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Welcome creatives! These are discussions, thoughts, case studies, interviews, and lessons about how our creativity relates to life. The host, Mr Benja, is a former video game programmer / designer for Rockstar Games, Sony Santa Monica, The 3DO Company, and others, as well as a fine artist. -- Be sure to check out the website for more.
Benja: Hang around.
Cause I've got John Diaz,
the awesome game designer.
One of the younger bucks coming up
worked with him at rockstar games.
He's been through Bungie He's been
to EA he's done stuff with Amazon.
Came of Full Sail.
Dude's got a crazy history.
Dude's got a badass work ethic.
Just somebody I've
really wanted to talk to.
So any game design stories, questions
you have , make sure you bring
it up, pop it in in the comments.
And by the way, if you've been on
here before make sure, you throw in a
comment, let us know what you're thinking
about, these, what you want to see
more of what you want to see less of.
What's important to you about
these and what makes them fun.
Because as I said, this is an
interactive and growing thing,
and you are a participant.
You're a part of this
whole process with me.
You let me know.
I talk with you.
I let you know.
I may go to your page and steal
some of your ideas, but that's how
it works in this internet game.
We all learn from each other.
That's how it is.
M Cuevas FNA online, J
kingpin zeroed in yelling.
Jeff.
Good to have you all.
Thank you for stopping by.
We are about to get this thing
rolling we'll make this happen.
I got my, I got my cup today.
What's good.
John: My man.
Yo, can you hear me?
Am I coming through.
Yeah, I can hear you just fine.
Definitely.
All right.
Yeah, we live I'm live Ben at Benji
Benja: oh, shoot.
That's right, baby.
Yeah, we don't give
John: up.
That takes me back, man.
That takes me back to the golden era.
Benja: That's right.
That's right.
By the way.
It's, it's, it's funny.
I don't know if you caught before, but
I started doing this whole BenjaCon
thing because I was so used to the con
season meeting up with people, having
different discussions, just, minds,
rubbing elbows with different people.
I even met Cliffy B at a ComicCon, you
know, ran into him in a hotel room.
He was having an argument with somebody.
And after the argument, we
just kind of ran into him.
He was like, Hey, how's it going?
Sorry about that.
It was like it was like
hard to bring you into that.
Yeah.
It was like all awkward, but
it was like, no, man's cool.
I get it.
Thanks happened stressful
time at a at ComicCon I don't.
What was he doing?
Right.
FA games had something going on and
they were showing up at ComicCon.
I think he was connected somehow.
I forgot the exact situation.
John: Creatives were passionate, bro.
We're passionate.
Once you get it started on something,
especially if it's our own art, you
know, that goes right to the field.
We got no armor for that.
Benja: That's right, baby.
And you are one of the passionate ones.
That's why I definitely
wanted have you on that's.
Why, why I wore my mean
little cus shirt today?
Cause it's all about the passion
and the, the grimy get down.
So is that it looks like
John: Wolverine to me, but
Benja: yeah, I called that.
I called that the mean
little cus that's my
John: oh yeah.
I like it.
And I got the
Benja: high flyer up on the wall here,
John: the web, the, the who?
Who?
Da high flyer.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
You, you gotta school.
Me.
You gotta school me.
Have you've been watching the Disney
benjacon 2021 () john diaz: plus
John: shows?
Yes.
Oh, Falcon.
That's your boy.
Ah, Damn man.
Benja: These are, these are my pop
culture kind of , representations,
John: but just what happens when I'm
not going to conventions, physically,
man, everything is virtual, right?
There's only so much that can stick.
Benja: yeah, we gotta, we got a WTF.
D boy Javon.
Lenny, love yelling.
Jeff here.
Oh
John: my gosh.
Yo, this is family right here.
I got, I got like right here.
That's my that's my that's
my goddaughter's mother.
I got the cousin coming in from Orlando.
I got ACE.
What the fuck?
Probably coming through from New York.
I don't know if he moved, but a
dope that you guys are in here.
Yeah,
Benja: man.
Hey, you know what?
Right off.
I want to get into that a little
bit because you, I, I looked at
your profile page and saw, let
me, let me go through this NYC.
Got you.
MCO Orlando.
Got you.
San San Diego.
Got you.
LA.
John: That's what we meant.
So we connected.
Yeah.
Benja: You, I had to look that one up.
John: Yo Canada's airports have
fucked up code if you don't know.
. Yeah.
Benja: So yeah.
Yule looked you up.
Got you Seattle.
Got you.
There's one in there that I didn't get ATX
John: you don't know about Austin, Texas.
Okay.
Benja: You know, what's funny.
I looked up ATX airport code and the
first day it told me it was Kazakhstan.
John: Oh, do I do I got it fucked up?
I might have it fucked up then.
Benja: I might have it fucked up.
I don't, I don't know.
I haven't, I don't remember that.
Austin Austin code, but
yeah, what, what, oh my gosh.
What
benjacon 2021 () john diaz: were
John: you doing in Austin?
Yo, so Austin.
So keep in mind, you know, New York
born and bred mm-hmm then move down
to Orlando to do school thing, right.
To, to.
Yes.
I went, I went into the hyperbolic
time chamber that is full Sail I
walked, I walked in, you know, not
knowing a thing about game development.
And I came out ready to bust out some
scripts, some levels, you know, and
do the damn thing on some consoles.
And you know, when you got no experience
in the game, I mean, you, you have
a pretty interesting route, right?
Like you, you ended up in damn near
Silicon valley, but like for me
coming at it from the east coast,
there was nobody around that I
knew of that was making games.
Right.
So I'm throwing out my application
and applying left right up and
down anywhere and everywhere.
And the first place that
bit came at me from Texas.
Right.
And so I'm a east coast kid, no idea
what goes west of that, that, that what
a different time zone even looks like.
Right?
Yeah.
And they found me, it
was midway Austin, man.
They found.
in Orlando, you know, they were trying
to get cheap talent and they got
me and gave me my first shot, bro.
And I kicked in the door and there
was no turning back from there.
You know what I'm saying?
Like that, that was, and
it's a big hug down there.
Right.
I think it's grown since
mm-hmm , you know what I'm saying?
But, but Texas got a lot
of deep, deep loops, right?
Like origin and IIDs out there too.
Right.
Its in Dallas, Dallas,
you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Austin, what is damnit, man?
They're gonna kill me for now.
Remembering, it's like origin
systems and the other one.
Somebody gotta know, man.
Jeff gotta know Jeff's midway blood.
Yeah.
Benja: Somebody look up some
game companies in Austin
John: in Austin, nineties, Austin
games, man like Ultima, whoever
made Ultima and some of those.
Benja: Okay.
So you can see the
John: comments too.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Damn.
This, this IG live thing is, is nice, man.
I, I was on it watching some
of the earlier days of the
Ric con yo, what year is this?
By the way, this is like
the second annual Ben con.
Benja: This is the second time I've done.
This live thing.
Okay.
Last year I did it.
I did it over Facebook just because
I had more friends there and I, I
like Facebook more than Instagram.
I still kind of do, but
Instagram is good for this.
So this year I was like, let me try
and jump on and see what happens.
But I've been having these types
of sit down, discuss art design and
development discussions for a while.
Mm-hmm so that's why I
was just so confident.
Yeah.
Vecon I'm gonna get my people together
and everybody comes through because
they know the con vibe and how yeah.
We get down.
So,
John: yeah, man, it wasn't, it wasn't
until I got to the west coast, man,
it wasn't until I got to San Diego
that I got to get into that world.
Right.
Like you don't get to live in San Diego
too long before summertime rolls around
and E three comes out the woodwork and
everybody's taking off of work and be
like, oh, peace, I'm gone this weekend.
I'm like, what you mean?
What was going on?
Like, oh, we going up to E three in LA.
It's like, I don't wanna come to work.
I wanna go to LA.
I wanna see what's popping up there.
And they don't
Benja: schedule anything either.
They don't schedule like any heavy
work at that time, but you know what?
Let's not
John: it's it's it's
opportu that way for sure.
Nobody wants to miss out.
Right.
Things can happen from one day to the
next E three is huge though, right?
Like for anybody on the outside, looking
in E three, was that one time where all
the magazines back in the day, right?
Like the E GMs, the game
pros, the game performers.
That's when they would get the scoop.
On all the new games coming out, right.
Everything.
Well, whatever was in development,
all the Nintendo announcements,
Sony announcements, Sega
announcements, all happened.
At least again, outside of looking in,
it seemed to all happen at E three,
that one time of the year in June, July.
And I remember, man, I headed up there.
I think all you guys were
already there the day before.
I think my first one was what,
2010, 2010 was my first E three.
Right.
So turn of the decade probably had
like no facial hair at the time and
I'm going up there super starry eyed,
like, like a fan bro, like a consumer,
like, yeah, I forgot I was a developer.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm rolling up in there.
Just like in the, is it, did they
happen at the LA convention center?
Is that where it typically goes down?
Yeah.
And I'm out there bro.
And I, I super geeked out.
I'm like screaming at the top of my lungs.
Like.
I'm at eight three oh shit.
Benja: You know?
Yeah.
Oh man.
And you got into some
party action too, right?
The, the side events
and the after parties.
Oh man.
I think
John: it see, like, those
are hazy, hazy memories.
Unfortunately for me Benja I wanted to go
in and share some of my time and stories
with you, but living in California,
man, I also was acquainted for the
first time with medical grade plants.
Oh.
And, and yo, and that just kind, it it's
taken a lot of special memories and put
'em in a little bubble for that time.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, so if there was no pictures, then
it's hard for me to recall, but I damnit
man around that time, I just remember it,
it was really the golden era of games.
Like, I mean, I remember so obvious.
It was a big year for us at the time 2010.
Right.
We had just released red, dead
redemption, outlaw to the end
and Outlaws to the mother end.
We all wore our shirts, our red and
black, you know, so we're rolling out
there, like NW, a Wolf pack style, rolling
deep with the bloodshed on the shirt.
We stood out everywhere.
