Designing for Play: Building Games That Bring People Together

Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to Practical Product Management. This is a podcast entirely about how there's lots of great theory about product management, but product management's really done in context like where, what is your company, who do you work with, what are you doing, what season is your product in? And so that's what we're going to talk about today. Our guest is Sunny and I'm super excited because I used to work with her and now we're, we hang out and I coach her and we have a. There's a lion in my lap. Sorry, uh, excuse me. Well, would you like to climb into the. Okay. Well that. Just sit there. Hi Sunny. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker B: Oh, and hello Oliver. Oh my goodness, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker B: Well, um, I'm Sunny Lee. Uh, I head up Experience Design, but uh, I started my design career in the games industry, uh, in the Bay Area way back when when UX was not even a term in the game industry. I think I was a GUI designer, so graphical user interface designer. Um, but even then I was really drawn in terms of how design could help players feel confident and build agency in people. Um, so I spent several years at EA Sports, another smaller developer in the Bay, leading design across both high profile AAA annual titles and faster moving live service games. Uh, after my son was born, I made a purpose driven shift into health tech and this is where I met you, Leah. Uh, pinnacle moment of my life honestly. And then um, then it really helped deepen my understanding working at a dig really about emotional clarity and trust and really impact and not just usability and not in just kind of the entertainment space. So eventually I returned to EA and I worked across global studios where I scaled Experience Design as a craft. That meant ux, UI and what we call XC tech design, uh, to really align the craft more with live service, with product outcomes like engagement, retention, KPIs. Um, and then I joined a smaller circle of studios, um, and then even smaller just to get closer to the product versus being in a more central organization to head up, uh, experience Design for a studio called Full Circle and working on a game called Skateboard, which is an open world sandbox game, uh, which I'm really excited about because it launched a couple of weeks ago, uh, and was really about kind of growing that team, partnering closely with product management, engineering creative as well because there's such a massive creative component and entertainment component to it, uh, and engineering and really about for this product. Skate itself is trying to balance kind of the authenticity of Skate Culture, making it approachable and helping players feel confident and creative from the start. So that's me in a nutshell.

Speaker A: Love it.

Speaker C: I love it. You know, whenever anybody says me in a nutshell, it reminds me of that Austin Powers movie where he's like, ah,

Speaker B: it's me in a nutshell.

Speaker C: Do you remember?

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker C: Sorry about that. I just, I wildly diverged. Um, so super excited to meet you, Sunny. Um, like, I love what you do. I think it speaks to my family's heart and my heart. We're a big gamers over here, so, so welcome. I'm really curious about a couple things, but, um, for like, first of all, I think people, uh. What do people misunderstand about the game industry and what you do?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. I think there is a misunderstanding that sometimes it's this like, vortex or there's kind of an addictive component where people just kind of tunnel vision into it and lose hours of their lives. I've heard of, you know, people being certain game widows because they lose their husbands or partners for a game. But I think this emergence and this new generation of players, what I'm seeing and what I love about it is this kind of opportunity to connect on a human level. There's social connection. There is an opportunity to cooperate and collaborate. It's not all about competition and shooting each other. Especially in a product like Skate or a game like Skate, people are coming to just hang out and have fun and do things. And nothing is more beautiful than people coming together to play. Right. It is an essential component of the human experience. But we don't do enough play.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, it's funny, I, I think sometimes people don't realize the addictive nature of almost everything. Uh, and, uh, maybe, uh, maybe also the news cycle and oh, you know, Reddit and everything else, we scroll on an hourly basis is just as addictive as something like gaming, which does have that community connectivity element to it instead of, uh, polarizing, um, uh, attributes. Anyways, um, thank you for that. I'm excited that you're here.

Speaker B: I'm excited to be here. Thank you.

Speaker C: It's very cool.

Speaker A: I was thinking, I was wondering about. Do you feel like that there are enough diverse voices in gaming in general? Does it kind of depend on the type of game? What does that, what does that look like?

Speaker B: I think it's gotten a lot better. I do think that it is, um, it could be more diverse. Most definitely. And I think you're seeing it more because, uh, I had a great, um, leader once. Who said the games look like the game makers or feel like the game makers. Right. And, and I'm not going to lie, I mean it's, it's. For the, the vast majority of my career it has been a very male dominated industry and for the most part, like, I think I've had a relatively positive experience, but I'm also a tomboy at heart. And in my mind, good or bad, I'm just like, without being masculine or changing myself, I'm like, oh, I'm just one of the guys. Or I just don't even like, for the most part, I've, I've had the fortune of working with really great folks. There are certain, uh, instances where I have a stark realization. I'm like, oh, wow, I am the only woman in this room of 50 men. Uh, and it becomes very, a very kind of clear realization. Um, but yes, it's getting better and it can always improve.

Speaker A: Yeah,

Speaker C: we've both seen that in our career. Uh, Leah. Which, sorry, it makes me laugh because it's almost. You have to, I think you forget that you're the only whatever in a room full of other people that are a little more homogeneous until something happens and then you're like, oh, crap. Um, and some of our earliest like alliance moments. I don't want to say alliance moments. Like, it's some like, secret like reality TV show alliance moment. I was.

