Redefining UX in the Gaming Industry: A Chat with Calvin Robertson

In this episode of the Beyond Normal Podcast, Kenny Groom sits down with Calvin Robertson, enterprise UX design leader, educator, and founder of Jubileague, to discuss how human-centered design, leadership, and technology can come together to create better experiences for people.

Calvin shares his journey leading UX and innovation initiatives across organizations like Corning, Best Buy, Lowe’s, and the Federal Reserve while also building platforms focused on gaming, mentorship, and community impact.

The conversation explores the role of empathy in technology, how design shapes the way organizations operate, and why meaningful innovation starts with understanding real human needs instead of simply building more features.

If you’re interested in UX design, leadership, innovation, technology, or building more human-centered systems, this episode delivers thoughtful insights and practical perspective.

Transcript

Kenny 0:50

Welcome, welcome to another great episode of The Beyond Normal Podcast. I'm your host, Kenny Groom. We are in season eight. I can't believe it. We've been able to connect with some incredible founders. We have an incredible founder and really UX guru like you've been in, in design wild your whole life or your whole career. Why? why- Thank you am I saying your life? And I think in this space, we're in right now, and we got, we're gonna definitely talk about it. We got the robots doing some of the things for us. But when it comes to designing things for human interaction, I wanted to have on my guest today, Calvin Robertson. You are, again, your career is in UX design, but in terms of the company you're building now, you're building Jubileague. Yeah. Right. Which is amazing. It's, it's really a space for players and playmakers to. To really find, you the way that they can add value and interact right in the world of gaming. Gaming is as big as it's ever been. Um, I come from the, the cloth of, uh, regular Nintendo and we're shooting ducks. we're not doing that anymore, with the games. I understand. And so I'm excited to have you on today, Calvin, and we are gonna dig into a couple things around design and just your background. Absolutely. How you feeling?

Calvin 2:07

I'm feeling good man.

Kenny 2:07

Feeling good

Calvin 2:08

Kenny, for, for having me. And feeling good, man. Happy to be

Kenny 2:10

here. Yeah. Yes. And so we actually create, uh, collaborate, not collaborated. What am I talking about? We are collaborating. Collaborating right now, But we met last year

Calvin 2:20

Yeah

Kenny 2:20

when you were doing the camp, Yeah the Playmaker camp. Let, Let's, let, let's set the stage though. Let us know like what you were doing before starting Jubileague. Mm. what, what was your time spent?

Calvin 2:34

Yeah.

Kenny 2:35

In the world?

Calvin 2:35

Yeah, that's a good question. Um. I was in a, an operative place actually. Um, I started Jubileague because it was something that I've always wanted to do and I just kind put it on the back burner to pursue my career.

Kenny 2:52

And

Calvin 2:52

before starting, before starting Jubileague and Playmaker, and Playmaker, I was in my career for going on 23, close to 24 years. And I was impacted by a layoff. And I had this weird moment that happened like month or two before the layoff happened where I literally just woke up outta my sleep and it was just like, I gotta do this business. I have to do it right now. There was like this strong sense of urgency. You have to do it now. right now, go. start doing it. And, and that's what I did. I, you got the paperwork together with the state. I made a, a couple of videos and in that video on my YouTube channel, I even say, Hey, I'm doing this in public. I'm doing it out loud. I'm just gonna go, right? Mm-hmm. Not sure where this is gonna go, but I'm just gonna, you follow this unction that I'm getting to, to start this business and to build this idea right now. And I did that. I leaned into that and a couple of months later I was hit with a layoff. And it was a weird moment because after I got the notification from my manager at the time, I got off the teams call and I went downstairs from my office, went downstairs in my living room, and I looked at my wife and I said, I think I got laid off. And she said, well, I don't know how to take this. Why are you smiling? Hmm. Because in that layoff it was really an opportunity for me to do something that I was denying myself. and I took that as an opportunity to say, I have a, just a short runway. To be able to just go all in and to do this thing. And, and that's what I did. I used, you know, that those few months after that layoff to really start this business. Now, I wasn't done with my, my UX career at that time, but I said, Hey, while I continue to pursue that, while I have this extra time, I'm not gonna rush back into another role right away. I'm gonna just pour all of this. 'cause again, I, I saw this as an opportunity to, to just do something that I, you know, just wanted to do. And I desi deny myself from doing it for quite a long time.

Kenny 4:59

That's real, man. Yeah. Like this, it's interesting that you said you went through a layoff, right? That's nothing to like laugh about. Nope. But, the thing for me, and I'm hearing more and more people, especially in our current times, being comfortable with, okay, now let me figure out like what's next.

Calvin 5:20

And

Kenny 5:21

then. For you to say, Hey, I'm gonna start a business during this time and, and, and use that during your reset, your career reset. You I, I commend you for that one. 'cause it's not easy when you're used to like, okay, let me look at these bills coming in. Like, let, how am I supposed to pay? Yep. Yep. When you take a step back and having those moments where you can maybe dig into your passions and that still kinda does something for your career.

Calvin 5:48

Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny 5:48

Like there, there is, there's power in that.

Calvin 5:50

And yes, and I'll even say this too, it wasn't, the moment wasn't, okay, I've been laid off. What am I gonna do? And I have to go figure it out. This is something that's been stewing for a long time, even with my first professional role back in 2001. This is when I was at Hallmark Cards. I had an opportunity to join a team that was building a CD ROM game at Hallmark. And this was outside of my, my day job. My normal job was to be a, a web developer in the IT department. But through networking and relationships, I found this opportunity that was in a completely different department to be a game developer, right? And it And it was through those relationships that I had that allowed me, afforded me that opportunity create the CD ROM game that was inside of a birthday card we sold in Walmart stores around the country. right? That was my first major video game concept.

Kenny 6:50

But

Calvin 6:51

it was kind like a side table project. and I I had a few more, uh, projects like that all throughout my career. So this is something that has just been kinda slowly cooking for, for a while.

Kenny 7:02

Mm.

Calvin 7:03

And so then when I get this opportunity, another thing that led up into me deciding to do this, I was actually in the process of pursuing a grant. To raise funds to build this gaming company. And what was interesting about it was, I'm filling out the application, the crazy part about it was the questions about, um, you know, marketing or business operations, all those, those questions didn't bother me. I have an MBA, so those questions like, yeah, I, I understand those Part, the question that stuck with me after filling out the application was this, it said, why aren't you working on this full time?

Kenny 7:43

Mm-hmm

Calvin 7:43

And my answer was, I have a full-time job. And then it asked the question maybe two or three different ways trying to like, understand like, why aren't you, why is this person applying for grant money and not doing the job full-time? And I said, well, I have to have a full-time job. Well, can you do your full-time job? Part-time so that you can do the part-time thing.

Kenny 8:04

Wow.

Calvin 8:05

Full time. right?

Kenny 8:06

Okay.

Calvin 8:06

Up. "No, I can't do that because I have this full-time job and you know, I'm in this director role and I can't do that part-time. You have to be there for the team or be there for the company. You might have to travel for the company. if you're in that high level role, I can't just take off when I want to. Mm-hmm. I Have to, you commit to that job. So it just, they asked the question a couple different ways. I responded a couple different ways, but when I walked away from that application, they were excuses. right? Like, they were really trying to get to, why aren't you doing this full-time? I was telling them why I couldn't Mm.

Kenny 8:41

Mm.

Calvin 8:42

And, it stuck with me like a, again, a month before that layoff happened. And then, and then when the layoff happened, all those questions came back to me. I have no excuse now. I. Yeah To start this business, right? But the one thing on the app, everything else about the application was like, yeah, I got this. That one question bothered me. And now that burden, quote unquote, is gone. Now what can you do? Yeah. It was, it was kind a answer to a prayer, but I'm like, okay, I didn't expect it to come that way, but here we are. What are you gonna do with it, Calvin? And that was my first step. so...

