E50: A Grand Moment for Video Games | Ben Schneider & JD Calvelli | Interactive Media and Game Development

JD Calvelli: Love you, Mom, I made that poor woman stand outside in the cold at midnight, right? Like outside of a GameStop to get Halo 3. Yes. You know what I mean? I will not lie. Thank you, Mom. Uh-huh. Love you for that. Uh- ... appreciate you, right? But that’s not an experience that, that people have anymore because the technology has changed, right? The nature of the distribution has changed.

Ben Schneider:  I know that the place that I want games to have in our world are certainly as entertainment, but just like intense movies and books and other things that we care about, vital experiences that we go to, not just ‘cause they’re fun, but because they sort of like change and provoke us, and sort of like make us feel and think and experience things that we don’t otherwise.

Jon Cain: It might be the most anticipated video game release in years.

Grand Theft Auto 6. Gamers are talking about it. Non-gamers are wondering what all the buzz is about. And it’s giving us a chance to have an important conversation on The WPI Podcast. How do video games help define our culture? How has gaming and game development changed? And how will this new edition of GTA impact the broader video game industry? We’ll discuss all these questions and more on today’s show. Hi. I’m Jon Cain, and this is your home for news and expertise from the classrooms and labs of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Before we meet today’s guests, I want to thank everyone who’s listened to The WPI Podcast. This is our 50^th episode of the show. Colleen Wamback, Shawn Needham, and I – and everyone in the Division of Marketing Communications who helps make this show possible are so grateful to get to do this. And I hope you’ll stick with us for another 50 episodes and beyond. And I’m eternally grateful for the great team here at The Global Lab on campus for recording these great conversations and making the show sound so crisp and clear! Now, let’s talk video games! Our guests today have helped shape video games through writing, design, and software engineering.

Ben Schneider and JD Calvelli are faculty members in WPI’s Interactive Media and Game Development program. Ben and J-D, thanks for being on The WPI Podcast.

Calvelli: . Thanks so much for having us. 

Schneider: Good to be here. 

Cain: Um, so I’m gonna start by asking each of you to introduce yourself, who you are, um, your title, you know, what you teach, and what your connection is to the video game industry.

Schneider: So I’m Ben Schneider. I’m, uh, what is apparently called a professor of practice, which means that instead of getting a PhD, I worked for about 20 years in the video game industry, uh, and then they let me do this. Um, that 20 years I worked mainly as a narrative designer, which means I did story and writing for games, although I did a bunch of other things. One of the highlights of that was working for about four years as the lead designer of Lord of the Rings Online. I teach some courses that could be properly described as game writing, sort of like how to do narrative design, world building, and characters, and some other courses that are more fundamentally level design, including some studios, which are a ton of fun, which basically means that students form into groups and build a project over eight weeks. It’s all fun, but that’s some of the most, uh, some of like the most fun, just like intense, dedicated moments, uh, that we have and sort of sets up for the, sort of WPI famous senior project that we call MQPs. 

Cain: Yeah, the major qualifying project. Awesome. So, a lot of industry experience. Very cool. And, and how about you, JD? 

Calvelli: Yeah, I’m the other side of that coin. Uh, I’m, uh, JD Calvelli. I’m an assistant teaching professor. I got my MFA in game design at NYU, and so I went the academic-y route. Uh, and so I’m excited to be here to talk to Ben, who has a very different perspective. Primarily I teach classes on technical game design, uh, physical computing, some narrative stuff as well. That’s, I think Ben and I share a lot of overlap there, which is really cool. And my relationship to the industry is that before I went the academic route, I was working at the University of Chicago, uh, with Steve Levitt, the behavioral economist who was interested in working on games as a vehicle for pro-social change in the world. Um, and so we worked with a number of AAA companies. AAA is like the, the, the big, big companies where there’s a lot of money and a lot of investment, um, and time and people, uh, about how they can like make their games more pro-social.

Cain: Yeah, really excited to have both of you here today, and wanna start the discussion by talking about Grand Theft Auto VI. There’s been so much anticipation for the release of this game. I’ve been reading articles about it for months. Uh, fans of the series are clearly excited. No doubt the game developer, Rockstar Games, is looking forward to this hopefully, uh, being a hit. But I’d love to broaden this out a little bit beyond just Grand Theft Auto VI, and the potential impact that this, uh, release might have for the video game industry as a whole. Is there a lot riding on this release across the industry? Um, Ben, why don’t we start with you? 