We went, some of us kept
it underneath our clothes.
Like we were straight up hiding our,
our superhero costumes and shit.
You know, we didn't want to get
mobbed by press and fans, you
know, we had to keep a low profile.
Yeah.
Cause press kind of
sniffs it out, you know?
They're like, yeah, yeah.
Ooh, rockstar dead.
I want the scoop.
And you know, we don't say anything.
We, we
Benja: Don totally.
I, I, I totally get what you're saying
now for for everybody in the, in the
comments, sea Torres Carter comics.
Thank you.
Ison islands.
We'll get you in a second, buddy.
Oh, it was retro that Jeff
was thinking about not rare.
John: Retro retro was out there.
All right.
Benja: So, but for E three, the
just give a little, just give a
little perspective for everybody.
E three huge video game industry
event, everybody who's anybody is
there is at the, at the time it
was not open to the public, right.
Red dead or wasn't.
Cause it was just switching over
around that period somewhere.
John: You're right.
You're right.
I I'm pretty sure I'm pretty
sure it was, it felt manageable.
You know what I'm saying?
Like it didn't feel like,
or it was a certain day.
I think they opened it to the general
public, like on the Sunday mm-hmm so
like Friday, Saturday, I think we got
to roll around and kind of breathe.
You know, the lines were too crazy.
We didn't have to wait around the block
to get into an NTEN little showcase of
something was you know, slap hands and
listen to Shammo or something like that.
Right.
Right.
From what I recall.
Benja: And it had a, it had
a different vibe when you're
dealing with just industry.
Yes.
And the thing about it was, you
know, rockstar was kind of, and still
is kind of mysterious to people,
you know, from the outside looking
into like, what are you guys doing?
What are your, you know, what's
going on behind those closed doors?
And, you know, they would release
special products like those
t-shirts and people would be like,
oh, that dude's from rockstar.
Oh, he's got a red dead shirt on.
I haven't been able to get
much information on it.
Yes.
So now we're walking around with the, with
these shirts, the swag and everything,
and a special closed off booth that nobody
could really access, you know, freely.
And it's like, it, it gave that's
what gave it, that kind of vibe.
And I just wanted to kind
of set that stage for you.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's true.
Right.
Like, you know, picture walking around in
the matrix and a bunch of agent Smith's.
With their little, like
badges turned around.
So you can't tell that
they're pressed, right?
Cause normally you want to go up in there.
It all family, it's all fellow developers
like, yo, show me what you working on.
Hey, come over to my booth.
Let me show you what we're working on.
Right?
The, the take two booth was
pretty prominent at, at the time.
I, I forget if it was like mafia
one or mafia two out there at the
time, I wanna say probably mafia won.
And they decked it out.
You know, a lot, a lot of people
dressed up, you know, makes you
feel like you're in the game.
Each little booth feels like its
own little town or own little city.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like Disneyland for
adults kind of thing.
Or for gamers, let's just call
it, you know, game consumers.
Right.
I think now it's grown so much.
You know what I'm saying?
It's not just people playing games.
It's people streaming.
You got, you got pro athletes.
You know what I'm saying?
You got he athletes.
It's, it's a whole different world.
Benja: So now that you you're, you're
at E three, you're kind of in the mix
now, now I want to take a moment to, to
back it up just a second and say, yeah.
All right.
Because you've mentioned this in in a
previous post, you said, you know, you're
out there, you're living your dreams.
How did you take your dreams from, from
your roots with, you know, being in NYC?
Yeah.
Oh, and I saw the I
saw the flag there too.
You know, you got the you got
the Dominican flag there and you
also, you also at one point posted
up a, a yellow, blue and red
flag, I believe that's Ecuador.
Okay.
Okay.
In one of your, in one of your
reels you posted and it had.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so that's shout out probably
that was shouting out the homie Juan
vodka, who came onto the podcast.
And so he reps.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He, he reps those beautiful Latin
American countries, for sure.
Yeah.
For me, I mean, it's all, it's all
family, you know what I'm saying?
Right.
We all, we all brown people
and mom and pop are immigrants
from the Dominican Republic.
Right.
So, so that's, that's kind of as far
back as I can trace my lineage right.
To okay.
PS and rice and beans and good old goat
meat and bombass BTA and that's right.
That's right.
Benja: Mm-hmm and we
could talk, oh, I forgot.
Oh, I totally forgot about that angle.
The BTA, the all right.
So you're doing your thing in NYC.
Mm-hmm at what point do you
say I'm doing this games thing
and I'm going to make it happen?
How does that spark transfer?
Because.
It's still kind of an enigmatic
thing to a lot of people.
Yeah.
You know how you make that jump.
It doesn't make sense to
a lot of people, but how'd
John: you do it 100%, right.
You're playing these games.
I we're both avid gamers.
We're consuming the hell out of these.
Right.
I started from eight bit
Nees days and moved on up.
Right.
I still have on my console, you know,
Nees, super Nintendo, N 64, all of
those consuming the hell out of them.
And again, going back to EGM and
game pro, this is what I knew.
Right.
Whatever I was seen on TV right.
Was kind of hip hop and, and
basketball and Hollywood.
Right.
So it's like, all right,
this is, this is one outlet.
You know what I'm saying?
Of people rising to
prominence making money.
There's the white collar.
You know, oh, you know, my mom's always
telling me, oh, we want you to be a
lawyer, an engineer, a doctor, right.
Like go make that money.
Right.
We came, right.
We, we, we snuck into the country so that
you could have a better life than us.
Right.
Whatever.
And meanwhile, I'm here eat, sleep
and breathing video games, right.
And comic books.
And when I would read these interviews
and magazines, all I would see are,
you know, the Mia motos, right.
A lot of Japanese developers there
might have been, you know, there
might have been a Romero or a
Cliffy bee or something like that.
And, and again, very unattainable to me.
Right.
It's like, oh, but, but in, in
hindsight, you know, it's like, oh,
it takes one or two or three people
to make a game to put this together.
And little by little, I
think there was two distinct
moments, probably two or three.
I remember getting my hands on GTA.
For PC when they finally dropped it
for PC and installing it on my old
ass Pentium one or whatever, barely
surviving off the Ram that it had.
you know what I'm saying?
Yes.
And, and they had an
instruction book, right?
When games used to ship
with an instruction book.
And you know, when you are fighting
two for nail, for any new toy
or game, you consume the hell
out of it from front to back.
At least I did.
Right.
I would buy CD.
I'd take the booklet.
I read the song credits.
I read everybody who's written.
I, I look at the pictures, you know, of
fucking, I consume the hell out of it.
Right.
As if it's like, so dear to me.
So the same thing for games and
the rock star booklet, right.
As you know, they put a lot of love into
every, to like packaging their games.
You know, it came with the, the, I
forgot what they called their virtual
New York city Liberty city, Liberty city.
Yes.
Thank you.
They call it Liberty city.
I, so it came with the map.
You know, to us, to, when I say us, how
many people living in New York, it looks
straight up like a map of Manhattan
and you got Staten island down there.
You got Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx.
So I was like, oh, okay.
I like this little virtual
portrayal they did.
But in the back, they're like,
yo, we're looking for testers.
And I, I could swear.
I was like 15, 16 at the time.
And I wrote a handwritten letter.
I printed it out, signed it or whatever,
you know, I don't know how I sold myself.
I, I wish I could remember.
But obviously this is probably along
the lines of like, I love your games.
I wanna play your games.
What I gotta do.
And they were in New York,
you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So, so this is the only physical
entity in the city that I'm living
in that could gimme a, a drop kind
of the, the portal into that world.
And so that's what kind of
drove me to write that letter.
Never heard anything back, whatever.
Yeah.
I'm in college, right?
Doing like, I don't know, three years
to a computer engineering degree.
Struggling, right.
Mm-hmm balancing life and, and learning
my way and finding myself learned that
I really gravitated towards coding.
Mm-hmm not so much the hardware
aspect and the bread boarding
and the physics of all that.
Right.
And again, turned to mind what, what,
what seemed to feel like the universe
is like planned for Diaz, right?
Like flipping through the EGM
and in the back of that bad boy,
there's an advertisement for full
sale and they know how to market.
Right?
You got, you got gamers, you
got people playing games.
They read these magazines.
It's like, Hey, learn how to
make games at this school.
Tighten up
Benja: the graphics on level three.
John: Yo, is that, is
Benja: that well that you
guys for somebody else?
John: No, come on bro.
We full sale.
Put people out that can
actually do the thing.
Is it wood?
Is it evergreen Westwood?
It's like Westwood.
that commercial is money though.
Like tell me not, you see that commercial
and if you don't know what it takes
to make a game, you're like, oh shit,
I'm gonna call that one 800 number.
Like yeah, yeah.
Sign me up.
who has seen that though?
Like, if I was to come to you, you know
how, how let's say five years is the
average time and put a game together.
Okay.
And you see these two white
boys playing on the TV.
It's like, grandma's boy, it's the
people who make grandma's boy, it
looks the same way for anybody that
needs a visual, two kids playing on a
controller, some producer comes in right.
Or some producer like figure and it
tells them good job, guys, why don't you
tighten up the graphics on level four?
And they turn around, they look to each
other and they're like, oh my God, I
can't believe we get to do this for work.
Right.
But they're like, yeah, playing the game.
Like.
That's not how you do it.
It's just so fictional,
but it's, it's classic.
It works.
Yeah.
Market.
This, this is, this is why marketing.
There's a big disconnect between marketing
and like what actually happens because
they are trying to just get eyeballs and
get people to click and get people to
read and get people to call the number.
Yeah.
And they it's rare that they understand
what actually goes on into it.
Benja: Yeah.
I was at 3d at the time when those
things first started popping out
and we thought it was hilarious.
And ironically, until I got to
rockstar, I didn't see any actual
fruits of the the full sales.
The, and I do want to make sure I make
a distinction between full sale and like
Westwood or DeVry yeah, full sales in
another class, but they had a similar
structure and you saw a lot of the
commercials and a lot of people would
get them confused, but for sure, for
John: sure.
