Latest / Linen Suit & Plastic Tie / Why Do Humans Love Games? ft. a a16z Gaming Investor (Joshua Lu)

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Why Do Humans Love Games? ft. a a16z Gaming Investor (Joshua Lu) · Linen Suit & Plastic Tie

0:04
Welcome. Welcome to the linen suit and
0:06
plastic tie podcast this, the podcast, will we die set?
0:11
Analyze investigate, the amazing, the suspenders, the
0:15
Epic, the cool, the spectacular power of Storytelling and learn
0:21
how to harness that power, to supercharge our everyday lives.
0:26
I'm going of, and I'm Kevin Cab. You know, something I've been
0:30
noticing through these intros, I keep saying suspend this, is
0:34
that a word? Because I say it a lot in these
0:37
intros and I keep meaning to stop and I don't know why I say
0:40
it. I'm like, I'm a I'm stuck.
0:42
The wood and I am thinking about a word, like, stupendous, I
0:45
think, maybe I'm trying to say, and I started that, I don't know
0:47
where I'm going, and I just finished the word and I move on
0:50
and I'm saying, I'm saying suspend this or like stupendous
0:55
it one is that it would too. Why do we keep letting that go
0:59
in the end? Tro and free.
1:00
Is it a word that's applicable to well neither was Excelsior
1:08
award, okay? Okay.
1:10
Yeah tell Seer is Stanley's catchphrase and as you know,
1:14
Stanley is one of my storytelling idols and I'd add
1:18
is a nod to him every time. Yeah, that's what I'm that's
1:22
what I'm saying. Excelsior wasn't a word but now
1:24
it is and then think different, which is one of apples.
1:29
Most Famous marketing slogan was a grammar error but you know it
1:35
sticks. So maybe I suspend this is me to
1:39
say a nod to suspenders almost, but sis by think, she's not a
1:43
wood stupendous is and that means it's stream.
1:47
We impressive and I think that's what I've been trying to say.
1:50
So it's awesome. Move on.
1:52
Maybe it will be a war by season 5.
1:56
Anyways, you know, Kev This is one of the first few episodes
2:01
back for season three in between Season 2, Season 3, we took the
2:05
little bit of a longer break. You know, we were dealing with
2:08
life issues, you caught the covid bug.
2:12
And we, of course, took are usually charged break as we
2:16
figured out, I lied and pick it up.
2:18
What season 3 was going to look like, and we set a bit.
2:20
During that time, we took our yearly trip to Florida.
2:23
You mean a couple of our friends and something.
2:26
We've been trying to do during these traits is taking some time
2:28
to sit. And read books, it's December
2:32
9th, 8th, whatever were in LAX. We go to book soup.
2:36
And with slowing books. I pick up a book even though I
2:40
still haven't opened it. And I spent my break finishing
2:44
guy was, is amazing how I built this book, which is a book based
2:48
on his podcast and it was really cool because I got to see how
2:51
these episodes of his podcast tied together, how he pulled out
2:55
key themes and made them chapters made me think about our
2:58
show about how Every episode. So unique, a unique story, and
3:01
he lands on storytime and what he died was did for
3:05
entrepreneurship, is he took those similar themes and tied
3:07
them to individual episodes. So it's kind of like a
3:10
deconstruction of this pod going back, looking at high level and
3:13
then bringing his power back in. I thought that was really cool
3:16
and made me think about our part a lot, because you can do the
3:18
same thing. Anyways, that's what I picked
3:21
up. That was the book.
3:22
I recently finished, and I have so many other books I need to
3:25
read. But Kev, what book did you pick
3:28
up? Well, I picked up this book
3:31
gaurav recommended called tomorrow and tomorrow.
3:34
And tomorrow, it is a novel is a fictional story of best friends
3:42
creating video games together. And I honestly cannot recommend
3:47
it enough because it's such a great story and such fantastic
3:54
storytelling techniques involved in that book.
3:57
But what really Really inspired me with is some of its insights,
4:04
particularly about the action of playing together, not just video
4:08
games with but playing in general.
4:10
And if you think about it, playing is some of the most
4:13
intimate things we can do with one.
4:16
Another is one of the most important ways we interact as
4:19
human beings. So, you know, that's been really
4:22
interesting. And luckily enough for this
4:25
season, we are bringing on an exorcist Tell her and the field
4:31
of gaming. So for this episode, we are
4:33
talking to Joshua Liu. He is right now and investing
4:38
partner at games fund one, which is a VC at the very famous
4:45
venture capital A 16z. He has also, personally worked
4:49
on a lot of games social media games.
4:53
In particular, he has served product management and
4:55
Leadership roles at companies like meta.
4:59
Surd xanga. So we're really excited to be
5:02
able to talk to someone like this about storytelling within
5:05
gaming and the storytelling element of playing.
5:10
So let's get into it. Very nice.
