Celia Hodent: The Gamer’s Brain

Celia Hodent, a Game UX Strategist with a PhD in Psychology, has dedicated 15 years of her career to applying user experience (UX) and cognitive science in product development, particularly in the realm of video games. Her impressive portfolio includes her role as Director of UX at Epic Games for Fortnite, as well as work on well-known franchises such as Star Wars: 1313 at LucasArts and Rainbow 6 at Ubisoft. Hodent has shared her expertise with the world in her book, The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can Impact Video Game Design.

Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/xVHNBxTiiXo

Transcript

[00:00:20.6] Celia Hodent is known for her excellent UX design work on hit games like Fortnite and Rainbow Six, and for her amazing book, the Gamer's Brain, where she delves into what really makes games compelling and connects that to her psych background. 

So how it does a PhD psychologist cross over into games? 

Celia: And in child development we learned that play is very important for the development of, the brain. and therefore games and play as, as always being, a center of interest. And I grew up as a gamer myself. 

Join us as we explore the intersection of games, brains, and psychology with author and UX [00:01:00] strategist Celia Hodent.

Amy: I'm so excited to welcome Celia Hoen to Game Thinking TV. Welcome, Celia.

Celia: Thank you, Amy, for having me. I'm very happy to be here.

Amy: You're doing so many exciting things that I just can't wait to hear about 'em. So, my very first question is just give us a little glimpse into your work life.

What do you do and who do you work with? What's your work life like these days?

Celia: So today I call myself a game UX strategist consultant. So I'm mainly consult for the gaming industry, so could be triple studios, or smaller studios, or in indeed develop. help them wear their, the development of the games and help them build a strategy, a UX strategy for the games.

I also work also a little bit outside the game industry, so with people who are making health devices or, apps around [00:02:00] education. And, and these people need, to understand a little bit. How engagement work and how they can use, the amazing capacity for video games to engage, good games, to engage,people.

So I, I do that. I do a lot of training sessions, a lot of master classes just like you do, to train people in ux. What is ux, what is the cognitive science, which is the, the backbone of UX and what, how the brain works. and so to explain a little bit better what is important when you build your product, when you have your strategy and talk about usability, engagement, methodology.

I talk a lot about implicit biases and inclusion as well. I, I talk about ethics. so I do a lot of different little things, but it's mainly around, consulting and,advocating , for UX , and explaining all the science and the cool stuff behind it.

Amy: Fantastic. So. Being able to bring that kind of knowledge is amazing to teams. So let's wind it all the way back and find out how you acquired this point of view and this knowledge. So how did you first [00:03:00] get into UX and gaming? I know you studied psych and school, but what drew you into this field?

Celia: It, it's really seren and pity. I loved, saying that. So I, I studied child development more specifically, so I have a PhD in cognitive psychology, with a specialty in child development and in child development we learned that play is very important for the development of, the brain. And also it's very important to maintain, those abilities when you're a, an adult or, an aging adult. And therefore it's, you know, games and play as, as always being, a center of interest. And I grew up as a gamer myself. I was playing with our parents, so, you know, video games were, part of the games we were playing was not just video games, but they were definitely there. and so it just happened one day 

At some point after my PhD I focused on educational games. I was working at at vtech, was a a to manufacturer, is still making toys and, and video games for, educational purposes, and so I started that way and at some point I figured that I [00:04:00] should be working in video games because it's exploding and people are excited about games and there are also people are concerned about games.

So I started to write articles to explain to parents, that they should not be concerned about games, but there are some limitations and what they should be worried about. And this is how I cross path with Ubisoft. they were interested in the hiring someone with cognitive science background cuz they had back then, the Games for everyone line.

And they were making games. They were trying to, enrich players, beyond just entertainment. And so it was really important to understand how to do, to do that, in the best way possible. And this is how I started in, in the game industry.

Amy: What prompted you to pursue a PhD in psych? That takes a lot of focus and drive. Like were you thinking you would be like a therapist or were you just fascinated and really loved school what drove you there?

Celia: There are two things that are really fascinating to me in, in terms of, what I love to study, it's science and, and caring for people. so initially I [00:05:00] wanted to be a speech doctor and, and so to be a speech doctor is interesting to understand, you know, cognitive development and, to study psychology.

