Speaker 1: You're trying to understand what makes us thrive? What is
Speaker 1: it about life that inspires us beyond just gaining things?
Speaker 1: What is it that will make our lives more beautiful,
Speaker 1: more interesting, and more successful? From uh philosophical point of view,
Speaker 1: That was Tracy Fullerton explaining the thinking behind a video
Speaker 1: game she created called Walden, named after the book by
Speaker 1: Henry David th Row. Walden was released in and went
Speaker 1: on to become a bestseller and award winner. Projects like
Speaker 1: Walden have made Tracy Fullerton one of the most impactful
Speaker 1: and innovative game designers around. I'm Miland Revere and this
Speaker 1: is Senecas On Women to Hear. We are bringing you
Speaker 1: one hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making
Speaker 1: women you need to hear. As a game designer and
Speaker 1: an educator, Tracy Fullerton is influencing new generations of game designers.
Speaker 1: She is the former director of the famous USC Games
Speaker 1: Program and she heads up the USC Game Innovation Lab.
Speaker 1: Working with artists Bill Viola, Tracy created The Night Journey,
Speaker 1: a video game that has been exhibited in museums around
Speaker 1: the world. Listen and learn why Tracy Fullerton is one
Speaker 1: of Seneca's On women to hear. I am speaking today
Speaker 1: with Tracy Fullerton, one of the most influential game designers.
Speaker 1: Welcome Tracy. We're looking forward to this conversation. It's great
Speaker 1: to be here. Thanks for having me. Now, you're one
Speaker 1: of the top video game designers out there. What ex
Speaker 1: I to you about game design? What do people not
Speaker 1: understand about the power and potential of gaming or what
Speaker 1: do they understand? Well, I think, you know, when we
Speaker 1: say people, that's a broad term. So there's many people
Speaker 1: who do understand uh, the sort of wonderful potential of games,
Speaker 1: and those would be a players of games, people who
Speaker 1: are already enjoying this medium for all that it has
Speaker 1: to offer. I would say that there is, however, a
Speaker 1: stigma when when we think of games, often the first
Speaker 1: thing that that jumps to mind are very violent games,
Speaker 1: games that perhaps are uh that don't show us immediately
Speaker 1: some of the more interesting qualities that I think, uh,
Speaker 1: playful experiences have to offer. And uh yeah, So for me,
Speaker 1: that's the interesting thing is uh really trying to um
Speaker 1: not only make games that are diving into new areas,
Speaker 1: but also to help folks in the public who aren't
Speaker 1: yet accustomed to thinking of games. This way to broaden
Speaker 1: their horizons makes a lot of sense. And I know
Speaker 1: for many years you were head of the famous USC
Speaker 1: Games program and one of the things you achieved, which
Speaker 1: is of great interest to us at Seneca Women, was
Speaker 1: to bring more women into the program. Yes, and I
Speaker 1: understand at one point they actually outnumbered men, which I
Speaker 1: think in gaming is extraordinary. So why do we need
Speaker 1: women in gaming and how did you manage to increase
Speaker 1: their numbers? That's a great question. So I think that
Speaker 1: you know what we need is diversity in gaming. We
Speaker 1: did focus on bringing more women into our program early on,
Speaker 1: but now we're actually focused on bringing in a wider
Speaker 1: range of folks from different races, ethnicities, backgrounds, et cetera.
Speaker 1: We actually recently started a fellowship up for black and
Speaker 1: Indigenous students to support their growth in the program. So
Speaker 1: specifically in terms of women, of course, that's something that's
Speaker 1: very near and dear to my heart, because I wanted
Speaker 1: to foster a community where more women creative backgrounds could
Speaker 1: feel that they could come and be trained to have
Speaker 1: a voice and have a career path in the games industry.
