, Ultima, right?
And Oh wow.
Ultima Online now it'slike those muds that
I played, was perfect.
And you know, you get to knowthe dev team a little bit
when you're working at QAwith that and it's a brilliant
project and you get, getreally excited about that.
But it was hard because youdid have to put in hours and,
and they never knew when abuild would come through.

(38:07):
And we talk about builds andwe're like, this build is
taking a long time and it's,you know, it's 15 minutes
to 20 minutes a build.
There was, it couldbe eight hours right?
For them to get a buildand put it on the servers.

Alex (38:18):
Did like to, to press the button.
Okay, we're ready to makea build, blink, and then
take eight hours to actuallycompile everything together
into something playable?

Paul (38:28):
Yeah.
And, and, and put it on thedis so we'd all have the
client on our discs to install.

Alex (38:32):
Oh, okay.

Paul (38:33):
You know, so you have the server and you've
got the client and they'vegotta get those out to you.
So we'd have burners,you know, in the QA room,

Alex (38:40):
CDs, burning CDs, right.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Kids, back in the nineties,you have to put things on CDs.
You can't even buy a computerwith a CD drive anymore.

Paul (38:50):
You cannot.
And it's just, or, or almostany kind of media that
outside of a thumb drive.
Right.

Aaron (38:57):
We'll be right back if you like what you're hearing,
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And now back to the show.

Alex (41:21):
How big was Origin then?
So like Ultima Online doingtesting on it, like how
many, how big was the studio?

Paul (41:27):
I, I would say it was probably around
four to 500 people.
Origin handled multipleteams better than I've
ever seen any other companyhandle multiple teams.
And the way they did it was, youknow, for different projects,
each team was their own team.
Period.
End of story.
There was no sharingof resources, there
was no anything else.
They were run independentlyby different people.

(41:48):
It's brilliant.
It's the way it should always bedone because that way the people
on the team have investment inthe project they're working on.
Sorry, little bit of a rantthere because I, I still
think it's one of the bestways I've ever seen it done.
So that is how bigOrigin was at the time.

Alex (42:01):
So Richard's still there at the studio.
Is like Warrenthere, Chris Roberts?
Was that sort oflike the, the crew?

Paul (42:08):
Warren had gone.
Okay.
Yeah.
Chris, I, I, I probably gotto spend about two years of
overlapping maybe because theywere Maverick Studios, before he
went and started Digital Animal.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
Who did Free Space.
That was, that was afascinating, studio.
And he was, he was known asthe really meticulous guy.

(42:28):
And then yeah, Richardwas definitely there.
Warren had left prettyshortly after I started.
Hmm.
Okay.
So, yeah.
Yeah.

Alex (42:35):
So listeners, you're probably familiar with
Warren, he's been on theshow on Chris Roberts said
the Wing Commander Games.
Right?
That's right.
Which were part of Origin.
Okay.
So, so, yeah.
And so like, what was nextfor you, like Ultima Online,
but did you go to Tabula Rasaafter that or was there Yeah.
So, you know, justhow did that happen?

Paul (42:52):
Just just to give you the little bridge there.
I actually went fromQA to working as a Game
master on, Ultima Online.
And they had told us that'sthe way you're gonna get
in development, right?
I was like, oh, 'causeyou're actually gonna be
able to run Quest, whichwas nothing like the truth.
And we, we were justhandling customer service,
you know, complaints aboutthe game the whole time.
And, you know, finally therewas one day that, that a

(43:16):
kid called in and, you know,basically had said, Hey, you
know, I, I've taken a wholebunch of pills and, and had
told people this online.
And then we ended uplooking up his name right.
And, and trying tocall, his parents.
you know, didn't know whatelse to do at the time.

(43:37):
And then his mom is like,well, yeah, his dad's
like, really bottle.
And she tells methis whole story.
And I'm just sitting there,I'm like, I'm not qualified
for this in any way whatsoever.
And at that point I, I'm justkind of like, I'm not doing
something I like at all.
And it really hit me that Ijust, I wasn't qualified or
it did, it had just takensuch a dark turn and I'm like,

(43:57):
I'm, I'm in customer service.
I'm not, gaming is acompletely different beast now.
Mm-hmm.
And so I, I'd, Ended uptelling, I guess he was the
vice president at the time ofthe studio, I'm like, I'm out.
I, I, I have to leave now.
It's like, well, do youhave another job lined up?
I'm like, Nope.
I just, I can't do this anymore.
And he said, well,what do you wanna do?
I said, well, I wantedto be a developer.

(44:18):
I said, so go be a developer.
And I said, well, that'seasy for you to say.
And he's like, it is easyfor me to say, you're
gonna be a developer.
And, he, he stuck with me.
That was Gordon Waltonand, it's great, right,

Alex (44:30):
Gordon.

