Getting2Alpha
Getting2Alpha
Mike Sellers on super-powered mental models & the bright future of AR gaming
Intro: [00:00:00] From Silicon Valley, the heart of startup land, it's Getting2Alpha, the show about creating innovative, compelling experiences that people love. And now, here's your host, game designer, entrepreneur, and startup coach, Amy Jo Kim.
Amy: Mike Sellers is a pioneering social game designer, recently turned academic.
Long before World of Warcraft was a worldwide hit, Mike and his merry band of innovators. Including John Henke, the driving force behind Pokemon Go, created Meridian 59, the first graphical MMO or massively multiplayer online game. Mike has worked on many games since for companies like Electronic Arts and Kabam.
And now he's a professor of game design at Indiana University. Like many of our Getting2Alpha guests, Mike has a deep and longstanding fascination with human psychology and social systems and a lot of experience [00:01:00] wrestling with the challenges of bringing new ideas to life.
Mike: Those of us who are all working on, on new things, we, we get very, very passionate about the new and, and this new idea.
And some of us, they just aren't there yet. And, you know, I, I hate to say they're, they're bad ideas, but sometimes they're for whatever reason, they're not there yet. And the faster I can find out if an idea is a, is something that I should invest in, whether financially or emotionally, or whether I need to put on a shelf for a while, the better off I am because the less likely I am to make an, uh, ego based mistake because I'm so invested in it already.
Amy: Full confession, Mike is one of my very favorite people in gaming. He's got a deeply insightful and innovative way of looking at things and an astonishing breadth of knowledge. Listen in and hear what Mike thinks about early MMOs, super powered mental models, and the pervasive future of augmented reality gaming.
Welcome Mike to the Getting2Alpha podcast.
Mike: Thanks [00:02:00] very much. Great to be with you.
Amy: I'm so excited to talk to you and hear more about what you've been up to. to. So before we get into that, give us a whirlwind tour of your background. In particular, how did you get started in design and tech? And then how did you decide what to pursue along the way?
Mike: Well, since I was very small, I've had an interest in psychology. My father's a psychologist and in, uh, college, I did a degree in cognitive science. This is a long time ago, so I had to construct a degree myself. I've always been interested in kind of in what's next, what's around the corner. And so that has led me to a lot of places like cognitive science.
You know, I went from there after I graduated to become a software engineer, but then I very quickly gravitated towards HCI and what we now call UI UX. Um, and usability, and that actually led me eventually to doing game design professionally. I've been playing games as a hobby forever, uh, and eventually figured out, Hey, maybe we can actually make a company out of this.
So it was an entrepreneurial side of that as well.
Amy: [00:03:00] Fantastic. So you were One of the creators of Meridian 59. Those were one of the earliest MMOs. And I think John Henke was on that team.
Mike: That's right. My brother and I started the company and we hired John very early on to help us with production and marketing.
Amy: And John Henke, as probably everybody on the planet at this point knows, is the creator of Pokemon Go.
Mike: Right.
Amy: So what was your shared vision at the time?
Mike: You know, we talked a lot at the time about making online societies and, and really digging into social systems and what could we do with, you know, within an entertainment context, but, uh, in helping people create more community, this has been an abiding interest of mine and for a long time and, and clearly of John's as well.
You know, at the same time, we also worried a lot. This is 1994, 95, and we had no idea whether there was going to be a really broad audience for this or not. We knew there were text mods, the text games with multiple. people in them, but we didn't know if it [00:04:00] was going to be really something that we could broaden out.
So our shared vision was to make a good game, try and see what we could do with, uh, sort of social systems and then hope it went well.
Amy: So how do you see that initial vision leading now into what you're doing?
Mike: There's a through line that I see that I don't know, in the work that I've done, I'm not sure if anyone else could see, but I have been interested in systems of all kinds, social systems, neurological, cognitive, emotional, all these things in, in all the work that I've done, there's been some piece of that.
So, when I was a software engineer, I spent some of my time working with a medical company doing a user interface design for them, like, for neurosurgeons and radiologists and. Uh, I designed the user interface for a, uh, a CT scanner. So coming forward from sort of my ancient history into AIMS, as I said, everything I've been interested in has, uh, orbited around systems, which is one of the big things I'm interested in now, systems of all kinds, but I think games really give us a, [00:05:00] Interesting and unique way to look at at systems.
So, with a massively multiplayer online game like Mardini 59, or games that are highly systemic in other ways like The Sims or The Sims 2, they all for me are part of a piece in just in terms of how we approach systemic questions through games.