Speaker 1: And interestingly, I think it's quite simple how you do
Speaker 1: this is you build a community that is based on
Speaker 1: respect and inclusiveness where people can do great work. And
Speaker 1: then you know, we had some early successes of some
Speaker 1: wonderful women designers coming out of the program and starting
Speaker 1: companies and having great success, and that sort of feeds
Speaker 1: back in on itself when we see role models and
Speaker 1: then more people come to the program, etcetera, etcetera, And
Speaker 1: it is a positive feedback cycle that I hope begins
Speaker 1: to extend into the industry itself. What kind of skills
Speaker 1: sets does one need? Wow, that's such a deep and
Speaker 1: rich question. There are so many different ways that one
Speaker 1: can participate in the games industry. So when we think
Speaker 1: of game designers and game developers, some of the first
Speaker 1: skills that come to mind obviously are programming, uh, and
Speaker 1: then obviously art, But there are so many more skills
Speaker 1: that I think people don't think of right away. So
Speaker 1: for example, um, there are people who are musicians and
Speaker 1: audio designers. Um, there are people who are the designers
Speaker 1: of the actual concept, right, so what is the player
Speaker 1: thinking and feeling and what are they going to be doing?
Speaker 1: Those are really what we call game designers, And that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily it can be but it's not necessarily technical.
Speaker 1: It's really more about psychology. It's really more about understanding
Speaker 1: what the players motivated by and designing experiences that will
Speaker 1: compel them and want them to play right. There's also
Speaker 1: business skills that one might have. So many of our students,
Speaker 1: for examples, start their own companies, so learning business skills
Speaker 1: and becoming an entrepreneur or becoming a producer or executive
Speaker 1: at a larger company that's already established in the industry.
Speaker 1: These are past that that folks can take. And then
Speaker 1: there are user research skills. So just as an example,
Speaker 1: you know, there are people who study human computer interface
Speaker 1: and user research so that they can measure the effects
Speaker 1: of games and how games are working with the players,
Speaker 1: and what's successful and what's not successful, and they evaluate
Speaker 1: that and then they bring their findings back into the
Speaker 1: design process so that we can produce more successful games.
Speaker 1: So it's really quite arrange. It really is. Now. I
Speaker 1: know you talking about having your own business, and I
Speaker 1: know that you have your own research centers. The Game
Speaker 1: Innovation Lab tell us about that. What are the goals
Speaker 1: for the lab? What do you do? So the Game
Speaker 1: Innovation Lab was founded actually back in two thousand four
Speaker 1: with a gift from Electronic Arts, and the mission of
Speaker 1: the Lab was to push the boundaries of what we
Speaker 1: perceived as play and it always has that's remained our mission. So,
Speaker 1: you know, in the early days of the Lab, it
Speaker 1: was hard to imagine, for example, indie games having much
Speaker 1: of an influence in the industry. Some of our earliest
Speaker 1: projects that came out of the Lab included games like Cloud,
Speaker 1: which then started a company called That Game Company, and
Speaker 1: that Game Company has gone on to produce genre defining
Speaker 1: games that are all about connecting people. They're about exploring
Speaker 1: emotions that have never been considered important in games like
Speaker 1: Wonder and a kind of community and respect for the players.
Speaker 1: So these emotional games, these are things that now a
Speaker 1: lot of people aspire to make, but very early on
Speaker 1: in the growth of the Lab, this had not been
Speaker 1: something that was really much thought of in the industry.
Speaker 1: We've also done a lot of work in learning in games,
Speaker 1: so we have pushed on the boundaries of how games
Speaker 1: can be considered either spaces or say even almost texts,
Speaker 1: playable texts for educational settings. And so in that regard,
Speaker 1: we work with teachers, we work with students, and we
Speaker 1: try to create games that illuminate for the players the
Speaker 1: same kind of ideas, critical ideas, critical thinking possibilities as say,
Speaker 1: one might get if they were reading a piece of literature.
Speaker 1: So games and learning games as artworks. We we've made
Speaker 1: games with world renowned artists such as Bill Viola. We
Speaker 1: made a game called The Night Journey, which has been
Speaker 1: exhibited around the world and numerous museums. And this is
Speaker 1: the idea where games themselves may take another place in
Speaker 1: in culture, and we may think of them as actual
Speaker 1: artistic expressions and experiences rather than say, just commercial media.
