Lost Recipes with Schell Games CEO & Founder Jesse Schell

Schell Games’ new multicultural, historical VR cooking game Lost Recipes required deep research to make it authentic and immersive. Lisa and Schell Games CEO & Founder Jesse Schell discuss his path from circus juggler to game developer, his time as a Disney Imagineer, and broadening the VR gaming landscape. Also, David and Lisa debate Super Mario games and pick their favorite foods from pop culture titles.

For more information, follow @OtherGamingPod on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook Group at facebook.com/groups/thatothergamingpodcast.

Transcript

Lost Recipes with Schell Games CEO & Founder Jesse Schell

Schell Games’ new multicultural, historical VR cooking game Lost Recipes required deep research to make it authentic and immersive. Lisa and Jesse discuss his path from circus juggler to game developer, his time as a Disney Imagineer, and broadening the VR gaming landscape. Also, David and Lisa debate Super Mario games and pick their favorite foods from pop culture titles.

For more information, follow @OtherGamingPod on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook Group at facebook.com/groups/thatothergamingpodcast.

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Lisa Brown Jaloza:

Hi! And welcome back to That Other Gaming Podcast, where we take a look behind the scenes of virtual reality, online gaming, streaming, and more. I'm Lisa, a tech comms manager at Meta and recovering academic.

David Jagneaux:

And I'm David, a fellow tech comms manager here at Meta, a full-time nerd, and a lifelong gamer that's obsessed with the future of video games.

Lisa:

So, David, what have you been playing recently?

David:

For me? It's been pretty much all Halo Infinite, all the time on Xbox Series X.

Lisa:

Oh yeah.

David:

Yeah. I've really been playing that game a lot. My wife likes to watch me play it, which is nice. She's not much of a gamer, so she actually sits there and says, “Oh nice!” And that gives me a boost of self confidence that I need right there. Right. Then I die immediately. But it makes me feel good for half a second.

Lisa:

Yeah. I was just going to say, that's the great thing with, like, narrative-driven games—that they're really conducive to having someone on the couch watching you play through, but they're still really engaged in the experience.

David:

Yeah, exactly. We play a lot of games that way. Especially the choice-driven ones, like Telltale Games and the Supermassive Games. Until Dawn is one of our favorites, because we love horror movies, so that game was a blast to play together.

And then on the VR side it's been Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond on Quest 2.

Lisa:

Oh nice.

David:

Really been enjoying that one. I'm on a bit of a shooter kick lately. I guess. I just noticed, I don't usually play a whole lot of shooters. I'm more of a narrative story-driven RPG kind of guy, but I'm going the shooter route lately, I guess, which is a fun change of pace. What have you been playing this week?

Lisa:

On the VR side, I've been playing a lot of Beat Saber and then the other David, my partner has been picking up Supernatural. So looking to give that a shot.

David:

You guys are going to get ripped, looking good!

Lisa:

Hardly. Although his arms are pretty sore today, he's feeling it. And then also been playing through Octodad: Dadliest Catch. Which, the way the control schemes work, you have to flail your tentacles around, to move and interact with objects and—

David:

Is that what the analog sticks? Is that how you move the tentacles?

Lisa:

So I've been playing it on my phone.

David:

Oh, okay.

Lisa:

So you use your fingers on the touch screen, but then there's a PC version where you control it with the keys and then...

David:

Gotcha.

Lisa:

Yeah, on console I imagine it's with the analog sticks, but it's very, very finicky and touchy controls. In the tutorial you're preparing for your wedding and you have to be able to put on a tuxedo and find your bow tie.

David:

Oh, I love that.

Lisa:

Get that on and travel to the front of the church to meet your bride, who's standing there waiting at the altar for you. And if you don't pass as human well enough, people start to notice you and they start to make comments.

David:

Oh, that's so clever. I like that.

Lisa:

Yeah. And if it goes too far afield where you're not pulling it together and passing as you should, ultimately you ink yourself and it's game over and you go back to the last save point and have to proceed from there.