Speaker A: We would have kicked them off the island if they would have let us.

Speaker C: We had already voted them off the island. We just didn't have the guy that bounced them. But like, some of our earliest alliance moments were like, how do you know? I see you not getting space at the table. I see you not being able to voice something. How, you know, how can I, like, stop the, stop the combo and say, listen, can you let her finish? Or, or I'm interested in what she has to say. Or. Oh, by the way, didn't she just say that two minutes ago?

Speaker A: Are her lips still moving? Please stop.

Speaker C: That was you. You're braver than me.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm like, oh, do you see that person's lips still moving? Stop talking. Um, I will say one of my favorite moments at Amazon, like, favorite and sort of sad was when I asked somebody I made some comment in one of my teams about, um, that it annoyed me that if I was in the bathroom too long, the lights went off and the men on my team were like, what? And I was like, if you go in there for very long, the lights will turn off and they're like, this never happened. And we then realized that there just weren't enough women on the floor that went into the ladies room that the lights would go off while you were in there going to the bathroom if you didn't move around enough. But they didn't have that experience because there was always another dude in the bathroom.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: They. They didn't even know the lights were on a timer.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: I was like, wait a minute, what do you guys. What do you mean? And they're like, what do you mean? And I think there's so many times when we experience that as women in tech and probably lots of industries, right. Where you're just like, oh, you don't know what this is like. And. And I think, I sometimes think, like, there are also moments when as a white woman, I've been in a room and thought, oh, that's my friend. He's the only black person in this room. Right. Or, you know, whatever. And you're just like, oh, uh, yeah, okay. Oh, m. There's another. Only in the room, not just me. Yeah. Super, super, super interesting. So when you think about like something like skate and I mean, you tell us what you can tell us, but like, obviously I would assume being a California girl from back in the day when skating culture was such a big deal, I would assume that in a game like Skate, and currently, certainly in the times we're living in now, there's a lot of need for the players to be fairly diverse, maybe androgynous, maybe, you know, have a little bit more room for people to express themselves however they want. How have you guys thought about that from a game perspective?

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it starts with even like how you build your character. Right. And making sure that those options are available and that there's a range. Right. And it was interesting because we went through this whole research study of like trying to assess the audience because we've been having this dialogue with our players all along the way as we've been building and trying to co develop essentially this game to make sure a. That because this took about 15 years to come back, there was one. There was a previous skate title and then 15 years. And the real hardcore kind of fans brought it back. So we had to ensure that there was no tissue rejection from that base, um, as well as modernize it and realize it's in the Olympics now, girls are skating more than ever. And we're talking about countries like Japan and Brazil where they're like, we're really hot in terms of like skateboarding culture. Um, so we started off with like, Our character creator making sure that we had a range of presets to start that reflected at least a diverse set of players. Right. Ranging from you know, what you would maybe view as a typical um, male player to somebody who is more petite and small and very uh, kind of maybe wiry to everything in the in between, you know, so you could make somebody who um, is very androgynous to somebody who's hyper feminine to hyper masculine as well. So that was at least the starting point. Um, and then I think it's really about giving freedom. And we've been trying to index as much on self expression in the game as possible. So it's interesting because you could have two people play and uh, one of our creative directors was saying like they were playing with somebody who was in a different room but could tell that they had switch controllers just by the way that they were moving around in the world. Right. So that's, that's the other thing in terms of like there's diverse, there's physical diversity, but there's also diversity as kind of an individual and creating those avenues as much as we can.

Speaker C: Interesting. What was the most surprising thing that you learned? So like a, I don't like, uh, we didn't really talk about your, your superpowers and your background, but you're like, you sort of really sit at this intersection of designing software for humans, um, and making things like um, not just beautiful, like design is not just pixels. It's more, it's way more than that. Um, so if you want to tell us a little bit about your journey there. But then what was some of the most surprising things you learned as you were bringing this game back after a 15 year sort of like refresh.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean I think um, and maybe that's kind of the core of some of the design principles. There is kind of a disparity in terms of what people say versus how they interact with the product as well. Right. It's like what you want and what you think you need are kind of two different spaces. And that was also kind uh, of repeated through this process. And for me my like, my background has been really about like understanding where players are coming from, where users generally or people coming from how they think about things and ensuring that the key focus at least for this was to make sure that um, things were approachable and things were understood in a way that they could be built on. Right. You weren't just kind of thrown a bunch of things to learn at once. You were kind of growing our understanding of Both how to play but what the. What it meant to be in this context. And then having a great deal of empathy around how are they coming and how can we meet them where they are in terms of like. Because there's going to be different people. They're going to be people who are going to be hyper competitive and I just want to go in my corner, do my thing and they're going to be other people who are like, I have no idea uh, where to start. And so those are the people I like gravitate towards and go, hey, come on over, let me hold your hand. But not too much because you don't. I don't want to make you feel like a baby. I just want you to be able to do your thing and show you around and ultimately play this kind of role of invisible host. Right. And uh, make them feel confident in terms of like, oh, there's a room m here and there's a room here and there's some, something I can check out and give them the um, I guess the stepping stones to get to what they want to do.

