WEBVTT 00:00:15.774 --> 00:00:17.688 I want to talk about games for a change. 00:00:17.713 --> 00:00:20.159 When we think of games, there's all kinds of things. 00:00:20.183 --> 00:00:23.568 Maybe you're ticked off, or maybe, you're looking forward to a new game. 00:00:23.592 --> 00:00:25.450 You've been up too late playing a game. 00:00:25.474 --> 00:00:26.937 All these things happen to me. 00:00:26.961 --> 00:00:28.396 But when we think about games, 00:00:28.420 --> 00:00:30.590 a lot of times we think about stuff like this: 00:00:30.614 --> 00:00:33.645 first-person shooters, or the big, what we would call AAA games, 00:00:33.669 --> 00:00:35.543 or maybe you're a Facebook game player. 00:00:35.567 --> 00:00:37.442 This is one my partner and I worked on. 00:00:37.466 --> 00:00:40.769 Maybe you play Facebook games, and that's what we're making right now. 00:00:40.793 --> 00:00:42.295 This is a lighter form of game. 00:00:42.319 --> 00:00:44.922 Maybe you think about the tragically boring board games 00:00:44.946 --> 00:00:47.188 that hold us hostage in Thanksgiving situations. 00:00:47.212 --> 00:00:50.951 This would be one of the tragically boring board games that you can figure out. 00:00:50.975 --> 00:00:52.740 Or maybe you're in your living room, 00:00:52.764 --> 00:00:54.621 playing with the Wii with the kids, 00:00:54.645 --> 00:00:58.379 and there's this whole range of games, and that's very much what I think about. 00:00:58.403 --> 00:01:01.344 I make my living from games, I've been lucky enough to do this 00:01:01.368 --> 00:01:04.805 since I was 15, which also qualifies as I've never really had a real job. 00:01:05.328 --> 00:01:09.207 But we think about games as fun, and that's completely reasonable, 00:01:09.231 --> 00:01:10.845 but let's just think about this. 00:01:10.869 --> 00:01:13.181 So this one here, this is the 1980 Olympics. 00:01:13.199 --> 00:01:15.024 Now I don't know where you guys were, 00:01:15.048 --> 00:01:16.423 but I was in my living room. 00:01:16.447 --> 00:01:18.249 It was practically a religious event. 00:01:18.273 --> 00:01:20.860 And this is when the Americans beat the Russians, 00:01:20.884 --> 00:01:23.123 and this was... Yes, it was technically a game. 00:01:23.147 --> 00:01:24.474 Hockey is a game. 00:01:24.498 --> 00:01:26.244 But really, was this a game? 00:01:26.268 --> 00:01:28.007 I mean, people cried. 00:01:28.031 --> 00:01:31.372 I've never seen my mother cry like that at the end of Monopoly. 00:01:31.396 --> 00:01:32.538 (Laughter) 00:01:32.562 --> 00:01:34.914 And so this was an amazing experience. 00:01:34.938 --> 00:01:37.448 Or, if anybody here is from Boston... 00:01:37.472 --> 00:01:40.525 So when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series 00:01:40.549 --> 00:01:43.456 after I believe, 351 years... 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:44.757 (Laughter) 00:01:44.781 --> 00:01:47.040 when they won the World Series, it was amazing. 00:01:47.064 --> 00:01:49.462 I happened to be living in Springfield at the time, 00:01:49.486 --> 00:01:51.481 and the best part of it was, 00:01:51.505 --> 00:01:54.118 you would close the women's door in the bathroom, 00:01:54.142 --> 00:01:57.033 and I remember seeing "Go Sox," and I thought, really? 00:01:57.557 --> 00:02:00.606 Or the houses, you'd come out, because every game, 00:02:00.630 --> 00:02:03.414 well, I think almost every game, went into overtime, right? 00:02:03.438 --> 00:02:06.787 So we'd be outside, and all the other lights are on in the whole block. 00:02:06.811 --> 00:02:09.871 And kids... the attendance was down in school, 00:02:09.895 --> 00:02:13.043 kids weren't going to school, but it's OK, it's the Red Sox, right? 00:02:13.067 --> 00:02:15.714 I mean, there's education, and then there's the Red Sox, 00:02:15.738 --> 00:02:17.503 and we know where they're stacked. 