Schneider: There are, like, sort of like at least two or three different levels of answer to that. Uh, one- ... one is there’s Rockstar Games and their publisher Take-Two are surely looking forward to the money coming in from this, because the last time that they put out a GTA was something like 13 years ago. If you can imagine only getting paid for your work if you do work every 13 years, that the money had better last you for a while. 

Cain: Yeah, for sure. 

Schneider: Um, a couple things that are interesting and important to note are, uh, if you were a programmer or artist or game designer working at Rockstar, you would be elated to see your game out there. But it would have very little impact for your finances. Maybe they do some bonuses, but like the general rule in the games industry is the investors and the people who own things rake in the money when a game ships, and the people who make the games hopefully get to keep their jobs and keep collecting the paycheck that they get.

Cain: Gotcha. 

Schneider: That’s like a reality of, of the video game industry. 

Cain: And JD, what’s your take sort of on the potential impact here? 

Calvelli: I think there’s, there’s some like culturally exciting things. This is, uh, the first female protagonist since the selectable characters in GTA 1 and 2. Uh, so the main character of the story is a woman, um, or, and is like a co-lead with a male character, so that’s an exciting moment, I think, uh, to have like so much, cultural cachet around a game, uh, that’s, you know, doing some new representation or better representation hopefully. GTA V’s release was insanely important, uh, for the games industry insofar as it was like a huge market maker/culture maker for the 13 years after until the next one basically. What comes out of this, like from a designer’s perspective or from a practitioner’s perspective, is potentially like the new design paradigms for the next decade, right? It’s gonna have insane amounts of impact on the way in which we are perceiving our process of design going forward. But you know, the downside or the other side of that is it could be a real market breaker too. Uh, like if it doesn’t work in the ways that it’s expected to work it would be a very new industry, uh, slash I think it would be a new, maybe a new moment in the gaming industry. I don’t know. Ben, what do you think? 

Schneider: Like- Yeah. No, that, that’s a really interesting point. Let’s take a step back. The odds that this game fails are incredibly low. Like, it’s, it’s like it’s riding on all of the momentum of its, of its past successes. But, uh, I think that’s a great point ‘cause, like, one thing I was thinking about as you were talking was there are a couple things we don’t know what the effect will be. Uh, one of them is on the overall sort of like, uh, state of the games industry, of like how well it’s doing. If it does well, we don’t know if that’s water that will lift any other boats. If it does poorly, it is definitely- ... going to be bad for everybody. 

Calvelli: Yeah. 

Schneider: Absolutely the outside chance, but, you know, people who put money into and make projections about how video games do would suddenly get a very gloomy perspective on all of the future if, if, if that were the case. On the flip side if it’s a wild success, what that means for other publishers, other studios, other games coming out is actually, somewhere between unknowable and very, very hard to assess. One of the things that people who make and sell games have been talking about for the last several years is there’s this funny interesting problem of forever games, there are many, many people who play games who are playing, like, the same handful of games over and over for years and years. There are probably people who are playing GTA V right now- ... who have been playing GTA V and may go out now and play GTA VI, but did not play anything else. So, like, if I was a small company trying to put something out, if I was a formerly Xbox studio or some other studio trying to get a game into the marketplace, sort of break in, first of all, you do not want to release within, like, you know, months of- ... of GTA VI. Yeah, 

Cain: they’re taking up all the oxygen, right?

Schneider: But, but, but, but yeah, yeah, exactly right. The, this is such a big fish that’s taking up so much, uh, oxygen, and mixing a metaphor at that point. Um, that, uh, it would be very unclear to that other, other game maker whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, right? Um, and on, on a similar tack, like I remember, JD, maybe you can help me remember this, there were a bunch of GTA-alikes about a decade ago. Mm-hmm. There was, like, Saints Row- Mm-hmm ... and some other games that were, like, very popular, and those fell away. And, like, one of the other things that I feel like we don’t know that will be really interesting to watch is sort of the, also kind of bouncing off what you were saying, is, like, Is there gonna, like, is there gonna be renewed interest in this kind of open world game? Is there going to be, is Saints Row gonna come back? Are there gonna be other games that kind of, like, look and feel like this that kind of, get swept along in the enthusiasm 

Calvelli: Or is the fish, like, sucking so much oxygen that it’s gonna do the opposite, right? to continue our metaphor. Uh, where, you know- 

Schneider: Lungfish.

Calvelli:  Yeah. Like the lungfish, uh, that doesn’t have, you know- or any game that’s, that’s even adjacent or remotely similar is gonna just be completely washed by the existence of GTA VI. But it’s an exciting moment because it is...this is kind of like, for those who are not, uh, game savvy, this is like if Apple and Google and, like, every big tech company came together and was like we spent 10 years on the biggest thing we could possibly spend, uh, 10 years on, and now here it is, right? And it’s like, it’s either gonna, change the world or change the world. I don’t know, you know? 