Speaker A: It's very cool how uh, like I, uh, know a little bit. But how did you end up deciding to get into this career and on this. Down this path?

Speaker B: Yeah, I almost kind of fell into it to be honest. So I have a kind ah of. I like to say I took the scenic route to my career. I have a uh. And that's just generally my life. I take the long route whenever I can and play my life on hard mode. So um, I have a degree in political science. I got out of school and I was just like, I don't think that's my thing. My dad's like, come and join the family business. And I'm like, cool. I have no idea. So maybe that's a worthy time. The family business is traditional Asian medicine. So I spent a stint of doing acupuncture and herbology for a little bit. Realized six months in. This is not my thing. This is not my thing. Went back to school, did digital design. Thought I was going to be a web designer. Uh, I happened to my sister was living in the bay, had a connection. He wanted somebody who was like a web designer but to work in the games industry. And that's how it all kind of started. It's just certain things kind of lined up.

Speaker A: Fallen. You accidentally fell into it. Luckily you just didn't have a needle in your hand when you.

Speaker B: I know that would have been dangerous. Yeah.

Speaker A: Tapped app. Yeah, it's. I think that's so, uh, that's why I wanted to bring it up, because I don't think that. I think there are so many people who think that what we do somehow you just like woke up knowing that in order to have been successful and gotten to this stage at this point in our lives, that somehow we just woke up and we're like, I know exactly what I want to do. And meanwhile, I was an accountant and you did what you just described in Marilyn did what she's done. And it's like, no, you don't just wake up one day. And I think some people do, I guess, but I don't even know if most people do even, uh, in the software industry at all, like, wake up and go, you know what I want to be. Maybe there are some people who are like, I want to be an engineer. Um, but I think most of the, even, I think even most of the men and women who are engineers that are our age, because we're all roughly the same age, are like, they just kind of fell into it or found it or fell in love with it along the way. They didn't say, I want to be a, whatever Java developer. You know, and true.

Speaker C: I think there's a. I think most of the people that we, that we've talked to on here, and most people I've met that are very successful have this combination of emp. Like they really want to understand, uh, the user or, you know, the player or whoever, whoever you're working with on the other side of whatever screen, um, you want to understand with some degree of fidelity who they are, what their needs are, what they want, what their problems are. And then you want to solve those problems with technology because you love what technology can bring and whether that's through like, you know, any of the crafts, um, you know, engineering or product management or, or design or any of those things. That's kind of the core of how people end up. That I found. End up here.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. Do you feel like, Sunny, that like, there is more conflict with product management and design or more similarity or kind of collaboration with. And maybe it's different in different environments, but where do you think that is on the spectrum of getting together and making something happen?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, in my experience it's been very collaborative. Right. And um, product management has been actually quite a relatively new role in the games industry as well, because we used to be very much Brock's products. It's like we made a game, put it out in the world, we sold it for a certain price. But now it is very much like software as a service. We're constantly on, we're making updates, it's never the end. And so, um, even leading up to it, I've had a very wonderful relationship with product management. It felt like a logical partnership because we're both trying to do our best for who we're trying to provide service to. Right. And so I think the only points of tension is like really around, like, and this isn't just in my world, it's just really around how much do we index on, um, over indexing on like player needs are always important, but there's also a business aspect and understanding that we need to keep the lights on. Right. And so what is that Happy medium? So there have been points of tension where, like, I'll give you one example, I was reading a Reddit thread around somebody's dislike and then the free stuff is at the bottom of the list and people have to scroll down and like, it's a dark UI pattern. And I'm like, that hurt my heart. And I was just like. But at the same point it's like, you can still access it, it doesn't take you much time to get to it. And so this is a balance we had to make in order to kind of at least give some visibility and hey, this is what else you could is available to you. I still think that there's, we agree upon the value that it provides at least. Right. But as well as, um, from a business perspective, like, what also can we continue to do to generate whatever we need to do to keep the lights on? So, yeah, it's, it's been, I've been really lucky. I've worked with some great product, um, management folks and it's been a wonderful partnership. So, yeah.

Speaker A: Carolyn, what, what do you think? What's been your best experience in working with design from a product perspective?