And then when I started to discover psychology, I was like, oh my God, this is so interesting. And trying to understand why people do the things they do and, and how the brain works and how mental processes work. And, and I discovered, you know, to me it was really interesting cause I'm really interested into the human life.

Why sometimes we're, so bad with each other, and sometimes we are also, capable of doing, amazing things. and also what's the science behind it? And, and so cognitive science really brings these two things together. And so I, I just got fascinated by that. And,  before I knew it.

I was already like doing my PhD, then went all very fast.

Amy: Wow. So you got a job at Ubisoft. And for those not familiar, Ubisoft is one of the top game publishers in the world, and you worked there on, I assume, several different games.

Celia: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was mostly working [00:06:00] at the, the think tank that was, like the CEO's think tank. cuz the CEO is, is always very interested into, diving into new technology, how it can serve people and how games can serve people. So I was at the Strategic innovation lab, so I was working both with the Games for Everyone Line.

So I worked on games like my word coach, my a c t coach, stuff like that. But I was also working to see, how games can be used to improve people's lives. I also, was working with the editorial team, at GB, South HQ, to train, all the game developers and into how the brain works and what does that mean for games and how we design them.

And this is when I started to, to do a, a little session a, about the brain and how to apply that in games more specifically for, onboarding and tutorials. Because Ubisoft back then had a, what they call a design academy, and it was really like a training session for two weeks. And they were inviting all the, the designers and creative directors and a lot of people to come over for two weeks, in close to Paris to really [00:07:00] make sure everybody had the same, level of understanding of, all these things.

And, and to, make sure there's a, a strong editorial, input. And so this is how I started to do sessions, training sessions about the brain and how to apply this knowledge to games.

Amy: Fantastic. How did you find yourself at Epic? Working on Fortnite,

Celia: Ooh, , that was, many years after that. so first of all, at uv. France, I was transferred to Ubisoft Montreal. this is where I started to work with the plate test Lab. this is where I really tried, this is where I really understood, what I was doing. It was a user experience, because it's, it's not my background.

My background is not in design thinking or, or HCI user experience, but of course, user experience is applied cognitive science, it all made sense to me, and this is really the transition between France and, and Canada. This is when I, I really realized, you know, this is what I was, I was doing. So I applied that at [00:08:00] Ubisoft Montreal.

There was, we had a very strong plate test lab and, and I worked with specifically on, on Rainbow Six, franchise. but then, I, I got a, a call from Lucas Arts, uh, asking me if I wanted to start the UX initiative at Lucas and work on Star Wars games. And I'm like, how can I say no to that? That was a huge Star Wars fan.

And so this is how I ended up in, in the us That was not planned at all. I did not, I just wanted to, be in, in Canada maybe for a few years and then to discover, you know, how is it to live in a different country? And then, I started to work in the US and as you know, it ended, much earlier than I thought because Lucas was, acquired by Disney.

And Disney closed Lucas Arts. And this is when everybody, got laid off as usual, as per usual in the game industry. And this is how a bunch of people from Lucas, moved to Epic. And this is when I joined Epic Games, and then the director of us there.

Amy: What was that like?

Celia: Intense

Amy: I mean, I'm sure it was locked. That's a really broad question. But let me preface it [00:09:00] by saying Fortnite is just a phenomenon, you know, unreal Engine is a phenomenon my kid plays all the time. I'd say playing Fortnite with her friends, got her through the pandemic, you know, just in terms of staying connected socially.

So like you, I'm such a big believer in the positive power of games. Cause I see it all the time and Epic is a storied company, but I'm sure it's, you know, it's real, it's full of people. There's challenges, there's difficulties. But you, so you were laid off from Lucas, you got a job at Epic.

Celia: Mm-hmm.

Amy: How long were you there and like, what were some of the strong impressions, like moments where you went, oh wow, I'm really learning something Or, oh, like, you know, times you had to like, maybe struggle with a team to get them to understand something or, you know, all those realities of doing UX and games, working with a team.

Celia: Well, all of that. Uh, so first of all, when I joined Epic, it was still a small [00:10:00] company. I think, it was like a hundred and, and something employees. All the, new employee were still standing up, on the Friday, standup meeting to introduce themselves. So it was, it's all very small, and lots of very smart people and and intense people were people super passionate either into, engineering or art or design.