Paul (44:31):
And, and he, so he got me.
That's cool.
An appointment withtwo teams to see which
team I wanted to go to.
and it ended up being notthe fancy new Ultima Online
two team, which I had anoffer from, thanks to Starr.
But it was ultimate online.
And because I, I reallystill love the game.
I am still a big fan ofthat game, and I knew it.
And, and so I just, Iwanted to get on there.

(44:51):
And I also got a designerthere also meant to
part-coder, which as youknow, probably appealed to me.
and so I was able to get onthat game, in that capacity.
Lots of stories with thatgame, but that, that's
kind of was the bridge tome getting in development.
And then actually a lot of thepeople who went over there,
Carly, Stalin, Starr Long andsome other people went over and

(45:12):
I didn't know Richard as wellat that point, and they brought
me over to work at NCsoft andthey said, Hey, we think, you
know, this guy is worthy of atleast getting a, an interview.
And they brought me over toNCsoft, because I was the lead
designer on Ultima Online atthat point, and then went over
to NCsoft to work, work there.

Alex (45:28):
How long was that period of time from like, okay,
basically I gotta leave.
And you get a, arole on the UO team.
How long was it from that toyou're now lead designer on your
like, favorite game of all time?

Paul (45:44):
About two years.
Two years.
Wow.
About two years.
Yeah.
And that's, that sounds likeI'm a really accomplished
person, but let's hotshot Yeah.
Let's be real of, ofwhat actually happened.
We had a lot of thedevelopers of Ultima Online
at that time, left to gowork on Star Wars galaxies.

Aaron (46:01):
Oh yeah.
I remember that game.

Paul (46:04):
Okay.
They, they took a lotof the team with them.
and I kind of became thelead designer by default.
You know, I'd love to tellyou it was, I was, you know,
hustling and everything else,but that wasn't really true.
And then we had to hire awhole new group of, people
to be on that developmentteam at that point.
But it, it, it reallywas like, you learn very
quickly, what is it?

(46:25):
Baptism by fire of, you know,you're, you're, you're really
in the trenches, at that point.

Aaron (46:31):
Sorry to go back here, Paul, but you
mentioned the kid on thephone that took the pills.
What happened to that?
Like what, what was the?

Paul (46:38):
So as far as we know, that was resolved, right?
We, we, we suggest tohis mom, 'cause his mom
was asking us questionslike, what, what can I do?
And I'm like, well the firstthing you should do is go check
on your kid and the secondthing you should do is get help.
Right.
Like get, get realprofessional counseling.
That's what we told them.
as far as we know thatkid is okay, like, you
know, or was at the time.
And, but that was, he could,and we know that only because

(47:01):
he was back online, you know?
Okay.
A few days later.
And it's not, you know,we followed up that much.
We didn't follow up much more.
It wasn't really our, ourbusiness or our place to follow.
Yeah, yeah.
But I, I wish that were anonly story, but it's surprising
how many people use thatmedium to reach out for help.

Aaron (47:16):
Yeah.
I've heard about that too.
That's, that's very interesting.
Yeah.
Sorry I had to go back'cause you mentioned it.
I'm like, well whathappened to the guy?

Paul (47:22):
Yeah.
Sorry.
Good point.
Yeah.
It's the important part.

Alex (47:26):
That's a really interesting story, Paul, and
it's a, it's a good observation,Aaron, that our medium video
games are, they're socialand they're interactive.
There's, you know, peoplerelate to each other inside
of the entertainment.
They relate to the creators orcommunicate with the creators
inside of the entertainment.
It's, I think, prettyunique that way.
Mm-hmm.

(47:46):
So I sounds like that was apretty challenging experience
for a young game developerthat you Paul, to be in.

Paul (47:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Aaron (47:56):
Yeah.
I can't even imagine, like, what

Paul (47:57):
It's just, it wasn't something I was
qualified to do, you know?
And the only thing thatI think I was qualified
to do is, no, I wasn't.
Right.
Yeah.

Alex (48:06):
So being a designer on Ultima Online, and it's been
in service for a few yearsat this point, like what was
the day-to-day like then?
Like what, what were you doing?

Paul (48:16):
It was pretty great.
The, the nice thing was oneof the first, very first
things I've worked on, therewere two things they gave me.
They said, here's a system for,you know, you tell us what you
want to do, which was awesome.
There's a guy namedAnthony Castori.
He said, you tell me whatyou want to do and how,
what you wanna do to thegame to make this better.
And then the second thing is,we want you to do patches.