Amy: Beautiful. So now that you are a professor and you're training and teaching and coaching and educating bright young students, what are some of the most common mistakes that you see first time game designers?
And developers making in the early stages as they're bringing their ideas to life.
Mike: Oh man, by far the most common one I see is this, this inherent belief that if I have a good idea, it will be a wonderful game. It'll make a wonderful game that it will just leap. Fully formed from my forehead or from the designer's forehead, and it'll be a wonderful idea and a wonderful game over and over and over again.
I have to teach these [00:06:00] students as I have with other junior designers about ego list design, and it's not about you. It's about the experience of the player is going to have and principles like best idea wins and that you're going to necessarily have to critique and evolve your own ideas and other people's ideas.
And it just almost never happens that you have an idea that survives from first inception, all the way into the game, a number of years ago, I was talking with a bunch of game designers. And I said that, uh, I think twice in my entire career. I've had an idea that has worked the first time.
And one of them response, you've been very fortunate or you're lying. So the idea that, that even as an experienced game designer, you have ideas that just work, just doesn't happen. And that's a, that's a realization I really enjoy seeing in the students when they realize, okay, it's fine if the idea is terrible at first, it can get better, but it's, it's just never going to happen that it's going to be the best thing ever right out of the gate.
Amy: With that [00:07:00] said, how do you approach testing and the discovery process on your own projects? How do you decide which ideas to pursue and which ones to filter out?
Mike: And that is such a good question. And I say that because I think it's an unsolved, at least from my point of view, sort of an unsolved problem or one that I'm continuing to work on.
Um, there is certainly an intuitive aspect to it. And then there's just a practical aspect to it. There, the intuitive part is. After seeing a lot of designs go by and after trying a lot of things myself, I think you do develop a feel for sort of the curation of ideas, which ones are more likely to turn out well or not turn out well.
If they all look like ugly ducklings, which ones are going to grow up into beautiful swans and which ones aren't. Um, at the same time, you also learn that you can't, or at least I've learned that I can't trust my intuition completely or nothing like it. So I think The careful husbandry, I guess, of these ideas and the curation of these ideas into the, to see if they can turn to something else by exposing them carefully to other [00:08:00] people.
And I say carefully, just because you, if you say, you know, go out to anybody or random people, they may give you random feedback. And so you, you have to be very careful to expose your idea to enough people who can give you. Actionable feedback that you can use without narrowing that field. So, uh, so much out of a conscious or unconscious defensiveness, uh, trying to protect the idea from, from the critiques it might get.
So I go through a lot of that and, and I guess by, by saying a lot of that, what I mean is I always have many ideas up in the air ones I'm working on and sometimes I'll just let them sit. For a month or a year or several years and and then see if there's still any good. Um, see if they still get a positive feedback from people or see if they need to be just thrown away or, or changed completely.
It's an ongoing process. arduous process, I suppose, but also very, very satisfying when you find that piece of an idea that is really good and true and that other people see it and you have the same [00:09:00] vision of it. They have the same vision that you had to begin with.
Amy: Yeah, a shareable vision that other people get excited about is a key part of it.
Right, and then I just couldn't agree more about carefully testing your ideas. A lot of what I've learned, you know, in the parallel paths we've taken is That sort of concentric rings of testers that I think we both learned in game studios, where you start with the team, you know, the team is like bringing this really crude thing to life.
And then you might expand it out to the studio and then this kind of careful friends and family round. And then maybe your early passionate customers, the ones that are on your mailing list and always saying, when's the beta, when's the beta, you know, and then you do these rings, but you're not just testing your earliest ideas with your end customer.
Mike: Right, that's exactly right. I love the image of the concentric rings. That's really, really applicable. I think it's also really important to be looking for non confirming evidence. So this is [00:10:00] something I learned as an entrepreneur. When you're, you think, Hey, we have an idea for a company and for business, this might be a good idea, but before we sink a lot of time and money and effort into it, let's make sure, and let's look very carefully for things that, that don't confirm what we're saying.
It's real easy to listen to the praise of, of people who are going to be likely your, your most ardent customers and how much they love this. But you really have to listen carefully too, for the things they don't like, or the things that just don't hit for them, where you don't have that shared vision.
Amy: Absolutely. The thing I like to say is assume your first idea might not be right.
Mike: Oh yeah.
Amy: How quickly can you find out?
Mike: Yes. How quickly, how cheaply and with how little emotion expended, because those of us who are all working on, on new things, we get very, very passionate about the new and this new idea.