Kenny 9:18

that's dope. Like you were pushed off the cliff.

Calvin 9:21

Literally.

Kenny 9:21

Yeah. In that moment. That's, that's interesting that they phrased it that way, because I get it, like a lot of times when, you know, grants are given or like, investors come and they want to put money into you, they're like, all right. Like, how do you, how do I guarantee you put all your time into this?

Calvin 9:40

Right. Right, right.

Kenny 9:40

Which is a fair question. Yeah, that's a, that's a definitely a fair question. And there's, it's just so easy to say like, life won't allow me to do that. won't it? And that's usually what the, like you said, that's where the excuses come in. Right. I think taking it off you just a little bit, 'cause I don't, I don't want you to feel like, uh, you're going through this by yourself. Like- Oh, yeah I've had that, those same kind of thoughts. I think I gave myself a runway to say by the time I'm 40 Right. I would be able to do this full time Yep. Beyond normal media on every outlet worldwide. Right. But, But, I like what you're saying, like having that, that end point Mm like to it and then now you, like you said, there's no reason why you can't follow this passion of yours.

Calvin 10:29

Right. Right.

Kenny 10:30

Right. You know? Yeah. Like you almost gotta give yourself, you gotta set it up to where you don't have an out, you don't, you can't rely on those excuses.

Calvin 10:39

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I'll, I'll build on that too. Um. When that moment happened, I was a leader I still, still I'm a leader. But one of the things I struggled with was not only was it an it, not only was it an excuse, it was crutch. I would use my full-time job to not take some of those passion initiatives seriously.

Kenny 11:04

Mm-hmm.

Calvin 11:05

And what I noticed was early on, the same skill that I would use in leading a design team at a major corporation, I could use those same leadership skills, management skills, operational skills in my own thing. And that for whatever reason, that comfort zone, that safety blanket, because I had been in the industry for so long, I know how to do this. The startup thing was new to me, even though I had attempted it a couple different times earlier in my career. So I wasn't totally foreign to it. But I knew what my shortcomings were in those previous endeavors. Now I'm coming at it differently saying, I'm wiser, I'm smarter, I have more resources, I can do this differently. And two things had a support system.

Kenny 11:58

Mm.

Calvin 11:59

Cause you're right, You're not in this alone. If you have a support system, have a wife at home that's like, we're gonna, we're gonna do this. Like, this is, this is not the worst thing we've gone through. Like we've been through more than this. So we, we got this. So when you have someone in your corner, you're like, yeah, Superman, I can, I can, I can through this. Yeah. Now. Not gonna sugarcoat it. It was tough, right? But when you have somebody that is with you, you can, you can stick it out. And then I found other people, right? So I jumped in this community, this entrepreneurial community in Charlotte and you know, met new people, m- met, met new people, got advisors, you all those things. I just tapped in to what was already available to me in the city. And then I started to learn new things and try things and just kind of step out a little bit more in a way that I hadn't done in previous, you attempts at this and got different results.

Kenny 12:56

Yeah.

Calvin 12:57

You know what I mean? So, so yeah. You definitely need that support system to,

Kenny 13:00

that helps man. That helps, man. Like that's... you know what's interesting, Uh, we had our guest, last season, Donovan, Everett. We recorded that one with a live audience, amazing conversation. And that was one of the things that stood out to me. Similar to you, tons of experience, domain expertise in a particular industry. But he mentioned the, the, the spouse having the right spouse and partner.

Calvin 13:26

Yeah.

Kenny 13:27

And how it will make or break your experience being a founder.

Calvin 13:31

Yeah.

Kenny 13:32

And, that's like- like- what do you, like, you don't know, like I don't think people are going through, maybe they are going through conversations where they're courting their spouse, asking like, if I do this, they're not, they're not proactively doing it, but they're probably like feeling it in their head. You know what I mean?

Calvin 13:53

Yep. Th- That's okay. That's a good question Right now, it's funny you say that. None of the stuff I'm doing now, we thought about when we met.

Kenny 14:03

Yeah, Yeah. So how do you even,

Calvin 14:04

over... but the reason why she decided to say yes to me when I proposed to her was she saw that I had a lot of vision. Mm. Mm. So if you don't know what tomorrow may bring, but do you have somebody that can see you and go, I don't know where we're going, but wherever it is, it's, it's gonna be amazing because you have vision. You say what you're gonna do, you do what you say you're gonna do. "And, And I can, I can get with that. I can follow that. can connect and I can help you build. right? So that's the other thing. She saw that I had vision. She saw that I was ambitious, but she also said, I'm gonna help you build it.

Kenny 14:47

Yeah.

Calvin 14:47

Yeah. Right. So then

Kenny 14:48

There's gotta be an expectation when you see somebody has vision too. Right. This person's going to think through things and they're going to come to the table with ideas.

Calvin 14:57

Yeah.

Kenny 14:57

That may go against the status quo. In a way, and I'm pretty sure you being a designer, like we're gonna dig into that. Like you're thinking of ideas that are not status quo all the time. All the time. So I can imagine, yeah. I imagine you can't turn that off. So it's like, like you said, for a partner to accept that from you, there's like, they gotta take both sides of it. There's gonna be a side that they're super comfortable with, and then the other side is there's gonna be some decisions you make that they don't fully understand.

Calvin 15:27

fully understand. Right. And you, and you can respect that, right? So that, right? So one of the, and you saying that, I remember like when we were dating in, uh, in coge, I went to a t ACU Aggie Pride. Pride, and-

Kenny 15:38

shout it out.

Calvin 15:39

Yep. And she went to Elon and, we would, you hang out, or there were times where she would want to hang out and I'm like, nah, I'm grinding, I'm, I'm doing homework. Mm. Right?

Kenny 15:50

Mm.

Calvin 15:50

And see, she would see how diligent I was at my craft. On one And so on one hand she get mad because it's "Nah, I want to go, Trying to go out. I'm trying to go out. I'm trying to go out, right? And I'm I'm like, no, I gotta listen. I'm graduating in a couple months, I gotta, I gotta get it. So, and to a lot of degrees, I, I still do that, but we've created like this balance of, okay, I gotta have my time, but then once my time is up, I gotta be locked in with her or locked in with the kids.

Kenny 16:19

Yeah, the family.

Calvin 16:20

yeah, cause she sees the vision, but then it's not just for me, it's for the family as well, right? So that balance is, is key and. And Yeah, she, she's sh- she's a soldier. She's, you know, ups, downs, the, the all-nighters and

Kenny 16:36

Yeah. Understood. Understood. She's

Calvin 16:37

patient with it. it, So,

Kenny 16:38

so let's talk a little bit about, uh, like the focus of Jubileague and take it, your experience in design. Like, I want to go back, like you're, you're focusing on the world of games. Yeah. So I have to ask you, you like were you a gamer growing up? Like, were you that kid? I was that kid. So don't feel like I'm attacking you. I can tell you about my favorite games. I can tell you about all that. So like, were you a gamer?

Calvin 17:02

I was, I wasn't a hardcore gamer. Um, I was one of those maybe wannabe gamers because my, my parents would only allow me to play games on weekends.

Kenny 17:12

Oh, Oh, okay.

Calvin 17:13

So, so I, it, it was, it was kind truncated. So it so it was, I get outta school. and Okay, we gotta go to the rental store. Mm-hmm, Block- Blockbuster? to get, get the blockbuster or whatever. Sometimes it'd be like the little mom and pop.

