Hmm.

Um, I was there for a while, uh, about 10 years, I think.

And, uh, we had one of these spasms in the games industry where, uh, publishers were panicking about new platforms and what types of games to make, and so I'd been working on a Legacy of Kain game for three years, and that got canceled.

And at that point I was like, "Oh, crap, uh, I guess I'm not..." Like, the career trajectory of making interesting single player narrative games that I'd been on, I was like, "Maybe this isn't gonna happen," 'cause actually no one's making these at this point.

Um, and I was looking at, like, the explosion in the App Store and all the interesting things that are happening, and I was realizing that I was feeling jealous towards indie devs.

So I was like, "Fuck it, I'll go make an indie game." So in Portsmouth, I made my indie game, Her Story, which then did very well and blew up.

And at that point I realized, like, I don't need to live in Portsmouth anymore.

Mm

Yep.

Where you've got these people going, "Okay, we've had our success.

You know, we kind of had that, uh, that lightning strike, and now we're gonna use that to, you know, help and elevate everything else." And actually, that's, like, such a, a cool source of strength, 'cause these are people that are not motivated by their investor calls, right? Are not going, "Well, we need to build some data centers, so we're gonna have to shut things down, and, uh, you know, we have to trim 10%." Um, so just, like, talking to people who've been in the same place, who also, you know, love games, love indie games as much as us, is really exciting.

And I think, you know, in the past when we've collaborated, it's not always been with the sort of, uh, the, the sort of typical publishing deals, right? It's always like there has to be some sort of synergy.

Um, and I think, yeah, everyone at Kinetic, um, we just kind of reached out and we're like, "Hey, we're working on this thing.

Do you wanna talk about it?" And I'm, like, super pessimistic about every speculative meeting I ever have.

I'm like, "I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna pitch this thing, and people are gonna be like, 'What the fuck, Sam? What do I...

Fair enough.

Yep.

Where you've got these people going, "Okay, we've had our success.

You know, we kind of had that, uh, that lightning strike, and now we're gonna use that to, you know, help and elevate everything else." And actually that's, like, such a, a cool source of strength, 'cause these are people that are not motivated by their investor calls, right? Are not going, "Well, we need to build some data centers, so we're gonna have to shut things down, and, uh, you know, we have to trim 10%." Um, so just, like, talking to people who've been in the same place who also, you know, love games, love indie games as much as us is really exciting.

And I think, you know, in the past when we've collaborated, it's not always been with the sort of, uh, the, the sort of typical publishing deals, right? It's always like there has to be some sort of synergy.

Um, and I think, yeah, everyone at Kinetic, um, we just kind of reached out and we're like, "Hey, we're working on this thing.

Do you wanna talk about it?" And I'm, like, super pessimistic about every speculative meeting I ever have.

I'm like, "I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna pitch this thing, and people are gonna be like, 'What the fuck, Sam? What do I...'" [laughs]

[laughs]