(48:37):
So, so it was, you know, again,it was kind of that small
team mentality a little bit.
but the first thing I wantedto do is do something that I
had nicknamed vendor Barbie,which a lot of the people in
the games had vendors thatthey had associated with
their houses and to learn.
How the systems workedand things like that.

(48:58):
One of the things that Ireally wanted to do was let
people dress up their vendors.
Right.
Which doesn't seem like a bigsystem anymore, but at the
time was pretty unheard of.
And, and, and the attemptswere a little clumsy, but the
people loved it because theyloved customizing the things.
And so a lot of the guilds, theystarted to like build uniforms
for the vendors so people couldsee, you know, the uniforms.

(49:19):
And it, and it outgrew evenwhat I had expected, which
is one of my very favoriteparts of development.
It's when the playersoutsmart you as a developer.
Right?
That's, yeah.
That's, that's the, that'sreally the kind of the magic
where they do something ina way you didn't expect.
And, and I think that'sprobably the coolest
things about our job.
And, and that was again,the, the, the reaffirmation
that this was somethingthat really went over well.

(49:40):
And in fact, it was sucha small system, but it
had gone over so well.
It was like, oh, I'm notout of touch with them.
I'm one of them, you know,one of us, one of us, one
of us, as a developer.
And so.
That was, that was fun.
And it was great toget to work on that.
So you, if you think aboutthat, imagine somebody
said to you, Aaron or Alextoday, you just tell me what

(50:04):
you wanna work on and thenyou go make that happen.
That, that's sorare in, in games.
Right.
But, but it was anestablished thing.

Alex (50:12):
Yeah.

Paul (50:12):
At the same token, you can also screw up really
badly live, but you, you havethat, the beautiful thing
about live games is you havethat quick turnaround of your
communication with the playersto know whether what you did was
right or wrong in their eyes.

Alex (50:26):
Okay.
So then what happened?
You got recruited overto Ncsoft and you start
working on Tabula Rasa.

Paul (50:31):
Right.
And, and Tabula Rasa is, it's,it's a seven year stint of my
career, that I think amountedto 25,000 or 30,000 sold units.
So for those of you who aren'taware, that's not great.
But I really did love the peopleI worked with at, at, at studio.
They were, they're great.
It's just that.

(50:52):
I, I think that's one ofthose things where you're,
you're, you are in thefeast portion of development
instead of the famine portion.
And so you have all of thistime, you have all of these
resources because it's beingbacked by Ncsoft who's, you
know, still living large basedoff of Lineage at the time.
Right.
And they've investedin the studio.

(51:12):
We had people from Koreacome over and work with us.
It's, it's a beautiful timeto understand how every bit
of our thinking was prettyflawed in a lot of ways, right?
We, we tried to make a game thatwould appeal to both the western
market and the eastern market.

Alex (51:28):
Hmm.

Paul (51:28):
Appeals to no one.
We all got a little high onlike some of our designs.
Maybe it was high on otherthings, but it was definitely
our designs where, you know,the going in directives
for the project were thingslike Chinese Ghost Story
and Terry Mugler outfitsand things of that nature.
And it's not that anybody wasdoing anything wrong, there's
some brilliant kind of thinkingbehind that stuff, but it

(51:49):
didn't translate to a fun game.
And a lot of times we ended uptalking about things that this
is what the game's not, versushere's what the game is and, and
was there really central vision?
And I think at that point is,is when I had a real epiphany
to like, you know, games haveto be directed and they have
to be directed really well.
You know, people have tounderstand what they're making.
And now I have to be verycareful with that statement

(52:11):
because there will be timeswhere people say like, I'm still
not sure what we're making.
You know, like.
Every day today.
But it's like, okay, well letme help you understand that.
But sometimes people are like,they use that as, as kind of
an out for like, I wanna dothis other thing and I don't
understand what we're making.
Right?
Like, so, so you haveto be very careful and
understand what that's about.
But everybody who worksin a video game works in a

(52:33):
video game to, to have theirown idea be a part of it.
And so that's, that's reallya strong thing about direction
is you have to learn tolike, listen to what people
are really telling youthey want, and see how you
can fit that in the game.
And sometimes it worksand sometimes it doesn't.

Alex (52:48):
How do you do that?
Like when you're runninga project or you directing
game, whatever and, andsomebody brings an idea
that you don't like.
Yeah.
What do you do with that?

Paul (53:00):
Talk to 'em about what they wanted to do.
Like what, what wasthe goal of this?
Like what, what didyou hope the goal was?
Like, you know, how did you seethat fitting into the thing?
It's generally asking themquestions about what it is
versus telling them no outright.
I mean, sometimes you have tosay no outright, just 'cause
you're, you're out of time.
Mm-hmm.
But it really is just tryingto get to the heart of what
they're trying to do and saying,let me ask you a question.