Speaker 1: We've also we've made games that are more political in nature,
Speaker 1: and games that really look to build certain types of communities.
Speaker 1: So all these come together with the idea that the
Speaker 1: lab is there to push the boundaries of what we
Speaker 1: think of is play and where play really sits in culture.
Speaker 1: And does the designer usually come up with his or
Speaker 1: her idea of what kind of game maybe a terrific innovation.
Speaker 1: Is it more of a group process? How does that
Speaker 1: work in terms of the stimuli if you will, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different ways that work. So as
Speaker 1: an example, the art game that I was talking about
Speaker 1: with Bill Viola. That idea came from Bill and he
Speaker 1: wanted to make a game about the spiritual journey, and
Speaker 1: so that was a collaboration between myself and Bill Viola
Speaker 1: and the team at the Lab. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: my game Walden, which is based on the work of
Speaker 1: Henry David Thorow, was a personal project that began with
Speaker 1: a question that I asked about how we might understand
Speaker 1: and play for ourselves throws experiment in living simply. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of the other projects that we've done have been
Speaker 1: more group oriented or come as responses to say, for example,
Speaker 1: calls from the community outside. We've done a lot of
Speaker 1: work in games and health, specifically the work of Mary
Speaker 1: Tina gutsis where she's answering some of the needs of
Speaker 1: different calls for games in neuroscience and social work, for example.
Speaker 1: Really interesting. You know, speaking to guests like yourself, I
Speaker 1: often wonder, you know, what got them into this. So
Speaker 1: let's go back a bit. How did you get into
Speaker 1: gaming in the first place. Well, it's an interesting question
Speaker 1: because I you know, when I was growing up, there
Speaker 1: were no video games when I was very young. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think Pong didn't come out till I
Speaker 1: was I don't know, eleven or twelve, it seems like, um.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I grew up in uh, I guess,
Speaker 1: a very different kind of environment where we spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time making our own fund. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: my father's garage was a place where you could, you know,
Speaker 1: find lots of stuff to nail together and you know,
Speaker 1: make all sorts of contraptions, and we would make theater
Speaker 1: sets and um, we made a telegraph that you know,
Speaker 1: went across our neighborhood and things like that. And so
Speaker 1: we're always making our own fund. And then as video
Speaker 1: games emerged, and even more importantly as personal computers. You know,
Speaker 1: my parents bought a personal computer for us very early on,
Speaker 1: a Commodore six or four for those of you out
Speaker 1: there who are as old as I am. And there
Speaker 1: were magazines you could buy where you could they had
Speaker 1: blocks of code in them and you could type them
Speaker 1: in and make things happen on the on the computer.
Speaker 1: And that really opened my eyes to the possibilities of technology, uh,
Speaker 1: computer technology specifically. But I was a kid who put
Speaker 1: on plays. I was a kid who I made Super
Speaker 1: eight movies, and you know, drew comic books and wrote
Speaker 1: stories and I was always making things, and so I
Speaker 1: kind of, I guess, fell into gaming because it was,
Speaker 1: you know, eventually the one career where I could use
Speaker 1: all of those interest together. And you said that very well,
Speaker 1: because it's both tech skills as well as the enormous
Speaker 1: creativity and amazing possibilities come out of that mix. I guess.
Speaker 1: I think storytelling is a really big part of game design,
Speaker 1: and for me as uh, it's a really big part
Speaker 1: of what drives me storytelling and experience making creating things
Speaker 1: for other people to enjoy. So what was it like
Speaker 1: in those early days of game design for you? Did
Speaker 1: you face obstacles where women looked at as you know,
Speaker 1: why are you into game design? What was it like?
Speaker 1: So there are two or multiple ways to look at this.