David:

That's funny. I'll have to play that with my son. He's four. So he isn't quite there in terms of playing the games himself, but he likes to watch and I think he'll get a kick out of that one.

Lisa:

Yeah. Speaking of kids, we just got a new edition for Minecraft, where they did—

David:

Disney World. Yeah.

Lisa:

Yeah.

David:

Yes.

Lisa:

One to one recreation. So we just did the Haunted Mansion last night, which was amazing.

David:

I'm going to download that soon.

Lisa:

To have that coming through the speakers on the biggest screen in your home and feel kind of like you're there.

David:

Mm-hmm. I need to try the Minecraft VR at some point. That will be awesome.

Lisa:

Definitely. All right. So today, we're talking about something a little bit different. We're looking at food. So what's the one food from a movie, TV show, game, anything in pop culture that you wish you could try in real life.

David:

There are a lot. I'm going to try to keep the list short. I will say that generally speaking, any game or movie or animation from Japan probably has great looking food. I love the way that the food looks in the Tales of series, specifically the newest game, Tales of Arise. You can cook every time you stop at a campfire and the food looks amazing. Breath of the Wild has amazing looking food. But my number one choice, is going to be a sweet roll from Skyrim.

Lisa:

Wow!

David:

That is the one food that I would love to try if I could in real life, because everyone's obsessed with them in Skyrim. The guards make jokes about, “Oh, what do you need? Did someone steal your sweet roll?” And there's sweet rolls on every table in every house. It is the most universally loved thing in that game. And I want to know what it tastes like, because it looks delicious. I love cinnamon rolls. And so I think I would love a sweet roll from Skyrim.

Lisa:

Nice. I have a craving for Cinnabon now.

David:

Yeah. This podcast is not sponsored by Cinnabon.

Lisa:

For me, I'm probably going to have to go with Thanksgiving dinner from Bob's Burgers. I can't decide which episode I would want to join for the Thanksgiving dinner. I think it's a toss up between the year where they clean out Teddy's apartment and discover that he's a hoarder, because Bob is disappointed in his own Thanksgiving dinner that he cooked at home with his family. And then he gets to have a redo over at Teddy's apartment. It's supposedly his best Thanksgiving dinner ever. He spatchcocks the turkey, and it's just over the top. But then there's also the one at Mr. Fischoeder's house where they do kind of a mashup with My Neighbor Totoro and...

David:

Oh.

Lisa:

He's, like, drinking absinthe, throughout the whole meal preparation. And it's just a wild, wild episode. So, that might be a good one.

David:

That's a very good one. Very specific.

Lisa:

Yeah.

David:

I like how we both took very specific things. It isn't just, you know like, oh ramen from this anime. No, it's like very—

Lisa:

Yeah.

David:

We clearly thought about this a little bit. Staying on topic here though, we are going to be talking about food a little bit more because today we are talking about Lost Recipes. This is the upcoming release from Schell Games. And if that sounds familiar, you might have heard of them from I Expect You To Die and I Expect You To Die 2. The most recent game, the sequel I Expect You To Die 2 just came out this year and it was nominated for best VR/AR game at The Game Awards this year, which is a huge honor. So congrats to Schell Games.

Lisa:

Yeah! And I actually got the chance to sit down with Jesse Schell. He's the CEO and founder of Schell Games. And we were able to talk about Lost Recipes, the process that went into that title. And we also talked about his pretty expansive career in game design and where he thinks VR is headed next.

David:

Cool. I'm excited. Let's hear it.

Lisa:

Jesse. Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us today. Really appreciate it. Now you're something of a legend in game design, having literally written the book on it. So curious what something most people would be surprised to learn about you is.

Jesse:

Oh, let's see. I guess when people think about people doing video games, they just think about technology, but I kind of got into video games in a sort of a different way.

Lisa:

Yeah.

Jesse:

I'd had a blend of kind of a computer science background but also a circus background. I used to be a professional juggler, and that combination of being interested in computer science, but then also spending time working in amusement parks and things, those things kind of came together to kind of help me get positions at Disney Imagineering, and that was really how I got into the game industry.