And so that was really, really interesting. and I, I, I got, you know, the, the opportunity to boot the UX initiative there. So I started, you know, as UX person of one, as as often. And then, and then, you know, I build a team and I build a play test lab there. And I worked on all the different products, from a unreal engine to many different games.

And Fortnite, Fortnite was super exciting for me because this team, right from the beginning, where they were really interested into, ux, they knew that the type of game there they were making, remember back then it was only save the world. So the RPG part, of Fortnite, and it's a, it's a very [00:11:00] complex mode.

There's a lot of systems and it has to be, interesting for, a lot of time. It's not just a game that you play five minutes and then you put it down. So there were a lot of challenges and the team was, was very aware of that, and they really wanted to have a stronger X process. So I got the chance, to work with them fairly early in the process, which is, which is rare , sadly, when we work in ux, in the game industry, we're oftentimes cold too late.

but for with Fortnite, it was actually very exciting, to work with them early and, and have the game and, in a online test for nearly two years. So we were really doing that iterative and design thinking process, having the players at the center of what we were doing. So that, that was pretty cool.

Of course, there were challenges and, it didn't happen overnight. but that was very, very exciting.

Amy: So, doing UX on a game team is an amazing role.

It can also be really challenging, as you know. [00:12:00] So I'm particularly interested in this two years of iteration part. you, take us inside of the realities of iterating ux like. How do you, one of the things that people struggle with a lot is balancing, their metrics and the data they can collect from people's behavior with interviewing people, watching them play, understanding the why behind their behavior, the emotions, et cetera.

As a UX designer particularly, I'm interested on Fortnite. How did you balance those kinds of data? Was the whole thing instrumented so you could see how people were progressing through your onboarding funnel? Did you interview players? Did you do play tests where you observe them?

 Maybe all of the above. So can you tell us a little. Bit about how do you tackle polishing a ux like,

Celia: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we did all that. so on Fortnite, I was acting as a director of ux. there were some jokes, diners, specifically on Fortnite working on [00:13:00] the game. We have to have a holistic approach if we want to make sure to understand what's going on and, and why, why are people doing certain things?

Why are they not understanding certain things? Why are, are they getting frustrated at some part? the interesting part is, I got the chance to, give a, a few g d c docs as the, the game was in development. And so I, I, I explained all of that during these, these talks and there were some challenges and they were trying to cross data to try to find out what was going on.

Like for example, we had, some players that were getting frustrated at some point where they were reaching a certain level in the game. they found the game too grindy, and we're trying to figure out, okay, why is this a problem? Is this like the type of game that, and so point people won't find it grindy, or is it, is there really a problem if there is a problem?

Where is this coming from? and how we can solve it. And so it's, it is by crossing all the different data, and trying to, look into, the reality , of the system design that we found out at some point after multiple iterations and, and, and looking at different hypotheses, that , the main issue was [00:14:00] that a, a lot of players did not understand the weak point in Fortnite.

So when you start harvesting an object like a Brock or whatever, there's a weak point popping in the UI and it's, it's supposed to, encourage players to aim at it. And because, they're gonna hit the weak point of the object and therefore harvest faster. we do want players to discover that.

And the problem is that a lot of players did not, were not using it. And so, of course at some point when you reach a certain level when you really need to harvest a lot of things, they were starting to be really painful because they were harvesting. way too long they were spending a lot of time to try to harvest something because they were not using the weed point.

And so this is how we found step, that asking people through surveys what was going on, and looking at, you know, the data, what they were doing, looking at, Plata sessions. It's all of that together that can help us find out what is going on and, and why, and at how we can fix that in the best way possible.

Where the problem is coming from, as Don Number, [00:15:00] uh, always says, it's not solving problems that is difficult. It's, it's finding the right problems to solve.

Amy: That is a great quote. One of the things that you talk a lot about, and I love, sharing it with my community is onboarding, how to do good onboarding. And, one of the things that we emphasize is, the core loop or the habit loop because the best onboarding in the world, if people don't stick around, who cares, right?