That's a good point, man.
That's a good point.
It's easy for me to, to say it
was, it was on a different level.
Cause I went through and
yeah, dig Japan's another one.
Right?
Dig Japan is kind of the west coast
and full sale on the east coast.
But now you got programs left, right.
And center.
Right?
Every engineering or computer
science school has a curriculum
dedicated to this arts that we
call game development, you know?
Cause it's what the kids want.
It's what brings in bodies into the seats.
It's what gets tuition dollars, you know?
Benja: Yeah.
So, okay.
So you're at you're doing your
computer engineering in New York,
but that's not full sale, is it?
John: Nah, nah.
So I'm at state schools in, in
long island, SUNY, Stony Brook.
And there is a jump that
has to be made right.
To be like flip the table.
Fuck this.
I wanna go to full sale.
Luckily I had family down there.
Okay.
And I get into the conversation
with my parents who are like.
what have you been doing at Stony Brook?
You just wanna up and transfer
and all of a sudden make a shift
and it's that passion it's, it's
just that gut feeling, right?
Like, it's, it's hard to describe, but
it was this light bulb that went off that
says this, I need to go check this out.
And it's in a place
that I'm familiar with.
Again, my world map is
just the east coast.
Yeah.
Right.
Benja: Okay.
So is this, is this, this passion,
this you know, the spark to do
this, is that because of, you
know, you, you're still not seeing
a connection with gaming at yeah.
At, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause that was, that was me as well,
but I never ended up getting to a
full sale or a DigiPen or anything
like that, but I know the disconnect.
John: Yeah, I love, I
love your route, right?
Cuz you just kind of ripped open some
rendering books and started going from
like getting 3d models and rendering
them by hand ESY by ESY, right?
Like that, like how you,
like, I couldn't find books.
So, so I'm, I'm always amazed when
people can like find a book, correct.
Cause before YouTube and
everything that's available online.
Yeah.
This was the only source of information.
If you didn't have a physical
mentor or a somebody to apprentice
underneath, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Benja: I act, you know what?
I actually went to
Florida state university.
I was not a student at Florida state
university mm-hmm . I went to Florida
state university and my mother was a
library fee and she told me that the
Florida state university system will
actually honor non-student library cards.
So if you're not a student,
but you had a library card.
For the, for the state.
Yeah.
You could go in and get a book.
And I went in there, got a book
and they were like, oh, you're
not a student here or anything.
Hold on a second.
There's a little form, you know?
So they, they just signed a little
form, like in case the book gets lost,
we know who to find it could happen.
Yeah.
So, yeah, but finding that information,
getting into that, into that zone, I
think that's where me and you connected
a lot, cuz you definitely had that
drive and you wanted to get out there.
So okay.
Now you're out there.
Yeah.
At full sale.
How do, how does, how do things change?
Are you just on the right path now?
What's what's what's in your mind.
Yeah
John: bro.
So there's, there's two facets to that.
Benja and it's, there was definitely
kind of this, this world in New
York where I was surrounded by
friends and family and loved ones.
And again, finding myself and getting
caught up in like getting diverted
off the path or finding my path.
And so what moving to Orlando allowed
was it allowed me to kind of just like
isolate and detach and just be surrounded
by family mm-hmm and allow me to focus
solely on the pursuit of what I think
is an outlet for me to be doing the
thing I want to do, which is be some
somehow tied into the gaming world.
You know what I'm saying?
Cause back then there was
no playing games for money.
There was no streaming.
There was none of that, right?
You have to make the game and this,
this could be a job for people.
And I went to the school, I
went to visit family, right?
Mm-hmm they put, they put
me on a tour of the school.
They showed me the grounds.
Right.
As you'd imagine it was everything
I needed to see because they had
mortal combat arcades street, fighter
arcades, virtual tennis arcades.
And they had like state
of the, a computers.
And they gave students like.
The what, what seemed to me at the time
to be an unlimited amount of hard drive
and Ram and video power and processing
power to like run the latest games,
which, which I couldn't even like install
on my computer without them blowing up.
You know what I'm saying?
yeah, yeah.
And so, and then, and then to show me
like, Hey look, they would go out of
their way to, to give you a hands on,
like sit in on classes and they would
show you, Hey, look, this is code.
And when I press run, it's gonna launch
this 3d application and then you move
a character around and you interact
and, and, and this is how you do it.
Right?
So I had seen code, I had an understanding
and a, and a, a passion for coding, right.
I loved the, the low barrier of entry
of just typing text in a notepad,
logically writing instructions.
Making things happen.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I wasn't an artist and,
and, and I had a much more kind
of mathematical mind, right?
Like I dig more objectivity at the time.
Right?
Like, I wasn't the best debater
or critical thinker, but I was
damn good at taking a rule set
and applying it to get a result.
Right.
Mm-hmm so, so aha.
He made that connection for me.
Right?
Code equals game.
You can make games here.
We're gonna show you how to get this
by the time you're outta here and,
you know, financial aid and making an
investment in myself and having family
believe in me, they'd be like, Hey, you
gonna, you know, my aunts and uncle put
me up, save me from having to pay rent.
I'm in full sale.
Now I'm at the place where I think
they're gonna gimme the tools
of the trade to do the thing.
It's all up to me now to
consume it and absorb it.
And they did, bro.
They did a hundred percent like I'm,
I'm in class with like 80 people.
Of of similar passion, right?
Hey, we want, we play
the shit outta games.
We're here to make games.
They thoughts.
They thought they were
there to make games.
Mm-hmm okay.
Cause after the first, so handful
of classes where you go through like
paper design, then you start getting
into like math and programming.
Half of those people would
weeded out, got weeded out.
Right.
They, they didn't have the same
critical thinking that it took.
But me, I gravitated towards
that man until month after month,
they're just drilling you with
con you know, logic C plus plus.
Yeah.
Then, and we go from,
as you imagine, right?
We're making super simple, basic
text games, you know, like here's a,
here's a C character and you press
left right up and down and it moves.
And when it collides with another
thing, things happen, right.
The super basic.
But to this day, a lot of games are
built off the same logic parameters.
You know what I'm saying?
They just have art.
And a million, you know, like a
hundred man army, a hundred percent
army of artists and animators and
V affects people and audio people.
And to make it look pretty, but the logic
is, is the same, you know what I mean?
Right, exactly.
Benja: And I, I like what you said about
it, it kind of weeded people out now.
Mm-hmm did did you, so when did you
get on the math and coding kind kick?
Did that happen when you were in
college in New York or sometime before?
Were there bits of it?
John: Yeah, it is funny.
Math just made sense to me, right?
Like English, wasn't my first language,
but mathematics doesn't have a, a
language, you know what I'm saying?
Okay.
Numbers are the same, however, which
way you move them or put 'em next to
each other and do an operation on them.
And you know, I, I had a
ACC a good explanation.
I don't know if that's a
word explanation to math.
Well, you.
Let's go with it.
So I had seen calculus and all
the levels of trig and, you know,
algebra before I got to college.
So when I got to college,
it was kind of easy.
And then coming into a game school
that it was finally for the first
time, applying geometry in a way that
makes sense and sparks, excitement.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, yeah, I'm a character.
My target is over there.
I'm aiming at it.
Right.
The camera's pointing this way.
How do I find that angle?
Oh, hypotonuse bro.
Soca to, yeah.
You know, like finally I'm
like, oh my God, I get to use
this in a way that makes sense.
You know,
Benja: I'm saying like, that's
a very weird revelation.
I know what you mean, where you're
sitting down and you're like, Hey, wait a.
minute Can't we use a Carno map to
see if these plots are gonna line
up and we're gonna have all, like,
I was big on discreet mathematics.
I was like, yes, this stuff is
crazy when I started using it.
Yeah.
In, in actual games, you know, so I know
what you mean with the math and the logic.
It's, it's really weird how that
connects and just kind of lights up,
John: bro.
It's beautiful, man.
Cause before then it was like, what,
what application do I have for this?
Maybe I can be an architect.
Right.
That was another avenue that
maybe I was entertaining of.
How do I apply the things I'm
actually good at to the real world?
Right.
Cuz up until then all people would tell
me is like, oh yeah, you're good at math.
You'll probably make a good engineer.
I was like, okay, I guess, you know,
I think so I wanna tell people that if
you're good at math, you can make games.
You could be a gameplay
programmer and like they love you.
You'd be a rendering programmer.
They need people like that.
You, you started.
Were you doing, you were doing gameplay
code when, when you first broke in?
Benja: Yeah.
I started out doing gameplay
code with Howard Scott Warsaw.
He, as my, as my director, I told you
that story on the out play area podcast.
You guys check that out later.
We'll link it up and
get to that in a minute.
What
John: was the name of that book?
Cracking
Benja: college conquering college.
It was, I wish that was some of
it was some of the funniest shit.
I mean, it was like you know, they're
like, Hey, even if you don't have a
question after class, you know, make
sure you show up after class, like
three or four times, you know, every
month to make sure that the teacher
understand I'm like, all right, sure.
Whatever.
And what's funny is as, even as a
game developer, I started doing some
of the conquering college techniques.
Like I'd walk into the producer's
office and be like, Hey man, we're
doing this, this and this and this.
And you know, it was just techniques
about how to get through a large system
life skills, man, basically mm-hmm so
yeah, I had you know, I had Howard
and I was doing doing that thing as a
gameplay programmer and for people who.
Don't know what a quote
unquote gameplay programmer is.
I was just moving around all the logic
to make sure the score was correct.
The proper number of
characters were on screen.
Yeah.
That everything was
getting garbage collected.
Oh God.
That means if something was off
screen or needed to be deleted from
the memory that it wouldn't like blow
up your Ram or anything like that.
Keeping track of loading.
If we were coming to the end of
a level, I needed to start this
whole load out process and load
in the next level process, which
was a whole process of its own.
Yeah.
You know, so just making sure
everything kind of worked.
And that also got me into working
with the controller, which
was really interesting to me.