Kenny 17:25

Yeah. The mom and poppy ones,

Calvin 17:26

yo rentals. right? And I get the game, I would play it Friday night, Saturday night, maybe a little bit on Sunday, and that's it.

Kenny 17:33

Are you beating the game in the weekend?

Calvin 17:35

Probably not.

Kenny 17:36

Okay, got it.

Calvin 17:37

Okay. 'cause it's one of those where you, you can get a certain way through the game, but man, I only have three days, maybe two and a half days,

Kenny 17:46

And you're, and you're sleeping, you're going to sleep.

Calvin 17:48

I'm, there's a little bit of sleep maybe, but it's this is all the time I got. right? Yeah.

Kenny 17:53

Yeah.

Calvin 17:53

Where my friends can, you know, they can play all day every day after school or whatever. I, I didn't have that luxury. Right. So, I'm a

Kenny 18:01

I don't know if that's a luxury.

Calvin 18:02

a luxury I mean, kind nowadays, Well,

Kenny 18:04

yeah, we don't want 'em to play the game.

Calvin 18:05

Maybe not so much now, but then the privilege, right? Yeah, the privilege. I had access to do it where I didn't. and so yeah, it, it was more like a wannabe gamer. I wasn't into it as much, but I appreciated it. 'cause of the, the art, the music, the design. And, and I was the kid that would actually read the instructions.

Kenny 18:28

Oh

Calvin 18:28

because I,

Kenny 18:29

Oh, wow. Interesting

Calvin 18:30

process.

Kenny 18:31

I'm throwing in instructions to the side. Nah. And just like click and start and then figuring it

Calvin 18:35

out. That was my little brother. My little brother would play, he would get frustrated. I can't do Did you read the instructions? No, I said Okay. And so I would take the time to read the instructions that might, you know, you know, take a few minutes, an hour or whatever. And he would typically be the first one to play, get frustrated, get off the game that I would go in and, and you have your time game. And I have my time. Right. Got it. And in that I'm getting the full experience of the game. right? Because wherever that designer was, they had to design the cover and the layout. And so that was me at a young age kind of understanding the full user experience of the game. It's not just, you know, the cartridge that you put the in the box.

Kenny 19:10

Mm-hmm

Calvin 19:11

But it's, you know, the, the booklet that came with it, maybe it's the magazine that you would get in the grocery store, but the cheat codes, like Yeah, the whole, I was more attracted into the world of gaming even if I wasn't deep in any, you one or multiple games. So

Kenny 19:26

That's dope, bro.

Calvin 19:27

Yeah.

Kenny 19:27

And I think where we're at now, and with the anime conventions, comic book conventions, like to your point, it is more about the world that's created around it versus the game or the, the, the one comic in and of itself. It's like, no, like people are embraced, like they're immersed in the world, like they're cosplay, like they're living the characters now in the real world. so It's interesting that you were drawn to, like you mentioned, like the manuals and like that sort of

Calvin 19:57

Yeah.

Kenny 19:57

The presentation of it,

Calvin 19:59

it was the pre, it was the presentation of the game that really drew me in, and even I would remember playing the game and just stop playing. I'll even do this now, right? I'll play a game and I'll stop playing just so I can watch it. right? I would do that with like, you know, miles Morales. Mm. I did that with Horizon. Right? I'm, I'm playing and I would just stop and I would just watch like God of War. I would play and then I would just stop and just kind watch and look at the details of how the scene was designed and how the character was designed and even some of the Easter eggs, what would happen if the character is not moving, right? Mm-hmm. 'Cause it, it It has some personality.

Kenny 20:39

They may yawn or like- Yeah. Look in their book bag and

Calvin 20:42

do

calvin---playmaker_2_03-17-2026_175404 20:42

something

Kenny 20:43

different stuff.

Calvin 20:43

Yeah. Break forth wall, look at you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Looking at them, right? Like different things like that, and I'm like, wow. Somebody thought enough of the experience to put that in there, even though it may not bring any value to the game, you can't get extra points for it, but it creates a, an experience that sticks with you, right? So yeah, all of that is, it's that, that world building a storytelling I was really drawn to in addition to, man, this is awesome game. Like it's entertaining to play.

Kenny 21:11

Hmm. Mm. That's really interesting.

Calvin 21:14

Yeah. Yeah,

Kenny 21:14

because I was not, like I said, I wasn't that kid at all.

Calvin 21:17

Yeah.

Kenny 21:17

So, I commend you for that. I want to pivot a little bit, on, like what, for you to go into, to design, like what sort of courses Hmm or like what sort of thinking about learning environments, like how do you hone your, your skillset or your interest in UX design? Graphic design? Yeah where you, where, where you where, um. When you were coming up, like

Calvin 21:44

coming

Kenny 21:44

up? what was that? What was, what was that like?

Calvin 21:46

Um, some of the earliest memories I have of just being aware that I know that this thing was designed was things like commercials, right? Um, I would notice that shampoo commercials, right? I would notice that shampoo commercials may not have people in it that look like me, and I would go, interesting. need to wash my hair too, but this isn't speaking to me. Like, who, who decided to not put somebody like me inside of this or the dish washing soap commercials and how, know, you would see the lady wash the, the plate and she would hold it up and you see that little sparkle, like that little ding. And I'm going, that's not. Dishes. Don't do that when you clean it. Mm-hmm. They embellish that. Who, who made the decision to, to put that little sparkle and didn't put music behind it? It'll go bing. "Ding." Like, who decided to do that? If dishes don't do that, is that a job? Is somebody responsible for doing that? So I, I just notice stuff like that as a kid, right? Just watching TV or just going through the stores and I didn't know what that was. I didn't know was a career that you could do, that you could sign up for or go to school for. So growing up, my mom would tell me, Hey, you should go into like graphic design or go into comic book design. And I'm telling her just outright, I was like, you can't make money doing that. I don't, I don't wanna do that. I'm gonna do something that makes a lot of money. I'm gonna be an architect. So I started like getting into architecture, like studying buildings and that was, I. The path I took starting in high school. I took architectural drafting. Actually it went back into seventh grade. I took a mechanical drafting class in the seventh grade.

Kenny 23:39

Is that like CAD

Calvin 23:40

and stuff? Cad. Okay. Well it was CAD before cad, right? Yeah. Understood. Cad. Before the software we were doing it with like pencil and paper and like stuff like that. And

calvin---playmaker_2_03-17-2026_175404 23:49

Compass,

Calvin 23:49

T Square compasses. Got it you know, Yeah. Got it. Understood. All of that.

Kenny 23:53

Okay.

Calvin 23:53

And so I did that from seventh grade all the way through 11th grade. It was all, all paper. All paper, pencils, things.

Kenny 24:01

Yeah. That's a

Calvin 24:01

real

Kenny 24:02

deal.

Calvin 24:02

real deal. Real deal, right? Loved it. Loved designing houses and buildings and stuff like that. In the 11th grade, CAD came in. And it was only one computer in the classroom and the other, I don't know, 20 or so desks were still like your architectural like tables. And I remember looking at that computer and telling my teacher, Mr. Parker. I'm gonna use that computer. That computer cannot design better than I can. Mm.

Kenny 24:33

Mm.

Calvin 24:33

You can forget it.

Kenny 24:34

Oh, we gonna talk about this, later, Uhh where we're at now. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. No, you, you giving me a segue, but going. Uh-huh. keep going.

Calvin 24:41

And, and I fought it. And then the next year, instead of one computer, it was a whole row. And I had taken this architectural drafting class. This is now my fourth year straight, all through high school. I know I am going to be an architect when I, when I grow up. Can't convince me otherwise. Mr. Parker said, I don't know what you gotta do, but you are not getting out of this class

Kenny 25:04

without

Calvin 25:04

touching it, without touching cad, without touching AutoCAD. And I said, okay, all right, fine. I'll try it. I used it one time and was hooked.