Lisa:

Very cool. Now, Schell Games is a pretty heavy hitter in the VR space, with I Expect You To Die, I Expect You To Die 2, and Until You Fall under its belt, but as you said, your work in VR goes back even further than that to your master's degree and your time at Walt Disney Imagineering, where you worked on DisneyQuest. What was that experience like?

Jesse:

Yeah. So yeah, people feel like, oh VR's, this thing that showed up maybe five, six years ago, but of course it's been around a long time and it had a real interesting period in the ’90s because that was the first time it really became feasible, in the home. And it had existed before that kind of, sort of military training and that kind of thing. But in the ’90s, it started to become real and possible. And there was a lot of exploration of VR for location-based entertainment, and Disney was part of that. They built this place called DisneyQuest down in Florida that was open for 19 years, and it was thrilling to be a part of it because we were working with just absolutely cutting-edge hardware, these computers that cost a quarter million dollars, half a million dollars.

Lisa:

And if you had to pick one anecdote or one memory from that time, is there anything that really stands out to you?

Jesse:

Working on the Aladdin's Magic Carpet VR experience. I remember coming in for the interview and they showed me a demo of where they were with the beginnings of the Aladdin's Magic Carpet experience. And I just remember thinking to myself like, “Oh, computers can do this now.”

Lisa:

Right.

Jesse:

And of course we've moved beyond that, since then. But yeah, this whole world like, oh VR's going to be a real thing. And it's something that we can all explore and is very exciting.

Lisa:

So fast forward to today: You've had some entertainment titles under your belt, Schell Games in the VR space, some education games as well. And now you have your latest title, Lost Recipes coming out. What can you tell us about that? What's sort of the elevator pitch there?

Jesse:

Yeah. So Lost Recipes is exciting because it is a cooking game, but typically when people make a cooking game, it's crazy frantic, slapping together a burger or something. And this isn't that. This is meant to be relaxing and it's meant to be educational because the whole goal of this is for you to get the experience of cooking these multicultural recipes that aren't even just from today. We take you to these historical kitchens. We take you to medieval China. We take you to ancient Greece, and you learn to cook in these sort of historical kitchens that you might not be able to do in the real world. And so it's exciting because it's historical, it's multicultural, but at the same time, these are recipes that you can still cook and make today. So we've been excited about it as kind of a new kind of VR experience. It's, it is a game because you're making the recipes and you're getting evaluated on it, but at the same time, it's an educational experience and it's kind of relaxing and meditative and it brings out, I think, a lot of what's best about VR: putting you in places you couldn't be so that you can have experiences, but then at the same time you get to take something away.

Lisa:

And your team tapped into some subject matter experts for this title while it was in development, right?

Jesse:

Yeah. Schell Games is very familiar with working on educational game titles. It's something we do a lot. And that often means you've got to find real experts. We wanted to make sure that the cooking techniques and the recipes were all authentic as possible. We found various subject matter experts, reaching out to universities and other places to help us understand the realities of cooking. We have questions of, like, well, what kind of knife did they use in Maya, in the year 1500? Just all these little details, just trying to get those right. And an important part of that as well was voice talent. We wanted to make sure that we were getting voice talent that were from the regions that we were working in. It meant a lot to us, to try and get the authenticity of these recipes and these techniques into the game in a way that people could experience Lost Recipes. Because part of what I really like about Lost Recipes is the recipes aren't just something you do linearly. I mean, you can just follow all the instructions and do that, but really, the kitchen is more of a sandbox, so that you can do things the way you want to do them, which meant we had to do a lot of simulation. You don't normally think about, like, if I mix together wine and honey, the colors change depending on the proportions of wine and honey that I put into this liquid.

Lisa:

Right.