00:02:17.527 --> 00:02:19.348 So this was an amazing experience, 00:02:19.372 --> 00:02:22.861 and again, yes, it was a game, but they didn't write newspaper articles, 00:02:22.885 --> 00:02:27.204 people didn't say, "You know, really, I can die now, because the Red Sox won." 00:02:27.228 --> 00:02:28.678 And many people did. 00:02:28.702 --> 00:02:31.647 So games, it means something more to us. 00:02:31.671 --> 00:02:33.540 It absolutely means something more. 00:02:33.564 --> 00:02:35.813 So now, this is an abrupt transition here. 00:02:35.837 --> 00:02:39.139 There was three years where I actually did have a real job, sort of. 00:02:39.163 --> 00:02:41.719 I was the head of a college department teaching games, 00:02:41.743 --> 00:02:43.518 so, again, it was sort of a real job, 00:02:43.542 --> 00:02:47.179 and now I got to talk about making them as opposed to making them. 00:02:47.203 --> 00:02:50.475 Part of the job of it, when you're a chair of a department, 00:02:50.499 --> 00:02:52.309 is to eat, and I did that very well... 00:02:52.333 --> 00:02:55.174 And so I'm out at a dinner with this guy called Zig Jackson. 00:02:55.198 --> 00:02:58.752 So this is Zig in this photograph, this is also one of Zig's photographs. 00:02:58.776 --> 00:02:59.937 He's a photographer. 00:02:59.961 --> 00:03:05.003 And he goes all around the country taking pictures of himself, 00:03:05.027 --> 00:03:08.149 and you can see here he's got Zig's Indian Reservation. 00:03:08.226 --> 00:03:09.746 And this particular shot... 00:03:10.770 --> 00:03:12.910 This is one of the more traditional shots. 00:03:12.919 --> 00:03:14.582 This is a rain dancer. 00:03:14.606 --> 00:03:16.704 And this is one of my favorite shots here. 00:03:16.728 --> 00:03:19.983 So you can look at this, and maybe you've even seen things like this. 00:03:20.007 --> 00:03:21.931 This is an expression of culture, right? 00:03:21.955 --> 00:03:24.500 And this is actually from his Degradation series. 00:03:24.524 --> 00:03:27.003 And what was most fascinating to me about this series 00:03:27.027 --> 00:03:29.659 is just, look at that little boy there, can you imagine? 00:03:29.683 --> 00:03:31.934 We can see that's a traditional Native American. 00:03:31.958 --> 00:03:33.996 Now I just want to change that guy's race. 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:35.917 Just imagine if that's a black guy. 00:03:35.941 --> 00:03:39.421 So, "Honey, come here, let's get you a picture with the black guy." Right? 00:03:39.445 --> 00:03:41.255 Like, seriously, nobody would do this. 00:03:41.279 --> 00:03:42.664 It baffles the mind. 00:03:42.688 --> 00:03:45.569 And so Zig, being Indian, likewise it baffles his mind. 00:03:45.593 --> 00:03:46.839 His favorite photograph... 00:03:46.863 --> 00:03:49.741 My favorite photograph of his, which I don't have in here... 00:03:49.765 --> 00:03:53.004 Is Indian taking picture of white people taking pictures of Indians. 00:03:53.028 --> 00:03:54.538 (Laughter) 00:03:54.562 --> 00:03:56.957 So I happen to be at dinner with this photographer, 00:03:56.981 --> 00:03:59.032 and he was talking with another photographer 00:03:59.056 --> 00:04:00.745 about a shooting that had occurred, 00:04:00.769 --> 00:04:02.489 and it was on an Indian Reservation. 00:04:02.513 --> 00:04:04.769 He'd taken his camera up there to photograph it, 00:04:04.793 --> 00:04:07.373 but when he got there, he discovered he couldn't do it. 00:04:07.397 --> 00:04:09.179 He just couldn't capture the picture. 00:04:09.203 --> 00:04:12.098 And so they were talking back and forth about this question. 00:04:12.122 --> 00:04:14.040 Do you take the picture or not? 00:04:14.064 --> 00:04:16.445 And that was fascinating to me as a game designer, 00:04:16.469 --> 00:04:17.899 because it never occurs to me, 00:04:17.923 --> 00:04:21.072 should I make the game about this difficult topic or not? 00:04:21.096 --> 00:04:23.010 Because we just make things that are fun 00:04:23.034 --> 00:04:26.515 or will make you feel fear, that visceral excitement. 00:04:26.539 --> 00:04:28.496 But every other medium does it. 00:04:28.520 --> 00:04:29.689 So this is my kid. 00:04:29.713 --> 00:04:32.386 This is Maezza, and when she was seven years old, 00:04:32.410 --> 00:04:34.050 she came home from school one day, 00:04:34.074 --> 00:04:37.328 and like I do every single day, I asked her, "What did you do today?" 00:04:37.352 --> 00:04:39.698 So she said, "We talked about the Middle Passage." 00:04:39.722 --> 00:04:42.076 Now, this was a big moment. Maezza's dad is black, 00:04:42.100 --> 00:04:44.699 and I knew this day was coming. 00:04:44.723 --> 00:04:47.839 I wasn't expecting it at seven, I don't know why, but I wasn't. 00:04:47.863 --> 00:04:51.216 Anyways, so I asked her, "How do you feel about that?" 