Kenny 25:14

Mm-hmm.

Calvin 25:15

Because I understood that all the things that I didn't like. About hand drawing, like the little arrows that we had, Mr. Parker would grade us on the curve of the arrows. If the curve wasn't precise enough, he would dot points from our blueprint,

Kenny 25:33

right? Mm-hmm.

Calvin 25:34

And that was so tedious, but I just got so used to doing it because I wanted an A, right? So I would do it right, but when I would get on AutoCAD and I would design it perfect once, and it would become a design system that I can just copy and paste and deploy everywhere. I was like, oh, okay. So all the tedious stuff that I don't want to do, this computer could do it a lot better than I can, but now I could spend more time doing all the stuff that I love to do, right? I even had like a little, uh, side project when I was in high school. Our high school was, uh, doing some construction work on the football field and track field. And so our athletic director came to Mr. Parker and said, Hey, I need a student to, to do, you know, to, you know, lay this out, create a blueprint so we can do some construction work out here. And he goes, I got the person for you, and I played football and ran track. So it was like, you know, wow. That's a, that's awesome. That's the

Kenny 26:27

best of Bo, both worlds for you, right?

Calvin 26:29

Yeah. It was like the, the, the part was after they redesigned it, I never performed on it.

Kenny 26:34

Oh, Oh, really? Because you had left.

Calvin 26:36

I left, by yeah. Okay. That was a senior project. You, it was like, yeah.

Kenny 26:39

Okay.

Calvin 26:40

Bittersweet. It was like, yeah, I'm laying out this blueprint for a new stadium and I But- I came back and visited

Kenny 26:45

You held off on touching it.

Calvin 26:48

Yeah. for a little bit. For a little bit, yeah. Versus so that I can be in that moment to be the student. Yeah, exactly. Bring that experience, you know, to the, to the school. Right. And so and so yeah. That was kind of the, the start of my, now going into ux. right? Even though I'm not doing architectural design anymore, all of those skills still apply. Because it's, you know what I tell a lot of people in ux, the visual part is great. The visual part to me is more of a byproduct of understanding of people work. how work, how people move through systems, how systems are designed to direct people to do something or not do something. So those are the, the skills that were transferable in the UX world, in the software development world. right? And then if I do that part well, right? that's the one thing you learn about designing a house. somebody has to live in this house day in and day out, you want them to have a good experience. You have to understand how people work and how they move and how they think. And if I take those same principles and move into software design, I get the same results. And as a byproduct, you have awesome looking software.

Kenny 27:53

Yeah. I like it. So let's talk about, there was something in there that you said there were a couple things, right? But we're gonna touch on experience of you having at an early age, having exposure to that. And things start to, the wheel starts to turn in terms of like you wanna go down the architecture path, the design path. Talk about what Jubileague you believe in the Playmaker program, like what are you seeing, like what needs to be front and center in your opinion, for the, next generation of architects and game developers and stuff like that? Yeah,

Calvin 28:24

and that's one of the reasons why I started Playmaker. Playmaker. part of it was to, to scratch an itch that I saw, uh, going into the gaming industry. one, I saw a lot of layoffs in the industry and even in my layoff, I was considering going into, uh, a different, uh, you know, going into the gaming industry, you know, trying to move into these different companies. Didn't get any traction, primarily because I'm kind of a newbie, like I have no gaming background or it's not in my resume except for those, you know, those side projects that I did at these different companies, right? Mm-hmm. I don't have a AAA A game release, you know, behind my name, so nobody's, you know, probably looking for somebody like me, right? But then I'm also noticing that people with that experience are still having an issue getting into these, into these roles.

Kenny 29:17

Mm.

Calvin 29:17

And we have our kids coming up today and they're seeing gaming become big and have no clue how do I bridge the gap between where I am now and how do I get into the industry? And you take that and you also couple it with the tools that are out there, right? So now my, my UX brain is kicking in and I'm looking at these tools that game developers use to make games. And compared to like web design or software design, the tools aren't as mature. The process, I would rather say the process to make a game isn't as, uh- directed as you would see with like enterprise software, right?

Kenny 30:00

Mm-hmm.

Calvin 30:01

So it's kinda, it's a lot looser. um, not as many guardrails in, in the gaming space that you would see in, you know, tech. So seeing that I'm going, wow, how would anybody who wants to get into this industry really make it unless they learn the tools? Like you have to learn the tools. Well, one of the things that I've, I'm realizing just in my history, in my, you career in, in UX is when you over index on learning the tool and you don't put enough stock into the craft of making a game, you will confuse the two. You will think that because I know the tool,

Kenny 30:39

Mm

Calvin 30:39

I know how to create a great game. right? And I think this is the problem that we're seeing in the, in the gaming industry is like, you have people that know how to use a tool, but do you know how to create a game that's worthy of somebody's time? right? Mm. Yeah. Or their dollar to download, to, to play on their, you know, console of choice. So with Playmaker, we decided to focus on that. We decided to say, okay, just forget the tools just for a second. Do you understand what it takes to make a game that's fun? Mm-hmm. And we kinda use the concept of storytelling, right? Because if you think about any game, it just, Nick, what's your favorite game?

Kenny 31:21

Monopoly.

Calvin 31:22

Monopoly. There is a story behind Monopoly. Whether you recognize it or not, whether you bought into it or not. the backstory, the the history of it, the culture that's built around it. There's a, there's a story that's baked into it to where even the people listening, when they hear the word monopoly there, there are images that are already firing in their head.

Kenny 31:41

Mm-hmm.

Calvin 31:41

And all you said was Monopoly. That's it.

Kenny 31:43

Yeah.

Calvin 31:44

Because they took the time to build a story and then the game was a byproduct of the story. Even the structure of it, even, you know, it's taking themes from, you know, different streets and avenues and the economy and taxes and all that. There's an inherent story. That's. Coincides with our actual life. So you can relate to it very quickly. Yeah. You don't have to think about it. Even if you've never played Monopoly before, you get the premise off the bat. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That story drives the game, right? If you get the story right, the design of the game, the experience of the game will follow regardless of the tools. Monopoly is a paper game.

Kenny 32:27

Yeah.

Calvin 32:28

They have a, it's

Kenny 32:28

super simple.

Calvin 32:29

Super simple, right? Monopoly, go, I have a monopoly. Go on my phone. It's a fun game. But that's a byproduct of history of stories for decades that carry it. So with Playmaker, we focus more on, do you have a good story for your game? right? Do you understand the mechanics of a game? Do you understand the rules of engagement of a game? Because if I can get you to understand that first, and then spend a few days with me, you produce a paper game, now you've. Design something built, something, played this game with your friends, with your family members, and you're like, okay, I, I did it. And now you just unlocked, you know that achievement for making a game? No, it wasn't on Xbox or PlayStation or anything like that, but you, you just created something from scratch, from nothing.

Kenny 33:19

Mm-hmm.

