I meant to comment on this BET Article earlier, but life has conspired against me. Well, given recent events, it seems like perhaps it’s past due.
Couple of things to discuss on this subject. First, how to untangle the meaning of the word “black” as it refers to someone like myself. Second, what is the significance of being a black professional in the game industry. Finally, what is the impact of our racial heritage on the games we make?
So, am I black? Seems like a strange question, I know. If it were 250 years ago, I’d probably be a slave. Part of my African background includes former slaves, another part includes free creole Africans. Of course, if you look at me, you may or may not recognize that part of my heritage. If you saw my mother, you’d think you were looking at the wrong person, because far beyond the external traits of her brothers and parents, her external appearance is that of a white person. But she’s not. She’s black. Her grandfather built the first brick house in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her father was a dentist and a civil rights activist. My mother went to an all black segregated school. My mother and father couldn’t get married in her home state because interracial marriages were illegal in Arkansas. I can relate many other stories that illustrate the nature of her heritage, but let me just finish this point with this note, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
My Mother (yes, she's black!)
Yet, to be black in America isn’t just how obviously one looks black, it’s a multitude of factors, but largely divided between how one self-identifies and also how others perceive you. Sure, there are the obvious factors. For example, I just attended the funeral for my Great Uncle James Elvis Guinn, grandson of a former slave and the first black surgeon in Fort Worth Texas. So, yes, I identify with the black community. Yes yes, I listen to hip-hop, R&B and jazz. And yes I can dance. The same can be said for most of the kids I met in Korea. So enjoying the culture that has it’s roots in black culture certainly doesn’t make one a black person.
Chaka or "me" as seen by my boy scout troop
Another important part of figuring out whether I’m black (or how black I am? 
) has to do with the way other people perceive me. For example, did I suffer from racism? Absolutely. Let me share a couple of stories, just to illustrate. I got in LOTS of fights in boy scouts. Why? Because some of the older kids in the troop decided to nick name me “chaka.” Don’t remember who “Chaka” is? See the image from “Land of the Lost” to the left. Now, to be fair, Chaka WAS lighter colored than the other furry ape people. Somehow, I didn’t find much consolation in that.
When I was 16, an older kid threw a watermellon through the window in our garage with the “N” word carved in it. Not the brightest guy, he and his accomplice (someone I thought was my friend) were caught by the police as they ran back to the car. Imagine their confusion when they were brought to our front door and my mom answered it. I distinctly remember the sputtering, “B-b-but y-your not black!?”
Ah, teenagers.
Finally, and perhaps the best illustration about how confusing this subject can be for all of us, let me relate an exchange I once had between a police officer and myself. He had stopped my friend for a broken headlight (this is a longer story, ask me about it later), and my friend’s drivers license was expired. So he wanted to check mine and have me drive. He took out his flashlight to examine my license. Then he shined it in my face (it was after 1AM). “Son,” he began in typical Texas trooper fashion, “What nationality are you?” My mind froze. Really? Is he really asking what nationality I am? Or is he trying to ask me that OTHER question? And why would he want to know that? Hmmm…maybe I should just play this one straight.
“American.” I responded directly.
“No,” he said, this time more slowly and with emphasis, “What nationality are you?”
Uh-oh, I thought. Can I play dumb or should I point out the inaccuracy of this question? “Umm…Texan?” I responded quizzically. I mean, we practically are a “Whole nuther country” in these parts.
He frowned at me. “Just answer the question son, what nationalilty are you?”
I couldn’t help it. As politely as I could, I respond. “Sir, I don’t think you’re asking me the right question. I’m not from Israel or something. I’m an American citizen.” Then I waited to find out if I was going to jail.
“Aw hell, never mind,” he grumped and headed back to run my license. The rest of this story can only be told in person.
So, yeah, I’ve dealt with plenty of racism. And racism from people who don’t think I’m black ENOUGH. And people who think Italian people aren’t white. That was a new one for me.
You see, my father’s not black, he’s Italian/Sicilian. I’m not all black. And I certainly identify with Italian culture, particularly the cooking! My Italian language skills are poor, but I blame that on my Poppa 
. Sorry Poppa-poppa.
I married a white beautiful white woman. But check this out, I didn’t KNOW she was white when I met her. Hell if it wasn’t for the Internet, I never would have met her, much less dated her. Not because she was white but because she was taller than I am. Not something that I usually considered . We met on IRC in 1993! Anyway, that’s another interesting story about identity and bias.