(53:22):
If we did what you weretrying to do this way,
would this still fulfillwhat you're trying to do?
And most people, when they hearthat you're willing to make
that effort will then say, yes.
Like this would work.
And if, if you can say thisthing that they want, it's
not gonna break our game,it's not going to hurt it.
It's, it's going to bewhat they want and we can

(53:43):
get it fit in, then you'reprobably doing an okay job.

Alex (53:46):
Mm. You kind of root out like intention and then try
to match intention to vision

Paul (53:52):
Yeah.
And sometimes you pitchtheir own idea back to them.
If you, if you're getting,if you're getting the, the,
the little essence of whatthey're trying to pitch to
you, then a lot of timesthey'll be like, okay, okay.
I think you got it.
I think you understoodwhat I want.
And sometimes, unfortunately,the way this comes across
is me asking questionsvery matter of factly.
Right?
Because here we're justtalking, but I will ask
questions sometimes, like,and it might sound hostile

(54:15):
and it's in no way hostile.
It's, I am not understanding,I need to understand.
So I will just sit therejust, just for rattle off
question after question.
And, and as long as peoplecan understand that my intent
is never to be negative, it'salways the, I really need
to understand this better.
I really need tounderstand this better.

Aaron (54:32):
Yeah.
Were you there from thebeginning of the game
to the end of the game?
Like from the whole

Paul (54:37):
For Tabula?

Aaron (54:38):
Yeah.

Paul (54:39):
Yes.

Aaron (54:40):
Were there other games?
Like what was like, I'm tryingto understand the 'cause
I remember that that time.
Austin was like the MMOtown in the US right?

Paul (54:49):
It was, it was, and, and, and largely because of UO.
Right.
And, and, and, and I'll alwayslament that because I wish EA
had understood what they had,in UO, and they never did.
But the thing about itwas, is there were so many
things that we were tryingto do versus just say, this
is the game we wanna make.
Which I said before, butlet me give you an idea

(55:09):
of what this is like.
We were kind of off thereservation with this
Chinese ghost story stuff,and, and in, I'm gonna get
this date wrong, but I, Iwanna tell you, it was 2004.
We went to E3 and we previewedthe game to people and, and,
and lead balloon doesn'teven cover how, how poorly
I guess this went over.
And we had, people who were, youknow, working on marketing with

(55:31):
us and things like that, thatsaid, we can't sell this game.
We don't know what this game is.
Because it was based off of,you know, things like mythos
where you had unicorns wherehad, and, and this might sound
cool or horrible depending onyour, the way you looked at it.
We had a whole characterdesigns that were based
around, like, well, someof them used knowledge to
attack and then they wouldopen books and use knowledge

(55:52):
as their attacks and theywould, you know, war hammer.
Yeah.
They, they would playmusical instruments as
part of their attacks.
Right.
That's cool.
Like, and, and things like that.
Or they dance and it justnever went over well.
And so marketing partnerssaid, we can't sell this.
And so we completely flippedthat game into, it's just fun to
have a gun in your end and let'smake a, a sci-fi shooter, MMO.

(56:13):
And that's what it, iteventually became, but
that meeting after thatE3 is, is one of three
of the most uncomfortablemeetings I've ever sat in.
And it was, it was really hardand I thought I was going to
be fired, but that was tough.

Alex (56:28):
Yeah.
So that period of time andthat project, like, what was
your big learning from again?

Paul (56:34):
It was, it was, you have to direct you, you
can't leave people wonderingwhat they're working on,
wondering what's going on.
And, and so you even afterthat project, I was a
little burnt out 'cause I,I was eventually the lead
designer on that project,but not until we had to turn.
And once we had toturn, I became the lead
designer on that project.
And, and I still think to thisday that it could have been a,
a cool game, Planet Side beingmy, my primary example of like,

(56:56):
see they did it and they did it.
Well that's a cool game becausethey wanted, an an RPG still of,
of like a number base shooterwhere like your numbers matter.
But we were like, if yourcross hairs are over something
and you shoot and you miss,people are going to bem.
Right.
It just felt awful.
And we, we went down that pathfor so long and eventually
we said, well, you can't evermiss right on Tabula Rasa.

Alex (57:18):
That's, that's quite a ride.
Yeah.
So yeah.
The game comesout 25,000 copies.
I know that's not theresult anybody wants.
Yeah.
Was that sort of the endof the road for the project
and your role on it?
Is that when you movedover to Bethesda?

Paul (57:32):
Yeah, that was, it's really close.
What actually happened, is, isa little bit more, you know,
and, and it gives me somesympathy as well, for people.
So I had, I had said, well,I, I kind of wanna distance
myself from this, right?
Like, I was probably feelinga little hurt, right?
And we started up like,Hey, let's pitch new
projects for NCsoft becausethey, they were, you know,
they hadn't pulled out.