Cain: Yeah. No, it’s, it’s interesting. Uh- I’m wondering if one of you could define open world for me-  for folks that aren’t familiar with the term

Schneider: Yeah, that, that, that’s a fantastic... So, so, um, the easiest way to think about this is, like, some games are the opposite of open world. Uh, i- if you like, most people are familiar with, like, Super Mario Brothers or Pac-Man or a game where it’s like we’ve stuck you in a place and you’re gonna go from point A to point B and you’re gonna go in a line. And open world games embrace the dead opposite of that, where it’s like we’re gonna give you in the case of GTA VI, it sounds like most of Florida possibly? 

Calvelli: Yeah, possibly. 

Schneider: Um, and you can go wherever you want, and you can do it however you want. Just that saying you can go anywhere and do anything, like, lights up a sparkle in many gamer’s eyes. Fulfilling on that promise is this, uh, insane ambition that, that companies like Rockstar have sort of made a professional, niche out of fulfilling.

Cain: Gotcha. Yeah, the world is your oyster to keep with this aquatic theme, I think. 

Schneider: Exactly.

Calvelli: Exactly. 

Cain: Um, you know, we’ll talk a little bit more about sort of content of video games and, and the whole nature and the makeup of games, but I wanna sort of come back a little bit to the financial model that we’ve been talking about a little bit. It, it sounds very similar to me, like the way that movies have blockbusters, right? And the way that a lot of money and attention goes into those. Uh, would you consider that to be similar?

Calvelli: It seems like the process of game financials has been incredibly boom bust of we’re gonna commit, an ungodly amount of money to a very long period of time and hope that at the end of that we can recoup the entirety of that investment. If this game fails it would be like it would be- ... really surprising, right? It, it would be, like, catastrophically surprising. But if it does, right, or if it doesn’t return to the level that it needs to in order to recoup all of that investment, right- like, what does that say about that model that I perceive from the outside? But, like, Ben, I’d love to know kinda what, you know- I- ... for having been there. 

Schneider: People like to compare video games to film a lot, and there are some ways that, people who focus in games start to get take a little bit of umbrage ‘cause, you know- it’s, it’s not the same thing. It’s, you know, it’s our own medium. But I think that the, the, the finances of business side actually it makes, like, a super interesting comparison because you absolutely have the blockbusters. And, like, movies, uh, in the past decade or two have poured hundreds of millions of dollars in, and they have early sales that, you know, sort of like validate and recoup the cost or not. And I, and I, I think that part is extremely similar. Um, and then you also have this really interesting phenomenon of tiny little movies that, like, were made on a shoestring budget and sometimes also pull in the same amount of money. We talk about the video game industry, but it’s almost like a, a tale of two worlds where there’s sort of like a, um, what we call triple A blockbuster high budget world, and then an indie- sort of like independent world that’s operating in a very different sort of feeling environment right now. The one place where games diverge from movies is that the latest MCU movie comes out, everybody goes and sees it, and it hasn’t done anything to stop them from watching all the other movies that come out, right? That was a couple hours of their life. Many people might buy a PlayStation 5 to play GTA VI, uh, and that’ll be the only thing they’ll play. And regardless of whether they do that, it’s got hundreds of hours of time. It is actually like, I always think this is really funny, like games are such a great value proposition, right? I’m gonna spend 60 or $90, depending, uh, and I’m gonna get hundreds of hours potentially of, of sort of like entertainment benefit out of it. 

Cain: Yep. 

Schneider: Um, but you get that lungfish problem- oxygen problem, that comes at the cost of playing any other games or doing anything else ‘cause it’s such a monumental investment of time. 

Calvelli: Yeah, I think to jump off of that too, and what we mean by the MCU is the ‘Marvel Cinematic Universe’. So it’s the idea, uh, that the Marvel movies have been building a, a, like, collective world across all of these different movies. Um, you know, Iron Man is in the Thor movie, and, you know, they all come together for The Avengers and so on and so forth, so big cultural object. I’m really excited about GTA VI, but I’m also... I wish that the greater cultural zeitgeist was as excited about other games that they are about GTA VI. I think, like, it’s great that games are getting mainstream attention in the way that GTA VI has been. I’m glad that people recognize our medium and, and, you know, are, are excited for it in the same way we are. But, you know, it is another game where we’re running around and shooting and, you know, it, it’s very kind of, of the cloth of games that fit the, like, 18 to 30 male demographic of players. And, like, we know that there are way more people that play games than that. Again, not to, not to disparage the work or anything, and it’s, like, incredible amounts of labor and, and time and energy that’s gone into creating this game. It’s just, I personally find it really interesting that this is such a cultural moment when there, there are so many, games that people are playing, you know, Candy Crush or whatever, right? People outside of sort of that traditional model of what we would think a player of a game is that don’t get, that don’t get the same amount of, like, cultural attention,

Schneider: Absolutely. And I agree with you, although I would also point out that this is something that’s sort of true across every entertainment medium-basically. 