So we really focus on that. But the onboarding piece is so critical and the work you've personally done on these games is amazing. And I'm sure every decision took so much work, right? And tuning. Can you share one?

Kind of surprising piece of advice about onboarding that might not be so obvious to people that you've learned from wrestling with this for years.

Celia: Yeah. the common mistake is to think about onboarding late in the process. So we develop the game, we [00:16:00] develop, the loops and all the systems, and then where we're close to shipping, like, all right, how are you gonna introduce all that to players? This is way too late to do that. So what I advocate for is to have an onboarding plan, as I call it, as to think about really early on, as, as soon as you have all your systems and features, like at least you have a very strong idea of what was, what's in the game.

So, during pre-production and at, at the very least when you start product, , this is when you should have a plan about how to onboard our players. So it consists of making a list of all the things that players gonna have to learn, in this game in order to have fun in the game.

 and then we try to sort it all out. we define, you know, what is gonna be easy for players to learn. And by easy we mean well, we are targeting that type of players. And if they are already, I don't know, FBS gamers and there are, aiming and shooting in the game, it should not be too difficult for them to learn that.

and if there's building in the game and that's fairly new and it's, it's very different from [00:17:00] building in other games like Minecraft, then we can expect that it's gonna be more difficult for players to learn about this because it's new and they're not familiar with. And so we, we classify, we sort, all, the different things that players are gonna have, to learn depending on the difficulty that we expect is gonna, is gonna be for them to learn.

And also how important it is for them to learn this. We don't necessarily gonna put the same emphasis on something that Yes Yeah, said that you do know about that. it's better for them, but if they don't know about it, it's okay. Like, for example, the weak point system, when you play Battle Royal, it's not that big a deal.

it's more of a problem when you play Save the World because it's really affecting your efficiency in harvesting, and that really matters in that mode. But in Battle Royal, you know, it's, it's, you're more efficient if you know about this, but, eh, you know, it's not, it's not that important. So depending on the mode, and depending on, how central it is to the experience, I won't offer.

They're gonna have different priorities, and then we plan it all out. And we don't want to teach everything at the same time. We have a tendency sometimes say, all right, [00:18:00] this is when we're gonna teach them, the whole list. And then we, we have a tendency to say, okay, the player and, and take them there, and then do this, and then do that.

And we hope that they're gonna learn about all these things. That it's, we have to mine the cognitive load, for players. So we, we want to space it out. And so we have to define when we wanna teach what, and of course, depending on the game, if it's a multiplier game, if it's free to play, if it's,if it's multiplier and free to play, you don't have a lot of time.

teachers play. So we have a lot of constraints. but there are things, you know, we can gate players, we can have, like at the, at the beginning, they play against AI until they reach a certain level, have games, do that. So it's really thinking ahead of time. About what's gonna be important for players to learn, and why is it gonna matter for them?

There's also a tendency to forget about the why. Why should they care? a lot of people when they work on the onboarding, they focus on the what, what do they need to learn? but that's not as important as why, why should they care? because if you think about why they should care about [00:19:00] learning X, y, and Z, then you can place them, in a situation where they have to learn it, and that it's meaningful for them.

And then because it's meaningful, meaningful to them, they're gonna focus more on it and they're gonna pay more attention to it, and therefore they're gonna learn about it better. So it's mostly that like, thinking about it too late and focusing on the what, instead of focusing on the whys.

Amy: You mentioned cognitive load. explain to those who don't have a psych background. What is cognitive load and why is it? It's so important for game design.

Celia: Yeah. The cognitive load is, to explain it simply is all the things you have to pay attention at the, at the same moment in time. And, we are not good at paying attention to too many things at the same time. we can't multitask. We have a tendency to think we're okay though, but we're not. So for example, if you come back home and you have lots of groceries and you're opening the door and the phone is ringing, or like people are poking you on text message and I don't know, there are million things you have to do at the same time.

You think about at the same time. At some point you're gonna be like, where did [00:20:00] I put my keys? and we don't. and we're like, and sometimes the keys end up in, in the fridge or whatever. we have places like this. That's because we had too much of a cognitive load and therefore we can't really pay attention to what we're doing.