Jesse:

And if I add salt or I add spices, it's all going into the simulation. Everything is very aware of like, how, how it all works out. The game's very aware of the temperature of liquids and the temperature of solids and the transformation of dough as it rises. We were able to take a lot of techniques from HoloLAB Champions, but at the same time, we had to make a lot of new things that were here as well. And then also, we've had such success with games like I Expect You To Die, and a big part of what makes those games work is making it easy to kind of pick up and manipulate things in an intuitive way. Because part of what's challenging with the cooking game is there's so many different things that you do. There's so many different verbs that you have in the game. And we needed everything to work in a way that was intuitive as possible. So we kind of were able to take experiences for many different things that we've done and bring them together on this title.

Lisa:

So in what ways would you say that Lost Recipes is a departure from what's come before?

Jesse:

The biggest departure is Lost Recipes is not trying so hard to be a game. In a way, it's not all about leaderboards and scores and intensity. It is definitely the most relaxed game that we've ever made. Previously we'd done a game called Water Bears that was meant to be, like, kind of a relaxing puzzle solver. So it had a little bit of the same vibe as that, trying to get you to relax while you play. But our focus really was much more on experience than on traditional gameplay with a hope that we would be able to reach out to some new audiences here. And we found that while we were playtesting, we would often sort of be talking to people who are like, “Well, yeah, I'm not a big gamer, but I thought I'd try the play test.” And they come out of it saying, “Oh my gosh, I don't like games, but I would totally do this.” So we're hoping as VR starts to expand, that it's able to start to get out of kind of the traditional gamer niche and start to get into more lifestyle applications. And that's what we like about Lost Recipes, is that it's a game and we think gamers are going to like it. But we also think that people who don't think of themselves as gamers will be able to enjoy it and get benefit out of it.

Lisa:

I think that's a really interesting conversation in its own right. Just this idea of who is and isn't a gamer and who doesn't think of themselves as one and what even classifies as a game these days. So Schell Games has invested really heavily, both in entertainment and in the education space—really curious, which are you most passionate about?

Jesse:

I find it really hard to pick them apart, because great entertainment changes people. And that's the whole idea of education, is to change you for the better, to help you become a better person. And the way that you often do that is to immerse someone in an experience that they understand and that they enjoy. This goes way back to ancient Rome, right? Horace talks about, if you really want to improve people's lives, you've got to mix the pleasant with the useful. I think we do that on both sides. We try and make sure that our entertainment experiences change people in positive ways. And we try and make sure that our educational experiences are just as engaging and meaningful to people as possible.

Lisa:

And you've made some pretty solid predictions in the past. So curious to hear what you think the next big paradigm shift will be in mainstream gaming.

Jesse:

That's a good question. It's an interesting question. When's the last time we had a paradigm shift in mainstream gaming? We've been seeing some minor tweaks and things. I would argue the last big one that we've seen, I think, is the appearance of Roblox and how successful it's been. Where you have this game world that has hundreds of games made by players inside it. I think we're going to see more of that happening. I think Roblox right now is sort of viewed as an anomaly for six to 12 year olds. And I think we're going to start to see things that are like that. I know that [Horizon Worlds] is a product that Meta has been working on, and it's sort of in that direction. I think we're going to start to see a lot of things in that direction. I also think we're going to see this crossover, this VR/AR crossover is going to start to happen. I think that's going to be a big deal in ’22 and ’23.

Lisa:

Yeah.

Jesse:

Where we start to see headsets appear that kind of do both VR and AR at the same time. And that opens up some really interesting possibilities. Farther out there, I think the big thing that's waiting to happen, getting ready to happen is artificially intelligent characters. We are getting so close on our ability to understand human speech and then comprehend. What's be—not just the words, but what are the words mean? We’re getting so close on that, but we've had so little of that in the game space. And when you get to a place where you can just have a natural, spoken conversation with a character—

Lisa:

Right.

Jesse:

And they can understand, and then speak back to you. That moves us into this whole new, emotional territory of games that we've never had before. I think we have a lot of things that are kind of piling up on the horizon over the next 10, 15 years. Games are just going to get more and more emotionally powerful and more engaging in a lot of ways.