Calvin 33:19

And it's yours. It's your intellectual property. Now, when I introduce you to C Sharp or Swift, or Kotlin, all these different programming languages that underpin the games that you're playing, that you don't understand that there's deep code computer science under that game. It's not just pretty costumes and stuff. There's some real code underneath these games that are making them run right now. When I teach you that part, when it gets hard, you won't run from it because you've already created a game. This isn't paper format. You've already been validated by your family members, your friends. This is a solid game. It's fun. So when it gets hard, you'll stick with it because it's already in your mind. You've already built a story and maybe a little bit of culture around it. Right? Now, you ask a different question. It's not, okay, I want to get into the gaming industry. Okay? What tools do I need to learn? Right? Because anybody will tell you a tool, depending on who you talk to. They'll give you a tool. You'll go download the tool, watch a YouTube video, and then give up when it gets hard. But the difference is if you say, Hey, I made this game. I really like it. Tell me how I can make my character do this, or tell me how I can create an environment that's fitting for this story that I'm creating. That's a different question. Because now you're, you're bringing some substance to me. And if I'm a mentor or a teacher, and you bring that to me, okay, yeah, let's sit down, let's break this thing apart. And let me show you how you can use the tools and the technology to bring your vision to life versus trying to use it as a shortcut to jump into an industry because you heard you might

Kenny 35:03

be able to make some money,

Calvin 35:04

right?

Kenny 35:05

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's, that's the initial, that's always the initial thought, like, oh yeah. I think game developers make a lot of money and Yeah. And some of them, and I've talked to, I have some people in my network who are, independent game developers. And they spend a lot of whatever comes in. So I don't know if it's true, like,

Calvin 35:28

yeah,

Kenny 35:29

you know, there that there's this, this significant portion of the, the industry that's making this money. But you touched on something there. And I think the idea of creating the physical product and then taking that into the, you know, a digital into our devices now, like there's so much value in my mind. There's like a premium on experiences now. Right. And so the experience of playing our favorite games, the experience of playing a game like Spades That goes along with some of these games and they're super basic, to your point, super basic. Right. But people have been playing them since the beginning of time for a reason. Right, right. And there's this staying par with that. And it's, it's really the story behind the game and people connect with. I think it's great that you're centering that for the kids. And I'm going to date myself a little bit, but taking the phones away from them, which I is, is a great, is a great thing for me. And here we have on the screen. Right. That takes me to the game because I know the kids are like, well, you're teaching us this, this, where's your game at? Yep. And so talk a little bit about the game where they can find it and like what was the thought process around it?

Calvin 36:37

Yeah.

Kenny 36:37

You know, like you said, the experience that you were trying to

Calvin 36:40

absolutely

Kenny 36:40

put into

Calvin 36:41

this. So yeah, this the good story around this game. So this game is dwarf reach for the Stars. And this was my first game. That I built. So by the time this game came along, or this idea came to me, I had designed and developed three games for three different companies. So after the third one, I went, okay, this was, this was kind of fun. Let me see if I can build my own concept and, and build around it. So, one Saturday morning I woke up and I said, you know what? I've been thinking about this long enough. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna make this game. I woke up that morning, early that morning before my two boys woke up. This, my boys were young, I think they were still single digit age at the time. And, I said, I'm, I'm gonna build enough of a prototype to get them to play it and to see if it's any good, right? Can I hold their attention more than, you know, two seconds. So I had this idea of a game to where I would have stars just kind of hidden in space, like using the, the, the compass and the gyroscope on the phone to find these hidden stars. So I built a prototype, put it on my phone. When my boys got up, I said, Hey, I made this game. I want you to play it and, and, you know, tell me if it's good or not. And they were like, well, how do you play? I said, I hid three stars. And what you have to do is like, you have to physically move your body, like spin around in circles or whatever and, and find the star. They're just hidden in space,

Kenny 38:06

right?

Calvin 38:07

And so my oldest son, Isaiah, he plays it and he's like turning in circles. And then when the first star showed up on the screen, he goes, I found one dad. And I was like, okay, good. Find the other three, right? So he did, he spins around, he's jumping and he's doing all this kind of stuff, and he finds all three stars. And I take the phone from him, I reset the game, and I give it to my, my younger son, Titus. And he kind of does the same thing, right? And so after they play it, I was like, what do you think? Was that a good, good concept? They were like, yeah, I really liked that. And so I, you know, I changed the coordinates of the stars and I gave it back to him. I did that maybe two or three times that morning. And it was to the point where it really like held their attention. Like I had to be like, okay, I need my phone back now. Right? Let me, let me keep working on it. So once I did that quick test, like literally like that morning, like this was something that I hadn't Googled it or researched it, it was just, I woke up that morning and I said, I have to do something. Let me just spend an hour or two, build enough of a prototype, put it in a kid's hand, lemme see what happens. Once I had that, I went, okay, let me build this out into the concept that you see now where instead of it just being like a white screen with three stars on it, it was, can I immerse you in a 3D world and can I accept these like different polar ordinances and have these stars as just kind of all around like in 3D space. And then set a timer behind it and put like some, you know, retro arcade music behind it And make it into this concept of dwarf that it is today. Right. And even, you know, we talked about having a support system and having my spouse help, I even got the game to a place to where the concept was good. I had this space theme. I think at the time there was a, a blood moon eclipse about to happen, and so we were all like NASA geeks and, you know, just kind of in that space mode. Right. And, but I didn't have a name yet. And so we were coming up with different ideas for names and nothing was sticking. And, and I was like, I don't know, nothing is happening. And my wife goes, why don't you call it dwarf? Like, like dwarf star?

Kenny 40:14

Yeah. I

Calvin 40:15

thought of

Kenny 40:16

dwarf star when you just said that.

Calvin 40:17

I was like, that is dope. I mean, she just kind of, again, she's not, she's in healthcare. Like she does not like this design stuff and, but she seen me like toil over this name and she's just like, what? Call it dwarf and it just, bam, that's it. And so it's been dwarf, ever since. And I just, I just, not too long ago remastered it for, for iOS and I'm working on another version for, for Android as well. And again, it's kind of that labor of love. One, it was that project to see if I could actually do it, and two, to see if, if people actually, you know, would, would wanna play it. and it's one of those games that I, I still kind of go back to, even with my busy life and busy schedule, you know, I prioritize so many other things, but my, my baby, dwarf here is,

Kenny 41:11

yeah.

Calvin 41:11

One of those things that I keep pushing. So

Kenny 41:13

you mentioned, remaster.

Calvin 41:16

Yeah.

Kenny 41:16

Just now.

Calvin 41:17

Yeah.

Kenny 41:18

Tell. Like, what does, what does that entail for a, a game? Yeah. I know. I, I haven't, I've obviously heard of remastering for like music.

Calvin 41:26

Yeah.

Kenny 41:27

Like a remastered version of like a classic album comes out.

Calvin 41:31

Or, or another way to say it's like refactor, like I refactored all the code.

Kenny 41:35

Okay.

Calvin 41:35

That was in it.

Kenny 41:36

So more efficient.

Calvin 41:37

Make it more efficient. The first, the very first version of Dwarf was written with a technology called Cordova. And so basically it was, yeah, it, I'll explain.

Kenny 41:49

Yeah, explain, explain it to me please.

Calvin 41:51

So Cordova or Foam Gap, some people might know it by the name Foam Gap. So it is basically a, if you're building, which you know, my career, I had a career building web applications. So most of the stuff I did in my nine to five was web apps. Right? So I'm building with HTML, JavaScript, maybe some service side languages, like Java or PHP or Pearl or something like that. So that was my world. My world was not game development. Which uses a different technology stack. Right.

Kenny 42:21

Okay.

Calvin 42:22

So to bridge the gap to build these games, there were these tools called Phone Gap that allowed you to build games using web technologies. And it would literally like fill the gap. It would take your web-based technology and convert it in a way that it can run on a mobile device.

Kenny 42:39

Oh, okay.