So that's the cognitive load. And that happens in games. If there are too many things happening at the same time, chances are the players are not gonna be able to, pay attention to all of that. They're gonna focus on the things that they care about. Maybe there are enemies to shoot at. So that's gonna be their focus.

they're not gonna see all the messages that popping here and there. and so if you try to convey too much information at the same time, the cognitive load is gonna be too high, and therefore pliers are not gonna be able to pay attention, to many, too many things, in the game. So we try to, at some point we are challenging,attention,skills in players, especially in action games.

But we do want to do that carefully. And, and as players are learning about the game, they're still not familiar with everything. We don't want to add too much thing. Like think about the first time you start a job or [00:21:00] the first time you learn how to drive. at the beginning everything is intense.

Like, oh, I have to pay into to everything. But at some point you get into routines, and as you get into routines, it's freeing some of your mental space so that you can focus on something else. That's why you should not multitask, especially as you drive. That's dangerous.

Amy: Yes. The myth of multitasking. It doesn't make things go faster. So, a lot of ux, a lot of UX designers, I think are interested, in building a compelling game like interface. In a second, I'm, we'll talk about gamification, the G word, right? But let's put that aside for a minute. What is a great piece of advice that you could offer to a UX designer who wants to create compelling and game like, interfaces.

They really want to, they don't wanna do something stupid. They wanna put all the things that you're talking about into practice.

Celia: Mm-hmm.

Amy: What would you tell them? What would you warn them about? What would you [00:22:00] steer them toward? How can a UX designer get better at this? Obviously, read your books 

Celia: Done. My work is done here, mic drop.

Amy: Like, let's say, say you were, you know, you hired someone and you know they were working with you, you're mentoring them. What advice would you.

Celia: Yeah. So if they're working on games specifically, what's gonna be important if they're not from games, is to understand, the game vernacular because, we use specific vocabulary. and that's why, when I talk with the game developers, I don't use the 10 Usability or six from Dick Nielsen.

I, I use something that is very close to that. but it's really focused on what they care about and using a vocabulary that they understand. So, for example, I don't say, visibility of system status as a science and feedback, you have your science and feedback. Are they clear, you have good form follow function.

It, it's more a term that we use, more than the foreign. so really get to the vocabulary. Understand what are the goals of the game designers, what they're trying to [00:23:00] convey. and have a good game culture. Cuz if you, if you work on a game, chances are that the game developers are gonna tell you, oh, have you seen the system, you know, the HUD or the crafting system in that game that just came out, or that game from 10 years ago.

that would work well for, our systems, and so if you don't know about that game, it's, it's complicated. So it's okay, no one can know about all the games, but you have to be ready to dive in, and have a good game culture and, and look at , how the systems were, conveyed to players , and different types of games.

So that would be my recommendation for UX designers who wanna start working in the game industry.

Amy: Yep, that is, that is really great advice. So you're in a really interesting vantage point in that you worked very deeply with some game teams, so you know what it's like to roll up your sleeves and dig in, right? But you also now consult and train and teach, which gives you the opportunity. To talk to and work with many different

Celia: [00:24:00] Mm-hmm.

Amy: So what are some of the common mistakes that you've seen generally teams, but specifically game teams? What are the common mistakes that you see them make when they're first bringing an idea to life?

Celia: Yeah. it's a great question and, and actually it's really interesting. As I am a consultant, I already had, that notion before, even though, I spend big chunks on, on different, in different studios. but now I, I can see that even more clearly, no matter the size of the, of the game or the size of the studio.

most game developers have the same problems. So that, that's interesting. Yeah, so it's really boils down to the same things that we're talking about, thinking about your UX strategy too late. So things like that. But something that also comes back fairly often is, losing focus on what the game is about.

I see that a lot at the beginning. The team is like, yeah, we're gonna make that game. These are the game pillars. They spend a lot of time defining the game pillars, and this is our audience. And then [00:25:00] along the way, they get lost because they see some shiny new feature and a new game they just played.

And they, they just want add a new feature. And what I see oftentimes is that we lose the essence of the game. And that's a problem because first of all, we can't implement everything. No game is ever perfect. And depending on what experience we wanna offer and what type of game it is to what audience, we are not gonna make the same decisions and we're not gonna make the same trade offs.