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:52.797 So she proceeded to tell me, 00:04:52.821 --> 00:04:56.330 and so any of you who are parents will recognize the bingo buzzwords here. 00:04:56.354 --> 00:04:59.027 "The ships start in England, they come down from England, 00:04:59.051 --> 00:05:01.241 they go to Africa, they go across the ocean... 00:05:01.265 --> 00:05:02.910 That's the Middle Passage part... 00:05:02.934 --> 00:05:06.133 They come to America, where the slaves are sold," she's telling me. 00:05:06.157 --> 00:05:08.165 But Abraham Lincoln was elected president, 00:05:08.189 --> 00:05:10.480 and then he passed the Emancipation Proclamation, 00:05:10.504 --> 00:05:11.671 and now they're free. 00:05:11.695 --> 00:05:12.999 Pause for about 10 seconds. 00:05:13.023 --> 00:05:14.337 "Can I play a game, Mommy?" 00:05:14.361 --> 00:05:18.048 And I thought, that's it? And so, you know, 00:05:18.773 --> 00:05:22.830 this is the Middle Passage, this is an incredibly significant event, 00:05:22.885 --> 00:05:26.800 and she's treating it like, basically some black people went on a cruise, 00:05:26.824 --> 00:05:28.832 this is more or less how it sounds to her. 00:05:28.856 --> 00:05:30.013 (Laughter) 00:05:30.037 --> 00:05:32.903 And so, to me, I wanted more value in this, 00:05:32.927 --> 00:05:36.107 so when she asked if she could play a game, I said, "Yes." 00:05:36.131 --> 00:05:37.316 (Laughter) 00:05:37.340 --> 00:05:39.821 And so I happened to have all of these little pieces. 00:05:39.845 --> 00:05:42.944 I'm a game designer, so I have this stuff sitting around my house. 00:05:42.968 --> 00:05:46.221 I said, "Yeah, you can play a game," and I give her a bunch of these, 00:05:46.245 --> 00:05:48.655 and I tell her to paint them in different families. 00:05:48.679 --> 00:05:50.766 These are pictures of Maezza when she was... 00:05:50.790 --> 00:05:52.732 God, it still chokes me up seeing these. 00:05:52.756 --> 00:05:54.581 So she's painting her little families. 00:05:54.605 --> 00:05:57.241 So then I grab a bunch of them and I put them on a boat. 00:05:57.266 --> 00:05:59.675 This was the boat, it was made quickly, obviously. 00:05:59.676 --> 00:06:02.617 And so the basic gist of it is, I grabbed a bunch of families, 00:06:02.641 --> 00:06:05.077 and she's like, "Mommy, but you forgot the pink baby 00:06:05.101 --> 00:06:06.519 and you forgot the blue daddy 00:06:06.543 --> 00:06:08.415 and you forgot all these other things." 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:09.977 And she says, "They want to go." 00:06:10.001 --> 00:06:12.217 And I said, "Honey, no, they don't want to go. 00:06:12.241 --> 00:06:15.546 This is the Middle Passage, Nobody wants to go on the Middle Passage." 00:06:15.570 --> 00:06:19.452 So she gave me a look that only a daughter of a game designer would give a mother, 00:06:19.476 --> 00:06:22.248 and as we're going across the ocean, following these rules, 00:06:22.272 --> 00:06:24.331 she realizes that she's rolling pretty high, 00:06:24.355 --> 00:06:26.644 and she says to me, "We're not going to make it." 00:06:26.668 --> 00:06:28.785 And she realizes, we don't have enough food, 00:06:28.809 --> 00:06:30.126 and so she asks what to do, 00:06:30.150 --> 00:06:32.880 and I say... remember, she's seven... 00:06:32.904 --> 00:06:34.940 "We can either put some people in the water 00:06:34.964 --> 00:06:36.835 or we can hope that they don't get sick 00:06:36.859 --> 00:06:38.481 and we make it to the other side." 00:06:39.505 --> 00:06:42.076 Just the look on her face came over... 00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:44.029 Now mind you this is after a month of... 00:06:44.051 --> 00:06:45.730 This is Black History Month, right? 00:06:45.754 --> 00:06:48.894 After a month, she says to me, "Did this really happen?" 00:06:49.200 --> 00:06:51.986 And I said, "Yes." And so she said... 00:06:52.510 --> 00:06:54.157 This is her brother and sister... 00:06:54.181 --> 00:06:57.158 "If I came out of the woods, Avalon and Donovan might be gone." 00:06:57.183 --> 00:06:58.350 "Yes." 00:06:58.374 --> 00:07:00.182 "But I'd get to see them in America." 00:07:00.206 --> 00:07:01.357 "No." 00:07:01.381 --> 00:07:03.910 "But what if I saw them? Couldn't we stay together?" 