Calvelli: That’s true ...Ever. Yeah. 

Schneider: Like movies. Yeah. Like action summer blockbuster movies, tend to follow this pattern, And, and I think, like, , to kind of like take the even longer view, right? One of the things that I think is super cool about this new GTA, like you were saying, is that it, the earliest GTAs took- had a very, like, male, like 18-year-old male kind of perspective t- you know, to the point of, like, delighting in being crass, right?

Calvelli: Yep. 

Schneider: Like, to sort of su- summarize. And, like, by, like, taking itself seriously as an art form, uh, and trying to tell stories and create experiences that appeal to everybody and just seem serious, right? It’s a game, but, like, we’re giving you a world to walk around in, and we’re taking that seriously. We’re giving you characters that you can relate to. We’re gonna make the world feel like the real world gives our entire field of gaming a sort of, like, seriousness and credibility maybe. 

Calvelli: Yeah

Schneider: In the year 2026, I still have people kinda hear that I work in games and say, “Oh, aren’t they so violent?” Or, you know, “Don’t kids just play that?” You know, like, there are some really old stereotypes that have not been true for a very long time about what games are and what they mean in our culture. And I, I, I think you really could make a very compelling case that, that this new GTA, especially as it c- contrasts to, you know, it’s la- the last several ones, and you can see that, that in- increase, uh, really is, like, an important monument to, like, our art form as existing sort of, like, with the same respectability and integrity that other art forms have in getting taken seriously that way.

Cain: Yeah. Ben, I really wanna probe that a little bit further. I’m wondering what’s the cultural significance of video games? Because we’ve got people maybe that are tuning into this question, uh, who hadn’t thought about it for a long time. There’s, there’s open ears.

Schneider: Yeah. Okay, so I wanna put on my professor hat for a second. 

Cain: We- we’ll let you do that.

Calvelli: Yeah, you, you got it. 

Schneider: There’s, um, there, there’s been some great l- sort of like philosophy and like, like what are games even. Famously, like many years ago now, um, you know, like film critics questioned whether games even were art. And I hope that we’re beyond that. 

Calvelli: Yeah. 

Schneider: But there’s this, um, there’s a philosopher named C. Thi Nguyen who, um, has some like super smart things to say about what games are and how they work. And he, he basically says, Okay, first of all, they are art. Uh, but also he has this really interesting discussion about how the very act of jumping into and not just reading or watching about, but being and playing as some other identity, some other rules, some other set of priorities, is like a fundamentally healthy, valuable, psychological experience for people to have. And that it lets us relate better to other people and connect better, and sort of like get out of our own head space and, um, be more critical about how our humanity works. I know that the place that I want games to have in our world are certainly as entertainment, but just like intense movies and books and other things that we care about, vital experiences that we go to, not just ‘cause they’re fun, but because they sort of like change and provoke us, and sort of like make us feel and think and experience things that we don’t otherwise.

Calvelli: Really well said. I think the only thing I’d add to that is that video games specifically are kind of just the newest iteration of a fundamental element of human culture, right? Which is play and playing. People playing in some form or another has been true for as long as humans have existed, right? We, play make-believe when you’re a child, right? And there’s, like, a sort of inherent fundamentality of this, uh, of this willingness to play or this desire to do so. You know, there was the Royal Game of Ur. Uh, the Royal Game of Ur is a board game that was, uh, found in, like, a cemetery, and it was dated back to, like, ancient Mesopotamia, right? Like, um- 

Schneider: That, that Ur. The Ur that we get- Yeah, that one ... we get the word ur from. 

Calvelli: Yeah. Right. And so, you know, uh, uh, the idea that, like, “Oh, this is a new, uh, moment or a new thing that we, that we need to care about,” is a little bit incorrect insofar as this concept of play and playing, um, has been so fundamental throughout history. Um, it’s exciting in the context of, like, video games specifically are this really cool merging of, uh, art and technology and, and all these really incredible advancements on both sides, right? Um, that’s been really cool to be a part of. But I think it’s important to, like, situate that in the reality that, you know, games have existed and will exist, and play more generally, like, has existed and will exist. It’s again, not to, like, undermine the importance of video games as a cultural object. I think it, it actually heightens them because it, it’s the newest form of something that’s existed for as long as we have. 