Input, input handling.
Yeah.
So something you never think of.
There's like a separate
input chip on the, yeah.
And you're like, oh, I can access
this thing separately from the rest
of the, and it's like, yeah, yeah,
you can try out whatever you want.
It's not gonna affect the graphic
speed and just really weird stuff that
you could start playing around with.
So that's where, that's where I started.
But you, when you so you went
to full sale you did your thing.
How easy was it for you to jump from?
Hey, I went to this video game school
to mm-hmm Hey, I have a video game job.
How did that work?
John: Yeah, sure.
So by the time you get
out of there, right.
We're essentially pretty
decent programmers.
Right.
We can jump into any aspect of.
Game stack, you know, from networking,
rendering, any, anything of this,
we can, we can come in and hold
our own to at least partner with
a senior or something like that.
So I came outta school, just
looking at programming jobs, you
know, just applying left right.
And center for anything and everything
that says program, you know?
So that includes Microsoft
and, and, and all
Benja: those guys real quick.
Did you have a focus?
I,
John: I, I, I really took
two tools programming.
Okay.
You know what I'm saying?
So like, I really enjoyed making my own
application and hooking into organizing
assets or spitting them out in a way
that was friendly to whatever schema
you wanted or something like that.
Right.
Like, I guess what, what, what,
what you call now, like a UX
or UI designer or programmer.
Right.
I, I, I really took a liking to some
of that stuff, obviously gameplay
programming, and even a little
bit of AI really dug AI in school.
Right.
Path finding and optimizing the way that
something can get to you or something.
So that's what I, you know, but
funny enough when midway would
kind of go recruit from full
sale, a few other companies had
the kind of same thing, right.
They had a few I guess employees that
were on the, the board of the curriculum.
Right.
And so they had a hand in affecting what
the kids are learning so that you can
help them build and solve their problems.
Right.
So midway would come and recruit and
they had a pretty good success rate.
Right.
They would kind of find one or
two people every time they came.
And I was essentially like
number 10 or something like
that when they came back around.
I was put in contact
through my career dev.
I wanna shot him out, Rob
Cowell, for some random reason.
He took a liking to me and worked
with me, you know, doing all the
usual, like, Hey, gimme your resume.
I'll help you tighten it up.
I'll put it in front of these people.
I think, I think, you know, a little bit
of self awareness looking back is in a
group of programmers and, and let's call
a spade, a spade, socially awkward MOS.
I stood out because I had somewhat cap.
I was somewhat capable of speaking
to someone and having a conversation
on not just like, yeah, you know what
you're doing in code and how does
that thing work and shit like that?
You know what I'm saying?
yeah.
So I think, I think this is
what he gravitated towards.
Like, Hey, you could be a good designer.
I didn't know what that was.
Right.
I didn't know.
That was a thing.
And so on the interview process, you
know, we're, we're talking very little
about code and we're talking a whole
lot about pop culture and game feel
and the way the world works, you know,
like design for me at elevator system.
And I'm like, I, I, I can break that down.
Logically interest what I'm saying.
Yeah.
I would put the floors in and the
array and then, you know, I would
put your input, you know, whatever
floor you press in a separate.
And I would compare and, you know,
do some like B you know, some
binary sorting of some shit like
that and, and figure out peak time.
Right.
You're coming into a building, you
know, then you probably wanna send more
elevators up, you know, you leaving
the building at the end of the day.
You probably wanna have more
elevators going down shit like that.
Yeah.
But I love these conversations,
Ben, cuz it was straight up.
The shit that I didn't
have to go to school for.
It was the shit that I knew growing
up and the conversations I was having
over the cafeteria table with the
homies, you know what I'm saying?
It was like, yo, why is
Batman a compelling character?
Right?
Like, why is he cooler than a
captain America, for instance?
Right?
These are the, the things that
designers kind of obsessed over,
cuz you gotta make a mass market
selling product, for example.
Yeah.
Did that feel like a,
Benja: a, I don't wanna say a slight,
but how did that, how did that take you?
I mean, how did you take that?
Where it's like, Hey, I,
you might be a designer.
Mm-hmm did you feel like, well, no,
I want to keep doing this programming
thing or let me see what it's about.
How did you take
John: it?
Yeah.
I'll tell you how I took it.
It was like, Hey, we wanna
give you a job in games.
I says, yes, sign me the hell up.
I don't care what you gotta doing.
I'm gonna fake the funk.
I'm gonna fake it till I make.
and I'm gonna do whatever the hell
you want me to do, cuz I, I think
I've, by this point, I've touched
a little bit of a little, you know,
I've done a little bit of modeling.
I've done a little bit of level
layout, done a whole bunch of coding,
done a little bit of paper design,
you know, like I can, I can float.
I can float for at
least 10 seconds, right?
Yeah.
Enough to enough to get me
through, to, to, to learn more.
Okay.
Benja: Yeah.
Cause with me it was funny.
And, and I asked that because you
know, you, you're never quite sure
mm-hmm , I mean, especially coming out
of college, you've got your own ideas.
You've been building these things
for so long, but then you get out
into quote unquote, the real world.
Yeah.
And you're not sure how people
are reading what you're doing.
Yeah.
And when I got to, when I got to 3d, I
remember people were thinking I don't
know if I mentioned this, but people
were like, Hey are you are you an artist?
And I was like, Nah, bro, you know?
Oh, okay.
You a programmer.
I mean, are you a, a designer?
Like, no.
So, okay.
So you're in QA and I'm like,
no, no, nah, I'm a programmer.
And they were like, oh, and they were all
kind of like, you know, oh, programmer.
I didn't know that
,
John: there's a prestige
Benja: to programming.
Yeah.
There's a prestige.
And you know dude, I was coming outta
college and in college I was trying
to be you know, fresh for the ladies.
I was, I was doing
college parties and stuff.
I was having fun out there.
So that vibe totally came
into into the workplace.
I remember, you know, just having this
crazy outfit on, I mean, crazy slick.
It wasn't like yes, fashionable.
Yes.
It was very fashionable.
Crisp he'll figure it out.
It was, it was badass outfit.
And I just remember that was the thing
I was wearing when I was talking to this
guy and I realized like, yo, I don't
really fit with any of these programmers.
Mm-hmm you know what I mean?
Yeah.
And, and I was like, okay, so I'm
getting, they're getting a whole different
read on me and I'm putting some energy
out there that they don't understand.
Cuz I would, instead of saying like,
Hey, this is a great programming obstacle
I saw, I saw like, well, Hey, why
are we doing this in the first place?
You know, if we're gonna have all
these characters, why don't we
make our character select screen,
do this and this and this mm-hmm
And it was just like, they look at me
like what does that have to do with you
know, loading in these high res models?
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we don't
wanna load in the high res models
because we need a character select
screen that does this, this and this.
Yeah.
And I found myself going to lunch
with the designers and hanging
with the artists and all that.
So that, that, that was weird
for me when I first got in.
But then.
You know, later on, I kind of figured
out my, my zone mm-hmm so, you know,
you kind of so I'm guessing with your,
with your zone, you kind of got in there
and started off the ground running.
I'm not actually sure what
you did at midway either.
John: Yeah.
So they called us game designers, Uhhuh
, but it was very similar to what we were
doing at rockstar under the design label.
Mm-hmm , you know what I'm saying?
We are scripting encounters and systems
and controlling what spawns and what loads
and what, you know calculating damage and
cleaning up and unlocking achievements.
Right?
Like all that, like low, you know,
kind of low level game play logic.
Right.
We're in charge of that.
And and that that's what
kind of stuck, right?
Cuz it was, it was a easy application of.
The coding brain that was kind
of like, you know, that I was
you know, that I was washed over
with, you know what I'm saying?
Like, okay, this is how I solve problems.
Now this there's one
way to solve a problem.
Right.
You break that shit down analytically and,
and, and categorize it and structure it
and, and kind of break it down that way.
And so they called designers that but I'm,
you know, I always felt like at rockstar,
more like gameplay programmers, really the
way we operated, you know what I'm saying?
We just had a little bit more
creative freedom which, which I
loved, I loved rockstar was like such
a wonderful opportunity to marry a
little bit of the best of both worlds.
You know what I'm saying?
At, at midway too, I wanted to touch on
the crazy birth of design because back
in the day, right, if you go to something
like pong, And I think his name was
like Al acorn or something like that.
Allen Alcorn.
But like, there was one guy
who programmed the two paddles
in the ball physics, right.
Going back and forth and upping your
score when it passes the edge of the
screen, you know what I'm saying?
And so he's credited as being the
engineer and the designer, but he's
really a coder, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And then you take that one step
further and you bring your artists in.
Right.
And you could make that you can
take that super far and make one
paddle, Serena Williams and the
other paddle, Venus Williams.
Right.
And all of a sudden, you, you got
tennis, you know what I'm saying?
So now the aesthetics take a whole
nother level because you have a 3d
artist adding that aesthetic layer to it.
So all you need is an engineer
and a artist, and sometimes they
would kind of cross pollinate it
or cross that little design realm,
but you didn't really need it.
You know what I'm saying?
Designers make or make a rule set.
That's how the game operates down
the line over the years that design
specialty or discipline was born.
You know what I'm saying?
Where it wasn't someone who was
engineering focused and it wasn't
someone who was like art focused.
There was someone who lived in
somewhere in between that lived in
the nuts and bolts of the rule set or
what the, the, the player motivation.
You know what I'm saying?
These are, these are things
that were kind of secondary
to like, it's gotta look good.
If, if the, if the product doesn't
look good, nobody's gonna give a shit.
And the engineers focus on
like, well, it's gotta work.
If the thing crashes, it doesn't load.
It brings on your computer.
Nobody's gonna give a shit.
The designer kind of came in and
got to live in that space of like,
well, where can we take this?
That hasn't been explored already.
Right.
What motivations can we provide for you?
What stories can we tell?
What experiences can we create?
So it's interesting how design is
tends to be this nebulous realm of
like, oh, you're a level designer,
not really, oh, you're a writer.