Speaker C: I mean, I am such a, I am such a big advocate for, for the role and how it's like not just pixels on a screen. It's not just pixels on a screen. So when I think you just sort of said it really well in my head, um, in my head and in the simplest, in the simplest possible way, um, if you're, if you're the product manager, um, if the, if the user doesn't want it and won't pay for it, then, then you're at fault. Um, if it doesn't scale or it's not stable, then it's the engineers at fault. And if the user isn't delighted and isn't immersed in the best possible way. And I either mean like it's invisible and I. What? You said something like the invisible host a little bit earlier and I actually love that and I'm stealing it. Sorry, Sunny. Either in an invisible host sort of way or in a very visible. Like, I love this environment that I'm in. Like that sort of immersion, that sort of like speaking to the emotion of the person. That's all about, um, what I would think it falls in the bucket of design user research. Um, I think it's so much more than pixels and I think a lot of people misunderstand the intention of the role and they're like, well, just, you know, we're going to hire someone to come in and make the chart pretty. And it's like, not really about that. Um, yes, you can do that and you'll have a nice pretty chart, but you're missing the whole point of the job family, um, and the value it can deliver to your product and like the stickiness and what people want to do with it. Uh, you said something about dark UI patterns, which I think is really funny too because I like, I'm a big fan of like pointing them out and like being like being upfront and not collecting data. I don't have to like, I'm a huge advocate for all of those things, like doing the right thing and not don't, like, don't be an asshole. Um, I don't think putting the free stuff at the bottom is, is necessarily a dark UI pattern. To your point, no one should be under the illusion that someone putting out a product like this is free.

Speaker A: Ah.

Speaker C: And I think to a lot of degrees, like people have gotten used to free product not understanding what they're giving up in return for that product. Right. Like, it's your data, it's your privacy. Like what, what is the cost? Um, and because someone's just sort of like saying, hey, you can buy this bucket of, you know, in game money for, for $9 and putting the free stuff a little bit lower. It's not really as dark as it could be, my friend. And you're kind of missing the whole point of what you're actually really giving up when you're in a free environment anyway, so talk to me a little bit more about dark UI patterns and what you see work well and, and uh, like where you all never tread.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think for the most part, like I, I, I do think it is a value exchange. Right. And so with UI patterns, I, I, I have, I've Been lucky enough where we don't. There is no argument. It's not even a conversation around like, are we gonna try to do a dark UI pattern? I have seen in other games, um, where I'm like, this is questionable because you're putting use even like usability features behind a paywall, which is. Blows my mind because it is like, okay, you're gonna re. I mean I can understand of like reducing like removing ads, for example, by paying a certain cost. Okay, that, that seems okay. I think where it gets a little for me where that kind of line is very hard is where it's impeding enjoyment of the game, it's impeding progression, it's impeding um, like usability. It's just like, is just. Yeah, it's atrocious that part. Um, yeah. So there is kind of a line that you just don't cross. And like I avoid dark patterns as like just steer clear of them. Like that's just the general rule. It shouldn't be a uh, conversation of like, hey, can we monetize this? And like that's never come up in my conversations, which I feel fortunate for.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny, I just, I'm not much of a gamer and I never was. But uh, you know, I'll play a game on my phone here and there. And I started some rando. I got sucked into some rando game the other day and I realized I was like, oh, this. We're now. We have now gotten to the stage where unless I buy something, I can't get over this. This uh, level. I can't go backwards and I can't go forwards and there's nothing I can do to play for enough points in order to push myself. And I was like, well, delete app, right? Like I'll find another game that I can play for that long. Right?

Speaker B: And that's like.

Speaker A: But I think that there's an um, a notion and it's you know, like if I was having a, um, it was fun, but if I was having a crazy good time, then I guess I would have paid for it, right? But I was sort of like, well, you've made this level impossible. Like no, I've tried. I've tried every which way. Like I've waited for more lives. I've done. I've tried every possible. And I'm like, ah, uh, it's impossible possible. I have to spend money here, right? And I'm like, okay, well then I'm not going to. Right? And like I said, if maybe if I m. There are probably games that I'd be like, yeah, okay, I'll spend the money because I want to keep going. Right. But I had invested several hours of my time in getting to that level and then was like, you suck. Right. So. But I. So I. Like, uh, like we said, I think one of the things we talk a lot about on this podcast is that. That, yes, product people, product designers, product managers, we love talking about the customer. And so, you know, like, we love the customer, we want to serve the customer. We're customer obsessed. That's all true. And someone has to pay the bills.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, so we have to have an understanding of, like, okay, how do we do that? And then the question becomes, like, how do you. You know, it's important to do it without leaning heavily on dark patterns that cause people to feel like they have to do something versus, like, hey, I want to engage in this somehow.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: I mean, that's like web tracking cookies. Like, let's talk about the dumbest ones. Like that. The dumbest ones. Um, the. The amount of crap that people track that if they really thought about, like, if I. Look, so if I just bought candles on your site. Don't freaking cookie me and put your stupid banners all over every other damn website I go to because I just bought. And if I like your crap, I'll come back and buy more. But, oh, by the way, I just blew 200 on fall scented candles. I don't need another few more. Like, I don't care what kind of coupon you're giving me. Give me a break. Understand where I'm coming from. And it actually. It actually does make me bitter to the point where I just feel like people aren't thinking about it because they're lazy. Um, they're leaning into these patterns because some person at some, you know, conference said this is the right way to, like, fill up the top of your funnel with your existing customers.

Speaker A: Just stupidity.

Speaker C: Um, and I think if you just slow down a little bit and think about who you're serving and actually understand the context that they're in, you'd realize that you're insulting them. Yeah.