Schneider: And intrinsically human, right? 

Calvelli: Yeah. Intrinsically human thing. Yeah. 100%. 

Cain: How about social connection, how do video games, uh, have the potential to bring communities and people together?

Calvelli: You know, there’s this, uh, a desire to sort of share in these experiences of play where it’s like, “Oh, I’m enjoying this. Like, come join me and let’s enjoy this together,” right? Ben alluded to this before, where there’s sort of this really harmful stereotype that we just can’t shake about, like, the game player as this basement-dwelling hermit, right- uh, that’s, you know, uh, uninterested and unengaged with the world, right? And to bring it back to GTA VI, I hope that, like, what the story that it tells and the, the experience that it creates, you know, doesn’t continue to perpetuate, uh, in the minds of people a certain stereotype that, that is long since not true. Everyone plays games. If you play Candy Crush, you’re a game player, right? Like, at this point, you know, everyone to a certain extent engages with video games.

Schneider: So I, I have a, I have a question for you, actually, so.

Calvelli: Oh, okay. 

Schneider: Um, th- there’s a thing that I see my kids do that I’m actually a little bit too old to relate to also, which is they will , c- crash on the couch open a YouTube stream, and watch other people play video games. 

Calvelli: Yeah. 

Schneider: And I learned from one of our colleagues that you can call this uh, interpassivity, which is, which is a term that I love. What that tells me is, like, not only in the modern world do we play team games together, but they’re almost this, like, cultural substrate that, like- we relate to each other. We have parasocial relationships. But I’m curious do you ever, like, watch other people play games? Can you relate to that 

Calvelli: It’s fascinating. I... that boat missed me a little bit too. Okay. Like, I’m right on the tail end. 

Schneider: We’re all too old. Yeah, 

Calvelli: We’re all too old- Yeah. I guess. But I- I’ve seen it as well. Yeah, uh-huh. Right? And, and it is... There’s an interesting... Like, I’ve had interesting moments with students where they’re like, “Oh, I played that game.” And what they mean by them playing that game is they watched somebody else play that game. But to them, that reads as having played that game, which I find really interesting because to me, I, I feel like it’s incredible that, like, yeah, that games and the object can be this cultural substrate. But I do think there is a, a little bit of a difference between, like, being the person to engage with the object as opposed to being- the passive viewer of the object.

Schneider: Yeah. So here’s, here’s what I think is interesting about this. I gonna bring this up every chance I get ‘cause I’m, I’m fascinated by it. Is, um, I think that you can make the argument that, like, , the experience of playing games has become a more common cultural phenomenon. This was something that we can relate to. And I think the, the watching people play things is maybe a demonstration of how that’s different than maybe when we were kids where we were like- it was like a little a s- a secret club where, like, you had friends that you found that you could talk to about it that weren’t like all the other people. I think, like, another really interesting, uh, sort of, like, cultural touchpoint in this conversation is, um, there’s this, uh, book series, Dungeon Crawler Carl, that’s become increasingly- increasingly popular. And what’s super interesting about it is that it’s, like, set in an imagined sort of video game setup that’s too complicated to, to try to explain here. But it’s like, it’s premised on, uh, familiarity with the experience of playing an MMO. Right? and what I mean by MMO is massively multiplayer online game. Which is a game where hundreds or more people exist in a game world at the same place at the same time, and play together. Like, you can relate to it or you learn to relate to it, um, but it’s built out of the common experiences of playing games and the kinds of things that happen in games, and things that are funny, uh, and the ways that you can tell stories with those pieces of things as, as, like, the bricks that you can create a story out of. Um, and I, I’m interested in that in a bunch of, a bunch of ways. But, like, uh, in direct answer to the original question, like, um, I think there’s this, this basic fact that like, even old games, even chess or, you know, sort of, things like that, were always, um... had limited shared cultural currency. Uh, and that that has been expanding over the past 40-ish years, um, where, like, we all recognize Super Mario Brothers and Space Invaders and Pong, and we all uh, have a some kind of fundamental sort of, you know, understanding and experience of, like, puzzles and levels, and the idea of experience points, and, like, things that were, were, like, frankly, like, weird, uh, in the ‘90s and are now, fairly commonplace.