And so if you start to add too many things, we lose our priorities and sometimes we are gonna add a system or add a feature that actually gonna be going against one of the main pillars of the game. and that it's gonna take a lot of time for the team to implement, and sometimes also we have to say no, no to new implementation, no to new features until we fix the foundation.

sometimes games are like very deep UX issues on some of the main foundations, like for example, in Fort. Harvesting, building, shooting, you know, combat neck. These are really the core essence of the game. [00:26:00] If there are problems really affecting the core essence of your game, at some point you have to stop adding new things.

on the foundation. That's, it's, it's a bit, shaky. because otherwise we keep adding stuff and then you end up, with conundrum and it is just like, you don't even know where to start to fix the problem. So that, I see that a lot as well.

Amy: I am getting P T S D listening to you, you 

Amy: know, because yeah. As someone who's worked in games for so long, and a lot of the work I did was system design, the tendency to add new features, particularly when your competitions ship something and you play it and it works in your competition, you're like, oh, yeah, that needs to go on our game. No, because it's not just the feature, it's balancing it with everything else.

Celia: Yeah. I see, I see. You know, you've been through that as well.

Amy: Oh yeah. It's more like what can we take out

Celia: Yeah. Yeah, 

Amy: the best function. Right.[00:27:00] 

Celia: But it's hard. It's hard to remove. It's easier to add.

Amy: It's so true. It's so true. I think people can't really learn it till they've been through it. But man, anyone who's listening take heat to Celia is talking about, and you will save yourself so many headaches. 

 What trends or development in gaming in UX are you personally following and interested in? You know, there was of course, The big crypto wave now there's a big AI wave. there's probably other things, but what are you interested in?

Amy: What, what do you think is coming up that you're paying a lot of attention to?

Celia: Well, the ethical considerations, like come along with, all these new technologies

Amy: Tell Yeah, tell us more. Tell us your thoughts about

Celia: Yeah. So ethics is really important  as UX professionals, sadly we sometimes lose sight of this, because we always need to convince the upper management that what we're doing is important. and so sometimes we have a tendency to forget that we are here [00:28:00] to protect the users, defend the users, defend their best interest.

that UX has to be benevolent. We're here to improve people's lives with technology or with games. And so, we already see, without even talking about new technology, we already see problems around what we call the, attention economy. And, in certain games where players are encouraged to come back and, and they're engaged with the platform or with the monetization instead of being engaged really with the game itself or on top of it.

and these are shady practices, that we should really start to clean up, in the game industry, especially since we consider ourselves as a art form. And so it's gonna be really important if we wanna protect that to really think about the sort of pressure that we put on players. Not to make the game more fun, or interesting, but to make the monetization more compelling or to, improve our metrics in terms of retention.

So with all the new technologies, it's gonna have new challenges, but, they're kind of the [00:29:00] same. But it was just new flavors. I say that. and so that's really important to, to push that forward and that, that's why I started the initiative ethical games.org with, a few, more colleagues in the game industry so that we could try to draft, what a code of ethics in our industry would look like.

And the first step is to, work with all the scholars that are researching stuff like boot boxes. What is the impact on, on players or fomo when you use fomo, when does it start to raise questions. So that's the first step. But, of course AI and, and crypto, all that is, raising even more concerns.

And, and so there's, it's a lot of work to try to look into all that, because the problem is that technology moves very fast and The morality and the ethical questions around technology, not so fast. And so there's always a big lag. and so it's important to stop and, and make sure that technology is indeed going to improve people's lives and not, just add more clutter or [00:30:00] more concerns.

Amy: It's so amazing that you're doing that. One more question that is, well, first of all, good for you for founding, for having the initiative and energy and idea to create an organization to deal with ethics.

And so it's not just you shouting into the wind, 

Celia: I don't know about creating an organization, but the idea is really building bridges between academia and the game industry. Because a lot of time when I talk to gaming industry folks, a lot of them don't even realize the pressures that are on onto players or don't necessarily know how to fight back.

you know, from things coming from, the upper management that they want to implement because again, another game is doing this and apparently they're making a lot of money, and so we should do the same on our games. And so it comes through education and, and teaching people, you know, why is this problematic?