(57:53):
NCsoft was still verysuccessful, right?
It was like our studio was theone that was having the trouble.
And there were somereasons that, that we
were pitching new games.
And so they said, yeah,we definitely want you
guys to pitch new games.
And so we did.
But once we started pitchingthe new games, we, we
were on a different team.
There was a game I pitched,it was called Dream Catcher.
Like I still love the idea.
And it actually went nowhere.

(58:14):
And they laid us off.
Right, because we weren't, weweren't even on, on that team.
So, got laid off.
it was one of the firsttimes I'd ever been laid off.
It doesn't matter if they tellyou you're fired or if you're
laid off, you still hurt whenother people are left behind.
And, and you were one of thefirst people that was laid off.
Right.
And then I luckily was laid offunder very good circumstances.
They treated us well.

(58:34):
And then I spent some timeand moved to, Bethesda.
Actually, I, I had two choices.
One was Harmonix.
I'm a huge nerdfor, music games.
I, I love them, but Ireally love, let's be
honest, I love frequency andamplitude and the music that
they had in those games.
Even more so than GuitarHero, but loved Harmonix,
but ended up going withZenimax 'cause they were

(58:56):
making Elder Scrolls Online.
And I love Elder Scrolls.
So it was, it waswhere my expertise was.
I got hired as a contentdesigner there and eventually
became the creativedirector, on that game.

Alex (59:09):
Right on.

Aaron (59:09):
Cool game.

Alex (59:10):
And was that happening in Austin as well or did
you end up relocating?

Paul (59:14):
No, we moved to just outside of Baltimore, which
if you've lived in Texasyour whole life, that's
a bit of a culture shock.

Alex (59:21):
Yeah.
What was, so what wasthat like for you?
Baltimore seems very differentfrom Dallas and Austin.

Paul (59:25):
It, it was, and we moved actually to Pennsylvania 'cause
the taxes were better there.
And it was only like, you know,27 minutes to get into work and
it's, it was very different.
I still, I still loveBethesda, like honestly.
Bethesda and Robert inthat group, and Robert,
unfortunately, he's no longerwith us, he was the head of
Bethesda at the time, wereamazing and I think they

(59:48):
gave me the most confidenceand the ability to do what
I'm doing now, which isstarting Ruckus games.
I learned so much from beingat the top level meetings
there, going to those meetings,seeing how things were run.
It was, it was beautiful.
They, because unlike theother studios I've worked
at, they were extremelyprofessional, right?
It wasn't like a garageband that had made it and,
and it just kept growing.

(01:00:09):
It was more like theywere a professional
organization, you know?
They, they had hours that peoplewere supposed to be there.
And I just, I just found outI, I, I kind of flourished
in that environment.
it was, it was exactlythe environment I loved.

Alex (01:00:20):
They, they had a little bit more structure.
It was more clear whatexpectations were of everybody.
It wasn't just, Hey,just put in 110 hours and
everything will be good.
It was, things were a littlebit more set up with intention.

Paul (01:00:33):
Yeah.

Alex (01:00:33):
Would you say?

Paul (01:00:34):
Yeah.
I, yes.
Especially the structure, thecorporate structure of Bethesda
was definitely that way.
Zenimax Online wasa great studio.
I loved it, but theystruggled for, for quite
a while to find what ElderScrolls Online would be.
And it, it, it sounds easy,but we, we'd started out with
it, it being very much a Worldof Warcraft clone, right?

(01:00:55):
And, you know, know, chasingthat dragon is, is dangerous.
And, and so part of the reasonI think I was able to become
creative director was I said,we need to stop chasing that.
And we need to startembracing what's beautiful
about Elder Scrolls.
And since I was a fan, that wasreally easy for me to wanna do
and, and really talk about that.
And there were some thingsthat really hard about that.
Like, k stories gotta come.

(01:01:16):
It's really gotta bea priority for us.
Missions, exploring the worldhas to be a priority for us.
It has to be, find all thesethings in all these places.
But I loved it because we hadan art director who came in
and turned around a lot ofthe studio's art at the time.
his name was Jared Carr.
He was a huge, huge winfor that studio as far as

(01:01:36):
getting somebody with, withan extreme amount of talent.
And then, you know, I'm nottrying to toot my own horn,
but at the time I did feellike I knew exactly what I
wanted to do with this game.
And then once I was promotedto creative director, I
think that we, we actuallywere able to do that.
But that was only 18months before we shipped.

