Editor’s note: Tony dons his reporter’s hat and recaps an interesting panel discussion he attended with developers Pete Wanat and Kellee Santiago and journalist-turned-consultant N’Gai Croal. Find out how Wanat and Santiago got into the game industry and what they see as the future of video games! Some of the answers may surprise you. -Brett
This past summer, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven hosted a panel discussion on gaming called Playing in the Dark: Videogame Luminaries Discuss the State of Their Art. The luminaries were Universal’s Pete Wanat (Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Scarface) and thatgamecompany’s Kellee Santiago (Flower, Cloud), and renowned journalist-turned-consultant N’Gai Croal moderated the panel.
The panel was one of the most random events I witnessed at the festival. I found it sandwiched between panel discussions like The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights and Confronting the Local Economic Crisis.
Croal acted as a translator for Wanat and Santiago’s technical discussions, since there were plenty of non-gamer folk (aka parents) in the audience. He started many of his sentences with the words “Now what Pete means when he says…”
Even with some of the talk dumbed down, I found the stories of how the two developers got into the game industry and what they see as the future of video games fascinating.
Wanat spoke of his past at ESPN and the moment he realized he needed to leave his cushy sports job.
“There was a baseball strike, and I was asked to go overseas and cover a yachting race in a basement dealing with a satellite feed,” Wanat said. “That night, while I was playing games at three in the morning, it dawned on me: I should be doing this as a job. The next month I was working at Acclaim.”
Santiago had a different transition into the industry, one that was formed in college.
“I always played games, and when I went to grad school there was a new technology program that I found inspirational,” Santiago said. “It was there, with an inspirational professor, I realized I wanted to make unique and different types of games.”
Although Santiago worked on games in college, she said she doesn’t think it’s necessary to get a degree to make games.
“Designers can be anywhere,” Santiago said. “You don’t need to go to school to learn how to be creative.”
Wanat agreed. “It’s bullshit that you have to go to college to work on games,” he said. “All you have to do is not be afraid of expressing your ideas. You don’t even have to know about video games. In fact, what we need right now are people that are looking at games with a fresh head.”
Wanat then used Flower as an example. He said he showed Flower to his office because “we need to be thinking on that kind of level.”
Santiago pointed out that she has a specific goal in mind when creating a concept for a game: She wants you to feel an emotional response. If you’ve ever played Flower, then you get what she’s talking about.
Meanwhile, Wanat shed some light on the concept he uses when making games based on movies.
“Games based on movies are generally bad, so what you want to do is extend the fiction from the movie script,” Wanat said. “As adults, you’ve already spent the money and seen the movie, so why would you want to shell out the $60 to see it all over again? I want to give it a different path, like if you play Wanted, it’s more like Wanted 1.5.”
What I found the most interesting about the discussion was the contrast in the style of games referenced and worked on by the two panelists. Wanat showed a lengthy montage comparing the Wanted movie with game footage of the Wanted game, while Santiago demonstrated a three-minute exploration into the calming wind of Flower.
In closing, Croal asked the panelists what they felt to be the future of games.
“3D projection and virtual reality.”
I sure hope so.