00:07:03.934 --> 00:07:05.185 "So Daddy could be gone." 00:07:05.209 --> 00:07:06.367 "Yes." 00:07:06.391 --> 00:07:08.828 She was fascinated by this, and she started to cry, 00:07:08.852 --> 00:07:12.251 I started to cry, her father started to cry, and now we're all crying. 00:07:12.275 --> 00:07:16.148 He didn't expect to come home from work to the Middle Passage, but there it goes. 00:07:16.172 --> 00:07:18.265 And so, we made this game, and she got it. 00:07:18.289 --> 00:07:20.845 She got it because she spent time with these people. 00:07:20.869 --> 00:07:24.114 It wasn't abstract stuff in a brochure or in a movie. 00:07:24.638 --> 00:07:27.706 And so it was just an incredibly powerful experience. 00:07:27.730 --> 00:07:30.710 This is the game, which I've ended up calling "The New World," 00:07:30.734 --> 00:07:32.016 because I like the phrase. 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:34.824 I don't think the New World felt too new worldly exciting 00:07:34.848 --> 00:07:37.279 to the people who were brought over on slave ships. 00:07:37.303 --> 00:07:40.389 But when this happened, I saw the whole planet; I was so excited. 00:07:40.413 --> 00:07:42.799 I'd been making games for 20-some years, 00:07:42.823 --> 00:07:44.822 and then I decided to do it again. 00:07:44.846 --> 00:07:46.262 My history is Irish. 00:07:46.286 --> 00:07:49.418 So this is a game called "Síochán Leat." It's "peace be with you." 00:07:49.442 --> 00:07:51.973 It's the entire history of my family in a single game. 00:07:51.997 --> 00:07:54.496 I made another game called "Train." 00:07:54.520 --> 00:07:57.575 I was making a series of six games that covered difficult topics, 00:07:57.599 --> 00:08:01.309 and if you're going to cover a difficult topic, this is one you need to cover, 00:08:01.333 --> 00:08:04.061 and I'll let you figure out what that's about on your own. 00:08:04.085 --> 00:08:06.938 And I also made a game about the Trail of Tears. 00:08:06.962 --> 00:08:09.416 This is a game with 50,000 individual pieces. 00:08:09.440 --> 00:08:12.824 I was crazy when I decided to start it, but I'm in the middle of it now. 00:08:12.848 --> 00:08:14.075 It's the same thing. 00:08:14.099 --> 00:08:17.026 I'm hoping that I'll teach culture through these games. 00:08:17.050 --> 00:08:19.352 And the one I'm working on right now, which is... 00:08:19.376 --> 00:08:21.202 Because I'm right in the middle of it, 00:08:21.226 --> 00:08:23.692 and these for some reason choke me up like crazy... 00:08:23.716 --> 00:08:25.771 Is a game called "Mexican Kitchen Workers." 00:08:25.795 --> 00:08:28.240 And originally, it was a math problem, more or less. 00:08:28.264 --> 00:08:30.331 Here's the economics of illegal immigration. 00:08:30.355 --> 00:08:32.556 And the more I learned about Mexican culture... 00:08:32.580 --> 00:08:34.850 My partner is Mexican — The more I learned that, 00:08:34.874 --> 00:08:37.203 you know, for all of us, food is a basic need, 00:08:37.227 --> 00:08:40.534 and it is obviously with Mexicans, too, but it's much more than that. 00:08:40.558 --> 00:08:42.988 It's an expression of love. It's an expression of... 00:08:43.011 --> 00:08:45.462 God, I'm totally choking up way more than I thought. 00:08:45.486 --> 00:08:47.358 I'll look away from the picture. 00:08:47.382 --> 00:08:50.678 It's an expression of beauty, it's how they say they love you. 00:08:50.702 --> 00:08:52.054 It's how they say they care, 00:08:52.078 --> 00:08:55.106 and you can't hear somebody talk about their Mexican grandmother 00:08:55.130 --> 00:08:57.183 without saying "food" in the first sentence. 00:08:57.183 --> 00:08:59.243 And so to me, this beautiful culture, 00:08:59.267 --> 00:09:03.587 this beautiful expression is something that I want to capture through games. 00:09:03.611 --> 00:09:07.112 And so games, for a change, it changes how we see topics, 00:09:07.136 --> 00:09:10.648 it changes our perceptions about those people in topics, 00:09:10.672 --> 00:09:12.394 and it changes ourselves. 00:09:12.418 --> 00:09:14.607 We change as people through games, 00:09:14.631 --> 00:09:16.667 because we're involved, and we're playing, 00:09:16.691 --> 00:09:18.180 and we're learning as we do so. 00:09:18.204 --> 00:09:19.402 Thank you.