In which, which cases, in what context? So that we can. Make things better, but also how we can protect workers in the game [00:31:00] industry so that they can, extend. because the problem, like we don't have a lot of power right now. We get fired all the time, so it's complicated. So it's also about not just protecting players and, and not just thinking about the code of ethics for players, but also for the workers in the game industry.

Amy: Yeah. You know, what you just mentioned is a behind the scenes harsh reality of the games industry that a lot of people don't understand, which is that people staff up for a game and then they let everyone go. You know? And, and it, and people, studios get bought and they let everyone go, like at Lucas Arts.

So the games industry is very volatile and the idea that you have a job, there's really no job security is what I experienced, and I think, so it's great for you. For instance, if you have your own business and you're a consultant, that's your job

Celia: Yeah.

Amy: You know

Celia: Yeah, super secure, but as long as I [00:32:00] have clients it's fine.

Amy: Right. But, my experiences in the game industry is part of why I set up a company and took projects rather than getting a job, is it's just very, very volatile. But it's also su like, there's nothing like it, you know, the people are amazing.

Celia: Yep. Yeah, that's why we're here. We have to be passionate about games cuz otherwise I bother . It's complicated. Yep.

Amy: It's just, it's a tough industry, but it's an incredible industry at the same time. So, so thank you for your work and efforts. I really appreciate it. I'm gonna dig into it and then again, we'll share links with all of you. So what now, like for you personally, Celia, what kind of projects light you up the most.

Celia: Well, different types of projects. Either a project when I really, truly feel that the team is super passionate about, when they like it's they're baby and you feel like they, they wanna offer an amazing experience. So I love those projects. so it's usually a smaller team [00:33:00] sometimes, or they're trying to do something new that they've never done before and, and they're trying to solve new problem.

So I love that cuz it, it's really, interesting and you can feel, you know, the, the excitement on the team. I love projects also that trying to make a difference in the world, whether it is for inclusion or, the environment or, you know, finding for something important or for education. So I always love these projects where there's a, a goal to improve human lives, or to, you know, fight for a cause.

So I would say these are the two types of projects that I'm really, excited about.

Amy: That's awesome. do you feel like your superpower is?

Celia: I don't know about that I don’t. Okay. So I know, I, I'm not too bad at, at, advocating for science and explaining. complicated things in a relatable way so that we can all speak the same language. So I'm not too bad at that. and [00:34:00] I, I think I'm not too bad either at building bridges. So bringing people together is something I love doing.

it's always about the people more than anything else. And so, having a community like the Game You Summit or the g c You Summit, I love, you know, it's a lot of work, that, doesn't bring any money , but it's so great to just see all the people and, and we are together, and also see the new people coming in and, and helping them out.

I, I really, I really love that. So I think I'm not, I'm not too shitty at, at doing that

Amy: Wow, that really hearkens back to your original background, you know, in psych and understanding and helping people. So that's cool.

What was your biggest challenge? as a game designer at Epic? Or what

Celia: Not a game designer. But let's say the, the, the most important game design challenge at Epic. Well, I'm gonna talk about Fortnite because, you know, this, this was really, the project that I worked the most on is, like I said earlier, like trying to take that [00:35:00] huge game with all the systems and make it.

It, digestible for players and thinking about how are we gonna introduce all of that and how are we gonna make it interesting? And I, there's still a lot of things that, you know, right before I left we, we hadn't solved of course, like, like anything, but that was, that was so challenging. Like all the different systems and, and all, you know how the stats for your home base and, and you get survivors and that change your stats depending on where you put them in it.

It was fairly complex. And so trying to convey all that was a great game design challenge, I would say.

Amy: That. Yeah, that is a great one. 

Thank you so much.

Celia: My pleasure. 

Amy: Today and sharing your wisdom and stories and tips. It's just fantastic. We loved having you here Celia, where can everybody go to find out about what you’re doing and how they can go deeper and learn from you?

Celia: Yeah, well the easiest way is to go to Celia ho [00:36:00] dent.com and this is where you can find a bunch of resources and you'll find, my next master classes. See my books there and we find a lot of other resources.

Amy: Fantastic. We'll make sure everyone gets that link. Thanks everyone. Have a great day.

Celia: Thank you.