It's a ridiculously long time running, but if I could, if I could get five Normans, I would never do anything else.

We were hustling.

I know people at Bristol, they just do that one.

But then again, they got 9 to 5s that pay them pretty good money anyways.

But that's the only show they do.

And that's the only show they plan to do.

I'm like, oh, isn't that nice? Just nine weekends, and you're done.

There is

Even when I kicked off today's conference, right, one of the things that we talked about was an inflection point where workers are both looking to us to provide them with the kind of tools they need to be truly successful, but at the same time living under a paradigm that is about I might be displaced, I might be replaced, I might have those things, right? And I think about this, right? Because think about what it's like to work in that environment, right? How do we build trust when, you know, amongst workers, we're encouraging them to adopt AI tools, and at the same time, they're recognizing that they could one day actually be displaced by those tools.

You know, I've seen this movie before.

So I worked in manufacturing for 10 years.

And I could tell you in the manufacturing space, certainly, I would say globally, but certainly here in the US, that automation's been happening for decades.

The introduction of machine tooling of robots and robotics on assembly lines.

This has been going on for a long time.

And I got to walk factory floors.

I'd love to hear what the behavioral sciences team over there is kind of cooking up.

huge corporations paid for this

i you know and i have a lot of conservative friends too so i give them but the the ones that really try to cause problems will come up and say well you're a communist you're i'm like i have a job i'm donating my time to paint this mural for free mind you so it's like I participate in capitalism.

I'm not a communist.

And if you are, there's nothing wrong with being one.

But I am not a communist.

So quit calling me that.

Or you're a Democrat.

But yeah, tell us about your story.

And how about you, Woody? Tell me about you, where you came from, why you're here, what's going on, and especially about your son, who I love because it reminds me of Adrian.

I know.

I love Adrian as much.

I see you're in his relationship so much with my son and I, so...

The quick elevator pitch is my first grade teacher told me I was stupid and I couldn't read and I believed her.

And so I ended up dropping out of high school.

I was a millionaire at 26 and broke at 27.

So go ahead, Woody.

So you mentioned when you got up, you saw the conditions and what were some of the things, I guess, that you saw, you know, before the union and sort of in the mid 60s and what life was like for players back then?

Let me maybe introduce it this way if it's all right, because we want to talk about those early days with Marvin Miller.

Everybody can take a look at Marvin Miller's record, and it's nothing short of spectacular.

But you mentioned 63, 64, and you can put 65 in there.

I saw the major leagues for a little over two years.

and there was a players union but you heard very few players talking about it you didn't see individuals saying you did see him saying gosh the meal money is not what it should be or the salaries Coming up at that time, I made $7,000.

I'm not sure what that would convert to now, but it was still short.

Is that fair? Absolutely.

... that's what I brought in from that angle.

Yeah.

Everything always felt like the biggest thing.

It's like, oh-

But the, the thing about this book-

Go back and forth to the buffet.

[laughs]

Yeah.

So we started with, like, laying all the tracks out in order and how we wanted it and what, how'd that make us feel and how w- how did a different track make a different gameplay sequence feel and swapping that order around.

And then we basically had the whole game done start to finish, obviously not all finished assets and that kind of thing, and then just went through and decided, you know, we'd bring this level up to a nine out of 10 or this one to a seven.

How are we feeling about it now? Like, doing the, "Is that song right? Is the gameplay right there?" That kind of thing.

And then kind of just went back and forward doing passes over the whole game until it's all obviously a 10 out of 10.

Yeah.

But it's because he was reaching to get pickles out of a pickle jar, and his hand got stuck in the pickle jar so he couldn't reach the break lever.

So then his skeleton's there wearing a train conductor outfit, but then his hand's perfectly preserved inside the pickle jar.

[laughs]

Um, but and that helped us, like, get the tracks in the right order for the right memories and stuff 'cause, like, the pacing is such an important thing, and getting those tracks in the right flow and stuff.

And then we went through and, like, you know, started setting up the gameplay and the visuals in each section and then being like, "Cool, does this song still fit? Is it still giving us the emotions and the vibe we want?" and that kind of stuff.

And most of the time, the answer was yes.

Um, and then we just made a great video game.

And like what is something that they could-

Well, h- exactly.

How can you get, how can you use the medium? How can you use the interactivity to show the emotional state of the character? And that was something that we worked really hard on, and I think why we have, like, some really creative ways of, like, showing embarrassment and awkwardness in a set of horrific tongues or-

Woody?

Yeah, we, like, built the game around the flow of that soundtrack.

'Cause, like, as the soundtrack and the, um, narrative are, like, running along, then we kind of placed the levels along that line and built the whole game start to finish.

Yeah

... really helped us with this.

'Cause like obviously it's set to music, and so we don't wanna just loop the same song for 20 minutes, you know what I mean? And stuff like that.

So the pacing and having, you know, the gameplay serving the, serving, not overstaying its welcome.

Woody?

Yeah.

We, like, built the game around the flow of that soundtrack.

'Cause, like, as the soundtrack and the, um, narrative are, like, running along, then we kind of placed the levels along that line and built the whole game start to finish.

Yeah

... really helped us with this.

'Cause like obviously it's set to music, and so we don't wanna just loop the same song for 20 minutes, you know what I mean? And stuff like that.

So the pacing and having, you know, the gameplay serving the, serving, not overstaying its welcome.

Woody?

Yeah, we, like, built the game around the flow of that soundtrack.

'Cause, like, as the soundtrack and the, um, narrative are, like, running along, then we kind of placed the levels along that line and built the whole game start to finish.

Yeah

... really helped us with this.

'Cause like obviously it's set to music, and so we don't wanna just loop the same song for 20 minutes, you know what I mean? [laughs] And stuff like that.

So the pacing and having, you know, the gameplay serving the, serving, not overstaying its welcome.

And so we would rearrange these tracks into all of these different, um, narratives and see where they flow, see where they would peak, see where they would dip, and then we made, um, what we call a horizontal slice.

Woody? Yeah, we, like, built the game around the flow of that soundtrack 'cause, like, as the soundtrack and the, um, narrative are, like, running along, then we kind of placed the levels along that line and built the whole game start to finish.

Yeah

... really helped us with this.

'Cause, like, obviously it's set to music, and so we don't wanna just loop the same song for 20 minutes, [laughs] you know what I mean? And stuff like that.

So the pacing and having, you know, the gameplay serving the, serving, not overstaying its welcome.