And some of us, they just aren't there yet. And, you know, I hate to say they're, they're bad ideas, but sometimes they're for whatever reason, they're not there yet. And the faster I can find out if an idea is a. is something that I should invest in, whether financially or emotionally, [00:11:00] or whether I need to put on a shelf for a while, the better off I am because the less likely I am to make an ego based mistake because I'm so invested in it already.
Amy: So what do you feel is your superpower as a creator? What are the kinds of projects that light you up the most?
Mike: You know, the one thing I've noticed It's so hard to say from my own personal point of view, because I have only my life to live, but judging based on what I've seen and the kind of work I've done and where I've been the most successful, I have the ability to come up to speed really fast in diverse domains, you know, going from working with a neurosurgeon one day to a bunch of military officers the next day to people doing heart monitors or copying machines.
These are all clients I've had in the past. Um, I just love that, that experience of. This is a completely new domain. I need to learn about it very quickly and be able to contribute to it. And for me, the, the key part of that is forming an effective mental model of, of what is going on, what are their [00:12:00] concerns?
What are the problems they have? A lot of this, I have to say, it goes back to, uh, old human computer interaction practices of doing goal analysis, task analysis, environmental and customer analysis, those kinds of things. That's just what I do when I go into a new area. Now, of those things, the one that, the ones that really make me light up are the, the ones where I can really apply some, some diverse thinking, blue sky design, um, where there isn't necessarily a solution known and a lot of people are scratching their heads, uh, and they don't know how to approach something that gets me going like else.
Amy: Wow. That's fantastic. So What's on your attention radar these days in other people's work? Whose work are you paying attention to? Are you being influenced by? What trends are you following?
Mike: Well, the first one I have to say is augmented reality, clearly. Pokemon Go, in my opinion, is sort of like the first Robin of Spring.
This is the first introduction to augmented reality for millions and millions and millions [00:13:00] of people. It won't be the last, I'm sure. I'm watching that game to see how well it does, to see what kind of staying power it has. I hope because John is a friend of mine and, and you know, I think the game has a lot going for it, that it does well.
But you know, I'm also skeptical in some ways. And so I want to see what happens there. I'm also watching what's happening with virtual reality. The way I think of it as a virtual reality is sort of the opening act for augmented reality. I think virtual reality is going to be sort of a deeper, more specialized niche, but augmented reality is what people are really going to pick up in their daily lives, just like we've all picked up the web or smartphones or things like that.
And then kind of on the other end of the spectrum, I continue to be fascinated by all the changes going on in tabletop games, which I think of as sort of the, if video games or computer games are movies, then then tabletop games are like the theater there. There were a lot of new things get tried out.
And it's just a fantastic laboratory for design. And I think there's some really terrific things happening with what I've been calling artisanal [00:14:00] design. Small companies, uh, one or five or ten people. A new game coming out tomorrow, I think, uh, No Man's Sky was, is, uh, highly systemic, highly procedural, and was made by a team of fifteen people.
So these are the kinds of things that I'm watching to see how do they all come about, uh, and how do they all, you know, come together, uh, or are they just, uh, separate trends, I think, are, are operating, uh, sort of in, in, in the game space. Beyond the game space, there's, you know, self driving cars and all kinds of wonderful things that I'm watching as well.
Amy: Oh, that's fascinating. I think we may have to do a follow up in a few months to see where all this goes. So, I hear you're working on a book.
Mike: Yes.
Amy: Tell us about that.
Mike: So, I'm working on a book that is using systems thinking and game design as mutually reinforcing and mutually illuminating lenses is one way to think of it.
I believe that. Systems thinking one of the things I say in the book is that I believe systems thinking is to the 21st century. What literacy was the 20th century that you could get [00:15:00] by in the 1st, few decades of the 20th century without having to read or write. You may not do so well, but you can get by eventually.
It just became the way what you had to have to live in our society. I think where we are right now is most people don't really have a strong idea of what systems thinking is, or maybe even be a little bit afraid of it. But I believe in the coming years and decades, it's going to be just what you need to operate effectively in the world.
So that's one side. The other side is that I believe games and game design provide a really unique way, a way to approach systems thinking effectively, and they reinforce each other that in, in fact, systems thinking and game design together form a larger system that enables, uh, just new ways of thinking and new ways of operating, both in terms of thinking about entertainment pursuits like games, but also thinking about everything else from, you know, climate change to financial crisis or, uh, you know, modern politics.
I think all these things can be viewed very effectively through a systems thinking lens, but that again, game design provides us a really [00:16:00] pleasurable and fun.