Speaker 1: One way is I myself didn't face many hurdles. In fact,
Speaker 1: I guess I was sort of precocious. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I went into the industry UM and I almost immediately
Speaker 1: was made a creative director. First of all, I had
Speaker 1: great mentor and I was almost immediately put in charge
Speaker 1: of the design of of projects UM. I had training
Speaker 1: in filmmaking. I had gone to USC in their film school,
Speaker 1: and so I knew how to run projects. I knew
Speaker 1: to break projects down and and you know, make them
Speaker 1: happen right, And I had my own self training and
Speaker 1: uh in terms of technology, and so it was a
Speaker 1: very unique time because there really weren't a lot of
Speaker 1: people who had that combination of creative skills and technical skills.
Speaker 1: And so I was very lucky. And I guess I
Speaker 1: was also a bit Uh. I didn't even understand how
Speaker 1: lucky I was. I just sort of expected to be
Speaker 1: put in charge of creative projects. Well that's you know,
Speaker 1: having confidence is important too, it is I these days
Speaker 1: I kind of wonder how how in the world old
Speaker 1: I got that confidence. But I was put in charge
Speaker 1: and I never expected anything otherwise. Uh So, so that
Speaker 1: was one That's one thing for me. But I will
Speaker 1: say this because I know many people, especially now, struggle
Speaker 1: more than I did to find success. I will say
Speaker 1: that there were times in my career where I absolutely
Speaker 1: noticed that I was not being promoted as fast as
Speaker 1: some of the my peers who were who were men.
Speaker 1: And I also was not listened to uh and and
Speaker 1: those things they matter, right, the kind of respectfulness matters. Um.
Speaker 1: It was harder for me as a president. When I
Speaker 1: started my own company, it's harder for me to raise money.
Speaker 1: In fact, finally, our strategy as a company was to
Speaker 1: take the same pitch and let my business partner give
Speaker 1: it and wham, we got the money. So those things matter.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that, you know, bringing more
Speaker 1: diverse voices into the industry, into academia where people are trained,
Speaker 1: and because that is a pipeline into the industry. That's
Speaker 1: why it's so important to me to be part of
Speaker 1: that process. You know, you're you're mentioning what it was
Speaker 1: like when you were trying to get the investment money,
Speaker 1: and that's something we hear repeatedly from women entrepreneurs, and
Speaker 1: the shortfall in terms of access to investment is so
Speaker 1: much more difficult. Yes, it's shocking. Really, it's so much
Speaker 1: greater in terms of just how big it is. Senecas
Speaker 1: one hundred women to hear will be back after the
Speaker 1: short break. You know you mentioned Walden, Yes, your extraordinary
Speaker 1: hit game, but you didn't mention that it got very
Speaker 1: wide press coverage when it came out, not just in
Speaker 1: gaming journals but everywhere, from the New York Times just
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Magazine. It was even named game of the year.
Speaker 1: What was it about Walden that made it so different
Speaker 1: or gave it the receptivity it got? And did you
Speaker 1: have a clue when you you PopEd for this kind
Speaker 1: of success? I would imagine, But did you expect that
Speaker 1: you were onto something? Well? I hope, uh, I hope
Speaker 1: that I was onto something. Uh. Let me answer the
Speaker 1: question about what makes it so different first, because I
Speaker 1: think on the surface, it's on the surface, it seems
Speaker 1: obvious that it is a strange little game about a philosopher,
Speaker 1: when if you tried to name another game about a philosopher,
Speaker 1: you might be hard pressed to do so. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a game where you play as Hen David Thorough. You
Speaker 1: go to the woods to act out his experiment in living,
Speaker 1: and you, you know, are seeking not only to just
Speaker 1: survive in those woods, as as you might in many games.