Me and Doug
Am I black? Am I white? The real answer? All of the above. I’m as black as Obama is. I’m as white as Obama is. Yes I’m black, but I’m also an American with a rich multiculture heritage that allows me to appreciate the success and struggles of all kinds of people. I understand bias, discrimination. I also greatly appreciate that I have been able to grow up experiencing the generosity and lack of discrimination or hate in the hearts of most Americans. Sure, there were a few bad apples along the way. But there were also the vast majority of people that I’ve known that don’t have the least inclination to be racist. I went to Plano Senior High School, at the time one of the whitest, wealthiest public high schools in the country. I was accepted there. My one black friend was accepted there. Not as a matter of concious approval, just as a state of being.
What does it mean to be a black game developer? Well, for one thing, it’s a pretty unique experience. I’ve worked at Origin, EA, Sony Online, and Codemasters, and of the hundreds of people I’ve worked with, I can count the number of black game developers I’ve gotten to work directly with on one hand. I think it’s 3. Indirectly? maybe 5 (counting QA and IT people). Why is that weird? Well, blacks are over-represented as consumers, so why are they under-representedas developers? I can tell you one thing. It’s not because of discrimination within game companies. Even more problematic than the gender concern, I get almost zero applicants from the African-American and Latin-American communities. I can’t put my finger on why, but I’m certainly aware of it, and as with all communities, I continue to communicate what a great industry it is for anyone to get into. This is something I’ll continue to work on, because I honestly don’t care if you’re black, white, hispanic, asian or what, but when there’s a disconnect as obvious as this one, it’s worth figuring out.
So, what does it mean in terms of what Heatwave will produce? Well, anyone who knows much about Heatwave Interactive knows that my partner is “Black.” Well, guess what, it’s not that simple. Like me, Donn is of mixed heritage. We’re both of african and Italian/Scilian decent! How about that as a coincidence? Guess what’s even more interesting? I didn’t even know that about him until we had been talking about starting Heatwave for 3 months! We had been introduced via email by our common (white) associates, and we’d been talking on the phone while I was in England and he was in Philly. So while it wasn’t inherent to our working together, it was a very interesting coincidence to discover.
So, what’s the real impact? Well, guess what, Donn and I aren’t making the games by ourselves. The reality is that our influence will be most noted in the teams that we put together and broadly felt by the topics we choose to address (more on that soon, I hope!). I believe the result will be mainstream, broadly appealing products that reflect our rich American heritage. Fundamentally, I think we have an appreciation for other points of view, and other cultures, and I’m truly excited to see how our backgrounds contribute to games with less typical stereotypes and more intelligent and thoughtful characterization and storyline. I’m up for the challenge. Are you?
Scott, if I wasn’t the one that made that remark about you leaving Mythic to go to NC Austin, I certainly thought about it.
Might I suggest you are being too kind? But before I blather on, I suppose I should clarify my relationship to Tabula Rasa:
- I never worked at NCsoft, nor did I work on TR
- I know quite a few of the developers who did
- I was at Origin and did talk at length with Richard about his ideas after his transition from Origin, many of which clearly went into TR
- Was on no mailing lists regarding TR
I enjoyed Adam’s post as well. I had the pleasure of working with him at Codemasters and I have always found his objectivity and frankness refreshing. I will posit that what happened to TR can be determined by looking at the name. The creative and business directions for that product were pure rationalization. “We’ll call it ‘Tabula Rasa!’ Why? Because it’s Latin (or something) for Blank Slate. Isn’t that clever?” And when people still didn’t get it after years, “Let’s tack Richard’s name on it, so even if no one gets or remembers the name, they’ll be interested because Richard’s name is on it!”
Dead from the start. A game being made because a game needed to be made. No real soul, no concrete direction. A bunch of very talented people working for years and tearing their hair out to make it work because DAMNIT WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE IT WORK.
TR should have been killed or kept small and in pre-pro until it was obvious to everyone what made it awesome. What kills me about this is that its a story that is repeated over and over again, particularly in the MMO space. Sure, the opposite happens too…people try to make games because they think they have a great idea, but there’s no business case for it. I spent much of my time at EA and Codemaster’s reviewing countless projects across the globe. Both things need to coalesce along with the ability to actually deliver the product before production begins. I was shocked at how often a project would be literally millions of dollars into development and most of the criteria for success still aren’t met.
The game industry needs to grow up, calm down and finds some discipline to go along with all that pent up creative energy. I can only hope that lessons learned from projects like these are being put to good use, but I am sometimes discouraged because some of the people on these projects have made the same mistakes repeatedly. It’s time for new ideas and new personalities in leadership roles. This didn’t have to be the year of the failed MMO. Many of us could see it coming for each of these games from the very beginning.