Lisa:

I think that's really interesting with Fable Studio and the Wolves in the Walls, that they were out there as kind of a game and experience studio, and then once they really dove into that project, they kind of pivoted to become more of an AI-driven sort of company and thinking through what that looks like, so that's really interesting.

Jesse:

Yeah, I think, and I think they're not going to be alone in that. I think some of the, real advances in next-generation gaming are going to come from.

Lisa:

And you touched on this a little bit, but how about VR? Where do you see that headed in the next five to 10 years? There's convergence with augmented reality, but curious what else?

Jesse:

Yeah. I think it's a number of things. I mean, right now VR is still viewed as a real niche and a lot of people are skeptical. A lot of people look at it and say, “Oh, this is just a fad.” Maybe they make a comparison to the Microsoft Kinect. Yeah. Was there for a little while, but it didn't really work. It wasn't really as useful as we thought it would be. And so we kind of moved on from it. I don't think VR is like that at all. I mean, VR is totally here to stay. It will be a meaningful part of the gaming space from here on out. And it's just a question of how big, and how is it going to fit in? I think one of the big changes that we're going to see coming is VR games getting more and more social. One of the things we often talk about is the number 10 million—when there's less than 10 million of something, probably none of your friends have it. But when there's more than 10 million of something, probably at least one of your friends has it.

Lisa:

Right.

Jesse:

And VR is right on that cusp. Right now we're seeing that as we're with Quest headsets, we're going to see them move up past that 10 million mark. And once that happens, once you're in a situation where, oh, probably at least one of my friends has this, VR experiences are going to become primarily social. We've seen this with games. There was a time when games were primarily single-player, and then they moved and they became primarily multiplayer. And we're going to see the same thing happen with VR. And it's powerful with VR, because VR is such an inherently powerful social experience. So suddenly we're going to have this medium that is just so, so powerfully social. And I think part of what we're going to see is changes in the way that people relate to their physical world at the same time. One that we're working on now, we're doing a lot of work with Holoride, which is a company that's focused on virtual reality in the car. So if you're a passenger in the car, your VR headset gets information from the car about exactly how the car is moving. And so it creates a VR experience that visually matches the movement of the car exactly, which not only can eliminate motion sickness, but it is just this intensely powerful experience. It feels like you're on a theme park ride.

Lisa:

Right.

Jesse:

Like you're on Star Tours or something, except you're just, ride, taking a ride in the car. And I think, things like that, that's just going to be kind of one facet of this sort of metaverse situation that we're moving into where things from the real world and things from the virtual world are going to be combined. And I think we're going to see that in a lots of ways, little ways inside your house, as well as ways out in the world.

Lisa:

So what advice would you give to an aspiring developer designer who was looking to break into games?

Jesse:

Yeah. It's, you should start making things. There's no excuse at this point. It used to be, “Oh, I don't know anybody. I don't know how I'd get started.” You have the whole internet—the internet's there telling you here's exactly what you do.

Lisa:

Right.

Jesse:

There's a million tools. The only thing that might stop you is you're so overwhelmed. Oh my gosh. There's so many tools. Which one do I start with? Really, just find one that feels comfortable and you kind of pick it up and you go. People ask about, oh, how do I get into games? What do I have to do? Do I have to go to school? What do I have to do? It really, it's just like getting into a band. How do I get into a band? Well, you should probably start by learning some music. Well, do you have to go to college for that? You could, and it might help you, but you don't have to. You can just learn a couple chords on the guitar and then get with a few friends and then you start being a band, right? It's the same thing, making games. You just have to be brave and get in there and start doing things. And a great way is to start by doing, make some card games, make some board games. It's the same thinking as digital games, but you can also just pick up editors. There are so many editors out there, that you can kind of just start doing mods on existing games, or just find some little something like RPG Maker and try your hand at making something like that. You can really start anywhere. It's all the same kind of thinking, whatever you're kind of into, just get in there and do it because in terms of getting a professional job, the thing everybody wants to look at is they want to look at your portfolio.