Speaker A: Like,

Speaker B: fully agree. Well, I agree. Because you need to respect people's agency.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And, um, and that's. That's the key part of it. And if you. The minute you remove that agency, then it. It feels really bad.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker C: All right. Fun is part of your new game.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: We've got a whole bunch of product managers on this podcast. Um, and so, like, if they were going to log in and check this Out. What do you want them to do first?

Speaker B: Well, I would want them to create their character, get all dressed up, and then go and just explore. Just explore and do, like. Because there are things that you can do to, like, complete, um, challenges and things like that, but there's a whole bunch of other things that you can do. Because, like, for me, what, like, every time I kind of go in and see something new, it is a new thing for me, which I love. And the exploration piece of, like, you don't need to just skate on the streets. So the wonderful thing about this game, because it is an open world game, you can climb up a building and at the top you'll find a skate park, for example. You can. You can. Because it is fantasy, you can spread eagle down and, like, fly through the air. To get into, like, a dumpster is one of the challenges. Like, like, you just gotta navigate the air to get in there, right? And so I would just say go in and see what sticks with you and see what you want to do and just explore and check it out and check out all the other people there because they'll be wearing a whole bunch of crazy stuff and, like, doing crazy things. And you can also build, like, little play areas for yourself to, like, with your friends to like, like a mini skate park and things like that.

Speaker A: And so there's boys in my neighborhood who used to build their own fancy skate, um, things in the street. My dad was like, get that stuff out of the street.

Speaker B: Like, this is plywood and like, a bunch of things like, essentially so wonder

Speaker A: we didn't all get, you know, like, tetanus, but. Yes, yes.

Speaker B: My. The nails. So there's no nails in this one, but you can. You can do, like, you know, virtual ramps and like, garbage cans and like, you know, picnic tables and like, people can actually put down couches and just kind of sit on them. Like, there's just. There's a variety of different things you could do. So it's just like, go and check it out and just, yeah, explore.

Speaker C: I feel like Lia, uh, you and I will have to create our characters, and then that will be the pictures on the advertisement.

Speaker A: We totally should. We should actually. We should all go create a character and then we'll have Evan put them in as the.

Speaker C: Can be our smiling faces on the. On the. I love it on the billboard for this. I'm. I'm a. I will definitely go check it out. Sunny. I am a. Um, I'm. I'm a failed X skater. I worked at a skate shop for the majority of my college career. And, uh, I've got the scars from being a very bad skater, uh, because I just have no coordination. But I tried really hard, um, so I'm coordination.

Speaker A: But she was also a snowboarder, so she had coordination on soft surfaces.

Speaker C: Not the hard ones and not the hard ones. Yeah, we actually had a half pipe in our backyard. So Friday night got a little bit wild at our house and that's so crazy.

Speaker B: That's so awesome. I would love your perspective on it. If it feels like, from your perspective, like authentic to that feeling.

Speaker C: It has been a long time, Sunny. I don't think I'm m. Authentic to that feeling anymore.

Speaker A: Oh my goodness.

Speaker B: You never lose. It's like riding a bike. Right.

Speaker A: Remember the 80s when every commercial had a granny on a skateboard in it? I feel like, I feel that's me. I'm going to be the granny on the paper. I was so it's interesting.

Speaker C: I was.

Speaker A: I just finished reading, um, the Anxious Generation. I don't know if either one of

Speaker C: you read this book.

Speaker A: And um, one of the things that I found really fascinating in there is, I mean the whole book is really about, um, online, raising our kids online, giving them access online too soon versus play based, like so imagine Internet based play versus in person play play, uh, based childhoods. And um, he uses skate skating as one of the examples that part of what you do as a kid is you have fear and then you take a risk. Then you take a bigger risk and a bigger risk and a bigger risk. And he says, like, imagine. He said for all of the. Because is Gen X writing this book. He's like, for all of the Gen Xers reading this book. We got on a skateboard and we were afraid because we would fall and skin our knees or hurt ourselves. And we did. He's like, uh, he's like one of my friends broke his wrist. Like he, you know, he talks about. I also saw him being interviewed about it as well. And he talks about like, and then we went to the skate park, then we got on a ramp, then we did. You know, he's like, everything had a risk because you're teaching kids to overcome fear, to look at each other and learn from each other. You're building community by saying, oh, I see how he did that. Oh, okay, that's interesting. You know, and so older kids helping younger kids and, and that, uh, so I thought it was really interesting because when I read it, I thought of you and the game because obviously we've been talking about it. For a while. And just the notion that, like this, there is a way to try to combine the fact that kids are online and they are going to be online. How do we also give them safe spaces where they can start to learn some of these things that they might then be like, I think I'm going to get a skateboard for Christmas and go outside.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: And find ways to make those. Those things happen. So I, uh, just found it really interesting to think about.