Calvelli: Stranger Things, you know, right? Like, another great example of that- Yeah, yeah ... where it’s so interesting to think about, there was a huge moral panic around Dungeons and Dragons, , at its sort of inception. And to see that go from- object of moral panic to, like, required element of this, this story that exists and is, like, majorly popular and culturally significant, like, in the mainstream is fascinating, right? Like, it’s cool. 

Schneider: I will see your point and raise you Critical Role. 

Calvelli: Oh, raise me Critical Role. Yep. 

Schneider: Because, because, because I actually feel like a- as much as I loved the, the way that they did that in Stranger Things, I think the existence of one original and then many, many copycat podcasts- of sitting back and listening to other people play tabletop role playing games is, like, maybe even a more surprising and interesting phenomenon. 

Calvelli: For those who don’t know- Yeah ... Critical Role is a YouTube, uh, series where... it’s a number of people that are just playing Dungeons & Dragons, right? And they have these very elaborate stories that are created and, you know, they’re very, very long, you know, stretches of multiple hours of sessions of, of them playing, uh, of this game. It- it’s this engine for the creation of really meaningful narrative objects that are now being, presented through a different medium that is the, the video, right? 

Schneider: Yeah, exactly. And, like, the fact that we’re living in a world where it makes sense and has enough market appeal that, like...so we’ve always played games. The idea of playing a game has made sense. Uh, watching sports matches is not new. But the idea of sitting and watching, uh, like, watching somebody else play Dungeons & Dragons well as a form of entertainment, like, is there a better demonstration of, like where we’re at right now? 

Calvelli: Yeah, exactly.

Schneider: You know? So it’s sort of, like, culturally in our relationship to games and the way that we think and talk about them, uh, to each other as people. Yeah. 

Calvelli: Yeah. And it’s exciting that... It’s exciting, right? And, and I, you know, d- I’ve been a little bit d- downer on, on GTA VI, uh, I’ll, I’ll admit, but I think that, this is our blockbuster, this is our MCU moment, right? Like, in, in a certain way, right? Yeah. And that’s all happening with this, the, the reality of this cultural substrate beneath us that’s been building up over the past 40 years, right? Like the, the, the Xbox 360 was my- 

Schneider: Uh-huh. 

Calvelli: childhood console, right? And like that was, we thought, the pinnacle of what games were gonna be- ... in terms of their cultural significance, but it was still like majority men, like majority a little bit... I, I was in a man cave, I won’t lie. I was in the basement- ... right, with my Xbox 360 playing online with my friends though, so, you know- beating the allegations a little bit, right? But yeah, at every stage of games, uh, in their, in their cultural life, right? We always thought like, “Oh, this is the most important they’ll ever be,” or, “This is the most relevant they’ll ever be,” or, uh, you know, at least I have. But, you know, GTA VI and, and the presence that it’s having outside of our circles is the next moment, right? It’s the next moment of that.

Cain: I love it. I love it. You’ve talked a lot about how video games have evolved over the past decade or so, particularly in how they’re played, but I’m wondering if there’s any other points you wanna make on how video game production has changed .

Calvelli: I think there’s a, a, as a programmer, as an engineer, I think there’s like a lot of really interesting stuff that has happened. And, and the most important one is the democratization of the technology. You know, engines like Unity, and engines like Unreal, and engines like Godot. Um, and for those who are unaware, the engine is, is the tool via which you create the game, right? Um, as opposed to having to build the entire car, right? You get pieces that you can form into a car of your choosing. And so prior to the advent of, of these technologies, , and the accessibility of those technologies to people beyond, , major studios or, or you know, like anyone that’s interested right now can go and download the Godot game engine for free and start making video games that are at quality that you could bring to the, to, to the cultural zeitgeist if you wanted to, right? Like, and that just was not true, right? In, in the-pre-2000 whatever Unity existed, right? Or whenever the first of these objects started existing, right? And so I think that, you know, from a maker’s perspective, that’s really exciting that technology has become so democratized that anyone right now could go and, and start if they wanted to. And it doesn’t require, you know, years of engineering experience,

Schneider: Something that’s really interesting that’s happened, like, uh, slowly and then faster over, you know, the last 20 years, um, is that there’s been sort of this really interesting fork in sort of, like, professionalization and specialization. So, what we broadly call indie games have benefited hugely from exactly what you were just talking about. 

Calvelli: Yep. 