Alex (01:01:55):
Oh, wow.
So a game like that, ElderScrolls Online, like what's
the whole development timeline?
Was that a six year project?

Paul (01:02:03):
Oh, I wish, I, I wanna say that I started in, in
2009 and I think we shippedin 2014 originally on the
pc, and then I think weshipped console in 2015.

Alex (01:02:14):
Big project seven years.
Okay, so you were likeon some pretty big time
investment projects.
Yeah.
And then, and wasBorderlands 3 shorter?
I'm guessing?

Paul (01:02:23):
Yes, it was, it was shorter.
it's, it's actually oneof the things, you can
start to see some of thepatterns here, right?
Like, because I love MMOs, butthey're such a time investment.
But I'm also a bigTwitch shooter fan.
Like, you Halo.
So, you know, as honestly,the first time I played
a shooter on consoleswas that, and I loved it.
Goldeneye, but you know, youknow what I'm getting at?

(01:02:46):
was there.

Alex (01:02:46):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Goldeneye was good.

Paul (01:02:48):
Yeah, it was, so it really was, once
we switched over to.
Really thinking about likethe length of time I was
spending or once I switchedover to that thinking, I wanted
to work on something that,that where they ship games
and, and gearbox actuallywas a really good studio for
shipping a game quicker, right?
And again, it was a little bitmore garage band get successful,

(01:03:10):
but that hunger in them towanna ship a game faster was,
was still there at the time.
And that was it.
But, you know, we shipped,I want to tell you that
Borderlands was probablythe number three game in
the world, Maybe, you know,certainly in the top five.
It's hard to know.
And we sold over 15 millionunits, you know, huge,
huge numbers, huge success.
I love that.

(01:03:30):
I love Borderlandswhen I started there.
But at the same time, that'swhen we really noticed that
that wasn't considered.
A tremendous success byeverybody, then there's
something fundamentally wrong.
There's something wrong.
Yeah.
And broken in the industry.

Alex (01:03:43):
I, I can totally see.
So that whole journey thatyou've been on with Borderlands
3 at one end of the bookshelfand Tabula Rasa, which was
many, many years of your lifewith a lot of challenge at the
other end of the bookshelf,having a pretty big impact on
what you're doing right now.
So it makes a lot of sense.

(01:04:04):
I think a, a lot of folks inthe industry have probably
come to similar conclusions.

Paul (01:04:09):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, I think so.
I think it's hard, right?
Like we're, we're experiencingthat change right now in
the future seems uncertain.
But, but, you know, it's,it's always uncertain and
we, we will get there.

Alex (01:04:19):
I'm optimistic.
I, I feel like there'salways opportunity, you know?
Yeah.
Wait, can, can you realize it?
Hmm.
You know, maybe there'salways opportunity.

Paul (01:04:31):
You know, I, I love the game I'm working on now.
Like, I can tell you alsothat I'm having more fun
than I've had in, in years.
Like, I'm having the kind offun I had on old my online.
Anytime I'm working ona game, I'm doing that.
That's a great sign.
Yeah.
The CEO stuff, you know,that's, that's, that's
neither here nor there.
I mean, I do loveleading a studio.
I think what we're the reasonswe're doing it are good reasons.

(01:04:52):
but it's when I'm actuallyin the game making things
directing, that's, that'sreally the passion.

Alex (01:04:57):
Are you, do you get to spend time, like, are
you guys using Unreal do toget, to spend time in the
engine, like building stuffor are you kind of like, you
know, in, in spreadsheetsand on the phone all day?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, indeed.

Aaron (01:05:11):
So you're in there though.
You're messingaround with the game.
That's cool, man.
Man,

Paul (01:05:14):
I, there's, there's, my engineers will disagree
with you, but I, I, I havedone code for the game.
you know, and, definitelydesign work, you know, I'm on
spreadsheets and, you know,for design, systematic design
is, is that's, that's whatI love doing, making guns.
So, been doing a lot of that.
it's super fun, man.
It's, it's also fun thatwe're making the kind of

(01:05:36):
game that we all kind ofenjoy playing right now.
And again, I'm gonna tellyou 2022, so when I say
this, it wasn't like we werelooking at what was going on.
It's the kind of games we wantedto make, but it was cooperative.
We were like, Hey,there's a lot of people
making competition games.
I love competition, but I,I really also like playing
together and playing withfour people, having a shooter,
having crazy dumb guns andthings like that all throughout.

Alex (01:05:58):
Awesome.
Is, is, is that whenyou started in 2022?

Paul (01:06:02):
So we started in 2021.
And when I say we started, andyou heard me say, by no means
are we like wealthy, we all tooka year off of income to do this.
Like we, we had jobs butwe didn't have income.
So we all took a year.
Mm. you know, toinvest bootstrapping.
Yeah, that's right,that's right.
To make a, to make a demo.