Calvin 42:40

So I used that as a way to quickly get the first version of the game out again to test it to see if this is, you know, something that, would hold any value. But then after I did that, I went okay. Now, if I really wanna be serious and make this, I need to learn, swift, which is, iOS, apple, iOS, their native language for their platform. Okay. And Kotlin, which is, or Google, and the Play store for their apps, their native language is Kotlin. So again, I've learned multiple programming languages throughout my career. So I, I looked at this as like a, a curiosity thing to be able to learn just another language. Right? And once I get the syntax of the language, I got it. I can build anything and I'll just, you know, just build it in those different formats. So now we're in the process of, okay, build it for iOS and Swift, build it for Kotlin for the Google Play Store. But in the middle of that, I picked up an opportunity to teach gaming game development at Champlain College. Now, Champlin College is a unity shop. I've never built a game, okay? In unity. So in that transition, I'm learning yet another, you know, gaming development platform to just increase my understanding of, of the, of the industry. Now, in the beginning, I didn't, I didn't necessarily like that because when I looked at tools like Unity and Unreal, I kind of felt they were bloated and relatively speaking they are, because again, I come from a web world where things are a lot lighter, a lot faster, not massive multi megabyte, sometimes gigabyte, you know, single, you know, code base is sitting on a, on a console. so it, it is beefier than what I was accustomed to. But once I learned it and learned how it works, I was able to kind of manage, you know, that accordingly. So, so that's kind of the evolution of how I'm learning all these different programming languages and these game development tools to get a better understanding of. What's required in the gaming industry. And then to also help me educate, like I said, I'm, I'm teaching game development at Champlin, so I'm educating these students on how to learn, understand the tools, but also keep the craft as you prepare for the industry.

Kenny 45:03

And you have to, for consoles, you'd have to incorporate a unity or, right. Okay.

Calvin 45:13

Yeah, because it's, it's written in, a lot of these games are written in C Okay. Or c++, which for these consoles, right, like even like a Windows machine or Xbox, something like C or, or c++ will run like really well. So it's a performance thing.

Kenny 45:31

Okay. Right.

Calvin 45:32

But then you also use these tools to where you can build it in one common platform with a common language like c. And then deploy it in multiple mediums, right? So that's the benefit of it. It's, it's the gaming industry saying, yeah, I know there are a gajillion different, you know, consoles and, and hardware devices for you to play your game, but we can streamline all that by using a c based, you know, code base, right? And then compile it down to a way to where it can, it can be played in different areas. So,

Kenny 46:06

okay.

Calvin 46:06

Yeah.

Kenny 46:07

So let's talk a little bit about, you touched earlier, it was the segue you gave me. I wanna make sure we, we segue back to that. Yeah. Where you were talk, talking a little bit about, you reached a point, where you understood that, you know, there's tools and the tools allow, they, they, the computer, it automated the things you didn't want to do so that you could do the things you enjoy now. Right? So now we're in a space now where. I mean, it is debatable how much work can be done for us. Right. But it seems like a lot of the work can be done for us. Yeah. So I'll give you an example in context and then I'll pass it to you. definitely for your perspective. Right. I recently shifted our beyond normal media.com from a traditional web hosting platform. Right. And now it's on a lovable.

Calvin 47:00

Yeah.

Kenny 47:01

Right. And so I'm curious your thoughts with. Businesses doing that, right? Where it, it seems like the AI can write some of it. And then now I feel like I'm a coder a little bit. And it's like, you know, like what, talk a little bit about where we're at and how, maybe even in the, the context of the class, you know, the, the, the, the PLAYMAKER program. Like how do you, how do you factor in that the kids are going gonna want to do some AI things and let the AI do some of the work?

Calvin 47:30

Yeah, that's a, that's a loaded question. I figured as much I, well, I'll start with the, the first question of what do, what do I think about companies making that move over? I don't necessarily think it's right or wrong, or, or bad, or, I think it, I think it depends on what you're after. I think in a lot of respects it can help companies. Who don't have the resources and don't have the means to, to have those type of experiences that, you know, maybe a team of highly trained engineers can give you, right? you can type it into a box and or say it, it will produce it for you, right? I think there's a lot of value in that. so I won't immediately like dismiss it and say that's bad. I do think that it does open up a different question of do you understand the goals that you're after? Do you understand the type of experience that you want to create? And if you do, you can articulate that to this tool and it will, it will generate exactly what you need. So where I'm seeing people really get the benefit of it, if, if you have a very clear vision about what you're trying to accomplish, and this tool can help you get there faster. There's, there it is. And it may not necessarily be a thing of laying off of jobs or anything like that. Now, again, I think there are some scenarios where somebody jumped on the AI train really quickly, maybe made some bad decisions, and then had to come back and adjust some things maybe in the form of layoffs or, you know, some other fashion, and we should just call that out for what it is, right? You just made a bad decision

Kenny 49:25

even if the, the founder or the CEO doesn't, in some cases, like right, we, we call a spade. A spade.

Calvin 49:30

We call a spade a spade, right? Somebody made a bad decision, and I, I don't know why we're afraid to just say that,

Kenny 49:37

right?

Calvin 49:37

But I think in some cases it's not that. I think in some cases it's, I can't afford to have a team of a hundred engineers. So this is the next best thing for me. So I'm gonna use this, and if I have a clear vision of what I want to accomplish. Win-win. Now, if you don't have a clear vision and you have this powerful tool, what you'll see is AI slot. What you see is like memes and cartoons over social media. That's what you're seeing right now. That's people that get a new tool and don't really understand the purpose of it. Right. When you don't understand the purpose of a thing, abuse is inevitable. Right. So, again, not inherently bad, I think it's just how, how you use it. Now when you think about the next generation coming up, I'm actually pretty excited because I'll give you a quick analogy, right. So in my background, I know how to do video editing. Nothing to the level of what you're probably doing on a regular basis. You'd be surprised.

Kenny 50:41

You would be surprised,

Calvin 50:43

but you know, I can, I can make my way around Final cut, right? But. When I do final cut, like at home, I have like two big monitors. Like I need a whole setup. It's a desktop situation. Like I need, I'm not comfortable video editing unless I have that

Kenny 50:58

right. Okay.

Calvin 50:59

But I had my son do some work for me for Playmaker. I said, Hey, can you make me like a, a sizzle reel for something really quick? He did it in a couple of hours all on his phone. Yeah. And I'm going, I wouldn't,

Kenny 51:10

you can do a lot from your phone now.

Calvin 51:12

You can do a lot from your phone right now. I know I can do it from my phone, but that's just not my preference. Right. I went to school to do video editing. He learned how to do it on TikTok and YouTube. He learned on his phone and he's doing the final deliverable on his phone, and I looked at that and I didn't shut him down. I embraced it. I was like, that's pretty cool, because the clip was hot.

Kenny 51:33

Right. Yeah.

Calvin 51:34

So I think about it from that perspective of, okay, now this new generation that's coming up, they'll have tools like ai. And in my household, I, I don't shut it down either. Right. Like, hey, I mean, I feel like this is the future. Now don't give up the craft. You still need to know your stuff. And I'm gonna test you on that. Use the tool, but do you know what you're talking about? Have to use the tool, or if it did all the work for you, and you can't stand here and explain to me like the old school, like, okay, you do your math. Yeah. And show your work. You gotta show your work. So if you can show your work and use a tool at the same time, then yeah. I'll, I'll endorse that. I think that's, a, a realistic expectation with where things are going.

Kenny 52:17

Yeah. I'm not, I'm not mad at the, to your point, like the, the new generation using it and I'll, I'll give, like, I've heard stories now of like interviews, like people interviewing for jobs and it's like, you can tell they use AI for their resume and then you can also tell they're using AI in the interview. And I'm like, like guys, like eventually you can't look at, for the robot to give you. The answer. And I think the part where I feel comfortable the most with the robot never doing the work is like, at least the foundation of the story coming from a human that makes me feel a lot more

Calvin 52:54

Yep.