Speaker 1: Many games are have survival simulations at their core, But
Speaker 1: you're not just trying to survive in the woods of Walden. Frankly,
Speaker 1: that's a very simple thing to do, because he really
Speaker 1: wasn't that far away from family and friends. But you're
Speaker 1: trying to understand what makes us thrive? H What is
Speaker 1: it about life that inspires us that, you know, beyond
Speaker 1: just gaining things, what what is it that will make
Speaker 1: our lives more beautiful, more interesting and more successful from
Speaker 1: a philosophical point of view? And so, uh, that is
Speaker 1: what makes the game different. What makes the game different
Speaker 1: is that it asks, I think, a question that I
Speaker 1: don't think I've seen another game ask. Um. And so
Speaker 1: when I set out to design it, I I had
Speaker 1: First of all, I was a little bit nervous, right,
Speaker 1: And second of all, I had no money. Um, there
Speaker 1: was no funding. I started designing a game in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, and I just brought it to the
Speaker 1: folks in the lab and I said, listen, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about this for a while. I had really really
Speaker 1: thought about wanting to do it in two thousand two,
Speaker 1: and I just hadn't seen a way forward. But I
Speaker 1: brought it to the you know, folks who worked in
Speaker 1: the lab, and I said, listen, I'd like to try something.
Speaker 1: Let's let's all read this book together, and let's have
Speaker 1: a kind of a workshop, a weekly workshop where we
Speaker 1: work on ideas about how we might bring it to
Speaker 1: a game format. And we did. We started with a
Speaker 1: group of volunteers and we did what we called paper prototyping,
Speaker 1: which is you make essentially board game versions of your ideas.
Speaker 1: It allows you to do very cheap um investigation. We
Speaker 1: did that, and we then began and to make very simple,
Speaker 1: rough digital prototypes. And we were about five years into
Speaker 1: the project before there was any inkling on the horizon
Speaker 1: that someone might be interested in funding a game like this. UM.
Speaker 1: Around that time, things were changing, you know, and and
Speaker 1: I think we in the lab and and and other
Speaker 1: groups were part of that change. You know. I talked
Speaker 1: about making sure, you know, getting the word out to
Speaker 1: people that games can be different, and some of the
Speaker 1: success of the early projects of our lab and other
Speaker 1: other folks started to make that change possible. UM. And
Speaker 1: so it was about midway through that programs like the
Speaker 1: UM National endow Humanities began their digital projects for the
Speaker 1: public that specifically mentioned that they would accept games interesting,
Speaker 1: and the National Endowment for the Arts changed the wording
Speaker 1: of their Media Arts grants to include the word games.
Speaker 1: And so that made it possible for us to actually
Speaker 1: take our ideas and with them supported now to to
Speaker 1: really execute in a way that would make the game
Speaker 1: an actual viable project to bring to the public. So
Speaker 1: you know, in a way the game was. It began
Speaker 1: with an inkling of a question that I asked, and
Speaker 1: then it became in many ways a a standard bearer
Speaker 1: for the types of games that might be made under
Speaker 1: the new way of of conceiving of them and the
Speaker 1: new support available to them from various sources, and it
Speaker 1: raised gaming to a different level. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that about both the n A and
Speaker 1: n e H. They have been great supporters of our work.
Speaker 1: They also supported the Night Journey project with Bill Viola,
Speaker 1: that's the National Down for the Arts did that, and
Speaker 1: the National Down for Humanity Ease. Even after we published
Speaker 1: the commercial game, they gave us some exploratory funding to
Speaker 1: build an educational version of Walden, which is something we're
Speaker 1: working on now, and this is free for teachers, and
Speaker 1: many many teachers have been using the beta versions during
Speaker 1: COVID and writing to us because these are humanities teachers,
Speaker 1: you know, English language Arts, also social emotional learning, and
Speaker 1: the writing to us and saying we've never experienced games
Speaker 1: made for our classrooms before. Mostly they be made for say,
Speaker 1: science classes. Games do very well in STEM, but the
Speaker 1: teachers that we speak to our you know, say English
Speaker 1: teachers who are so excited to find a game that
Speaker 1: brings the Book of Walden to life for their students
Speaker 1: when it may not seem like Walden is something that
Speaker 1: is topical, but the themes of living simply close to nature,
Speaker 1: understanding you know what it is that we need not
Speaker 1: just to survive but to thrive. Also concern for the environment,
Speaker 1: a sense of civic responsibility. All of these themes that
Speaker 1: run throughout the book are exceptionally topical, exceptionally so absolutely
Speaker 1: what a wonderful not just void that has been filled,
Speaker 1: but an opportunity to have access to Walden as a
Speaker 1: game that can make that kind of difference in somebody's life. Clearly,
Speaker 1: Walden is not a violent or sexually exploit of game.