Lisa:

Right.

Jesse:

It matters much less, did you go to this school or that school? What everyone cares about is: show me what you finished—not just what you started. Anybody can start a project. Finishing projects is what people in the industry really look for. Because if you have the passion and the grit to finish a game, that's what it takes to actually get stuff done in the industry. And everybody wants to see that. Even if your game is something simple, just show that you, like, hey, I finished this and here are the choices I made. Get in there and start doing it. You have to be brave, but you can do it.

Lisa:

So how about you? What are you passionate about? What gets you excited to get out of bed and run to work each morning?

Jesse:

Oh, I just love anything that is new and different and it's why I've always loved this as an industry. There's just always something new around the corner, some new way to make games that didn't exist before. That's always what I get excited about. What is something new that we could do or build or try? Because games, they really do make a difference for people. These experiences that we create and you put out there, people engage with them—it makes a real difference. I look back, one of the early games that I did was a game called Toontown Online for Disney, right? It was, I was a lead designer on that back about 20+ years ago. And, the goal there was to create this, this online experience for kids and families, where they could connect to other people in a way that felt good and felt healthy and wasn't just all about war and destruction and beating up your friends. And it's amazing. The people I talk to now, for whom this was a really formative experience when they were younger. It just all points to, when you make things and you think hard about, I want to make this, so that it helps someone become the person that they kind of are truly trying to be. It matters and it makes a huge difference to people. When these new technologies show up, there's just so much opportunity to use them to create powerful, motivating experiences that mean something in people's lives.

Lisa:

Curious, is there anything we didn't touch on or anything we glossed over? Anything you'd like to add?

Jesse:

I guess I should mention that with everything going on, we're hiring. So feel free to go to schellgames.com. If you're interested in, in getting into this gaming and VR space, we'd love to talk to you.

Lisa:

All right. Well, thank you so much, Jesse. Really appreciate having you on the show. It was a pleasure.

Jesse:

Thank you so much! It was super fun!

Lisa:

It was such a great interview. He's such a down to earth guy and just has such a fascinating background from Disney Imagineering and literally writing the book on game design.

David:

Yeah. It always works out well whenever you can say your expertise is so well rounded that you literally wrote the book on something that's, yeah.

Lisa:

Right.

David:

That works out. That works out well. I'm excited to check out that game. I haven't played it myself yet, but it sounds really interesting. The mixture of education and food. I think a lot of the time, experiencing a culture's food is one of the best ways to learn about them. So trying to—

Lisa:

Definitely.

David:

Translate that to VR is pretty clever. I like that idea.

Lisa:

Yeah. And I like how they put such a heavy emphasis on authenticity, that they went out of their way to get native language speakers to do the voiceover. I think that's a really nice touch. So looking forward to it coming out.

David:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa:

All right. So now it's time for Jaloza vs. Jagneaux, where we each get one minute to make our case on a specific topic.

David:

For this episode, we're going to be debating about which game had the biggest impact on the face of modern gaming. We're going to be rewinding the clock a little bit to talk about some of these games here. The two games we're discussing are Super Mario Brothers for the NES versus Super Mario 64, for the Nintendo 64. And I will let you go first, Lisa.

Lisa:

All right, well, chronological, makes sense. I'm going to kick it off with Super Mario Brothers for the NES, arguably one of the greatest video games of all time. In fact, IGN, I believe, named it as the greatest video game of all time. What can you say? I mean, it revolutionized the home console market. Introduced an entire generation of gamers to the Mario franchise, spawned TV shows, a reboot that's coming up soon of the original film. I believe there's a song that was inspired by Super Mario Brothers, and the fact that it was packaged as a pack in with NES during, not the initial release in the US, but the subsequent release. Packed together with Duck Hunt, one of my favorites, was just stellar, stellar marketing, really helped the US to recover from the initial collapse of the gaming industry in ’83.

