Critical Path /// A Positive Force in the Game Industry

2:47

A Positive Force in the Game Industry

Interviewed 2013. How can we have the guts to make games that aren’t like all other games - and why aren’t we doing it?

Robin Hunicke

Roles: #Founder #Producer

Credits: #BOOM BLOX: BASH PARTY #BOOM BLOX #JOURNEY #THE SIMS 2: OPEN FOR BUSINESS #MYSIMS

Tags: #Diversity #Social Issues

Added on August 4, 2016 · View Transcript

I’ll be honest with you. When I was in school, when I first started in college, I became very convinced that the best thing to do would to be - be a non-force. To just exist, to recycle, not have a car, try to use as much public transportation as possible, have a minimum impact on the planet. And I lived for about eight years really thinking that that would be what I’d do. I’d become a professor and I’d just reduce my impact in terms of actually the things that I did on the planet to make it sick. I’m trying to make the planet healthy in my own way. And to teach and communicate with other people about ideas, because that seemed like the safest bet. And then the more I worked with computers and the more I talked to game designers and engaged with the community of game designers that is growing and becoming what it is today. And when I found the indie community I realized that I could be a positive force in that environment. I could be somebody who asks what should we be doing that we’re not doing right now. How can we make this industry more diverse? How can we try things that we’re afraid to try? Like how can we have the guts to make games that aren’t like all other games and why aren’t we doing it. And why - why am I not doing it. How can I do it? And how I can help other people do it. This, uh, mission came to me from the community. And I didn’t know I was going to find it. I fell into it. And it’s like walking. You fall and then you just - somehow you’re walking and then you’re moving forward. Um, it’s as much of a surprise to me as it is to my parents and the rest of my family that I am a game designer and the CEO of a game company. That is definitely not what I had planned when I was 15. Um, but the other thing about games that I think is so important is that they teach us not to take ourselves so seriously. They help us engage with the part of ourselves that is a problem solver from the perspective of play and the perspective of innovation. They engage the part of your mind that creatively solves problems. And I believe that because they exercise that muscle, they make the world a better place. I believe that games have the potential to really positively change the way we see each other, to communicate messages that are so hard to communicate in other art forms, whether static or dynamic. Um, they have a really strong ability to engage us with each other and I’m just fascinated by that. This is what I see all the time. Pushing the pram with the iPhone. On the train with the iPhone. This is not good. We need to be with each other and solving the problems of spaceship Earth with each other. And this is something that myself, and Kata, and everyone at Phenomena is actually really - we’re spending a lot of time talking about it. If we don’t do it, man, it’s going to be a lot shorter of a ride than we expected.

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