You're a narrative person.
I mean, I could do it, but that's
not really what compels me.
Oh.
Then you're like a systems designer.
It's like, yeah, you're
getting closer, getting hotter.
So the, the, the, the, the
bucket has blown up, right?
There's UI UX There's a whole
bunch of derivatives of design.
I myself love that little in between,
between engineering and design, right.
That little branch in between.
Cuz you know, your roots are
always gonna kind of claw out.
And so that's where you find
kind of that technical design
layer as I like to call it.
Benja: So you You did some heavy
work with with Amazon's lumber yard.
Mm-hmm saw you out there doing the,
you know, there's a picture of you on
when I, when I dropped the picture,
say, yeah, the picture of you doing
the demo, and now you're off at EA
doing technical design there as well.
So what does, so, okay.
They're they're technical designers and
mm-hmm , I I'm, I, I kind of know what
those are and, and like, I'm just speaking
from a regular person's point of view.
Who's not in the game industry.
I kind of get what a
technical designer is.
Yeah.
But there's still this idea out there
of, I want to design games and you know,
this, they think that's like a movie
director or George Lucas or whatever
of the games does that still exist
or does that, has that ever existed?
John: Word, word, word.
I mean, like, you know, if you wanna
go to the OG of the, the discipline
I think again, they always derive
from, I either drew the thing or I
coded the thing, but I can credit.
So art,
Benja: art, or engineering
John: mm-hmm okay.
I, I can credit Shigeru Miyamoto you know,
the, the father of all those Nintendo
games and Mario and Donkey Kong and Zelda
cuz I think he lived in that space of
the dream world of like I have an idea
or I've, I've done something in my real
life that now I wanna simulate for people
around the world to experience, right.
Like being a little plumber,
jumping and climbing down pipes and
jumping on things as an obstacle
to the player and Zelda being kind
of the original open world game.
Right?
So the, does the world, the, does the
role of being a director exist for people
who say they wanna make games right.
Coming off.
From paper.
I haven't, I have an idea.
Right?
I think, I think mm-hmm you
and I have run into that.
Jeff, Jeff spoke very adamantly
about this in the conversation.
He and I had on a, on his
episode of out of play area.
Yeah.
That, you know, ideas are cheap.
Everybody has ideas.
You are not paid to be an idea person.
A designer is not an idea person, a
designer in, in my, my, my personal
interpretation of a designer is a,
a, a liaison or a, a bridge builder.
I, I just came up with that right now.
Like, I've never used it to
describe the craft, but I want
to call them a bridge builder.
Okay.
Because bridge builder, they live
in the center of the universe.
Between all those other disciplines
that go into making a game because
you can make the art right.
Things for people to look at and you can
code an interactive experience, right?
When I press controls things happen.
And the designer gives a place
for all those things to kind of
come together at an intersection.
Does that make sense?
Benja: That makes sense to me
and I, I wanna to help, I'm gonna
offer my, my little clarification,
not, not clarification.
Cuz what you said is correct.
John: Well I'll definitely want to hear
what you, how you perceive the craft
Benja: as well.
So, so, you know, coming
in, I'm thinking of the, the
nearest model, which is movies.
And when I think of
when I think of movies.
I realized and I had long
discussions about this with AJ Shaw.
We, we mentioned AJ, I think at some
point from rockstar before you got there.
Yeah.
The wild and crazy AJ, but he we
had this discussion about video game
design versus movie development.
And with the movie you have
this guy called a line producer.
Okay.
And the, the line producer basically
says, okay, here's the script.
And here are all the pieces of the puzzle.
You know, we have to have
actors, we have to have lighting.
We have to have locations.
We have to have permits.
We have to have equipment.
We have to have costume.
He goes through all of this stuff and you
know, and that person lines up everything.
You know, the line producer's job
is basically to script out the
entire development of this process.
And of course there are things that
don't happen along the way or do happen.
it's a very, it's relatively
linear and understood process.
Mm-hmm
John: so we've, we've had a couple
hundred years of doing it right.
To kind of figure out a nice
Benja: pipeline.
Exactly.
So you can apply it to stage plays.
You can apply it to, you know, street
performance or whatever you get in.
You have your lines, you
kind of do your thing.
And everything goes according to this
plan, by the line producer, in fact, the
line producer, you know, everything is
supposed to be like an assembly line.
Do do, do that's where they get
the name from mm-hmm I didn't know
this thing existed until I went
to a screenwriter's conference.
Okay.
But , but now that you've got everything
lined up, you can just develop it.
And it's not that way with games
because there's always this, you
know, well, how does this even work?
We have a new controller we're trying
out and it's so much more fluid and
you know, just Things happen by chance.
You're still learning.
That's true.
You know, so, you know, you're, you could
add a level, you could remove a level
mm-hmm you could add characters, take
away characters and yes, you do that
in movies, but it's much less of there
there's much less variability in there.
John: Yeah.
100%.
It's it's kind of op it's the opposite
end of the spectrum of Hollywood, right?
Yeah.
Like they start from the script and
then they kind of work down the line,
you know, with like getting your,
your executive team or your director
then getting your cast then doing,
you know, you got storyboards, right.
Like it is very rare, a surprise in
the middle of a movie production.
I, I think I've never been in one.
I, I think, I think the odds are very low.
That there's a surprise
Benja: T yeah.
They don't like surprises.
So yeah.
The only surprise has come around
if like this actor broke his leg.
Yes.
You know, some, we, we got the,
which is a known risk, right?
Yeah.
We got the rights to get somebody
on that wasn't available before, you
know you know there are different
ways of changing a movie around or a
Hollywood production around as you go.
But it always seemed to me to be a little
more static than what we dealt with in
games where, you know, it was more like,
well, of course we could switch out the
main character with the side character
in terms of the, the physical 3d model.
You know, you don't do
that with actors so much.
Like you don't just switch
out stuff right up the CGM,
John: right?
Benja: Yeah, exactly.
Really quickly I wanna make sure I, I
hit a few of these people that how, how
are we on time with you, by the way?
John: How, what, how much time we
trying to hit this it's on you.
I can hang out for a little bit.
All right.
Well, we
Benja: we'll say a half hour.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So really quick, before I jump back into
that, a tribe called Mel asked, do you
think UX are true designers, the UX guys.
John: Yeah.
Yeah.
Experience design is for
sure a big deal for sure.
These days.
Like, I mean, they can be applied in a
lot of different avenues where you're
like, Hey, I have an app and I need
to control how many clicks it takes
to get to a place in the game area.
These are definitely the people
that are doing a lot of the work.
Now that game are super complex, right?
There's a million things you
could do on the control and ING.
So many buttons.
They're the people playing a critical role
of bringing in players off the street from
wherever, watching them, studying them,
recording them and bringing the developers
back that information to be like, Ooh,
There's some friction here, right.
This doesn't make sense to a
good percentage of players.
Let's revisit that.
Right.
Let's so they are a super
critical part of, of design.
For sure.
It's more feel, you know, experience
design is definitely a lot of feel,
but a lot of analytics goes into it.
Right.
Mm-hmm
Benja: I think so, too.
And the reason I, the reason her question
caught me be was that with UX, yeah.
With, with UX design, there's
so much, you know, interaction
there's so much interactivity.
How does that mesh with the feel?
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Of how, how the actual game feels.
And as we're talking about, there
is no, and this is my perspective
we're getting into, I'm not saying
this has a declarative across the
board, but there isn't that person
that says I am the designer, you
kind of have this vibe that's.
Hey, this person's developing
the, the user interface.
He needs to talk with the sound guy,
the sound, guy's doing things a certain
way, and that person needs to talk
with whoever's getting all of the, the
character's voices recorded, you know?
Yeah.
So you have this whole design thing.
That's kind of just spread
out amongst a lot of people.
And I think that's where the, the
director slash producer comes in to
kind of make sure that everything
is not going off the rails.
John: Yeah.
Keep, keep everything kind of moving
forward to in line of the original vision.
Right.
Benja: So that's how I kind of see it.
And I don't know if I ever told you, but
I was actually told one time by somebody
that I was gonna be the last lead designer
at rockstar, that they were just never.
John: Is that because you fucked it
up because like, yo, Ben, Ben kind of
closed the door for the rest of people
behind him man, or, or, yeah, I'm curious
because I, I think, I think, yeah,
there's two ends of the spectrum, right?
There's the, there's the, the person
who has the vision and the will
and the charisma to rally an entire
production on his or her shoulders so
that we never deviate too far off the
path and get that thing delivered.
And then there's the other
end of the spectrum that is
Benja: really
John: great at running the
madness in the kitchen.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
And knows his chefs and the entire
team and what they're good at and
changing the recipe and adding some
spice here or there, moving it around
and knowing when you gotta toss
that and start again, kind of thing.
Benja: I think that's and exactly, and,
and this is where I started getting on my
game design is, did platform, you know, I
didn't I wasn't knocking that games have
no design or whatever, but that idea that
I had held onto, you know, was kind of
fading away, whereas becoming more of a
team effort to produce this quote unquote
game as from a design point of view.
Yeah.
So, so you do have your, once in a
while, you still have your Cliffy bees,
you'll have your you know, Minecraft,
which is basically a solo operation.
Mm-hmm you know, you have your
you know, Corey bar log from,
from the God of war SA Monica.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They brought him back in just
to do that thing because they
couldn't corral all those ideas and
let me not knock them like that.
I shouldn't say they couldn't
corral all those ideas.
But there were too many ideas
going around and he was the guy to
come in and corral 'em altogether.
Yeah.
So
John: I'm with you, I'm with you on
that vibe to say a creative director
in games tends to be more of a
corraller these days than the other
end of the spectrum, where it's like,
I got the vision, it's all in my head.
I'm gonna show you the way
Benja: now.
Do you think that's good or bad?
Or do you have a preference
for either style?
John: I've, I've worked in both.
Right.
And I hate to use this, but it feels
like when you have that sole single
threaded owner, mm-hmm things get done.
You know what I'm saying?