David:

All right. All right. Not bad. So first of all, fact check alert here. Lisa is wrong. IGN said Super Mario World is the best game ever. And Super Mario Brothers didn't even get in the top 10—it's number 14, but the game that I'm defending, Super Mario 64, is in the top 10. It's number 10 on IGN’s list, to use your own source against you, Mrs. Jaloza. If you look at modern gaming, right now. Most games are either in first-person or they're third-person action-adventure games, and the game that created the third-person action-adventure genre is Super Mario 64. It really popularized the third-person camera, being able to move the camera around, running, jumping. All of that really started with Mario 64. And I think the... It blazed the trail that is still being followed to this day. All the top selling best games. If you look at the industry as a whole, it really... You can trace it all back to Mario 64. So I think that had a bigger impact.

All right, well now you know what we think, hopefully I don't get fired for making a joke about my boss’s fact-checking skills. Now it's your turn to tell us what you think. Head over to our Facebook Group and vote on whether Super Mario Brothers for the NES or Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64 was the more influential game and let us know what you think about the show in general, over on Twitter and Instagram @OtherGamingPod.

Lisa:

Last week, we asked you which zombie apocalypse game was better on Quest 2: Resident Evil 4 or Arizona Sunshine? You all weighed in and the people have spoken. It’s Resident Evil 4.

David:

Yeah, you paid them off didn’t you? You bribed them. They all voted for you because you’re my boss and they didn’t want to see me lose my job. But the real winner should have been—I’m just kidding.

Lisa:

Yeah, no one likes a sore loser.

David:

Well deserved. Well deserved.

Lisa:

Yeah, and they’re both fantastic games. Really, there is no winner or loser in this contest. Although the outcome is pretty timely since Resident Evil 4 did just take home the VR/AR Game of the Year Award at The Game Awards

David:

Yes. Well deserved, Congrats to CAPCOM and Armature Studios. You made a great game. That's still great to this day. Before we go, I want to drop a live streaming hot tip for all my fellow content creators out there. It's a very competitive field. There's hundreds of thousands of people that stream every day on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, all those places, TikTok nowadays, I don't... I can't even count how many people are probably streaming Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo. All those top games right now. And it's going to be impossible to get noticed unless you have a huge following already on Twitter or YouTube or something like that. One of the best things you can do is to find your niche. And by that, I mean, maybe there's an up-and-coming MMO you got into a beta for and it already has kind of an audience around it. You can start streaming that. For me, I have a lot of success whenever I stream retro games on Facebook Gaming, because there's lots of fan groups around those retro games and retro systems and people hungry to reminisce about their old games that they love. Trying to find something that would allow you to have more of a niche impact is a good tactic to take.

Lisa:

That's a really great tip. I think differentiation is super, super key, especially in such a saturated market. So finding those ways to really set yourself apart and claim a little slice of the pie as your own makes a lot of sense.

David:

And real quick, I do want to shout out someone that does this very well over on Facebook Gaming. His name is ADDgamer. If you are a retro gaming fan like myself, he streams full-time on Facebook Gaming. He plays lots of retro, Nintendo, Mario, Sonic, Sega stuff. Just a really cool down to earth guy. Obviously as his name applies, he has ADD, so it's kind of his whole personality is built around that, which is funny and yeah, good stuff.

Lisa:

Thanks so much for joining us on That Other Gaming Podcast from Meta. Remember, we'd love to connect with you on our Facebook Group, and you can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @OtherGamingPod. This show is produced by LWC. Cedric Wilson is our lead producer and composed our theme music. Kojin Tashiro also contributed music.

David:

Jen Chien is executive editor. That Other Gaming Podcast is executive produced by Steve Gray and Juleyka Lantigua, art by BJ Prema.

Lisa:

Thanks for listening. And don't worry, David's not getting fired.

CITATION:

Jagneaux, David and Jaloza, Lisa Brown. “Lost Recipes with Schell Games CEO & Founder Jesse Schell.” That Other Gaming Podcast. Meta, LWC, December 23, 2021. 

Produced by LWC