5:16
Have you here with us? Josh and to start us off.
5:19
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
5:22
What is your story? Thanks for having me on my story
5:28
starts a long time ago. I got into the games industry
5:32
because I was a, I was a hardcore gamer.
5:35
This is not unique to the games industry, but it is a little
5:38
unique to my story. So, I grew up with three younger
5:41
brothers. We all have like terrible
5:43
allergies, and so, didn't go outside a whole bunch.
5:45
And so stayed inside primarily playing video games with each
5:48
other. And, you know, I grew up as a
5:52
competitive, Tetris player as a competitive Mario Kart Double
5:56
Dash speedrunners. As a competitive MMO Guild
6:01
leader and Theory crafter as a competitive Halo 3 player.
6:05
And so I poured, basically my life in two games, for most of
6:10
my sort of childhood, I went to school thinking that I'd either
6:15
go into fine. Dance or law, and when I came
6:18
out of school neither of those things felt inspiring to me
6:22
still. And so I began to look for a job
6:26
and when I was interviewing at different places like Google and
6:30
Samsung. I met a whole bunch of people
6:32
who were like, way smarter than me.
6:34
And so when I, when it came time to decide on one of several job
6:39
offers, I ended up choosing to go into the games industry
6:42
largely because I thought that that was the only place in the
6:45
world. Where I didn't have to be the
6:47
smartest person in the room to like, do.
6:49
Well, I just had to know and love the product, you know,
6:52
better than most and games was the place that helped me do
6:57
that. Interestingly, the games company
7:00
that I joined, was not a hardcore games.
7:01
Company was a company called play dumb.
7:03
We were making, like, Myspace and Facebook games of the time
7:06
and the first game that I worked on was a game called social city
7:08
which is like, you know it's like think SimCity but on
7:11
Facebook very cartoony made for the masses.
7:14
And so I was making Games that I normally wouldn't have played
7:19
maybe like, you know, growing up as a competitive gamer but you
7:22
know, fell in love with the game.
7:23
Anyway, and fell in love with the fact that like Millions tens
7:26
of millions of people, you know, fell in love with the game too.
7:29
And then I was hooked and so I've seen in the games industry
7:32
ever since. I've worked at a whole bunch of
7:34
different awesome games companies making games and now
7:38
I'm an investor at Andreessen Horowitz where for the first
7:42
time. I'm not making games anymore,
7:45
but I'm actually You know, getting to invest in other
7:48
people, making games supporting the games industry that way.
7:51
You know, I think you've been a very important that we talk to a
7:54
lot of I guess about in the idea of a working in your passions,
7:58
is that, of course, it's a very obvious, obviously, advice do
8:02
what you're passionate about but I think this is such a tactical
8:05
thing about it that gets overlooked where even if in the
8:09
beginning because in the beginning you're not doing like
8:11
the dream job like you're doing the grunt work, you're getting
8:12
into your building things, you're building games, you don't
8:14
usually play. But because you're in an
8:17
industry, you're passionate about, it's what you're reading
8:19
about. It's what you're hearing about
8:20
is what you're talking to your friends about.
8:22
And instead of being another industry with, that's a lot of
8:24
external research, you have to do it stuff.
8:26
You're generally or already doing and I was recently
8:30
interviewing a lot of places going for the job hunt and I
8:33
noticed the D in to use those, the most seamless was the stuff.
8:37
Not the stuff I had done the research for before the
8:39
interview but the stuff I had been talking about for years and
8:42
kind of flowing in. So I think it's a little bit of
8:45
an obvious point. We love kind of pointing that
8:47
out because from a, very tactical level, when you apply
8:51
an interview and work at companies your passion about,
8:54
even if it's in a row, you're not that's new or different or
8:57
not the dream rule you are talking and having these
9:00
conversations about things, you know, because you're passionate
9:03
about it. So I love I love that as a kind
9:06
of a career trajectory, I think that's totally right.
9:09
You know. It's not just what you're
9:10
passionate about and what you're thinking about, it's like its
9:13
authenticity, right? Like, you know the end of the
9:15
day. Day of somebody who researches
9:17
the thing that you're passionate about, can sort of talk about
9:19
the same things in a Smart Way. Something that I think about a
9:23
lot is, you know, there's this like pop science thing, we're to
9:26
become a master of something, you can sort of like get there
9:29
by spending 10,000 hours like, you know, learning it.
9:32
Well, 10,000 hours a lot and not every hour is created equal and
9:38
so when you're passionate about something, you're our spent
9:41
doing the thing is just much more efficacious than somebody
9:44
else doing an hour. Of a thing.
9:47
And so your 10,000 hours may actually be like three or four
9:50
times higher quality, or you can get to the same Mastery level of
9:54
something in way less time, if it.
9:56
So there are real practical benefits to of, really loving
10:00
the thing. And like, you know, going down
10:01
the rabbit hole of something you care about.