There's, there's very little deviation.
Unless it's an absolute mess,
but things get done and quickly
kind of shifted or changed.
And in the other realm, there's a lot more
fuzziness and dancing and, and people kind
of falling, you know, these, that dancing
Benja: look what I made.
Let's dance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
John: Yeah.
So there's pros and cons to both man
and they definitely both still exist.
And I think these days, if you're
in the kind of the, the freelance
circuit or you're, you know, you're
doing the, the interview dance, you,
it's up to you to pick, you know,
which one brings out the best in you,
your best creative source, right?
As a designer, as an artist, you usually
want room to flex a little bit, right?
You want a little bit of ownership.
You wanna work with someone that
you know is gonna take your ideas.
Gel with them kind of bake 'em
a little bit marinate them kind
of bring you to a new level.
So
I, I know who I would work for.
Right.
Okay.
I would work for the, the, the, you
know, the, the SU what, what's the,
the, the main head of the kitchen
usually called it's the sous chef.
Is it the, well, the sous chef is
the dude, you know, cutting and
chopping onions and stuff like that.
Right.
He's working the tools, but there's like
the head there's like the head chef, bro.
Like,
Benja: if okay.
If we got
John: the, for him.
Yeah.
If we go to rat tooi, you know,
it's the little small dude.
Running the kitchen and making the
calls over, like who's in there.
Who's not in there.
Benja: What's the, what's the show
with Gordon Ramsey kitchen nightmares.
Hell's kitchen or something like that.
Yeah,
John: it is like a top chef
and there was a chopped, yeah,
Benja: mm-hmm but he he's the guy who's
always yelling, you know, about you
didn't season it, you know, how dare
you do this to the, to the filet Mannon.
What are you thinking shrimp
should be cared for in this way?
John: Those are creative.
So that's the creative discussions, man.
Benja: That's the tyrant run?
I mean, yeah.
Was there a special name for
head chef happy accident?
That's what we're looking for.
Was there a special name for head chef?
Yeah.
But with so yeah.
Oh, by the way if you haven't watched
how to be a tyrant this may be a time
to write that down, writing it down.
It's on Netflix, how to be a tyrant
it's it takes a weird look at, you know,
these very controlling figures, obviously
John: tyrants.
Right.
Mm-hmm like I saw, I think it has
like Hitler on the cover or something.
Yeah.
You know,
Benja: Hitler, I, I, I mean, mm-hmm,
Mo in there and it just talks
about their personalities and it,
I don't wanna say glorifies them.
Mm-hmm but it's, it's kind of
like, Hey man, dude got shit done.
Yeah.
You know, so it's kind of
got that vibe about it.
And I think about that a lot in,
in development circles, how, yes,
it's good to have everybody's input,
but sometimes when someone comes
in and just gets something done.
Yes.
Same thing with you know, Gordon Ramsey
and the, and being a, a tough chef.
In fact, I tried bringing that
example up one time at a, at
a game development studio.
I was like, guys, We're
kind of all over the place.
Yes.
I'm gonna send here's, I'm gonna
send out an episode of, you know,
link to an episode of this show.
This is our problem right here.
And I love that the restaurant
was hap yeah, this is why they
didn't like me as a designer.
Cause you know, everybody's like, we're
doing a good job and I would stand up.
No, I'm fucked up.
We're all fucked up.
Let's fix this and they'd get mad at me.
But I sent out this, I sent out this
link and they wa watched the video.
They were like, are you saying we're out
of control and you're gonna yell at us.
I'm like, no, I'm not gonna yell at to,
but somebody needs to, somebody needs to.
Yeah.
John: So that was basically
yelling Jeff up in there.
Oh, I hear that.
I hear that, man.
I hear that.
Like it's interesting too, right
now that these companies are getting
bigger and bigger and getting satellite
sister studios and different countries.
Right.
You know, with tax havens and
all this thing Cultures cultures
are super interesting, man.
Like, can you imagine being in, in one
place operating how we do in Southern
California and then having to connect
with people in Canada, either Vancouver,
Toronto, or Montreal, and then having
to work with people from the UK and
Swedish people from Stockholm, right.
Who have very different sensibilities and
the way you and I speak to each other,
very endearingly, very straightforward.
Matter of faculty, you try speaking
like that to someone from a
different culture and country.
Right.
And that, that shit is
hardcore lost in translation.
You know what I'm saying?
And it's misinterpreted easily, man.
So there's, there's definitely a new layer
of, you know, it's, it's, you know, we,
we throw the word empathy around a lot.
And, you know, you can throw, you
can say, you can give the visual of
putting the, the kid gloves on and
the mitten so that you, you don't
break someone who's very thin skinned.
Yes.
When you're handling them.
Mm-hmm . And so that's, and you know,
the new, the new generation of developers
is coming up underneath that as well,
you know, where it's like very close to
their art and their craft and, and don't
handle feedback or criticism necessarily.
Well, you know?
Yes.
Good.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm mm-hmm yeah.
Benja: So yeah, I, I came up I came up
as a not afraid of anybody, you know,
I, I was a small kid actually, you know,
I came up as, as a small black kid who
wasn't afraid of anybody in the north
Florida, south Georgia region, where.
Southern Baptist ideals ruled, right?
Yeah.
So, you know, and my, my
dad was from Mississippi.
My mother was from new Orleans and
they moved to this Southern Baptist
place and it was, you know, so they
were like, Hey, do what you gotta do.
Mm-hmm . And you know, if an obstacle
comes in the way, you gotta find a
way to go through it, go around, go
around it, get it moved out of the
way, you know, phase through it.
Whatever, you know, there
were just like phase through a
shadow cat through that sucker.
Yeah.
You know, pull a flash and just
kind of zoom through the thing you
know, they were basically just
like, you have to go through stuff
to get to where you need to be.
You don't have to hurt anybody.
You don't have to do it, but you
have to be kind of a hard ass.
And so that's what I grew up with.
Right.
Mm-hmm and I know people from New York
and you've got a variety of experiences,
you know, you may have had, you
have a little bit of that, you know?
Oh, I get it.
There's a harder edge to.
Yeah, so now and I really, I, I
really don't wanna because there's
a lot of good that's coming
out of this empathy, a ton of
John: good, so, oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
We're better.
We're better now than
when we're back there
Benja: for sure.
Yeah, exactly.
And I don't wanna, I don't wanna minimize
that at all, but I don't have the proper
sensitivity a lot of times to be able
to say you know, listen, you can push
through this or you can find a way to make
it happen or you can stand your ground.
You can, you know, and it
becomes extremely difficult.
Like, yeah, I, I got in trouble once for.
Having an an argument with another
old schooler and it made somebody
else who was completely uncomfortable.
Yeah.
Who was completely detached from
our situation uncomfortable.
So it was kind of like, I stood up
and was like, Hey, this is here.
It shouldn't be there.
Why don't we change this to that?
And this, and it's like, you need to
mind your business because this and
that, and that I'm like dog, it's
doing this, it's broken, it's effed up.
It's probably gonna
cause problems for these.
And we got into a, it to
me, it was very factual.
Yeah.
Just get the facts and information out.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And a little while later I get pulled
into an office like to close the
door, you know, you know, you fucked
that when they closing the door yeah.
Somebody said to me, we did we got a
report back about your behavior and.
You said something that you
shouldn't have said, and we don't
want you to speak that way anymore.
And I was like, well, what was it?
I said, and they were like, yeah,
if we told you it may implicate
the person who brought us this
information, so watch yourself.
I was like, what?
You know, I mean, this is me carry
for my, I was in my development mode.
Just like, you know, bang
stuff out, keep going.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we're, I'm like, okay, okay.
Now I have to realize that, you know,
it's a, it's a different vibe now.
We're not, we're not individual
members all pushing forward.
We're kind of the team and whatever I do
has more of an effect on people around me.
So I don't know.
You're, you're a, a game, maybe
a game generation down for me.
And part of the newer.
So you're a little
closer to that than I am.
What's it like out there?
And I'm, I'm definitely out of games.
So I don't have that fresh
John: perspective.
Yeah.
It's super interesting.
Right?
Like having come up in the you know,
people get passionate, they want
to throw fists, you throw fists and
there's respect and love the next day.
Cuz you're just motivated by getting
the best thing out there to the
millions and millions of people
around the world chanting his name.
But in today's day and age, for sure,
there's a lot of learning and I'm loving
it because what was lacking back when we
were coming up is there was no training.
There was nobody telling you how
to deal with different personality
types and different people.
Right?
You kind of, everybody had one
algorithm that they applied
that was, that worked for them.
And nobody had checked them.
So they just kind of run everybody
through the same while Loop.
you know what I'm saying?
Benja: do until
John: do until pulled into
office door closed and checked.
Yes.
You know what I'm saying?
And so what I'm loving about today, right.
And kind of gives me hope that I can
keep doing this for a little while
longer is you got a lot of training and
seminars and experts coming in a lot.
You know, it comes a lot from
psychology and sociology and a lot
of research and they're coming in,
man, and they're breaking down, like,
you know, look at what happens when
you positively encourage someone
Yeah.
Look at what happens when you negatively
put down someone's work consistently.
Right.
And you see the little, the little
trend lines and it's like, yeah.
Oh, okay.
We should all love each other and hug
each other and, and stuff like that.
But really, I think, I think the,
the missing ground that I see
Benja is people are very good
about complaining after the fact.
And you, for sure, there's
a processing time, right?
Like a lot of time when you're
in the heat of it, you know,
there's like a shock factor.
They'd be like, yeah.
Oh, I just got, I just got
disrespected, you know?
Yeah.
And then you unpack that on your own, but
I think we're all learning to be a little
better communicators and, and, oh, okay.
Okay.
Matter of fact, on, let
me take a step back.
All right.
All right.
Let me take a step back, man.
There's this whole mental health movement
and, and Hey, getting a counselor and
speaking to a therapist is a okay thing.
It's a great thing.
We can all benefit from that.
Because I think a lot of us hold
things to the chest and then take it
out somewhere and misappropriated.