Kenny 52:55

Comfortable

Calvin 52:55

right

Kenny 52:56

with it.

Calvin 52:57

I agree. I agree with that. And I think you, you also need to think of it as a thought partner.

Kenny 53:03

Mm.

Calvin 53:04

So there's a, a book that we're reading on my job. It's called the AI Driven Leader. it's by Jeff Woods. And the idea is that you do not give over yourself to this robot. Right? You still remain the, the strategist, the, the ip, the thoughts, the imagination, the originality still comes from you, but you recognize that this is a partner. You recognize that this is a thing, that you can tell it something, and that you also set expectations I need for you to do. This or that, and you, you instructed on how it is supposed to respond back to you. You don't just throw it out there and just go, what do you think? Right? You have to direct it because you are still very much in control. Like don't relinquish that control, to it. Now, if you do that, then yes, you can, you can wield it to do whatever it is that you, you needed to do. Right? I use it on a daily basis. Right.

Kenny 54:06

Me too. Me too.

Calvin 54:07

And it is, and it is crazy. It's crazy how, how much more creative I am. The, the analogy that I, I've thought about with, you know, with how AI has become so popular in the last two or three years right now, is the transition I had becoming a leader. Right? When I was an individual contributor, my job was to come in clock in. Build the app or do the research or do whatever the ux, you know, process needed me to do that day and then go home. And I noticed that I had a limitation. I could only work on two high level initiatives at a time. Maybe I can do like two major projects and maybe one side project, but if you give me three like high level projects, I just, there's not enough time in the day. I can't touch that many people all at one time. And so I had limitations, like physical limitations of how much I could do when I became a manager. And, and it wasn't just me being promoted, it was me coming into a new role and then being taught that, hey, this is a new job. You're no longer an individual contributor. As a leader, we don't expect you to know how to use Figma or know how to, you know, facilitate a workshop.

Kenny 55:30

There's no more player coach, just coach.

Calvin 55:33

You're more than a coach. It's just coach. Right. And your job is to recognize that you have players on your team.

Kenny 55:39

And

Calvin 55:39

your job is to make sure that you do the blocking and tackling so the players can do what they need to do. Unbothered, right? That's your job. Right? Once I got that, I was so much more creative. Hmm. I, I did not expect that. I did not expect how creative I would be as a leader, because nobody tells you that when you're in ic. They tell you that being a manager is boring and nobody wants to do that, or we don't need managers. We can just do it all our ourselves. But when I made that crossover properly with the right mentorship, I became way more creative, more creative than I thought I would. And the reason was because I wasn't using all of my creativity to do one singular. I always use my creativity to create a team of designers that collectively could do more than I could do individually. So when AI comes along, I'm going, okay, this is crazy. So I'm a design leader with ai. Say less, how much more can I do now? I can now kind of relinquish a certain task that I do because the computer can do it a lot faster than I can. And then when I get back is more strategy things that I can then bring to a team of people to go do. So I still keep the human in the middle. I still keep the humanity aspect of what we do, but I don't, I don't mix metaphors here. Right. Like I have a team of people and I have a team of technology tools and I'm trying to use them both appropriately. Right. To maximize what either I can do or what my team can do.

Kenny 57:15

Ah, that's dope. So. Now I know. Now I know that you have this mindset, which I think is definitely progressive. Like it's, it's where we are. Like, like you said, we need to embrace the ai. We need to embrace and figure out how to lead in this moment. Now that you like, I guess, what are you seeing from, what are you seeing from the, the talent that you're leading or the next generation? Like you said, it sounds like you're excited. Yeah. The, on the space that we're in, and then the next, you know, version of individual contributors and then the, the babies coming up and, and embracing this. Like, I guess what, what are you seeing, seeing that? How are you seeing them embrace this tool, this moment we're in that separates it from your experience? Hmm. Because your experience, like you said, you came up, you had some hesitation, right? Yeah. And then this computer came, and then you just focus more on what you enjoy.

Calvin 58:31

Yeah.

Kenny 58:32

Is that the same, are they doing, are they embracing the tool that way and, and saying, I want to do more of the same? Or for them, is it more like, we've taken the, the rails off, so be it to a little bit more Yeah. And they're just exploring.

Calvin 58:45

Yeah.

Kenny 58:46

Any and all ideas?

Calvin 58:48

I, I think it is that, I think it is they're exploring any and all ideas. I think they are embracing technology faster than previous generations. I think part of it is because of the speed of it in some respects. Like they have no choice but to embrace it if they, they wanna stay relevant. Um. I think that with that, there is a caution though. there is, and I'm not, I don't wanna say this is like a blanket statement, but I think in that speed you can lose some fidelity. Right. Which previous generations, I think that was the, the, the experience of previous generations, right? Like this idea of like, wait, your turn or like you heard the, like the 10,000 hours. You're not a professional unless you've done something repetitively. Right. But now it's hard to do anything for 10,000 hours. 'cause it all changes. Right. So now the definition of what 10,000 hours is, might have to change

Kenny 59:56

and you can do your 10,000 hours with ai. How, how much time?

Calvin 1:00:01

Well, well, that's the thing. So is it, is it a couple days now? Is it, is it 10,000 hours squished down to a couple of days? And it's the equivalent of somebody who's been in the industry, right? Because if it's, here's the, the question, right? Don't, don't know right or wrong or what have you, just posing a question. If yes, if I need an attorney and I hire a really good attorney to, you know, fix my situation, then yeah, that's, that's great. If I have the means to do that, that's great, but if I use a tool that can do it in five minutes The situation is fixed, but the thing I don't have is a relationship with an attorney that I could go back to, or I don't know what levers that attorney pulled or what levers this AI tool pool to solve my issue. So now I have to try it again. And the difference between a person is there's some level of trust there. But even that can be tricky, right? Because it is a person, right? We're all flawed and we all have issues and all those type of things, right? So I don't, I don't necessarily look at it as. Right versus wrong. I look at it as it's, it's either conditional, right? There are risks with having an attorney that's a person, there's a risk of having an attorney that's a bot. It just depends on your level of your personal level of

Kenny 1:01:24

Yeah. What's at stake. Yeah. What's at stake,

Calvin 1:01:26

what's at stake for you. But then you also gotta take into consideration what impact would either one of those decisions make on the people that are around you. Right. So, yeah, you would, you, instead of hiring an attorney for your business, you hired AI and it solved the one case, but then is your entire business riding on that? You, are you okay with that risk? You know, fair or file? Right. Did, did it work? Right? So

Kenny 1:01:54

that's up to the person.

Calvin 1:01:55

It's, it's ultimately up to the person. Right. Even the, the, the outcome. Right. Backlash, the good and the bad. Right? Yeah. So if you, if you take the pats on the back when it works. You gotta take the hits when it don't.

Kenny 1:02:10

Yeah. And, and I think the, the AI has a, a built-in mechanism to please a little bit, that worries me to your point. Like you meant going back to the fidelity and so it's like, it's going to tell you in most cases, like to keep going through something versus having the, the, the actual experience of like touching something and somebody telling you like, no, that Don't do that anymore. Like, right,

Calvin 1:02:43

right.

Kenny 1:02:44

You know what I mean? Like, there is no, it, it's both sides though. It

Calvin 1:02:47

is, it is.

Kenny 1:02:48

E exploration is like crazy right now. Any idea can be explored, but then it's like, okay, what do you really want to put your resources into?

Calvin 1:02:57

That's right.

Kenny 1:02:57

That's right.

Calvin 1:02:58

And you know what, and I've, I've, I've heard people say that, you know, it, it's agreeable, you know, and all those types of things. Again, at the same time, if you know it's agreeable, tell it to not

Kenny 1:03:09

Yeah. That you brought that out early. You brought that out early.