Alex (01:06:22):
2021.
That's when you started.

Paul (01:06:24):
2021 to 2022.
And we got seed in 2022.

Alex (01:06:27):
Okay.
And it's 2025.
Yep.
So that's three years.
Yep.
When are you shipping?

Paul (01:06:35):
Pretty, pretty soon.
So see, when are youannouncing in this?
I love that you asked me that.
So cleverly like, Hey, areyou gonna commit to this?
But, but remember there'sa difference between,

Alex (01:06:47):
but you're, 'cause you're not in it for six years, right?
This is, we're goingquicker, right?
Or is it just smaller team?

Paul (01:06:52):
Well, we're also building a company at
the same time, so, yeah.

Alex (01:06:55):
Okay.
That's fair.
That's fair.

Paul (01:06:56):
And, and so yes, it's a smaller team.
But yeah, we're not readyto it now is when we're
shipping it, but it was good.
It was good.
You almost got me there.
Yeah.
You know, the most importantthing is when we start play
testing, you know, I don'twanna, you know, put our name
in any kind of, knitted orbright and luminous sites
here, but, you know, westart play testing here.

(01:07:18):
I think within a couple months.
And we've got signupson our website right
now ruckus-games.com.

Alex (01:07:26):
Oh, right on.
So listeners could justgo to the site right now
and sign up to play test.
Yeah.

Paul (01:07:30):
As long as your listeners don't work in the industry for
a competitor, then yeah, don't.
Yes, that's me.
Very much can get in.

Aaron (01:07:37):
I was gonna join the play test.

Alex (01:07:39):
Are we comp We're not competitors.
We can play test, right?

Paul (01:07:42):
Absolutely.
I promise you we can get you in.

Aaron (01:07:44):
It's on the main page.
Yeah.
He's a cool looking guywith a big brain one eye.

Alex (01:07:48):
Awesome.
All right, Paul, wekept you way over.
Thanks for joiningus this afternoon.

Paul (01:07:52):
Absolutely.

Alex (01:07:52):
You've had some really fantastic arcs in your career.
Some of them glorious andsome of them, Other, you
know, and that's, I thinkis you need the, you need
the ups and downs, right?
You do, you know,to get perspective.
And I think what you're doingright now is super smart.
Yeah.
And you've been prettysuccessful at, at getting

(01:08:13):
partners for bringingthis game out in a time
when that's really hard.
So I'm sure you onsomething really great.
Can't wait to check it out.

Paul (01:08:20):
Yeah.
I, I, I think the gameis, is, is super fun.
We're back to a fun part.
You know, you, you alwaysgo through ups and downs
in any development cycle.
We're back to a fun part.
And I'll say this, you know,again, and I hope everybody,
whoever hears anything likethis is just always hears this.
But I am here as a result ofso many other people being
awesome, that it's hard to saythat I, I, I, I never love being

(01:08:40):
the face of anything, right?
I don't have the facefor it, number one.
But number two, it's, it'snot like I was trained in
brilliance, but these peoplethat I've had the pleasure
of working with, and theteam I have now are awesome.
And I hope everybody, whenthey play a game, know how
great most developers are.
I, I, I certainly can't sayenough good things about most
of the people in our industry.
Right on.
Right on.

Alex (01:09:00):
Cool.
Thanks again, Paul.

Aaron (01:09:01):
Nice meeting you, Paul.

Paul (01:09:02):
Good to meet you.

Aaron (01:09:04):
Did you play any, like, did you play any of the Ultima
games and all that stuff?
That was a very interesting era.

Alex (01:09:09):
Yes.
Ultima 2 maybe?

Aaron (01:09:12):
Yeah, that was a weird era.

Alex (01:09:13):
It's been a long time.
Did you consider that when y'allwere making games, like before,
halo, before Marathon, beforePathways in the Darkness, we
did a game called Minotaur.

Aaron (01:09:24):
You said that's your favorite game
that you worked on.

Alex (01:09:27):
Yeah, maybe.
I mean, it's just sucha, a blast to play.
It was before its time, youknow, it was like over a modem.
but we did, I was workingon a, a game, I think it was
called Archipelago, but it was.
It was sort of like thatin that vein, in that
ultimate vein, like tilebased, top down explorer.

Aaron (01:09:48):
And y'all considered it?

Alex (01:09:49):
Yeah, we considered it.

Aaron (01:09:50):
Because that was a really weird era and it kind
of came and went, you know.

Alex (01:09:53):
Weird?
Awesome.

Aaron (01:09:54):
It was weird if you couldn't play the game.

