SOE Boss: Non-Gamers "Have No Business In This Business"

[Narcogen]

In other news, only race car drivers should work for automakers, professional sports team front offices should be staffed entirely by ex-players, every employee at every concert hall should play an instrument, and visiting the moon should be a prerequisite for being hired by NASA.

I think you are missing the point. He is not saying that only gaming professionals should become gaming professionals, but that mainly people with a passion for the product should work in the industry.

To use your examples: Yes, if you work for NASA it certainly HELPS to actually be interested in space-flight. If you work for a car manufacturer, it is certainly useful to have a license and kind-of enjoy cars. For managing a sports team, not enjoying the sport certainly puts you at a disadvantage.

I don't think I missed the point. He IS saying that only gamers (not gaming professionals) should be in the business. Nor is he saying "mainly" as you suggest. He says "only". The quote is:

In my opinion, people that don't play games have no business in this business," he continued.

That's only. There are plenty of jobs in gaming that probably don't necessarily require an interest in or an experience with gaming. Voice acting, concept art, tools and UI programming. Certainly people may find the demands of their job easier to meet if they have a passion for the project, (certainly design and test, for instance) but for others it may be quite immaterial. This guy is grandstanding off some other ill considered remarks of Kotick from quite awhile ago; he's just swinging too far in the opposite direction.

 

[Monsterfurby]

In other news, only race car drivers should work for automakers, professional sports team front offices should be staffed entirely by ex-players, every employee at every concert hall should play an instrument, and visiting the moon should be a prerequisite for being hired by NASA.

I think you are missing the point. He is not saying that only gaming professionals should become gaming professionals, but that mainly people with a passion for the product should work in the industry.

To use your examples: Yes, if you work for NASA it certainly HELPS to actually be interested in space-flight. If you work for a car manufacturer, it is certainly useful to have a license and kind-of enjoy cars. For managing a sports team, not enjoying the sport certainly puts you at a disadvantage.

I don't think I missed the point. He IS saying that only gamers (not gaming professionals) should be in the business. Nor is he saying "mainly" as you suggest. He says "only".

Sorry if I am misinterpreting, but your first post sounded as if you understood him as saying that only gaming PROFESSIONALS (i.e. those experienced in MAKING games) should ENTER the business, as opposed to gaming ENTHUSIASTS, who like the product. You compared it to NASA only hiring people who have been to the moon - in other words, hiring only people with expertise that they would need to be in the business to acquire to begin with.

What he is saying, however, is that people in the business should have a passion for the product, which has nothing at all to do with professional skills.

 

[Callate]

Actually, I think I mostly agree with him. What would you think if the CEO of General Motors didn't drive?

Now, I understand the argument that it's maybe not necessary for a manager or an accountant to be a gamer to do their job, but I think a lot of the bullshit that we as consumers of the medium deal with comes at least in part from the fact that many of the people in positions of power in game publishing barely see games as a product, let alone something that has an inherent worth or is distinguishable one from another beyond a feature list. And quite frankly, that sucks.

Unlike my example above, you don't need to stand in line at a DMV or pay a fee or take a test to play games. That anyone making major decisions about the future of the medium doesn't have at the very least a passing knowledge of same is all but inexcusable.

 

[Aikayai]

Its strange to me that as soon as I hear someone who plays Eve I imagine a real gamer. Not someone who dabbles part time in casual games but someone who dedicates time to games.

The business side is probably what he was referring to, and its easy to tell who's a gamer and who isn't when it comes to publishing games. Valve, SOE, Bethesda, Riot. Think about the games they've published. Then think about Activision, EA or Ubi. I think I can see a pattern here...

(I mention Riot because now they have so much money its unreal, but they still spend it on tournament prizes and development rather than pushing for people's money).