Calvin 1:03:11

Tell it to challenge you. And I do that. Like another thing that I like to do is I tell it to interview me. I don't want it to assume The right answer or whatever. It's, I want you to interview me so that you can take what I'm saying as

Kenny 1:03:28

Yeah.

Calvin 1:03:28

You know, value.

Kenny 1:03:29

I think it, and that makes sense because the way, the way where we're at now, it's definitely more efficient. AI in doing like more like deterministic, like going down set paths versus being like, Hey, see how many paths there are. And you pick one and it's like, well, it's a black box. I don't know why it's picking any, yeah. It'll just keep going. It'll just keep saying, yeah, let's keep exploring. It's like. No, like I need a little bit more, like you said, definition around this. So that's, that's that, that's key. You

Calvin 1:03:58

gotta define

Kenny 1:03:58

it. Yeah, you gotta define it. still puts us in the middle.

Calvin 1:04:01

Exactly.

Kenny 1:04:01

So I wanna, I want to bring this, a little bit full circle here. How can, well let us know, like for the Playmaker program with the next generation of gamers, game developers, like what's in store for this upcoming year and then how people can tap in and support, like what does that support look like?

Calvin 1:04:20

Absolutely. well, for many people, if you go to calvin robertson.com. You can find me, right? I'm working on a, a new, website. So depending on when people hear this, they, they may see that, but if not, you know, you

Kenny 1:04:36

always have Calvin Robinson, I don't see

Calvin 1:04:38

you. We always have Calvin Robinson, right? So that'll, that'll be the best way to connect with me to, to all the things that, that we're gonna be doing. but more specifically, we have a, another summer game camp coming up. this summer we're gonna do it again at Duke Greater, this will be our third Playmaker game design camp. So they're always a great, great experience. So, you know, again, connect with me online for, for that. I also have a couple of speaking engagements coming up. occasionally I will do a, a, a speaking tour. one will be in Amsterdam, middle of April. I'll be there, at the Smashing Conference this year, and then later in the year, in the October timeframe, will be in the Maryland area at the UX conference. there. So look for more on that. And so, but other than that, yeah, you'll see me on social media releasing, more things. I'm also working on another, another game, a word game. so be on the lookout for that. and so singly enough, it's a, the original version of this game, it's actually a Dutch game. So it's kind of serendipitous that I'm going to Amsterdam,

Kenny 1:05:49

that's dope

Calvin 1:05:49

in a few weeks and I'll, I'll go there and, you know, kind of share that game with the people there. And, but yeah, that'll be coming out later this year too.

Kenny 1:05:57

And I'm curious like, it is conference season, to, to the start of the year for sure. I'm curious, when you get into the UX conferences and you're in, in these spaces, like is there anything in particular that's exciting you, like anything upcoming that you're like, oh, like make sure this is on your radar, not for people that may not, not just for the UX professionals, but like for founders, like, hey, what tools are out there from a design perspective that help me tell a story to my audience? Is there anything,

Calvin 1:06:28

well, maybe a slightly different angle. I think the thing that is really, you know, getting me, and this is one of the things that I'm gonna be speaking about at these conferences, is really the transition in leader. 'cause I think a lot of the challenges that we're having, whether it's gaming industry or tech industry or UX, is leadership. We don't always have leaders who understand the space Or understand how to build teams. And the biggest challenge with that is we have good people. They know their craft, but they weren't guided into leadership because it is a different job. And so that's one of the things that, you know, I've been really big on in the past couple of years, because everybody's talking about tools, right? Everybody's talking about processes and all those type of things. And so I feel like, yeah, we have enough of that.

Kenny 1:07:20

The

Calvin 1:07:20

thing nobody's talking about is how do I, how do I change this climate? How do I change this environment? Mm. How do I create an environment where designers can come in and solve real problems? Right. Developers can come in and, and do some awesome things. Then even with ai, right? How you gotta be in a position of some level of authority to even, you know, make, you know, that type of impact. And so for me, that's been really, really key that I, I start to spread that Message a little bit, because again, it's that same analogy I gave about being an ic, coming to a manager. Yeah. I can tell you about tools, but if I get in your head and show you how you can be a better leader, you bring all the tools that you have with you, which will far exceed the tools that I can have. It's like both of us can bring to our, you know, respective spheres of influence. We can bring all of our tools together. But the conversation that we had is really about how do I get you to see. Yourself as a leader.

Kenny 1:08:22

Exactly. You

Calvin 1:08:23

show up in your,

Kenny 1:08:24

in whatever space you're in, in

Calvin 1:08:25

whatever space you're

Kenny 1:08:25

in. Yeah. And I, I think that's powerful because like you said, we go on, like everybody's a, a student of YouTube University now. Like you can easily go up there and learn a tool, learn a language, learn a, a process or procedure. And it's like now that we're at that point, it's like, like the value is definitely in you showing up and then unlocking value for yourself and more importantly for others like

calvin---playmaker_2_03-17-2026_175404 1:08:48

other

Calvin 1:08:48

people. And the critical thinking that goes with

Kenny 1:08:50

that.

Calvin 1:08:50

It's like, we don't, we don't, if there was a, a YouTube video, you don't see that many YouTube videos. There's a plethora YouTube videos about Figma.

Kenny 1:08:59

Oh, for sure.

Calvin 1:09:00

But that part, yeah.

Kenny 1:09:01

You don't see too many people and, and specifically see people like dive into it. It's few and far between. Right.

Calvin 1:09:08

That's, that's it.

Kenny 1:09:09

That's it. Yeah. That's few and far.

Calvin 1:09:10

So that's, so that's, again, that's part of my, my speaking tour. It is really my concept. I'm calling overflowing leadership. to where I talk with aspiring leaders about how do you, don't just keep the leadership to yourself. How do you pass it on to a team to where they can start to do things that exceed what you can do as a

Kenny 1:09:28

Yeah. That's dope. Coming to a platform near you. So I will definitely be supporting and you let us know how we can, help out there beyond normal media. Absolutely. Lastly, for this season, this, we're, we're definitely asking our guests to challenge people's thinking, right? And so I want you to close us out, you know, what do you want people to change about the way that they think about design after this, you know, hearing this incredible conversation where you dropped so many gems, but like, what do you want people to change after hearing this? Yeah. And then moving forward about the space of design.

Calvin 1:10:05

Absolutely. that design is a byproduct. Design is. In most people's minds the way something looks. And if that were true, then I would say that it is a, it is a byproduct. And so then the next question is, it's a byproduct of what it, and I've mentioned this earlier, it's if you understand people, and if you can articulate the problems that people are having in a productive way, then you've already halfway come up with a good design, right? Like the adage that says, A, a well-defined problem is a solution have solved. Mm. So design in its true nature, not how we like to promote it today. Design was really about solving problems, and the output of that was just a better solution, right? And so if we, if we change that, that idea to say that it's, it's really the outcome of the byproduct of, first, I want to go in and understand who you are as a person or as a people or as a culture. And then understand what your problems are. And I, I can articulate that. Then it's almost like the goal will be sitting on top of the ground. Like I don't have to design it because the design will just reveal itself because I spend more time unpacking you.

Kenny 1:11:26

Oh, that's dope.

Calvin 1:11:27

Yeah.

Kenny 1:11:28

I ain't gonna say nothing else. thank you for tuning into another great episode of The Beyond Normal Podcast, Calvin. Appreciate you for coming on, and we'll definitely be supporting and figuring out how we can tap in with the Playmaker program.

Calvin 1:11:40

Absolutely.

Kenny 1:11:41

Thank you, sir. All right, now

Calvin 1:11:42

take care.