Speaker B: Yeah, that, that is fascinating because it is really about building up resilience. And something that we always say in this game even is we're trying to make failure fun. Right. And that's the whole idea of having a growth mindset is like, you're never going to nail that trick on the first try. And if you do, you're really lucky. But, like, it is this kind of like constant repeat, repeat until you hit it, and then it makes hitting that trick that much sweeter. Once you actually are able to do it, it's just a question of, like, does. It's balanced. And I, I hear you in terms of, like, that the digital versus the actual physical space, because there's physical pain associated with actual skating is Marilyn, you

Speaker A: must know,

Speaker B: Um, there's less of the physical pain, but I do think there is probably the same social kind of pressure of, like, people watching you do it, like, and being able to do it, but also getting that encouragement from people. And that is that. I mean, there's so many stories of, like, kids at the edge of the lip of a, you know, a ramp and being cheered on and everyone celebrating once that happens. And if that could be m. Mirrored in skate, we've, you know, I feel like that's a massive win.

Speaker C: Yeah. I do love this idea of, um, I mean, obviously, Leah, you. You were around when my kid was younger and, you know, he was. He had a rough time. Like, he had a rough time in junior high school, um, in high school. And he, like, again, we're kind of big gamers in this house. And there was a long time when he had a really hard time connecting with people in real life. But he had this really rich network of, uh, friends in video games. And at the time, I didn't really understand it too much. I made the mistake of thinking like, you know, he's like, falling into games or, you know, he's getting sucked into the rat hole. Not really. Sort of taking the time to understood that some of the relationships he was building are, like, real and durable.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and not like, weird weird. You know, 40 year old men and 13 year old boy relationships like he, like peer relationships. Um, and to this day like he's, he's almost 30. Some of those friends are still his best friends and he, you know he met them after years or in some cases like he never really met them in real life but they went through things together and he was able to share and connect on a level that he wasn't able to um, in person. And I think that you know the places where, where you're free to have a human like connection and where it is authentic. I think there like people are kind of, for some reason it's easier for people to be jerks online. Um, no one's usually going to run up and like scream you know, I hate your mother or, or something to your face. But like people are really awful to each other online. Those safe spaces for people to connect I think are really important whether they're, whether they're at the skate park or online. So I like, I appreciate that. How do you guys, how do you guys curate that? How like what do you, what have you built into the game to try to like build that safe space for, for people to connect?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean right uh, now we've been very mindful of opening because I think there's a beauty in communication but there's also a danger in communication. And so there's been a double edged sword. So we've rolled out our communication tools in a very kind of thoughtful, slow way. So for example like you can't chat with anyone until they're actually within your party, for example. So they're your friends first of all, so they've already qualified and then you've created a party and then you can do voice chat. So there's kind of you know, mechanisms and then with the games industry and particularly I think like League of Legends and Riot does it really well around moderating. Moderating and reporting people who are bad players or bad you know, bad participants essentially and catching uh, those early but also reinforcing almost like um, a, a like a internalized code of ethics with, amongst the players around. Like this is the expectation here, this is why we're here. Um, and you know similarly like we don't, we, we don't condone this behavior and like there is going to be eventually like more reporting systems and moderation that are going to exist as we open up the, the opportunities to communicate and express and like also people create weird things, you know what I mean, as they're customizing their characters or shirts and things like that. So how do we create that kind of safe, unoffensive space for people?

Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's important. And Sunny and I have talked a little bit about, like, I, I, One of the things I find it's very interesting, and I've gotten sucked down this rabbit hole a time or two on Tick Tock is girl gamers on, like, Call of Duty.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Those kinds of games. And it's what will, what you'll have is the. It's a split screen on TikTok where there you can see the girl gamer and she's playing, and then you can see her playing her actual play. Right. And the atrocious, uh, things that are said to girl gamers who play those kinds of games. I mean, they, uh, they, all these, these boys will always call them fat. They will always say they're ugly. They'll tell them how terrible they are. And the girls who do this, like on Tick Tock, they annihilate every time. I mean, they just, they cut down. And what happens is often the boys will just bail out in the middle of the game because they don't want to play with someone who's beating them. They will tell them to go make, go make me a sandwich. Like, you know, um, you probably have to play video games because you don't have any friends because you're fat and ugly. Like the things that these boys. But these girls are putting them on blast.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, and then they're absolutely kicking their asses, which makes me. But, but what's been really interesting is that the games have had to try to now respond.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because these girls are like, I like to play your game, but I'm gonna show you what happens when I play. Yeah. And I think there's something to be said for being like, I'm gonna hold, I'm gonna hold this group of people accountable. Like, I should get to play too. And most of these are young women who have played since they were really, really were girls. And now they are young women who are very good at the game and have earned their way into these, into these communities and into these spaces to play. And then the men, as soon as they realize it's that what's interesting is they'll play, they'll play, they'll play. As soon as they realize it's a woman, they start and it's just noise, noise, noise, noise the whole time. And I find that, I mean, it's like the game should have some, some accountability when these girls hold these women, young women hold them accountable.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'M um, I've. And it's been really fascinating to watch and see. Like, oh, this thing that I thought you should be. It should be cool. In my mind, it should be cool that she shows up and can play right at their level. But instead they're like, they resented this, you know, and not, not all, obviously, but, but some. And I think there's some real room for some thought about that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's starting. I think it could get. There's still more work. There's a ton more work to be ahead. But I agree. I mean, it is the, the segment of women playing is just growing and we need to, like, I mean, if anything, uh, from a business perspective, like, they're, they're customers too. And so we need to kind of also. And also I just want us to change the viewpoint and the culture. Right. Like, it is, it doesn't need to be so toxic and it's just like, how do we fight that toxicity all around? Um, because there is a, you know, the safety of anonymity behind some of your gamer tags, but that can only keep you safe for so long. Right?