Schneider: And then in what we call AAA uh, game development, sort of blockbuster game development, there’s been, uh, an attenuating trend of increasing specialization, and more and more work, and more and more cost to do basic things. Uh, it’s the easiest to understand on the, like, digital art side. In, like, the early 2000s, you had to create a 3D model, and then you stuck a skin on it. Uh, that’s like, or texture we call it, that’s like what it looks like, and animated it and you drop it out and they were by today’s standards very simple. You could churn them out, um, and a single artist might even do both of those things possibly. Between like 2010 and now you don’t just do that. You have like five different types of texturing and, um, sort of like visual effects that you layer on top of every 3D model. Your 3D models can be more, uh, sophisticated. The animation has gotten more expensive, and it might take, two to five people much more time to make the same thing. Uh, if you go and you watch the GTA trailer- the VI trailer- 

Calvelli: Beautiful.

Schneider: the first thing that you’ll be, you’ll notice is that it’s like getting harder and harder to tell it’s difference. Like, it looks like film. , That takes more and more work. Um, and friends that I have who’ve moved into that side of the industry have talked repeatedly about how they get more and more specialized. You get artists who just do specular maps. You get writers who just do, um, uh script management for cinematics. You get, uh, you get all these like super specialized roles, um, where they do one little part in like a bigger and bigger team, and it gets more and more expensive to make those, make those games. Uh, and then you go talk to the guys who, make indie games, and the writer’s like, “I’m the writer, producer, QA tester.” Um, uh- 

Calvelli: Programmer. 

Schneider: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s- And, and I designed half the icons that show up in the UI. Yeah.

Cain:  Yeah, it’s a whole different world.

Schneider: Yeah. And, and like, and like both of those things are out there. You can go onto Steam or your, or your PlayStation or Xbox and down- buy one or the other in the same marketplace. Um, and it, and it’s, it’s financially professionally, production-wise, it’s, it’s like two very different things. And there’s a gradient, like there’s stuff that sort of slides in between those two things. From my perspective, one of the things that’s interesting is that more than ever the two poles are like farther and farther apart. 

Calvelli: Yeah. Well, like for example, one of the games that, that I’ve had published is I drew the art on physical paper and then took pictures of that and then used that. Like I’m not an artist by any means, and then used that, and like that won awards and stuff, right? Like that was... So the idea that like, that there is this gradient is important, right? . Like it’s exciting that there’s, that there are these, they’re poles, right? And that there’s a gradient to move between. You know, and you brought up Steam for, again, for those who don’t know- 

Schneider: Oh, thank you, yes.

Calvelli: Steam is a, a digital distribution platform.

Schneider: I was gonna go with the Netflix of games, but.

Calvelli: Oh, yeah, that works too. Yeah, that’s a better example. Um, it’s the Netflix opportunity, uh, where... But instead of paying for, you know, this, uh, the access to everything, you pay per video that you wanna watch, right? Um, and you pay per game that you want to play. Um, and that is actually an interesting technical update change as well over time because, you know, like in, my students are looking at Atari games, a lot of them, you know, haven’t really engaged with, like, a cartridge before, right? Like, that is a, a new object to them because of the nature of the way that games are distributed now, right? Uh, when, again, in the 360 days, like, love you, Mom, I made that poor woman stand outside in the cold at midnight, right? Like- ... outside of a GameStop to get Halo 3. You know what I mean? I will not lie. Thank you, Mom. Uh-huh. Love you for that. Uh- ... appreciate you, right? But that’s not an experience that, that people have anymore because the technology has changed, right? The nature of the distribution has changed. 

Cain: It’s fascinating. As we talked about, both of you are faculty members in WPI’s , Interactive Media and Game Development program (IMGD). And it’s a really cool program ‘cause it blends a lot of things all together. So you’ve got visual and technical arts, programming, storytelling, uh, music, writing, design, uh, the user experience, production management, and probably a whole lot more. Um, and it also covers the breadth of games, but also interactive media. And you both get a lot of time to talk with students, so I’m curious if you had the chance to choose just one thing about video game production that you’d want your students to carry with them for the rest of their lives and their careers if they go into this area, what would it be? And whoever wants to, uh, jump on it first.

Calvelli: Ooh, ooh, me, me, me, me. Um, okay. So there’s a fundamental process in design, whether it’s for games, whether it’s for graphics, whether it’s for, you know, whatever that is-- we call iteration, and the idea of iteration is that you make a thing, right? You try it out, you show it to people, you see what’s working, you see what’s not working. Uh, you synthesize that info, you go back, you make another thing, right? Or you, you update the thing that you’re working on, right? And that requires an intent. It requires you wanting to create something. It requires a thing that you are striving for, and it requires a community of people that are gonna help you get to whatever it is that you’re looking for. And like, that’s just true in life, right? You know what I mean? Like I, I feel like it sounds like a platitude, but I, I think it really is true where, you know, uh, it’s okay to try, see what’s working, see what’s not working, right? Go back to your community. Build that community, right? Like, grow together, um, and work with each other to create, uh, you know, in whatever respect, in your career, in your life, in your art, you know, stay, stay curious, stay connected to a community that cares about you, right? And iterate, and be okay with the reality that the process of iteration requires a certain amount of failure, right? Like, there is, something is always wrong, right? And that’s not a bug, it’s a feature of the iteration system.