And it manifests itself in
some negative explosion, right?
That then you gotta get called into
an office about so I think in this
day and age, we're, we're having these
deeper discussions with ourselves,
with friends, with peers on social
media, with therapists or whatever,
and you're learning your triggers.
And so you can kind of catch yourself
when you're in the heat of the moment.
And you can, you can, you can convey that
in the middle of a, of a hot of a heated
discussion, you know what I'm saying?
Like, yo, I'm hot right now,
but it's because I really
want this feature to shine.
Not because I don't like your idea.
Right.
And, and, oh, you know what,
dude, I'm hot right now too.
But thank you for elaborating on that.
That helps bring my trigger and my
self defense mechanism down a bit.
Let's keep going.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
And, and so I think that that's where
a lot of learning is happening and.
We kind of get to serve as role
models for this new generation.
Like you said, the little odd bystander
that sees two people having the heated
discussion and it's like, oh, I feel for
this guy, I'm gonna go complain about it.
Cuz he made me uncomfortable.
Right.
It's like, yeah, mind.
Well first I, I naturally wanna say
mind your own fucking business, but
I, I, what I, what I'd much rather
have them have seen is, is two people
communicating the whole journey of the
emotions and the idea and the facts.
And then that person kind of being able to
see that, oh, you know, they they're going
through the whole dance of a conversation
and getting their thoughts out there.
Right.
Like, yeah.
And, and, and experiencing that, I.
You see a lot more meetings these
days where you get all these different
personality types, especially on
zoom, you know what I'm saying?
Like where only one person can
speak at a time that helps a lot.
You get to watch people's behavior and
see when they kind of take something to
the heart and you get to ask them to be
like, yo, how did that land for you, bro?
Yeah, I didn't mean it this way.
Let's make sure that we are all
on the same page kind of thing.
So there's a really cool evolution that's
happening and it, there's definitely
been a lot of uncomfort for me and I
have to resist on a lot of my urges.
Yeah.
But I'm really loving who I'm becoming
on the other end of this journey as a
result of dealing with this new wave
of sensitive tissue, papered people.
Benja: Yeah, indeed.
It's you know what, and
I, I totally agree, man.
I'm, I'm there with you and I'm
willing to, I'm willing to take it.
I'm willing to learn because I think that
that, that softer side you know, I, I
rock with the, you know, kind of a gentle
demeanor a lot of times, and I get that.
Yeah.
But then people get, people get
really surprised when I, you know,
go in on something, but, you know,
I'm like, okay, that's just how I am.
Sorry.
I, you know, I was, I wasn't even
thinking about your ass before
and now we have to go people.
You always
John: think it's about them, man.
And it's like, no, it has
nothing to do with you.
It's take your ego out of it.
Let this man let this
man shine his passion.
That's why I dig your creative vibe and
your 100%, because I know it's gonna be
like, no host barred no prison is taken.
You're gonna get your thing out there.
And, and I naturally
gravitate towards that.
Right.
That's what I grew up around.
You know what I'm saying?
Mm-hmm, , nobody's apologizing for.
pushing their vision or idea,
you know what I'm saying?
We we're used to in the hood.
I mean, where I grew up in New
York city in Spanish, Harlem,
we're used to a lot of like that.
Sometimes loudest voice
gets the head start.
Yeah.
But eventually everybody goes
around in the cipher right.
In their own little way.
Everybody gets to turn to bring what
they can bring to the table eventually.
Benja: Yeah, totally.
And you know, to that point, we've, you
know, I don't want to I don't, I don't
wanna leave this saying that, you know,
you know, we should all just be hard asses
because what the, what we're doing now
is cutting off of a lot of the bad edges.
We're pushing out a lot of the, because
you and I I've, I've never had a thought
in my head that says, You know, John Diaz
is passionate, but he's really a problem.
Mm.
I don't know anyone that's known me
that's for any, you know, length of time
that said, you know, well, he's really
a toxic person and a, a bad individual.
I hope that I hope that somebody will
pull me across and say, Hey, yeah.
Now you're getting into
toxic zone, you know?
Yeah.
Instead of just being passionate, but I
accept it because now a lot of bullshit
is coming to light that, you know, yeah.
I could, I could I could say something
in a certain situation, but then I
hear about all these stories and I'm
like, whoa, that's what went down
between you and that group or, oh,
that's why they decided to change the
project was to fire these seven guys.
Wow.
That's interesting.
Yeah.
You know, so I'm hearing
all this stuff and.
You know, for somebody who's used
to being in the, in the trenches
fighting in a certain way, you know,
I mean, you remember me at work?
We said it at the beginning of
the podcast, you know, I don't
give a ð¢ You know, that's yeah.
That's how, kind of, how kind of,
I kind of roll, but, you know, I
don't wanna gloss over, like what's
happening in active vision blizzard
now, serious, you know, there are
enough I don't wanna say pockets, but
there are enough stains throughout
the industry where it's necessary to
bring that to light and say, you know
what, this is why we need this empathy.
This is why we need to have
these better discussions.
So I'm gonna try to be a hard ass as I
always have been, but, you know, I wanna
be sure I'm coming across as like, Hey,
are you, are we, are we doing this right?
Are we having the proper discussions?
John: Yeah, dude, I, I
love that because I think.
The the, what makes a team thrive
is to make sure that everybody
feels that their voice is heard.
You know what I'm saying?
So when you see the thing that's
going on at blizzard, it's because
people spoke up and nothing resulted
and the things kept going on.
Right.
So, and then people think that, well, I
can't speak up because nothing happens.
Right.
So knowing that you're heard
is, is, is a big piece of that.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Like to know, to know that I can come
to Benja and I can, I can express to
you my interpretation or my feedback on
an idea or a concept or a piece of art,
and to feel like he heard me, that is
all I need, you know what I'm saying?
Like that is all I need.
When someone feels like their voice,
isn't heard on a project, on a creative
project, on a team where it's like, yo,
while working towards the same end result.
When you keep getting your voice kind
of trampled and disregarded, that's when
you need to bounce a, you need to get the
hell out of there and go somewhere else.
But B you know, it, it tends, it
tends to kind of come back at you
in our egotistical selves, right.
To be like, oh, am I
doing something wrong?
Can I be better?
Or I suck whatever like that.
Right.
And you never want that, right.
As a teammate, you want your teammates to
be operating at their 150% maximum power.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah,
Benja: exactly.
And it's, it's fun to run at that, at that
speed, you know, it's fun to, to redline.
I was talking to Jeff, I was talking to
Jeff about the runners high, and I was
like, when you get in that mode, it's
like, ah, you know, you're in there.
It's passionate.
so I wanna run fast.
I want the person next to
me to run fast, you know?
Yeah.
I don't want everything to be
in a 35 mile per hour zone, you
know, let's just, you know, let's
John: with speed
Benja: bumps and shit, man.
Yeah.
Let's let, let's find a way to open
up the engines and let people cruise
and do it, do their thing, you know,
so feeling such a good feeling.
So, yeah, man.
Listen, this has been a, a great question.
I don't know if you wanna, is there
anything else that you wanted to,
to get out there before we start to
John: Benj?
Thanks for having me on here, man.
Benj con is amazing.
I'm glad to be a part of it this year.
I love what you're doing.
I love how you create a space
and bring people on and get to
do the things that we have been
detached from or disconnected from.
Right?
Cause these things aren't happening
the pandemics put in it's cock
blocking a bunch of these cool
things that would bring us together.
I.
I got a couple minutes.
If you wanted to chat about
podcasting man and that outlet.
Yes.
And that was the, and how the hell
these developers or artists are, are,
come up with like, Hey, let's get on a
mic and, and talk and put it out there.
Someone
Benja: listen that that's my,
that's my rollout note podcasting.
So as, as you said, you know,
I start, I started doing this
thing because and actually RAF
who was in the, who was in here.
I'm not sure if he's still
in here, but RAF was in here.
He got me started on the podcasting bit.
Shout out to RA.
Yes.
You,
John: you were the first
podcast that I ever met.
Benja: Oh, awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
It was, it was a fun time St.
Stuck with me and, you know, it was
just recording conversations that we
have already and putting it out there
in a way that's beneficial to us and
hopefully to the people listening.
Yeah.
So you know, now I'm moving this
new podcast era for myself into
you know, the add experience art
design development, and wraps back.
Yes.
RAF is in the house.
Okay.
You, I didn't want, I didn't
wanna start hitting buttons.
It might accidentally close
the session of something.
Yeah, me too.
I'm like super panic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know and RAF will
be on later on tonight.
Sure.
To have an awesome discussion with him.
Josh, who's also in the, in the comments
there talking about passion is loud.
That's definitely true.
He's coming on Saturday and he's bad that
guy work ethic, getting it and doing stuff
will definitely, if you, if you're talking
about work ethic and getting through stuff
and just, Hey, I don't know what that
is, but I'm getting in and I'm doing it.
That's that's a guy I wanted
to definitely connect with.
He's often here too.
Okay.
So yeah, we still got good stuff coming.
But yeah, it was a whole creative vibe
and I like creating, not in the vacuum,
but with kind of bouncing things off
of people, seeing what they're about.
Mm-hmm so that's the spirit of
binge ACON, and that's why I'm doing.
but you have the out of play area podcast.
Tell
John: us what that's about.
Yeah, man.
So this podcast came to be as a
survival mechanism from a person who
have gone a whole year in a pandemic
in 2020 starved to connect and talk
about game development with people
that just wasn't next to me at work.
Right.
Specifically on an engine
team or something like that.
Right.
I wanted to talk outside
of those confines.
And I finally got with an
employer or I knew enough, right?
As a creative going into any company,
you know, I'd caution you guys to
read the fine print or get a lawyer
to know what you're signing when
you're taking a deal from any place
that's willing to give you a bunch
of money to own your creative output.
Because.
I found out that that was something
valuable to me as a result of being,
having worked at Amazon, making YouTube
videos for their technology and getting
out there as like a public face who
can speak on game development, right.