Alex (01:09:56):
I think it seems like it came and went for us
because it was a little bitbefore our time, you know?
It's like, it seemed likewe maybe came in at the end
of it, so it seemed likeit was ending real quick.

Aaron (01:10:06):
Mm, I see.
For me, it was a very, it was avery hard, you had to have the
stuff, you know what I mean?
Like you had to have the gear toplay a lot of these games, like
your computer had to be able torun, you had to have a modem.
There was a, there was a, therewas quite a few like points
of entry, like, what is it?
Points of entry?
Barriers.
Yeah, barriers.
Barriers to entry.

(01:10:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Barriers to entry and.
I didn't have all of them, so Iwas watching from the, from the-

Alex (01:10:32):
Yeah, but you had like four or five jobs
when you were a kid.
I think you could haveafforded a Commodore 64.

Aaron (01:10:38):
I played Doom, yeah.
I had some online stuff,but I couldn't get, Ultima
was, so there's somethingabout it they felt, you know,
hard to get, get, and thenthey kept releasing them.

Alex (01:10:50):
Should bring those games back.

Aaron (01:10:51):
They do.
There's a big quest thing goingon right now, which is kind
of in the same spirit, right?

Alex (01:10:56):
Yeah.
But I, I actually meanlike Ultima, they should
revive the brand, you know?
Oh yeah.
Reboot.

Aaron (01:11:01):
Dude.
It would be great for the phone.
I'd play Ultima on the phone.

Alex (01:11:04):
Oh yeah.
You know, if anybody, if,if, if only, if only we knew
somebody who might listen tothis podcast who was related
to Ultima in some way, I'dreally love to talk to you.

Aaron (01:11:18):
Yeah.
And on the phone.
Yes.
You know, you couldfit one of those.
How big was that game?
You know, I think about, thinkit was probably like 200K.
No, probably not even.
No, it wasn't joining.
It was at least a CD.
Right.
Or a DVD.
So I rem, this is one of thethings I remember the most.
Those games came withstuff, and I miss that.
They should bring thatback, if anything.

Alex (01:11:38):
Maps and the books

Aaron (01:11:41):
and cloth maps

Alex (01:11:42):
and the bag, like, a little bag of Of miniatures
or dice or something.

Aaron (01:11:46):
Something, yeah.
Something like cool stuff.
Okay.
I missed that.
Let's do that.
AIG Big rule book.
Mm-hmm.
Where they caredabout the rule book.
There was a little bit oflore in there, you know.

Alex (01:11:57):
Okay.
Merch.
Not merch.
It's not merch.
It's, it's, where I should,they were like game pieces.
Yeah.
Let's do that.

Aaron (01:12:04):
It's good stuff.
Yeah.
I really miss that.
Yeah.
About our industry.
It's gotten so impersonal,you know, like.

Alex (01:12:13):
Yeah.
It's just a download.
We're all, we're alljust a quid, you know.

Aaron (01:12:19):
It's a download and then if it goes offline, screw you.
Who cares.

Alex (01:12:23):
Yeah.
You know, at the, I, soI'm with you on that.
'cause I was, so comingback on the plane, so
I wasn't on my regularairline and the internet,
you know, you could buyinternet, it's like 30 euros.
It's expensive.
Yeah.
But it's like a dude that's thecost of, that's like 45 bucks.
Yeah.
But it was a 12 hour flight.
So I'm like, man, fuck it.

(01:12:44):
I'm gonna spend the money 'causeI want to get some stuff done.
And then theinternet crapped out.
It worked for like literally 22minutes and then it was done and
then I kept pulled my phone out.
And you can't play asingle game on your phone.
No.
Unless you have internet

Aaron (01:12:58):
Apple Arcade though, you can, if you have Apple
Arcade, you can play alot of those offline.

Alex (01:13:03):
Okay.

Aaron (01:13:04):
That's the beauty of Apple Arcade is we are not
sponsored by Apple Arcade.
But if you're listening toApple Arcade, you're sure
Apple Arcade, you could playalmost all those games offline.
You know, like Balatro.

Alex (01:13:16):
I love that.
I love that.
I, I should havethought of that.
I didn't think of it.
Okay.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
We'll see you next time.

Aaron (01:13:23):
See you next week everybody.
Thank you for listening tothe Fourth Curtain Podcast.
Visit us at thefourthcurtain.comto find our monthly
newsletter and supportthe show via Patreon.
The Fourth Curtain Podcastas a production of Fourth
Curtain Media, lovinglyedited by Bryen Hensley of
Noise Floor Sound Solutions.
Video production bySarkis Grigorian.

(01:13:44):
Production support by KimyaTaheri with Community Management
by Doug Zartman, and ArtProduction by Paul Russel.
Thanks again for listening.

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