Speaker 1: It's just the polar opposite of all of that. But
Speaker 1: would you agree, Tracy, that the gaming industry has a
Speaker 1: longstanding reputation for being hostile to women players? Is that
Speaker 1: still fair? I think we need to sort of separate that.
Speaker 1: So the industry itself, I think is does not set
Speaker 1: out to be hostile to women players. However, it does
Speaker 1: cater to male players, if that makes any sense. And
Speaker 1: so I would say that what does happen is because
Speaker 1: it does cater to specifically young male players. There is
Speaker 1: a sense of entitlement on the part of those players,
Speaker 1: and that entitlement has in the age of social media,
Speaker 1: which we know UM has a cutting edge to it,
Speaker 1: UM has fostered a kind of uh toxic community that
Speaker 1: is hostile to many women players. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a that's a shame, and I put that on the
Speaker 1: game industry. You know, the industry needs to stop catering
Speaker 1: to one specific public and stop defining themselves as UM
Speaker 1: focused on that particular public, because they are creating a
Speaker 1: sense of entitlement in those players, and they need to
Speaker 1: realize that play is universally human and we play across
Speaker 1: all of our ages. We played differently when we're children
Speaker 1: than we do when we're adults, but we certainly play right.
Speaker 1: And one only has to look at the success of
Speaker 1: something is crazy as word, for example, which is UM,
Speaker 1: you know, just making the rounds of of of social media,
Speaker 1: which is just a word guessing game, right, and that
Speaker 1: so many adults are captivated. You get one chance a
Speaker 1: day to guess a word, and it's a kind of
Speaker 1: intellectual mind play that people enjoy. It so everyone plays.
Speaker 1: That's that's the key here. Everyone plays during times like this.
Speaker 1: By the way, everyone's played more. This has been a
Speaker 1: fantastic year for games. And one of the huge irony
Speaker 1: is it's been just an amazing year for games, you know,
Speaker 1: because what have we to do when we're trapped in
Speaker 1: our in our houses but to play games, right And so,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, I think it's important for the
Speaker 1: industry to grow up a little bit and understand that
Speaker 1: they are making experiences for a multitude of publics and markets.
Speaker 1: And are they thinking very narrowly that this is where
Speaker 1: their business lies and not thinking about all the other
Speaker 1: publics that are out there. Yes, And I think that's changing.
Speaker 1: So I want to be fair. Um, I think there
Speaker 1: are you know, there are definitely people in the industry
Speaker 1: who are thinking beyond that sort of core gamer market
Speaker 1: that they've always serve, but they haven't really come out
Speaker 1: and based and and and said hey, you're only one
Speaker 1: of our one of our groups. They don't want to
Speaker 1: lose that core, that core public, right Uh. And to me,
Speaker 1: I think you need to be a little braver than that.
Speaker 1: You need to basically come out and say, hey, we're
Speaker 1: here to serve humans across all ages and backgrounds and
Speaker 1: genders and races and you know, et cetera, nationalities everything. Right,
Speaker 1: we're here to create play and plays universal. Well, may
Speaker 1: you get through on that? It would be extremely beneficial.