Speaker A: Like, you still need to be.

Speaker B: Can you be a decent human being? Should not be a question.

Speaker A: How foul can you be? Shouldn't be the game you're playing.

Speaker B: Yeah, good human.

Speaker A: No, but I do think that what you just said is right. And I think as product people, we have to keep in mind that often I think. I know that there have been times when I have sort of forgotten, like, because you're just like focused on like, this is my demographic, this is what I'm doing, this is what's happening. And I remember being at Amazon and, and realizing that it was like a, you know, dude show. Basically all these men had built this whole environment in Amazon, but the primary purchaser at Amazon was a woman between 35 and 50. 50. And yet not everything was tuned to that woman. It was tuned to men. And I'm like, but they're not the ones buying anything, right? And they do. But. And the thing is, in travel is the same. Like when I went into the travel industry, I was like, oh, we've been designing travel in a certain way. But women are the primary purchasers of holiday trips for their families and for themselves. They are the person who makes the decision and who spends the money. So you need to design it in a way that women will engage. And it's like, I mean, it's the, it's like the, you know, the, uh, data that says if you have a woman on your board you make 20, and in your leadership team you make 25% more revenue. Why are we still not doing this? Why is it so? Why are we so dumb that we're like, we don't need a woman on the board. Okay, we'll just throw money away then. Yeah, because the data says you'll make more money.

Speaker C: I think the other part to that is like, don't just put a woman on the board and then like, not let her be fully there. Yeah, like, check, got a woman. Um, you have to make space for people to lead authentically and contribute authentically. And if you just stick someone on the board and, and don't allow for them to be there, then they're gonna hate you and the space and it's not gonna do you any good.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: There's a difference between like creating the space for someone that leads differently or communicates differently.

Speaker A: Totally. Um, yeah, I think that's, I think that's a really good point. Yeah. Super, super interesting. Um, okay. Shall we light? All right, so let's start with what are some companies or game, like games, games company, entertainment kind of companies that you really admire or love. Sunny, you go first.

Speaker B: Yeah, so for me, take two games. Uh, they did a game called Monument Valley a while like a few years ago. I love both their games and they had a third one called ah, Assemble with Care. And for me, I think I just love the, especially with the Assemble for Care was. There's an emotional piece to it, um, where you would, people would bring their broken objects. It'd be like a tape recorder of like a loved one that they wanted fixed and like you would go and fix the tape recorder and put things together. So it was a puzzle piece, but there was a, definitely an emotional element to it. So that's kind of the, the developer and the games that have really kind of resonated with me.

Speaker C: I love it. Nobody judge, please. I was a rampant Pokemon Go player years and years and years ago. And in 2019 I deleted it off my phone because I was spending so much money on this stupid game. I was like single handedly keeping them afloat. But then the other weekend, some, um, reason it came up when we were on our way back from, uh, a vacation and I was like, I wonder if I can still log in. I am back to obsessed. Um, and I'm not the only person. Weirdly I have run into like three or four other people who are playing this game. And so I don't know if we're like getting a little Pokemon resurgence Or something. But, yeah, I'm obsessed.

Speaker A: I mean, I think it kind of does waves, right? Like, it has these little. I don't know, it never just goes away. It's like. It has peaks and flies.

Speaker B: Totally. No pun intended. It still has legs.

Speaker A: My.

Speaker B: My husband and my son were, uh, out like for four hours yesterday for an event.

Speaker C: Gotta hatch those eggs, man. Gotta get your. Gotta get your steps in.

Speaker A: It's so funny. It's like, unrelated but funny. I had some friends visiting from Seattle. They actually have been living in Sweden and they were visiting and it was the couple and their little boy who I'd never. I'd only ever seen him as a baby. And so he's. He was like, I think he's seven or eight. All through breakfast. He regaled me with. He's building. He's in one of these games where they're actually farming and like, they cultivate crops and they do all this stuff. And he's just telling me all about it. And I'm like. And, uh. And of course the ant in me is like, really, like, I'm totally engaged. And they were like, you're really into this. And I'm. Well, not at all, like, know he's talking about. But I was. He's like. And then you get a super gold star and it makes. It makes a rain happen and then the rain. And I'm like, wow. Like. And I was just like, he was so into it. And I. They were like, do you know what he's talking about? Like, no, I don't have to know what he's talking about to be excited for him. Like, he loves it, right? But I think that's how I felt. Like Pokemon was with my nephews. Like, they. I was like, oh, my God. What? You have a what? Like, I was. I didn't know what he was talking about ever. Like. But you just have to be really excited. So. Marilyn, I can. I can. I can. And I can be your auntie if you need me to.