And I think a uniquely clear way to understand what systems are and how we can recognize them and create them. So that's what the whole book is about.
Amy: The world needs this book.
Mike: Thank you.
Amy: I can't wait to read it for everyone who plays a game. That's their experience of engaging with the system. Just like you said, for Pokemon go, that's their first experience of engaging with a smoothly working AR system hats off to them.
Mike: Yes.
Amy: So you mentioned. You're watching it closely to see how long it lasts and what the limitations are. From your perspective, what do you see as the limitations of Pokémon Go? Where something else could reach further or where it could develop further?
Mike: You know, I think they've done a really terrific job on the early game and The social and viral aspects of this, just from conversations that I have had with complete strangers, uh, and other stories I've heard, [00:17:00] um, where, you know, oh, hey, there's a focus up here.
Yeah. I found this book on over over there with complete strangers. Uh, they have, I think, brought the virality of a game to a new level that I've never seen before. That said, I'm. When I said I'm skeptical, what I'm, I'm wondering, I'm waiting to see what happens is how long does that gameplay remain interesting?
How long does, um, finding and evolving Pokemon stay interesting? And, you know, is, is fighting in gyms and fighting for control of gyms, is that sort of the end stage or is there something more? They've been doing terrific so far. I mean, terrific. They've been, that's an understatement. They've been, uh, I think I, I suspect I have no insider knowledge at all, but I suspect that like any business, they had a low, medium and high case for how well they do in the first month.
And they probably blew that out in the first week. Uh, so I suspect there's been a lot of scrambling going on inside, but I, I do wonder how they're going to maintain tens or hundreds of millions of people playing this game for [00:18:00] months and years on end. Uh, I think there are ways to do it and I'm, I'm, I'm sure you do too.
And just in terms of encouraging, uh, different types of involvement in the, in the overall community, I'm waiting to see if they evolve the game, I guess, to take advantage of that.
Amy: Or open up the platform.
Mike: Or open up the platform. Exactly. There's, there's so much they could do there.
Amy: That's the part that gets me excited.
Yeah. I, when I think about the platform. I get really excited and I had an arc of gameplay where it was very entrancing and exciting at first and I played with my daughter and magical things happened. And we haven't really been able to recapture it since maybe level 10, 11.
Mike: That's, yes.
Amy: And that's, and so, yeah, it's, uh.
Mike: I hear that a lot, by the way. Right around level 10, people kind of go, you know, the shine kind of comes off.
Amy: Well, if you're into battling, there's some teenagers in our neighborhood have discovered battling for gems and they're kind of into it and they cluster as teenagers do into these, you know, mixed use gangs.[00:19:00]
And I see what they're doing, but that holds no allure for me playing with my daughter. There's a lot of co op features that aren't there.
Mike: Yeah.
Amy: And if they were there, the servers probably would be even more taxed than they are. Right. So I'm glad they're not there. Like I get it, but it was interesting. We were in Portland recently on a college tour with my son.
I know you've done that a lot with your kids, you know, where are you going to go to school? And we went to play Pokemon and my daughter was like, this isn't interesting. I just want to be here in Portland.
Mike: Oh, wow.
Amy: Put away the phone, mom. Look at Portland. Portland's beautiful. You know, it's like sitting there in front of the slot machine going, I'm not getting that fix I used to get.
Mike: Right, right. And I, you know, I think this goes back to, uh, work that you did a long time ago on, on the different stages and different roles that, that everyone has in a community. And I, I don't see they have those in there yet. I think that they may get them. Uh, if they're, if they're smart, uh, they will do so, or if they don't, someone else will, you know, whether using their platform or another [00:20:00] platform.
But I think that that kind of progression, it doesn't feel like the highway is completely built yet. You know, they've got a terrific on ramp, but then after that, it just isn't all built out yet. Um, so I want to wait and see what happens.
Amy: I love that analogy. It's perfect way to sum up. Thank you so much for hanging out and sharing what you're doing and a glimpse into your thinking.
I just loved catching up.
Mike: Well, thank you. Likewise. It's been terrific talking with you.
Amy: Okay. I look forward to a part two in a few months where we're, we'll see where these trends pan out.
Mike: Excellent. Looking forward to it. Thanks, Amy.
Outro: Thanks for listening to Getting2Alpha with Amy Jo Kim, the shows that help you innovate faster and smarter.
Be sure to check out our website, getting2alpha.com. That's getting2alpha.com for more great resources and podcast [00:21:00] episodes.