Speaker 1: You had mentioned just how much interest there has been
Speaker 1: in in video game playing, As you said, you know
Speaker 1: what all can you do when you're in lockdown? So
Speaker 1: the pandemic has spurred a lot of that, And I
Speaker 1: wonder did COVID teach you anything new or surprising about gaming,
Speaker 1: because there's been so much greater engagement. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it taught me as so much as it confirmed
Speaker 1: things that I had been thinking about UM. Early in
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Of course, there was this massive uh success
Speaker 1: of UM Animal Crossing, which is a little game where
Speaker 1: you made your own island, your own private island, and
Speaker 1: you you know, decorated it and had little you know,
Speaker 1: visitors and friends and everyone had their own private islands,
Speaker 1: which was so appropriate, right UM. And I had this
Speaker 1: moment when I was playing, when I was playing Animal
Speaker 1: Crossing like everyone else, at this moment where my niece,
Speaker 1: who I hadn't seen in a couple of months, came
Speaker 1: over to my island to visit it being and I
Speaker 1: was almost in tears. It happened to be reigning on
Speaker 1: my island and we were sort of running around in
Speaker 1: the rain and laying on the jungle gyms of the island,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I honestly was almost in tears
Speaker 1: because it just felt so good too interact with her.
Speaker 1: And I think that that really confirms to me how
Speaker 1: much part there can be when we play in environments
Speaker 1: that allow us to feel, you know, environments that are
Speaker 1: not necessarily about direct competition or violent competition. When we
Speaker 1: are allowed to be layful, in environments that support our
Speaker 1: heart to live, that's beautiful. I can just imagine how
Speaker 1: you felt by the way you described it. It's the
Speaker 1: really extraordinary. We never have enough time for these conversations,
Speaker 1: and this one has been particularly rich, and I'm wondering
Speaker 1: these are difficult times. I think there's no surprise in
Speaker 1: that statement. But given the difficulty of these times and
Speaker 1: all of the challenges, can games help us move forward?
Speaker 1: In games give us hope? It seems so much of
Speaker 1: what you described does have that capacity, I hope. So
Speaker 1: that is what I you know, have dedicated the lab too.
Speaker 1: That is the work that I do. It depends on
Speaker 1: the games. And and this is you know, this is
Speaker 1: true of any medium. What is it that you're saying?
Speaker 1: What is it you're supporting? What? How are you inspiring people?
Speaker 1: Are the questions that I would ask of game makers
Speaker 1: in these types of times? Are we making games that
Speaker 1: help us become better citizens, that help us be come
Speaker 1: engaged in fruitful ways and ways that help drive our
Speaker 1: society forward? Are we making games that help us learn
Speaker 1: in times where we can't necessarily be together? Are we
Speaker 1: making games that support us in our emotional growth and
Speaker 1: our emotional health? Are we making games that bring us
Speaker 1: together as communities. If we're doing that, then games can
Speaker 1: move us forward. Well, on that note, it's a very
Speaker 1: wonderful note to end on, and I can't thank you enough.
Speaker 1: I'm sure our listeners are feeling similarly. It's been my
Speaker 1: pleasure well just learning about gaming and game design and
Speaker 1: all of what you have achieved already, but also the
Speaker 1: extraordinary possibilities you laid out today. So we are very
Speaker 1: very grateful to you for making us so much smarter
Speaker 1: about this field than we were when we started. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Tracy Fullerton, Oh, thank you it's so great to look
Speaker 1: at the world through the fresh perspective of video games
Speaker 1: thanks to Tracy Fullerton. Here are three things I took
Speaker 1: from that conversation. First, video games are about more than
Speaker 1: action and dazzling artwork. As Tracy says, they allow us
Speaker 1: to push the boundaries of play. They can help us
Speaker 1: to build community, even to live a more fulfilling life. Second,
Speaker 1: the games industry, like every other field, benefits when women
Speaker 1: are involved. Tracy made it a priority to bring more
Speaker 1: women into the games program at USC. She succeeded by
Speaker 1: developing a space where women could feel they had a
Speaker 1: voice and a real career path in the games industry. Finally,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to know that games can actually help us
Speaker 1: move forward as a society. That can happen, Tracy tells
Speaker 1: us if we demand games that show us how to
Speaker 1: be better citizens, that contribute to our emotional health, and
Speaker 1: that give us hope in challenging times. Tune in next
Speaker 1: week to hear about our next featured woman and discover
Speaker 1: why she's one of Seneca's Women to Hear. Seneca's one
Speaker 1: hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca
Speaker 1: Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio with support from
Speaker 1: founding partner Pung. Have a great day.