Schneider: I’ve always thought of iteration as, like, sort of like the less famous, like, twin of, um, the scientific process. ‘Cause, like, they’re both basically, the same thing, right? You set something up, you try it, you see how it does, and you reformulate and you go back. I think my answer would be, like, sort of very much the other side of exactly the same coin. I really came to game development in the first place as an outlet for creative writing. And I sort of discovered and fell in love with the design as its own sort of process and sort of its own discipline, in the act of simply just trying to find somebody who would pay me to write things. And, um, one of the things that I slowly realized is that to design things, you don’t just have to iterate, you have to, like, deeply and fundamentally understand the person who’s going to use the thing that you have. And iteration is a way to get there, but there’s this act of getting out of your own head, of sort of imagining the person using the thing that you’re creating, and understanding them, and creating something for them. And it’s this combination of service and understanding and creativity, that I think is amazing. And, like, it’s not so much that I want my students to learn this, it’s that I want to help them have that experience of having made something and been able to feel what it feels like to see somebody else live the experience they created for them to have.

Calvelli: What he said. 

Cain: That’s, that’s a, that’s amazing. I, I’m loving it. Are there any closing thoughts you wanna leave us with on what this moment, the GTA VI release means, uh, that you hope people will think about? 

Schneider:  This time last year, all of my students and all of my game nerd friends were all talking about, um, Silksong- which is the sequel to the Hollow Knight, which is, I think you could say like a video game industry indie darling and success story. , And what I finally did was I looked up the numbers and despite the fact that in my little corner of the world that game was a mega hit and super successful, it is like one order of magnitude smaller in every way than GTA VI. It probably costs like drastically less to make ‘cause it was like six people or something. Uh, but like in terms of like its budget and s- and sales base and everything else it’s like one tenth to a hundredth the size. Um, and that was kind of like an interesting sobering moment for me where I was like, oh, in my corner of the world these things are similar, but actually like in the larger world they’re not.

Calvelli: And it goes back to the gradient, right? Yeah. Like Hollow Knight and Silksong are like an incredible success and we, you know, sing their praises in game circles, and it’s true. Like nobody knows about those games outside of those circles in a way- that like GTA, like every- my dad is talking about GTA VI. You know what I mean? I’m like, “What?” Like it, and uh, it is cool, right? And I guess to me it’s I don’t want to lose the, the forest for the trees. Like I really do hope that GTA VI and this moment that it’s occupying in the zeitgeist can be that on-ramp, right? Like GTA VI really wants you to play it for the rest of eternity. It will absolutely want you to play it, uh, for until you die, right? And that’s great. Love that. There’s so much more work, you know? There’s so many more pieces of interactive media that can be really deeply meaningful, to everybody, to you as a player, to me as a creator, whatever. Um, and so I, I guess my closing thought would be I hope that sort of the moment that we’re having with GTA VI can be that on-ramp, right? And it doesn’t just trap us back into another, decade of, well, what did GTA do? Let’s do that, right? Or as a creator, but also as like a person in the culture that doesn’t trap us back into like this is what all games are because there, this is 100 billion quadrillion dollars that went into it, right? So this is the definition of what a game is. So yeah, that’s maybe what I’m hoping for.

Cain: Well, Ben and JD, I really appreciate you both sharing, uh, so much of your expertise, uh, your deep thought on this, and I’ve learned a ton about, uh, video games, and I hope that our listeners will as well. So, thank you both for being here on The WPI Podcast

Calvelli: Thanks so much for having me.

Schneider: Yeah. Thank you.

Cain:  Ben Schneider is a professor of practice and JD Calvelli is an assistant teaching professor in the Interactive Media and Game Development Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. You can learn more about the IMGD program through the link in the show notes. Episode 50 is in the books! I hope you’ll follow The WPI Podcast wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss a new episode. You can also find the show at wpi.edu/listen and on the WPI YouTube channel. I’d like to thank computer science and music undergraduate student Aster Dettweiler and PhD candidate Varun Bhat for the audio engineering help for this episode. This show was recorded at the Global Lab on campus. Please join us again next time for episode 51 of the WPI Podcast. I’m Jon Cain. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon