WEBVTT 00:00:00.713 --> 00:00:03.159 When we think of games, there's all kinds of things. 00:00:03.183 --> 00:00:06.568 Maybe you're ticked off, or maybe, you're looking forward to a new game. 00:00:06.592 --> 00:00:08.450 You've been up too late playing a game. 00:00:08.474 --> 00:00:09.937 All these things happen to me. 00:00:09.961 --> 00:00:11.396 But when we think about games, 00:00:11.420 --> 00:00:13.590 a lot of times we think about stuff like this: 00:00:13.614 --> 00:00:16.645 first-person shooters, or the big, what we would call AAA games, 00:00:16.669 --> 00:00:18.543 or maybe you're a Facebook game player. 00:00:18.567 --> 00:00:20.442 This is one my partner and I worked on. 00:00:20.466 --> 00:00:23.769 Maybe you play Facebook games, and that's what we're making right now. 00:00:23.793 --> 00:00:25.295 This is a lighter form of game. 00:00:25.319 --> 00:00:27.922 Maybe you think about the tragically boring board games 00:00:27.946 --> 00:00:30.188 that hold us hostage in Thanksgiving situations. 00:00:30.212 --> 00:00:33.951 This would be one of the tragically boring board games that you can figure out. 00:00:33.975 --> 00:00:35.740 Or maybe you're in your living room, 00:00:35.764 --> 00:00:37.621 playing with the Wii with the kids, 00:00:37.645 --> 00:00:41.379 and there's this whole range of games, and that's very much what I think about. 00:00:41.403 --> 00:00:44.344 I make my living from games, I've been lucky enough to do this 00:00:44.368 --> 00:00:47.805 since I was 15, which also qualifies as I've never really had a real job. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:47.829 --> 00:00:51.707 But we think about games as fun, and that's completely reasonable, 00:00:51.731 --> 00:00:53.345 but let's just think about this. 00:00:53.369 --> 00:00:55.933 So this one here, this is the 1980 Olympics. 00:00:56.099 --> 00:00:57.924 Now I don't know where you guys were, 00:00:57.948 --> 00:00:59.323 but I was in my living room. 00:00:59.347 --> 00:01:01.149 It was practically a religious event. 00:01:01.173 --> 00:01:03.760 And this is when the Americans beat the Russians, 00:01:03.784 --> 00:01:06.023 and this was -- yes, it was technically a game. 00:01:06.047 --> 00:01:07.374 Hockey is a game. 00:01:07.398 --> 00:01:09.144 But really, was this a game? 00:01:09.168 --> 00:01:10.907 I mean, people cried. 00:01:10.931 --> 00:01:14.272 I've never seen my mother cry like that at the end of Monopoly. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:14.296 --> 00:01:15.438 (Laughter) 00:01:15.462 --> 00:01:17.814 And so this was an amazing experience. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:17.838 --> 00:01:20.348 Or, if anybody here is from Boston -- 00:01:20.372 --> 00:01:23.425 So when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series 00:01:23.449 --> 00:01:26.356 after I believe, 351 years -- NOTE Paragraph 00:01:26.380 --> 00:01:27.657 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:27.681 --> 00:01:29.940 when they won the World Series, it was amazing. 00:01:29.964 --> 00:01:32.362 I happened to be living in Springfield at the time, 00:01:32.386 --> 00:01:34.381 and the best part of it was, 00:01:34.405 --> 00:01:37.018 you would close the women's door in the bathroom, 00:01:37.042 --> 00:01:39.933 and I remember seeing "Go Sox," and I thought, really? 00:01:39.957 --> 00:01:43.006 Or the houses, you'd come out, because every game, 00:01:43.030 --> 00:01:45.814 well, I think almost every game, went into overtime, right? 00:01:45.838 --> 00:01:49.187 So we'd be outside, and all the other lights are on in the whole block. 00:01:49.211 --> 00:01:52.271 And kids -- the attendance was down in school, 00:01:52.295 --> 00:01:55.443 kids weren't going to school, but it's OK, it's the Red Sox, right? 00:01:55.467 --> 00:01:58.114 I mean, there's education, and then there's the Red Sox, 00:01:58.138 --> 00:01:59.903 and we know where they're stacked. 00:01:59.927 --> 00:02:01.748 So this was an amazing experience, 00:02:01.772 --> 00:02:05.261 and again, yes, it was a game, but they didn't write newspaper articles, 00:02:05.285 --> 00:02:09.604 people didn't say, "You know, really, I can die now, because the Red Sox won." 00:02:09.628 --> 00:02:11.078 And many people did. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:11.102 --> 00:02:14.047 So games, it means something more to us. 00:02:14.071 --> 00:02:15.940 It absolutely means something more. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:15.964 --> 00:02:18.213 So now, this is an abrupt transition here. 00:02:18.237 --> 00:02:21.539 There was three years where I actually did have a real job, sort of. 00:02:21.563 --> 00:02:24.119 I was the head of a college department teaching games, 00:02:24.143 --> 00:02:25.918 so, again, it was sort of a real job, 00:02:25.942 --> 00:02:29.579 and now I got to talk about making them as opposed to making them. 00:02:29.603 --> 00:02:32.875 Part of the job of it, when you're a chair of a department, 00:02:32.899 --> 00:02:34.709 is to eat, and I did that very well -- 00:02:34.733 --> 00:02:37.574 and so I'm out at a dinner with this guy called Zig Jackson. 00:02:37.598 --> 00:02:41.152 So this is Zig in this photograph, this is also one of Zig's photographs. 00:02:41.176 --> 00:02:42.337 He's a photographer. 00:02:42.361 --> 00:02:47.403 And he goes all around the country taking pictures of himself, 00:02:47.427 --> 00:02:50.799 and you can see here he's got Zig's Indian Reservation. 00:02:51.126 --> 00:02:52.646 And this particular shot -- 00:02:52.670 --> 00:02:55.795 this is one of the more traditional shots. 00:02:55.819 --> 00:02:57.482 This is a rain dancer. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:57.506 --> 00:02:59.604 And this is one of my favorite shots here. 00:02:59.628 --> 00:03:02.883 So you can look at this, and maybe you've even seen things like this. 00:03:02.907 --> 00:03:04.831 This is an expression of culture, right? 00:03:04.855 --> 00:03:07.400 And this is actually from his Degradation series. 00:03:07.424 --> 00:03:09.903 And what was most fascinating to me about this series 00:03:09.927 --> 00:03:12.559 is just, look at that little boy there, can you imagine? 00:03:12.583 --> 00:03:14.834 We can see that's a traditional Native American. 00:03:14.858 --> 00:03:16.896 Now I just want to change that guy's race. 00:03:16.920 --> 00:03:18.817 Just imagine if that's a black guy. 00:03:18.841 --> 00:03:22.321 So, "Honey, come here, let's get you a picture with the black guy." Right? 00:03:22.345 --> 00:03:24.155 Like, seriously, nobody would do this. 00:03:24.179 --> 00:03:25.564 It baffles the mind. 00:03:25.588 --> 00:03:28.469 And so Zig, being Indian, likewise it baffles his mind. 00:03:28.493 --> 00:03:29.739 His favorite photograph -- 00:03:29.763 --> 00:03:32.641 my favorite photograph of his, which I don't have in here -- 00:03:32.665 --> 00:03:35.904 is Indian taking picture of white people taking pictures of Indians. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:35.928 --> 00:03:37.438 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:37.462 --> 00:03:39.857 So I happen to be at dinner with this photographer, 00:03:39.881 --> 00:03:41.932 and he was talking with another photographer 00:03:41.956 --> 00:03:43.645 about a shooting that had occurred, 00:03:43.669 --> 00:03:45.389 and it was on an Indian Reservation. 00:03:45.413 --> 00:03:47.669 He'd taken his camera up there to photograph it, 00:03:47.693 --> 00:03:50.273 but when he got there, he discovered he couldn't do it. 00:03:50.297 --> 00:03:52.079 He just couldn't capture the picture. 00:03:52.103 --> 00:03:54.998 And so they were talking back and forth about this question. 00:03:55.022 --> 00:03:56.940 Do you take the picture or not? 00:03:56.964 --> 00:03:59.345 And that was fascinating to me as a game designer, 00:03:59.369 --> 00:04:00.800 because it never occurs to me, 00:04:00.824 --> 00:04:03.972 should I make the game about this difficult topic or not? 00:04:03.996 --> 00:04:05.910 Because we just make things that are fun 00:04:05.934 --> 00:04:09.415 or will make you feel fear, that visceral excitement. 00:04:09.439 --> 00:04:11.396 But every other medium does it. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:11.420 --> 00:04:12.589 So this is my kid. 00:04:12.613 --> 00:04:15.286 This is Maezza, and when she was seven years old, 00:04:15.310 --> 00:04:16.950 she came home from school one day, 00:04:16.974 --> 00:04:20.228 and like I do every single day, I asked her, "What did you do today?" 00:04:20.252 --> 00:04:22.598 So she said, "We talked about the Middle Passage." NOTE Paragraph 00:04:22.622 --> 00:04:24.976 Now, this was a big moment. Maezza's dad is black, 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:27.599 and I knew this day was coming. 00:04:27.623 --> 00:04:30.739 I wasn't expecting it at seven, I don't know why, but I wasn't. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:30.763 --> 00:04:34.116 Anyways, so I asked her, "How do you feel about that?" 00:04:34.140 --> 00:04:35.697 So she proceeded to tell me, 00:04:35.721 --> 00:04:39.230 and so any of you who are parents will recognize the bingo buzzwords here. 00:04:39.254 --> 00:04:41.927 "The ships start in England, they come down from England, 00:04:41.951 --> 00:04:44.141 they go to Africa, they go across the ocean -- 00:04:44.165 --> 00:04:45.810 that's the Middle Passage part -- 00:04:45.834 --> 00:04:49.033 they come to America, where the slaves are sold," she's telling me. 00:04:49.057 --> 00:04:51.065 But Abraham Lincoln was elected president, 00:04:51.089 --> 00:04:53.380 and then he passed the Emancipation Proclamation, 00:04:53.404 --> 00:04:54.571 and now they're free. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:54.595 --> 00:04:55.899 Pause for about 10 seconds. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:55.923 --> 00:04:57.237 "Can I play a game, Mommy?" NOTE Paragraph 00:04:57.261 --> 00:04:59.349 And I thought, that's it? And so, you know, 00:04:59.373 --> 00:05:05.161 this is the Middle Passage, this is an incredibly significant event, 00:05:05.185 --> 00:05:09.100 and she's treating it like, basically some black people went on a cruise, 00:05:09.124 --> 00:05:11.132 this is more or less how it sounds to her. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:11.156 --> 00:05:12.313 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:12.337 --> 00:05:15.203 And so, to me, I wanted more value in this, 00:05:15.227 --> 00:05:18.407 so when she asked if she could play a game, I said, "Yes." NOTE Paragraph 00:05:18.431 --> 00:05:19.616 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:19.640 --> 00:05:22.121 And so I happened to have all of these little pieces. 00:05:22.145 --> 00:05:25.244 I'm a game designer, so I have this stuff sitting around my house. 00:05:25.268 --> 00:05:28.521 I said, "Yeah, you can play a game," and I give her a bunch of these, 00:05:28.545 --> 00:05:30.955 and I tell her to paint them in different families. 00:05:30.979 --> 00:05:33.066 These are pictures of Maezza when she was -- 00:05:33.090 --> 00:05:35.032 God, it still chokes me up seeing these. 00:05:35.056 --> 00:05:36.881 So she's painting her little families. 00:05:36.905 --> 00:05:39.541 So then I grab a bunch of them and I put them on a boat. 00:05:39.565 --> 00:05:42.271 This was the boat, it was made quickly, obviously. 00:05:42.476 --> 00:05:45.417 And so the basic gist of it is, I grabbed a bunch of families, 00:05:45.441 --> 00:05:47.877 and she's like, "Mommy, but you forgot the pink baby 00:05:47.901 --> 00:05:49.319 and you forgot the blue daddy 00:05:49.343 --> 00:05:51.215 and you forgot all these other things." 00:05:51.239 --> 00:05:52.777 And she says, "They want to go." 00:05:52.801 --> 00:05:55.017 And I said, "Honey, no, they don't want to go. 00:05:55.041 --> 00:05:58.346 This is the Middle Passage, Nobody wants to go on the Middle Passage." 00:05:58.370 --> 00:06:02.252 So she gave me a look that only a daughter of a game designer would give a mother, 00:06:02.276 --> 00:06:05.048 and as we're going across the ocean, following these rules, 00:06:05.072 --> 00:06:07.131 she realizes that she's rolling pretty high, 00:06:07.155 --> 00:06:09.444 and she says to me, "We're not going to make it." NOTE Paragraph 00:06:09.468 --> 00:06:11.585 And she realizes, we don't have enough food, 00:06:11.609 --> 00:06:12.926 and so she asks what to do, 00:06:12.950 --> 00:06:15.680 and I say -- remember, she's seven -- 00:06:15.704 --> 00:06:17.740 "We can either put some people in the water 00:06:17.764 --> 00:06:19.635 or we can hope that they don't get sick 00:06:19.659 --> 00:06:21.281 and we make it to the other side." 00:06:21.305 --> 00:06:23.876 Just the look on her face came over -- 00:06:23.900 --> 00:06:26.527 now mind you this is after a month of -- 00:06:26.551 --> 00:06:28.230 this is Black History Month, right? 00:06:28.254 --> 00:06:31.896 After a month, she says to me, "Did this really happen?" 00:06:32.200 --> 00:06:34.986 And I said, "Yes." And so she said -- 00:06:35.010 --> 00:06:36.657 this is her brother and sister -- 00:06:36.681 --> 00:06:39.659 "If I came out of the woods, Avalon and Donovan might be gone." 00:06:39.683 --> 00:06:40.850 "Yes." 00:06:40.874 --> 00:06:42.682 "But I'd get to see them in America." 00:06:42.706 --> 00:06:43.857 "No." 00:06:43.881 --> 00:06:46.410 "But what if I saw them? Couldn't we stay together?" 00:06:46.434 --> 00:06:47.685 "So Daddy could be gone." 00:06:47.709 --> 00:06:48.867 "Yes." 00:06:48.891 --> 00:06:51.328 She was fascinated by this, and she started to cry, 00:06:51.352 --> 00:06:54.751 I started to cry, her father started to cry, and now we're all crying. 00:06:54.775 --> 00:06:58.648 He didn't expect to come home from work to the Middle Passage, but there it goes. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:58.672 --> 00:07:00.765 And so, we made this game, and she got it. 00:07:00.789 --> 00:07:03.345 She got it because she spent time with these people. 00:07:03.369 --> 00:07:06.614 It wasn't abstract stuff in a brochure or in a movie. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:06.638 --> 00:07:09.706 And so it was just an incredibly powerful experience. 00:07:09.730 --> 00:07:12.710 This is the game, which I've ended up calling "The New World," 00:07:12.734 --> 00:07:14.016 because I like the phrase. 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:16.824 I don't think the New World felt too new worldly exciting 00:07:16.848 --> 00:07:19.279 to the people who were brought over on slave ships. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:19.303 --> 00:07:22.389 But when this happened, I saw the whole planet; I was so excited. 00:07:22.413 --> 00:07:24.799 I'd been making games for 20-some years, 00:07:24.823 --> 00:07:26.822 and then I decided to do it again. 00:07:26.846 --> 00:07:28.262 My history is Irish. 00:07:28.286 --> 00:07:31.418 So this is a game called "Síochán Leat." It's "peace be with you." 00:07:31.442 --> 00:07:33.973 It's the entire history of my family in a single game. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:33.997 --> 00:07:36.496 I made another game called "Train." 00:07:36.520 --> 00:07:39.575 I was making a series of six games that covered difficult topics, 00:07:39.599 --> 00:07:43.309 and if you're going to cover a difficult topic, this is one you need to cover, 00:07:43.333 --> 00:07:46.061 and I'll let you figure out what that's about on your own. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:46.085 --> 00:07:48.938 And I also made a game about the Trail of Tears. 00:07:48.962 --> 00:07:51.416 This is a game with 50,000 individual pieces. 00:07:51.440 --> 00:07:54.824 I was crazy when I decided to start it, but I'm in the middle of it now. 00:07:54.848 --> 00:07:56.075 It's the same thing. 00:07:56.099 --> 00:07:59.026 I'm hoping that I'll teach culture through these games. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:59.050 --> 00:08:01.352 And the one I'm working on right now, which is -- 00:08:01.376 --> 00:08:03.202 because I'm right in the middle of it, 00:08:03.226 --> 00:08:05.692 and these for some reason choke me up like crazy -- 00:08:05.716 --> 00:08:07.771 is a game called "Mexican Kitchen Workers." 00:08:07.795 --> 00:08:10.240 And originally, it was a math problem, more or less. 00:08:10.264 --> 00:08:12.331 Here's the economics of illegal immigration. 00:08:12.355 --> 00:08:14.556 And the more I learned about Mexican culture -- 00:08:14.580 --> 00:08:16.850 my partner is Mexican — the more I learned that, 00:08:16.874 --> 00:08:19.204 you know, for all of us, food is a basic need, 00:08:19.228 --> 00:08:22.534 and it is obviously with Mexicans, too, but it's much more than that. 00:08:22.558 --> 00:08:24.988 It's an expression of love. It's an expression of -- 00:08:25.012 --> 00:08:27.462 God, I'm totally choking up way more than I thought. 00:08:27.486 --> 00:08:29.358 I'll look away from the picture. 00:08:29.382 --> 00:08:32.678 It's an expression of beauty, it's how they say they love you. 00:08:32.702 --> 00:08:34.054 It's how they say they care, 00:08:34.078 --> 00:08:37.106 and you can't hear somebody talk about their Mexican grandmother 00:08:37.130 --> 00:08:39.838 without saying "food" in the first sentence. 00:08:39.987 --> 00:08:42.143 And so to me, this beautiful culture, 00:08:42.167 --> 00:08:46.487 this beautiful expression is something that I want to capture through games. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:46.511 --> 00:08:50.012 And so games, for a change, it changes how we see topics, 00:08:50.036 --> 00:08:53.548 it changes our perceptions about those people in topics, 00:08:53.572 --> 00:08:55.294 and it changes ourselves. 00:08:55.318 --> 00:08:57.507 We change as people through games, 00:08:57.531 --> 00:08:59.567 because we're involved, and we're playing, 00:08:59.591 --> 00:09:01.080 and we're learning as we do so. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:01.104 --> 00:09:02.302 Thank you.