I’ve recently discovered the amazing talent that is Dan Abnett. Over the past few years, particularly while in the UK, I’ve also become more interested in Warhammer 40k. I’ve played several of Relic’s Warhammer 40k RTS games (make a note, Soulstorm seems noticeably more difficult to me) and so when I came across some 40k books in an airport recently, I decided to pick one up and find out if the novels were any good. Lucky for me, after reading a few excerpts from several books, I found one by Dan Abnett, specifically Brothers of the Snake. It was an an uneven book, but a quick read and the characterization was stellar. The setting and trappings of the Warhammer 40k setting seem to come naturally to Abnett and it made me want to read something more. Next I picked up the Eisenhorn Omnibus. One word “Epic.” Written unusually in the first person, I couldn’t put it down.
After a week or so, I was going through serious Abnett withdrawl (particularly listening to my man Mykel relate his excitement as he tore through Eisenhorn), so right before Christmas, I picked up Titanicus. I was particularly interested in the topic for two reasons. First, “Mechs” in general are an interesting game design topic, and I’m always looking out for new takes on the topic, and secondly it’s a very different but intriguing part of the 40k universe from the previous two books (space marines and inquisitors). My conclusion? Another excellent work by Mr. Abnett, in several ways superior to the previous two that I’ve read because the plot is more even, the characters are more consistent and the whole thing comes together nicely in the end. I highly recommend it.
So, when it comes to mechs, it seems like there are a couple of different “sacred cows.” One is the humanoid form. Does it make sense? Or is it just silliness? Does that matter? Another issue is speed. Some people like their mechs fast and action packed, others prefer the plodding, methodical, epic destruction of titanic machines.
Personally, I’m keen on the “Starsiege: Tribes”, Robotech, Appleseed take with fast paced, humanoid mechs. But I have to say, Abnett’s take on the 40k style of huge, slower-moving mechs (although human form) had me just as engaged as a robotech furball. I’d really be interested to see how that would translate to modern action gaming. I certainly enjoyed the old Mechwarrior, Battletech days. We tried to revive an online mech series a few times at EA, but it never seemed to take hold. Are mechs too niche? Could the genre be revived? What do you think? Certainly NCSoft took a shot at it. I tried to check out eXteel many months ago and couldn’t get it to run on my PC. Perhaps I’ll do some research this weekend and see what I come up with.
This time last year, I was full of excitement about the possibilities at Heatwave. My old blog was full of announcements about our board of advisers, the player advisory board, our Series “A” round, a great party, and several key hires. If 2007 was planning year, 2008 was a building year. We have an amazing team now, a cool new office and several projects underway, all of which are distinct, unique and good business unto themselves.
Surprisingly, the mobilization part of Central Studio was much tougher than the fundraising. While they took about the same amount of calendar time, the effort of mobilization, in terms of intensity and duration was at some points crushing. I was supporting the development aspect of getting several IPs through concept stages while at the same time making thousands of operational decisions. I learned a hell of a lot about commercial leases, office space design and construction from my partner, Donn (himself a real estate guru in the Philly area), and I learned a lot about what my limits are. For one thing, I’m not the person to ask about paint and carpet. Game Designer != Interior Designer. That might sound insignificant, but as a business owner, and the only partner on site 100% of the time, the effort of building a team, a product line, and a new office space simultaneously meant that any little thing could become a big thing.
But we completed 2/3 of those things in 6 months. Not bad. The team is cool, a really nice mix of veteran to senior staff, local and imported talent, rocker and hip-hop heads .
2009 is going to be huge and crazy for Heatwave. I expect us to make at least one product announcement in the first quarter with some really interesting people involved. In addition, I think Heatwave will be very active in business development, entering multiple new strategic arrangements with partners inside and outside of the game industry.
2008 confirmed for me that “Anything is Possible.” If you plan for it, if you believe in it, and if you are willing to go out there and make it happen, it can happen. You know those motivational books you’ve skimmed at the bookstore where people dole out little blurbs like “The only thing preventing you from success is YOU”? Well, it’s true. Are you doing what you wish you were doing? Why not? Make a plan. Put it in action. Constantly check to make sure you’re doing everything that could be done to ensure success. 14 years ago my first game industry start-up faltered. I decided that before I start another company, I would learn everything I need to know about the game business. I spent the next decade and a half learning all I could about the business and how its run and when the right opportunity came along, I seized it. Anything is Possible.
2009 has a new theme. It’s “Go Big or Go Home.” I’m from Texas. Born and raised. I don’t look it. I don’t sound like it. But that whole “Everything is bigger in Texas” saying? It’s true. Whether we Win BIG or we Lose BIG, here in Texas the important thing is that we’re Thinking BIG. So expect big things from me and from my company in 2009. It’s going to be a wild one.
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