Speaker C: Excited to be really excited for me. The problem is, like, so many of the things now require friends to, like, trade into stuff. And I have friends that are probably playing this.

Speaker A: So you need to meet some kids that will play. Play with you.

Speaker C: I do, I do. And. But the other nice thing is when I stick my Pokemon to battle in a gym, they're there for like two

Speaker B: days

Speaker C: because no one's fighting them.

Speaker A: Uh, I would. I mean, I. Like, I'm a little tiny bit controlled by Duolingo right now. Like, it controls my life because Should I ever have a freeze out week in my week, I feel devastated. Like, I can't believe I didn't last night. I hadn't done my duolingo for the day and it was 11:30 and the little app icon was like, m sad duo. And I was all, oh, God, I've got to make him happy again.

Speaker B: With the tear coming down.

Speaker C: Oh, no.

Speaker A: I've only got 28 minutes to do a lesson that's gonna take me three. So calm down.

Speaker C: I was very emotionally manipulative.

Speaker A: It's very manipulative, very sucked in. And like, if I'm playing with friends, if we're doing a challenge and I don't feel like I'm holding up my end of the bargain, I will just sit and play for like an hour so that I can do my half of the quest. And I'm like, also, I have a life. Like, what am I doing? But I got sucked in. So. Yeah, so, but. But today when the housekeeper came, I could speak Spanish to her. She was new, so that felt good. I felt confident I could do it. Um, all right, so last. Last lightning round question. Best favorite old school game, like, from when we were kids. Oh, Sunny's got it. She's like, yes, confidently.

Speaker B: Tell us yes. Because I can already see myself. Because we used to have, like a little closet underneath the stairs, like a Harry Potter room. And I would close the door, it'd be completely dark. And my parents got me this mini arcade machine with Frogger on it. And I would spend hours playing Frogger until I broke the dang thing. And like, that. That was my childhood memory for sure.

Speaker C: Frogger is the bomb. My husband and I will go in any arcade we can find, and I'm always looking for time crisis.

Speaker A: So I'm, um, headed. I'm gonna go to Cardiff for the weekend when my sister's here. And one of my friends was like, you have to go to the arcades in Cardiff. There's a whole row of them in there. And I'm like, sign me up.

Speaker C: We're in, like, you know, like, like our big jam is pinball, right? So, like, during pinball all day long. But they're not classic, so. But I, like, I'm a huge pinball fan, but anytime I walk into an arcade, it's time crisis. Like, yeah, that gun. There's a lot of other shooting games that are proxy, but they're not the same.

Speaker A: Yeah, I loved, um, I loved this game called Barnstorming.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker A: And you flew a plane. And it was, it was Atari and you flew a plane and you regularly, like, you had all these different things you were trying to achieve, but every so often you had to fly directly through the. Through a barn. So you had. And if you didn't, you would just crash into it, like. And you. Then your plane would be gone and you'd start all over again. But you had to have, like, this very precise. You could see it at different angles. You had this very precise ability to go straight. And sometimes it wasn't shaped the same and you had to turn, tilt your wings. And I was like queen of the crop dusters. So that was my other favorite game. And we used to tease my mother because we had a. We had. We had a Coleco ColecoVision that had an Atari adapter. That's how cool we were. And my mother. My mother would play, um. The only thing she ever played was Donkey. Donkey Kong. And she would play at night when she thought we were asleep. And we would all sit out and sit in the dark and watch her play because she would have the controller and she would move her body with the controller and she would like to it, chomp, chomp. And so my mother was. She was definitely in her 50s, playing Donkey Kong in the dark at night when her kids went to bed. I love. I love thinking about that. That she was like, hanging out in the dark, trying to make it happen. She was much. Might have been her 50s. She probably in her mid four, mid to late 40s. But yeah, it was pretty funny.

Speaker B: So. So cool.

Speaker A: Very cool. There were a lot of cool games back then, but. But yeah, I loved Frogger. I mean, can't. Can't go wrong with Frogger. And I love Ms. Pac Man. That was the other thing.

Speaker B: I don't know.

Speaker A: I don't ever know. I sometimes wonder why I loved Ms. Pac man and not regular Pacman. Because the same game, right? It's just the bow. She moved different.

Speaker B: And the bow was all of it. Like, the bow made a huge difference.

Speaker A: Well, Sunny, thank you for joining us, uh, and hanging out with us.

Speaker B: It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker A: It was so fun to talk to you and to hear about your experience, which I think for a lot of people that watch will be cool to listen to and unique and different than. Than some and really tied into what we do as product people. So I love it. So thanks for joining us.

Speaker B: Yes, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, then, everyone, we will see you soon on another episode. And, uh, we'll see you down the road. Bye.

Speaker B: Bye,

Speaker A: Sam.