To be like, oh shit, I didn't
know that this was a thing.
And there was an appetite for it.
Let alone that this is a
wonderful creative outlet.
You know, for someone who's kind of
lived behind the screen, working in
virtual worlds, making things happen and
then kind of shooting that off into a
world and ha hearing the feedback on the
internet of what people thought is to be
able to kind of connect one on one then,
and there, you know what I'm saying?
Like, yo, you can reach me.
You can chat with me.
I can connect with you on the fly.
I get your feedback live, see
what you dig, what you don't dig.
And that was a sweet outlet too,
man, like getting in a timeline and
chopping and moving things around
and, and telling your own narrative.
. I love that shit.
Right.
I never got to experience that before.
So now coming into my job at EA,
that was not gonna be an aspect of my
work, but I still wanted that outlet.
So I negotiated that upfront to be
like, yo, I wanna have public facing
content where I talk about games.
How do we make that happen?
Where's the, the happy medium between it.
Right.
So, yeah, I signed away my ability to
make a game and monetize it or get any
money off of this, but it allows me an
outlet to talk about game development.
Keep the skills sharp,
keep leveling up, right?
Like keep learning what's
hot and what's not.
And where the trends are going from
people that I don't work with and put
that out there to kind of give back and
leave breadcrumbs so that people coming
behind me, you know what I'm saying?
Put that hand and reach back for other
people who like us didn't know that this
was a thing you could do for money, right.
That don't know even where
to start or where to look.
And so that's where
this podcast came from.
Benja was like, I wanna
keep connecting with people.
I wanna have a, a, a live bridge.
And I wanna capture these conversations
because we know so many amazing creative
individuals with unique stories.
We're so used to kind of being gag ordered
and you can't talk about it, right?
That's the culture that we came from.
Yes.
So I wanna, I want to give
motherfuck as an outlet to kind
of like, yo it's okay, man.
It's okay to come out the cave and tell
your story and share your, your opinions
and insight honoring your NDA or whatever
confidentiality agreements you have.
There's so much more that you have
to offer on your journey with the
world that people want to hear.
Right?
So that's me creating that access point
and letting and, and, and, and having fun.
And then, and then there's
a flip side to that, right?
Where I'm becoming a better speaker and
presenter, man, cuz when you sit hours
on end listening to two people converse
and you see the patterns of the ums and
the AHS and that, you know, and what
I'm tell, you know what I'm saying?
And, and, and slowly but surely.
That's making me a better
orator and a speaker.
Right.
And I get to put that into practice with
each interview that I have coming up.
Benja: Do you listen to your, do
you listen to your old interviews?
John: I do, man.
My wife tells me that I have a problem,
but I, I, I view it as a skill.
I, I think it's a skill to be able
to kind of like listen to yourself
and watch yourself for hours on end.
Yeah.
Just with the focus of like tightening it
up and, and cutting it down and shit like
Benja: that.
So hold on.
You, you have a problem as,
as in like, you know, you, why
are you listening to yourself?
Yes.
What's wrong with you?
John: Okay.
Yes, exactly.
Sh she'll catch me in the car.
I have my podcast like jacked up.
She's like, you're fucking
listening to yourself again.
I was like, no, babe, I'm consuming
my content to know how I can
improve it on the next episode.
Benja: Yeah, exactly.
Mm-hmm it's funny.
I was I took a person out.
I, I take.
I was in a period of taking
a lot of personality tests.
Cause I was trying to figure out
more about my personal energy.
Yeah.
You know, I was like, okay, normally
I wouldn't deal with this kind of
thing, but I need to step back and look
at my personal energy a little more.
Right.
Sure.
So I took a, I took several
personality tests and one of them
I scored a hundred in a certain
category and it was narcissism.
And when I scored it, I was
like, I was like a hundred okay.
Either that is either this test
is incredibly, you know, accurate
or a complete load of shit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Cause I'm, cause it's one of
those, you know, where they
have like fuzzy questions.
It's like you know, if you were, if
you were in a, you know, a situation
where you didn't know how to do
anything, would you leave or stay there
and do it and I'm like, stay good.
I don't give a shit if I fail
or not, or, you know, whatever.
Yeah.
And it's like, and every, I kept
thinking back to each of those
questions and I'm like, I wonder
who wrote this because yeah.
You know, out there.
Yeah.
And it's not like, I'm always confident
that I'll win something, but I'm just
like, yeah, get in there and do it.
You know, if you're on stage,
you know, people are laughing.
Do you keep going, get
off stage, keep going.
You talking about, yeah, keep
John: going.
You start man.
Finish,
Benja: start.
It was just a self-awareness thing.
But I thought that was funny that it
got seen as narcissism, but I was just
saying that to to say, yeah, if you
gotta look at your own stuff I think
you may go outside the bounds of what
people think is normal, but yes, it,
it helps, you know, go back, watch the
tapes, you know, listen to what you're
saying and I'm just trying to get better.
Repetition and some of this stuff.
So we'll see what happens.
John: 100%, man.
It's kind of a cheat code
if you're not using it, man.
That's that's on you.
Benja: Oh, you ever watch the, the
time trials, you know, you watch the
ghosts in the racing games and you're
like, I do this every time around this
corner, you know, you see what you've
John: done?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You get better.
Right?
Like that's where the simulation
kind of helps you get a leg up,
all these analytics and all that.
Like a lot, a lot of that machine
learning is, is just replaying back
hundreds and hundreds of games.
Right.
And, and yo, again, if you are not using
those tools, you better believe someone
else is, and they're gonna get the leg
up and they're gonna get the advantage.
And that, you know, I respect to each
their own, but I'm taking advantage.
You know what I'm saying?
I love technology and I
love tinkering all the time.
Benja: Definitely.
Yeah.
All right.
So what's next for the out play area
John: podcast.
I I've been digging, I I've
been digging the formula, right?
Like every two week cadence is
sustainable for me to do all
the other shit I got going on.
A lot of people ask me, like, how
do you fit that in fit that in?
And, and I honestly profess that I've had
to sacrifice the time I'd spent playing
video games and, and I've carved the chunk
out of there to dedicate to podcasting
and that's worked out well because it
hasn't come out of like my personal
relationship or anything like that.
I, I, I would love to get more out
there more regularly, but I think
that's what I'm gonna stick with.
I think that's a winning
formula for consistency.
Right.
I would always, I would always
push people to be consistent.
Right.
Like in, in this game, consistency
is, is what kind of like keeps those
algorithms working in your favor, right.
To get your content out there.
I, I, I don't know what's gonna happen
when the world goes back to normal
and I can do face to face interviews.
I think this is an interesting evolution
of the podcast, you know, being able
to get in a room and get around a
table and, and get on that vibe.
You know what I'm saying?
Cause I think, I think that will naturally
tend to be much more intimate even though
I feel like you're right in the room
with me binge and we just airing it out.
Benja: Yeah.
That's always, man.
You know, it's, it's one of those
things you know, we didn't have
to have a, a prep interview or
whatever, we kind of know each other.
So it's the, and that's what this podcast,
I mean, that's what I'm doing here.
Mm-hmm um, I love what you're doing.
I told you before, I think,
you know, I don't know of a
better game development podcast.
Oh shit.
You know, I, I just want you to go ahead
and go ahead and print up the shirts.
You know, number one game,
the podcast, and you know,
,
John: I love it, man.
I love your energy Benj.
You always pushing me to embrace, embrace
my brashness and, and, and go for it,
man, cuz you know, young, 20 something
year old, John was all about that.
30 something year old John is, is,
you know, teetering a bit, you know,
like trying to dance those lines of
catering to as many people as possible.
But I wanna earn it bro.
I wanna at least get on the chart.
Like gimme some chart that
sh shows a number one.
It could be 100, it could be 1000,
but I want to be able to claim,
look at this chart one outta
play area, printed the shirt.
Let's go.
Nice.
I, I wanna get there.
I'm gonna get there.
I'm gonna get there consistency
however many years, but I'm gonna get
Benja: there.
That's right.
Hey man, your energy is,
is, is a beautiful thing.
You've been pushing, keeping it going.
I love your vibe, love what you're
doing with autoplay or your podcast.
You know, I still want to
hear your Kazakhstan stories
from the ATX airport code.
Well so we'll, we'll find out about that.
But that's a that's that's
all I got for now, man.
Once again, yeah, you got a good number
of people came through and, and learned
a lot from what you had going on.
Melissa Bean you know, Rafael's in here,
Diego nuo Bob, ER, good to see you.
Josh.
Me design tribe called Mel.
Hey, see something say nothing.
We don't have that, you know, shout
out to Mai also the, your dog, right?
Is he back?
Is he in the background?
Yeah.
You hear that?
I hear a little bit,
John: hear the dog a little bit.
Male man just showed up.
That's what happened?
Like get off my lawn.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love it, man.
I'll be back here as a
viewer for when RAF comes on.
I'm looking forward to
that one later today.
All
Benja: right.
You know, it, it's always a question mark.
No one knows what's gonna happen
with discussion between me and RAF.
John: So well, BU should
know, be in the house.
All brother, all south Benja.
Thank you for your time, man.
Take care.
Thank you, man.
We out.
All right.
Benja: Uhoh now we're having
awkwardness with the button.
I love it.
I love it.
So yeah, once again, that's John
Diaz, technical game designer, full
sale rockstar, Amazon midway, Bunge.
He's doing his thing be
sure to follow him at, at.
I'll have it linked up, you should
be able to find it on my profile.
Also, he's running the out of play area
podcast, which is all about one-on-one
interviews with game developers.
I am on episode number two, make
sure you check that one out.
If you want to hear me get raw
about some game development stuff.
And if you're not into podcast, you
know, make sure that you download
your podcast player and start getting
in on that action, because that's
where a lot of the goodness is.
Thank you all for staying here with
us, make sure that you comment follow
along and check out the podcast my
other podcast show versus business.
If you, if you're so inclined, I really
appreciate you all interact, stay
positive and keep this thing going.
John: Peace.