10:04
Absolutely. And I think jumping a little bit
10:06
head in your career to Andreessen Horowitz.
10:09
I think something interesting about that historic VC firm is
10:13
that it's not like some of the other VC firm.
10:15
Phones were to know, rattle off a list, you have to kind of be
10:19
in the industry Andreessen, Horowitz kind of explodes
10:22
outside of just the VC firm, where many people know it.
10:25
And many of the VCS like yourself have become thought
10:28
leaders in the industry through things like Twitter and medium
10:32
and podcasts. And what have you?
10:34
How is that adjustment been for you?
10:36
Moving from just being like a game builder to more of a
10:40
thought leader in the industry with people turn to, for what's
10:43
happening Trends, things like that.
10:46
To be totally candid. I'm still getting used to it.
10:48
It is like a it's like a deeply uncomfortable thing to, you
10:54
know, for you to be thought, as a thought leader because the
10:57
pressure is high for you to sort of like, you know, have thoughts
11:00
that aren't dumb and not incremental to the industry.
11:04
I think, the reason I'm so sensitive to this is comes from
11:08
my own experience from the games industry.
11:10
When I got my start, I was making Myspace and Facebook
11:14
games and Went to mobile games. And then I did instant messaging
11:18
games and then I did VR games and then I did back to mobile
11:22
games and it across platform games, then I did sort of like,
11:24
you know, VR at meta and the point is all along the way.
11:28
I have literally watched as the industry has changed completely
11:34
like many times over. And so the reality is, you know,
11:39
you become a dinosaur in this industry really really quickly,
11:42
especially if you're not in it, all of the time on the front
11:45
line. Is learning and like working.
11:47
And so, you know, it's something that I'm sensitive to because,
11:51
you know, I think that the industry is moving really
11:53
quickly. It's what makes it so fun.
11:56
But it's also, I think what makes it really difficult to be
11:58
a thought. Leader is, you know, in the fact
12:01
that things are changing so quickly.
12:03
And so, you know, whatever you say, may totally be right for a
12:07
time. And, you know, you may look back
12:08
on it in a couple of years ago, what the hell was I thinking?
12:10
Because, you know, that's just sort of how, you know,
12:13
capricious, the industry can be Sometimes.
12:17
You've described the different types of game.
12:21
You played growing up and also the games you have worked on I
12:25
think one common theme across all of these different games is
12:29
that it has a very strong kind of social network theme.
12:34
That's kind of a very particular genre across all the video games
12:39
that are that are out there. So could you maybe tell us a
12:43
little bit about how this Social media type of genre is unique as
12:52
a game and also as kind of a storytelling platform.
12:57
Yeah, maybe there's two components to that there's like
12:59
social media games games that like exist on social media
13:03
platforms and then there's like social games games that sort of
13:06
like are centered around social interactions relationships.
13:10
Cooperation competition to start at like a very high level.
13:14
You know, something that is important to About games is you
13:18
know, games have always intrinsically been social like
13:21
you people play games with each other and like that's a that's
13:27
sort of like, you know, why games are fun, right?
13:29
Like Checker, I always talk about Checkers, like Checkers
13:32
has been mathematically solved for a really long time.
13:35
So is tic-tac-toe, I mean, tic-tac-toe is like, you know,
13:37
hilariously easily solved and yet people still play, you know,
13:41
year after year, decade after decade.
13:43
You know why? Because there's somebody you're
13:46
Hang with and like you know there's a symmetry information
13:49
and you can talk crap and like to poke fun at each other.
13:51
And so ultimately like games are fun for very, very long time,
13:55
not because of the game mechanic, although there are
13:57
like, you know, these game mechanics that have survived
14:00
Millennia chess being a really good example, but because of the
14:04
people that the social component of it right, like you know,
14:08
games are Ultra successful when the people become an extension
14:12
of the content rather than the content itself.
14:14
And so, all of this is a very long way.
14:16
We have saying the in my observation the very best games
14:21
ever as measured by anything you want, have always been
14:25
intrinsically, social and those are the types of games that I
14:28
like to play and that I like to build and and you know, I wanted
14:32
to fund so that's like maybe on a little bit on like the social,
14:37
it's like social games and then like, you know, this game that
14:40
are on social networks games that are on social networks as
14:43
sort of like benefit from this. Like, inbuilt people liquidity.
14:48
So when you play a game on Facebook, back when, you know,
14:51
Facebook platform had a bunch of games on it and Facebook still
14:55
allowed games is sort of like feature heavily in the platform.
14:59
You have people playing games for the first time and maybe
15:01
they were playing, largely a single player game but by virtue
15:04
of looking at their feet and seeing that all of their friends
15:07
were also playing the same game. You then felt like you were part
15:10
of this living breathing larger organism that was bigger than
15:13
you. And so even when the game
15:15
mechanic itself Not intrinsically, social it still
15:18
felt social because you could talk to your friends about it.
15:21
They were sending you random cows, or whatever.
15:23
And like, you know, you felt close to them.
15:26
When I was working on Words With Friends, we would ask our users
15:29
all the time. Well, like, what is one of the
15:31
main reasons you play Words With Friends?
15:33
And like, you know, the top answer was always super obvious.
15:36
Like I want to learn how to have a better vocabulary and smell
15:39
better fine. But the number two reason and,
15:42
you know, the thing that was always interesting to me, was
15:45
oh, I use words with friends too.
15:46
Like keep in touch with people and specifically, it was to keep
15:50
in touch with people in like this layer, right?
15:53
Above. A Facebook poke, but below like
15:56
a phone call. So like you know, we used to get
15:58
people talk to us all the time and say oh yeah I play Words
16:01
With Friends with my with my grandma who like I don't really
16:04
want to call because then she'll talk my ear off for an hour but
16:07
like probably deserves more than a postcard from me.
16:10
It's like, I'll play my turn on Words With Friends.
16:12
Say hello. And I'll do that one today.
16:14
And like, then I'll feel good about myself my It feels good
16:17
and like but it's also a very low risk situation that's sort
16:20
of the benefit of these games on.
16:22
You know, social networks Is You by virtue of being in a network,
16:26
a platform with a network, you're already immediately
16:29
closer. All these people becomes really,
16:30
really easy to play a game with them even if it's super light
16:33
touch and and human beings, just love communicating that way.
16:38
Such a nursery and golden. What that does also is it allows
16:43
people to create stories with each other.
16:47
As a result of that connection, you can say that, you know, for
16:50
your grandmother or friends, who you don't necessarily talk as
16:54
often you can, it's a shared memory that you can have that.
16:58
Okay, we play this game together and I think from there, what's
17:04
unique about gaming as a storytelling medium.
17:08
Well, I think there are a couple of things, one games are
17:12
interactive and immersive, and by virtue of playing with
17:17
somebody else, we're like, you know, the game sort of changes
17:20
all of the time it's a story that is, you know, part pick
17:24
your own adventure, you know, part sort of like, you know,
17:28
Campfire Story being told by multiple people.
17:31
It can have a different ending every single time and like, you
17:34
know, you you have some agency and its immersive, right?
17:37
Like, you know, many in many games, You're sort of like
17:39
exploring the world built by somebody else, either by
17:42
yourself with other people. And so, there's this also like
17:45
this third party, like developer part of the story that you're
17:47
experiencing, and then there's like the relationship part of
17:51
the story. So, even outside of the game,
17:53
you're building the story of me like my identity within the
17:57
game. You're also building the story
17:59
of us with your friends, you know, World of Warcraft as an
18:02
example. The content of World of Warcraft
18:05
is largely. I mean, look, they release new
18:07
content, all of the time or whatever.
18:08
But you know, the reason people play after 15 years or whatever
18:11
is because they have this feeling of reciprocity with the
18:14
friends people that are in Guilds with each other have
18:16
never met in real life. And yet have inside jokes call
18:20
each other nicknames and like, you know, each other, and how
18:24
they make decisions or whatever in ways that like, you know,
18:26
sometimes people even very close to them in real life.
18:30
It wouldn't know. And so the power of the story of
18:33
us is also, really, really important in games.
18:35
And so, you know, again games that do a good job of allowing
18:38
Allowing people to build the story of me and The Story of Us
18:41
in the context of the game are, are like fantastic storytelling
18:45
machines. You know, I think that's so
18:48
interesting, and exactly. One of the biggest reasons we've
18:52
been dying to talk to some game with people is because these
18:55
days essential stories of community, really huge in the
18:59
gaming industry because not only are you entering someone else's
19:02
story building up your own story in the game, whether it's what
19:06
you wear or the challenges, you complete or the people, you talk
19:11
to, but you have Community stories with the people.
19:13
You play with four people, you've met online and It's such
19:16
an immersive vision of community and you see so many different
19:21
Industries, trying to encapsulate, that kind of
19:24
excitement, as they build IP. And one thing I've been thinking
19:28
about a lot recently, is, you know, one of these biggest
19:31
reasons comic book movies have blown up is because for decades,
19:36
they spent all this time, developing these characters and
19:39
testing things, and trying things.
19:40
In these comic books, I'm a big comic book fan.
19:43
So you think about like the 80 years of history with Spider-Man
19:46
and How they tried things. And so I were worth and didn't
19:48
and played around, and there's a lot of weird Spider-Man stories
19:51
that won't make the film. But the iconic ones do with seen
19:56
a lot of these Studios take stabs at gaming films.
19:59
If I dungeon and Dragons Super Mario Bros, things like that.
20:02
What do you think about that? Do you think gaming, IP lens?
20:06
Well, into other Arenas like film?
20:09
Yeah, I totally think it does. Let me take one step back and
20:12
talk about one more thing and then and then we'll answer your
20:14
question like the Really powerful thing about games
20:19
outside of just the social part is it allows you to tell you a
20:21
story about yourself and like so you can pick a game and play it
20:25
in a way that tells you the story about yourself that, like,
20:27
maybe is impossible in real life.
20:29
It's why like, you know, in lots of games like your this like
20:32
super powerful hero and only get more powerful and ridiculous
20:34
overtime. But what's also cool is like
20:36
there are actually lots of games.
20:38
Now, you know, where you know, the goal isn't to like go and,
20:42
you know, sleigh and kill and Conquer and pillage or whatever.
20:44
Like, you know, the goal is to You know, make peace or be a
20:48
good leader or generate. You know, lots of friends, you
20:52
know, there are games with special achievements.
20:53
We're like you know that you can only unlock if you actually
20:56
don't kill anything in the entire game.
20:57
And so this is like, you know, maybe just like a quick detour
21:01
but the power of, you know, telling the story of me that's
21:04
like super flexible is is awesome and games and then and
21:08
then this is also why I think games have in the past, maybe
21:14
have had a harder time crossing over.
21:16
It into linear media, because in a comic book, you have character
21:20
development that's like on Rails, right?
21:22
Like it means the same orange lie to everyone because there's
21:25
one story and then like, you can build content around that
21:28
because the core is really stable and games because you're
21:31
telling a different story of me and it means something different
21:34
to everybody. It's WHY games are so powerful.
21:36
But I actually think that now, you're starting to see games,
21:41
reach a point of fidelity and World building, where The scale
21:47
of the game is so massive that even the story of me that
21:50
somebody wants to tell even if it's different, still isn't
21:54
enough to sort of like, you know, meaningfully warp I mean
21:57
the World building that's going on.
21:59
So when you, when you see like, you know, The Last of Us
22:02
released, they did a really great job at staying true to the
22:05
story. There are multiple characters in
22:08
the game. It's, you know, you can pick
22:10
your own sort of like hero to associate with but also, you
22:14
know, the last of us as a A game series now has enough
22:18
world-building over many, many years where you know, there's
22:21
actually a solid foundation to make a really great linear story
22:25
out of it. And so you're starting to see
22:27
that and I'm really, really excited to see where that goes.
22:30
And I'm also really excited to see other video game franchise
22:33
to the same thing. You now have lots of video game,
22:36
franchises that have a whole bunch of literally decades, in
22:40
some cases of story, building World, building character,
22:43
development attached to them, that would make for amazing.
22:46
Near here. I think you make a really
22:48
interesting point about this idea of shared stories with
22:52
these games. Because I didn't really think
22:54
about that. How unique sudden gaming
22:56
experiences have been four different people.
22:58
So building that foundation and building that history, where
23:01
there's a shared language makes that built-in audience, so much
23:05
stronger than than it has been in the past.
23:09
And you can see, more parallels with like the comic book
23:12
industry with. Yes, there's so many different
23:14
versions of different characters, but They are
23:16
essential storylines, like Spider-Man will always have
23:19
those 10 traits so I think that's a really good point.
23:22
Another good point, you know that I think you just made was
23:25
how the story of A game is different to each player because
23:31
the interactive aspect of it, you know, we are really playing
23:35
the character in the story and that sometimes means that, you
23:40
know, the game, the sort of the game is different and it's not
23:44
necessary. We don't necessarily have The
23:46
same storytelling experience with the same game.
23:50
And, you know, and I think about a lot of the AAA titles
23:54
especially, you know, is very immersive world and the
23:57
developers really take the time and energy to create these
24:00
different scenarios that based on the players choices can have
24:05
different outcomes. So, you know, for example,
24:09
there's like this horror game until dawn where, you know,
24:12
every character can end up, living or dying.
24:16
Why? So you can have, you know,
24:18
exponentially different ending to the story.
24:22
So definitely for those types of game, I can see how it's
24:26
difficult toward to be adapted into other genres, like film or
24:31
TV were it's intrinsically, more of a shared experience.
24:35
But for game like the last of us, that's really heralded as
24:40
one of the most memorable and moving and compelling story.
24:45
But again story, All time, it is more natural for those types of
24:48
games to be adapted into different format.
24:52
And we're definitely excited to see more of those coming into
24:56
the industry and we Channel wider audience and you know, and
25:01
we kind of talked about a lot of these games where a story is
25:07
Central to the game itself, but when it comes to kind of The
25:12
Social Network games, I don't think the story.
25:16
E line is the first thing that comes to mind when people think
25:20
about it. So and you of course have worked
25:23
on such games for a long time. So to you, do you see the
25:28
importance of a central story or of a plot line, important to
25:32
these type of games? Do such Social Network games
25:36
exist. I think, for Social Network
25:39
games, that rely on social mechanics, a lot having a story
25:43
that's on Rails is a lot less important because Sort of the
25:47
point of a social networking and social games in general, is to
25:50
as quickly as possible get people in a place where they're
25:54
creating stories as open-ended, Lee is possible with other
25:57
people. And so, you might see a whole
26:00
bunch of story like in the, you know, in the tutorial that sort
26:04
of like gets people in maybe a better way to put this as like
26:08
when we think about the most important metric, that we look
26:11
at in games, it's the retention curve.
26:14
It's how many people stick around after one?
26:16
Day after seven days. After 30 days, after 90 days
26:19
after a year, the early part of the retention curve, like days
26:23
one through seven is a lot more influenced by things like story,
26:27
right? Like you know do you have an art
26:29
style that people love? Can you get them to do a thing
26:32
where they feel invested like you know as an example pick an
26:36
avatar that you know they care about or like you know, invest
26:39
in building out a thing that they don't want to lose and
26:43
then, you know, maybe like day 7 through day, 30 like We call it
26:46
midterm retention. That's a lot more sort of
26:49
influenced by like the game mechanics, is the game fun?
26:52
What are the systems look like? Do I feel like I'm learning
26:55
something but but generally speaking, the single most
26:58
important thing for like, long-term, retention day, 30,
27:00
and Beyond is social experiences.
27:03
Am I making friends in the game? How often do I interact with
27:06
other people? And you know, by extension?
27:08
You know, am I finding fun experiences with other people
27:12
and so maybe that's like a very quantitative way to answer your
27:15
questions. Like the story matters but like
27:18
you know sort of very early on in the experience and then sort
27:21
of you know the hope is that you get people into a place where
27:23
you know they're just playing with other people.
27:25
That makes a lot of sense to a very quantitative people.
27:28
So anytime you talk with Metro through all for it, you know
27:31
you've brought up learning a couple times and I think and you
27:34
were talking earlier about these different types of games like
27:37
making peace, being a good leader and it's such an
27:40
interesting concept about something.
27:42
We talk a lot about with entertainment and storytelling
27:44
is the the way it's built. Educate the way.
27:47
It's built to purchase ID forward and it's one of the
27:49
biggest ways we have to teach and educating grow.
27:56
And I think one of the things we've seen a lot with games
27:58
right now in it, I don't know how long this has been going on
28:01
or if it's something I'm just noticing now, but we see a lot
28:05
of games and doing a lot of different fields right now, and
28:07
I think Fitness is probably the one that comes in mind right now
28:10
Foo Oculus and Foo meta. I know you with the metaphor
28:14
long time, but do you see See, is that something new that's
28:18
happening? Where Gaming's, entering all
28:20
these new different fields, like, education, Mental, Health
28:23
Fitness, and are you excited by that?
28:25
What do you see the future? And that will, this is actually
28:28
been going on for a long time. You look not to not to maybe
28:32
like Wax academic, but like the reason, people play games and
28:36
like, play is to learn tiger cubs wrestle with each other
28:41
because they're learning to hunt.
28:42
The reason our brains love playing games is because Teams
28:46
make it make our brains feel like they're getting better at a
28:48
thing. Literally human beings are wired
28:51
to play games and they use games to learn.
28:54
And so, what does that mean? That means games by Nature.
28:58
You know, by Evolution are really great way to get people
29:01
to change their behavior, either by augmenting it or by changing
29:05
a completely. And so, we've seen games be
29:09
really effective tools to teach people things or to get them to
29:12
do other things for a really long time.
29:15
But like, You know think about the top education apps in the
29:20
world. Like Duolingo as an example is
29:22
based around game rules. Like, if you go into it, you
29:26
have achievements and you have levels and you have challenges
29:29
and all of these things. Why?
29:30
It's because like games are really great way to like, you
29:33
know, get people to act in a certain way.
29:35
You think about like what are the most effective ways to get
29:38
people to like overcome physical, inertia, and like, go
29:41
work out like leaderboards, right?
29:44
Or like, you know it, you know, Ray.
29:46
I think all of these things that come from sort of like, you
29:48
know, game Concepts have been in and around, you know, the rest
29:53
of the world forever because, you know, people have sort of
29:55
stumbled on maybe they didn't think about the, you know,
29:57
academic reason why? But it's just like, it's an
29:59
intuitive thing to understand that, like, people love games,
30:04
like, you know, my favorite game as like a child was not a video
30:07
game. It was like, you know, the
30:09
McDonald's sweepstakes for Monopoly, like in.
30:12
That's also a game and that also got us, you know, to buy way.
30:16
More Burgers than we probably would have as a family.
30:19
And so anyway, this is again, a long-winded way of saying like,
30:21
you know, everybody is a gamer. We're literally wired as human
30:24
beings to like be Gamers and play games and so that's why you
30:28
see it as such an effective way to like influence behavior and
30:32
so many other things. And so when you say like, oh
30:34
games are starting to like, you know, bleed into all this other
30:37
stuff, it's always been there and I'm actually really excited.
30:40
He, you know, maybe more, maybe it happened in a more structured
30:44
way. Yeah.
30:46
You know, that was such an amazing answer to a question.
30:49
I kind of fumbled but it was such an amazing answer because I
30:52
feel like the way you're talking sounds a lot of like the way we
30:56
talk with story time because it's something where it's like,
30:59
once you start looking forward, you kind of see it everywhere.
31:02
Once you started looking for something specific, like, oh,
31:05
that story time. Oh, that's a game.
31:07
And I am thinking about what you're saying, but like the
31:09
gamification of things and I think about the learning games I
31:12
played in school, but not only just that, like, I think At
31:15
these Fitness classes, where it's done very gamified
31:20
leaderboards. And with point system like 500
31:23
we're right and I think about the way gamification bleeds into
31:27
certain things in the way, how addictive that is and how it can
31:31
be really used for good. And I think about some of these
31:33
Fitness games like Supernatural, beat saber, things like that.
31:40
And I think about how some of them aren't obviously games.
31:44
But if you use that gamification, Mindset.
31:46
It's such an interesting way for us as humans to grow and learn.
31:50
I wanted to Pivot a little bit into your words 18z and about
31:54
going into this realm where instead of being a builder, now
31:57
you are kind of you are helping fund the new games and learning
32:01
about new Innovations and things like that.
32:03
When you are in one of these pitch meetings in someone's
32:05
coming to you, for funding, for support, for their brand new
32:09
game, obviously storytelling such a huge part of that because
32:14
very often they are trying to To bring you into their world.
32:17
They're trying to sell you on a vision when they don't have a
32:20
lot of things done. So can you tell me a little bit
32:23
about what are some of the differentiating factors between
32:26
a gamer and a Visionary, entrepreneur?
32:30
And what are the things you look for in these pitches?
32:34
I think that there is no, I think Universal answer because I
32:39
think like, you know, amazing companies can be built with such
32:42
different starting feces. And in fact, We actually talked
32:47
about this. A lot of the firm was like if
32:49
you go back and look at the most successful game companies in the
32:53
world and like their original pitches for a game, very few of
32:58
them actually ended up executing the game that they really wanted
33:01
to build from the start. This is like a natural thing in
33:05
startups, but especially in games where like, you know,
33:07
you'll build the thing and like, sometimes you'll figure out that
33:10
the thing that you really wanted is actually kind of impossible
33:12
or actually, it feels really clunky when you put sort of like
33:15
a Code to paper, instead of like a paper prototype or maybe like
33:19
in the course of building a thing, you know, user
33:21
preferences changed a competitor came out and like, did the thing
33:24
that you want to do really well. And so you should actually go do
33:27
another thing. That's like, you know, you can
33:29
actually, you know, be the best in the world.
33:32
So when we think about funding a company, we try to be a little
33:37
bit flexible on the game idea of knowing that it will change and
33:41
we talked a lot about a founders.
33:45
Need to execute and to tell stories.
33:48
And this, the storytelling part is important for a couple
33:50
reasons. One is the picture.
33:52
They're giving us is the same pitch.
33:54
They're giving to their employees and so it helps your
33:56
ability to recruit if you can tell a good story and by the way
33:59
not just like we've a good story like tell a story that makes
34:03
people feel. Something that makes sense that
34:06
is aspirational and inspirational that like, you
34:09
know, Builds on something, you have the empathy as a
34:13
Storyteller to like build on something that likes somebody.
34:15
Else might really care about to sort of like you know, modulate
34:19
your story depending on the audience like all of these
34:21
things are important in our Founders.
34:24
And you know the reality is like when you're investing in
34:26
something really early, you know, you're you're investing
34:30
in, you know, what you believe is the founders ability to
34:33
execute, you know, move fast and also tell the story to employees
34:38
to Future investors to the rest of the world to potential
34:43
players. And so very telling does
34:45
playing, you know, a big role in how we think about, which is To
34:55
close out every one of our episodes, we have this segment
35:00
called suspenders it. Works like this.
35:02
We ask you a random fun question, does not related to
35:06
anything whatsoever and you can give us any random as you feel
35:10
like, question update is what food do you have a love-hate
35:17
relationship with? Oh, this would probably be
35:23
Ramen, like, you know, like, you know, Apple's like a giant round
35:26
humble, and the reason is a lovely.
35:28
I think love is a be obvious. They hate part of it is because
35:32
Ramen, I have a really hard time eating Ramen like every day so
35:35
like fuck. I could probably eat every day
35:37
Ramen. I can't.
35:38
It's like a little too rich, but I want to.
35:41
And so, you know the SEC this constant battle where, you know,
35:45
I would, I would go out and get a great bowl of ramen if I could
35:48
all of the time. But I can't, I feel absolutely.
35:51
I feel the same way from my answer to this would be Oreos or
35:55
the Jolly sour gummy worms because I can't just have one
35:59
like in you can't buy them individually.
36:01
Really. So you buy a box and that's, you
36:03
know, I ate half an hour. So absolutely, I totally
36:07
understand what you're coming from.
36:16
Welcome to Top Hat. This is the part of the episode
36:20
where we dissect and analyze some of the key.
36:22
Learnings, we got from this week's at split Storyteller.
36:26
And this week, we had a really cool one calves.
36:30
How awesome was it to finally crack into a topic?
36:33
You've been wanting to talk about forever gaming?
36:36
I know. We're so happy to have Josh on
36:39
the shell to talk all about video games and gaming as a
36:45
storytelling medium. And there's so much to unpack
36:48
out of that. And I think, you know, one of
36:51
the most important thing about video games as a unique
36:54
storytelling medium is how interactive and immersive, it
36:58
can be and that it can be different for every player and
37:05
why that's different is if you think about a book or a film or
37:09
a TV show the story. They're it's set and done is the
37:13
same and different people can wash the same show and
37:18
experience the same story and have that kind of find that kind
37:21
of connection with each other and that's simple.
37:24
But was a lot of video games is different because everyone can
37:28
play through a video game and a different style.
37:31
And sometimes games allow you to make different choices
37:35
throughout the story so that you can have different endings to
37:40
the story. So, so, you know, for you and I,
37:43
for of, if the two of us play the same game, but we make
37:46
different choices because we have different values or
37:49
preferences for the same game, we might end up having a
37:53
different story. We create a different story for
37:55
ourselves. So even if it's just the same
37:59
video game you and I might have a very different experience and
38:02
very different takeaways out of it.
38:05
So that's something very cool about gaming.
38:07
As a storytelling medium is we are creators of the story.
38:11
Gaming is such a diverse medium, right?
38:14
It's not one thing. Everyone experiences gaming in
38:17
different ways, whether it's through your favorite
38:19
meditation. App that gives you credit for
38:21
how many days you meditate food, Duolingo that gamify eyes.
38:25
The idea of learning a language where it's like, oh five stars
38:28
of this or points to this through even social media with
38:32
likes follows, things like that everyone interacts with this
38:35
gamification of life because there's something about our
38:38
brains and suddenly a way we communicate is a Lee deep story
38:42
there, where the gamification soy, Worcester last day, the
38:46
story of achieving something story of you are the hero who
38:49
starting this language Journey on Duolingo and every time you
38:53
achieve something, you get the points, like that's all
38:55
storytelling. So gaming, such an interesting
38:57
field because whether or not you are a huge fan of Dungeons and
39:01
Dragons or Call of Duty or Fortnight, doesn't mean, you are
39:05
not affected by Gaming, because the gamification of everything
39:10
is a huge. The way we interact with our
39:12
phones, anytime you on a leaderboard at berries, or at
39:16
spin class or any time, you are getting a cheap meant for
39:20
learning a new language, five times a week that is gaming and
39:25
it's so important to see the stories behind that to see how
39:28
that's affecting you, whether that's a healthy thing.
39:30
When unhealthy thing for example, for me I have a lot of
39:33
problems social comparison so I don't use social media.
39:36
I don't like Instagram, it doesn't work for me.
39:38
That would be a negative gamification.
39:41
So I think that's a huge learning for me for this
39:43
conversation is to think about gaming, a little bit more
39:46
expansively and think about how it affects our day-to-day lives
39:51
and how it is in so many different things we use.
39:55
Yeah, I mean, that is why gamification has been such a
39:58
buzzword, you know, the past few years because if you think about
40:02
the process of playing games, it is a hero's journey, you learn
40:04
the mechanisms, you acquire the skills, you apply the skills to
40:07
solve the obstacle and you get a reward.
40:11
So you know, that's an immensely satisfying process as a player
40:15
and this is you know, very fulfilling story, that you
40:18
create and then you know another really interesting perspective
40:24
that Josh has pointed out to us is that particularly with social
40:28
media games? It is actually a storytelling
40:30
process because you know, it's a useful tool of human interaction
40:35
or social interactions. Because over the years that's a
40:39
memory that you can follow. Softly look back to that you did
40:43
this thing together. So social media gaming is an
40:46
important medium for storytelling, even though people
40:50
don't realize it often. And this has been another great
40:55
episode of the linen suit and plastic tie podcast.
40:58
If you like our content, make sure to subscribe.
41:01
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41:11
Odd and Linkedin. Linen suit and plastic time.
41:14
You took some time today to become a better Storyteller.
41:17
That's amazing. You are doing great.
41:19
See you next time.