The Auron MacIntyre Show - The Rise and Fall of Video Games ｜ Guest： Marty O'Donnell

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00:01:09.860 All right, guys, if you are like me, if you grew up around the time that I did, you had

00:01:15.980 Halo as a big part of your life. I very much remember getting everyone together with Halo 1

00:01:21.760 and you had to link up the Xboxes physically in the room because you didn't even have internet

00:01:26.220 connection play at that time. And we just have LAN parties and everything. That means that you have

00:01:30.840 this man's music trapped in your brain for all of eternity. Marty O'Donnell is the audio director

00:01:37.420 and the composer on several Halo games is responsible for a good chunk of your childhood.

00:01:42.040 Marty, thank you so much for coming on.

00:01:43.900 Oren, it's a pleasure to be on the show. I'm glad that my music is locked inside so many

00:01:49.980 people's brains. I never intended that, but that's a great outcome for me.

00:01:55.440 Yeah, I mean, ultimately, you have to be more memorable and more popular than a large number

00:02:00.680 of major recording artists, even if people might not know who you are. The impact of your music

00:02:06.400 has to be on a similar level there.

00:02:08.440 Yeah, so many people will attempt at singing the monk chant and it's like, I know it's in their head,

00:02:16.100 but they just can't quite sing it the right way, but that's okay. It's like they made a good attempt.

00:02:22.020 It's in there someplace. And you know, it's funny. I never, when I was young, I thought, well, yeah,

00:02:27.600 I want to be a rock star. I want to be one of the, you know, I saw the Beatles when I was nine years

00:02:32.480 old on Ed Sullivan. And I'm like, that's, that's what I want to do. And it never turned out, right?

00:02:39.080 I did other things. But somehow there is a certain sort of notoriety, fame that without people

00:02:47.920 necessarily recognizing me or knowing my name, they do know my music. So that's pretty cool.

00:02:53.660 I mean, in a lot of ways, that's actually preferable. You don't have to deal with all

00:02:57.180 the downsides of fame. You know, people aren't stopping you in the middle of their street to

00:03:00.920 like yell at you about your opinion. So there's, there's an upside there too.

00:03:04.300 Yeah, there is an upside. I can sort of mingle in the normal way and no one knows who I am,

00:03:10.020 which is great. Every once in a while, there are, there are the rare occasions where someone will

00:03:14.080 see me at a restaurant and, and come over and say, are you Marty O'Donnell? And I'm like,

00:03:18.060 who's asking? So that's kind of fun, but it's, it's pretty rare. But yeah, it's, it's, it's,

00:03:28.200 I think I get the best of both worlds. It's fine. Fine with me.

00:03:32.720 Well, oh, and I should say guys that this is a prerecorded one. So unfortunately we won't be able

00:03:37.140 to take any audience questions at the end this time, but I wanted to start at the beginning.

00:03:41.560 You'd mentioned, well, you know, I'd be interested in being a rock star. I've been interested in

00:03:45.940 playing in bands or in something like that. So I wanted, I wanted to ask you,

00:03:50.920 were you always thinking of composing? Were you always someone who saw yourself doing more

00:03:55.560 orchestral music? Are you somebody who just wanted to play rock? And that was it. And did you see

00:04:00.160 video games as a viable path to realizing that goal? Well, I'll start with the last question first.

00:04:05.900 Video games were never on the radar for me until, until much later. They were not a viable path at all.

00:04:15.940 Um, as you know, I, I saw the Beatles when I was nine, like I said, and I thought, well,

00:04:21.860 that would be cool. It certainly would be a way to, you know, get the girls. Um, but I also was

00:04:29.700 taking classical piano lessons. And I, I remember my dad bringing home, uh, the score to Ben Hur,

00:04:37.920 the original 1959 movie with Charlton Heston. And he brought it home on vinyl. And I listened to that

00:04:44.100 and I just was completely blown away by the, the, that music. So I had a classical side of this movie

00:04:50.880 score side, and then I had the rock and roll side. And then my dad was a disc jockey and he was into

00:04:56.860 big band and jazz. So I had a jazz side too. So I had a good exposure to lots of music. Um, but no,

00:05:04.800 in terms of composition, it was never, um, oops, sorry about that. That's my fault. Uh, I was never,

00:05:12.980 um, thinking about actually composing music. I was just performing music on the piano. Um,

00:05:20.620 so, uh, I went all the way through high school. I was in, I had a band that I was in and we played

00:05:27.440 other people's music. I played Beethoven and Chopin and Bach, uh, for piano and then auditioned to get

00:05:35.040 into the conservatory of music as a piano major. And it never occurred to me that I could actually

00:05:41.200 write music until I had started a band when we were doing all covers of, uh, uh, prog rock. We were big

00:05:50.580 into Jethro Tull and King Crimson and Gentle Giant and, and Genesis. And yes, uh, these are all bands

00:05:59.600 way before your time or, and I'm sorry, but you should, everybody should go listen to them. They

00:06:04.360 were great. Um, and, uh, one day the drummer, uh, was said to me that I was already, I think I was a

00:06:12.280 sophomore in college, uh, at the conservatory. And he says, Marty, you're working so hard on figuring

00:06:17.900 all these songs out and teaching us all the parts. Cause I was the one who had to, I did that. I had

00:06:22.380 the, I had a good enough ear that I could extract each part, what the guitars were doing and the

00:06:27.500 keys were doing and, and getting it all charted out. And he says, why don't you, you know, why aren't

00:06:33.280 you writing music? And it was, I'm not, it was like a, a light bulb went off at that moment. I thought,

00:06:39.020 yeah, why aren't I writing music? Do I, can I do that? And I went upstairs with the band was

00:06:46.160 rehearsing downstairs. I went upstairs and went to the piano upstairs and I, I wrote a thing for the

00:06:51.440 band and I came down and I said, Hey, let's do this. And they loved it. And I, and I was like,

00:06:56.380 that's it. I'm going to be a composer from now on. So it was, it was absolutely a switch on a very

00:07:03.140 specific day where I went from piano player to a composer. That was, it was pretty amazing for me at

00:07:10.940 least. Did you work in music and other capacities before you ended up moving into video games or

00:07:17.800 doing any contracts or commercials or anything? Yeah, that was a, that was my main thing. So I

00:07:24.120 went to grad school after the conservatory. I got a, you know, a bachelor's degree in music

00:07:31.300 composition. Then I went to grad school at USC in Southern Cal and got a master's in music

00:07:38.940 composition. Then I went, I moved back to Chicago with the intention of being a professor of music

00:07:47.440 at the American conservatory of music in Chicago. And while that was supposedly, you know, in the works,

00:07:56.120 I started working on a film set, uh, as a grip, my dad had been a film director. So I was,

00:08:03.160 I knew some people and I could, I'd work as a grip. Um, and you know, I, I was married and I had a baby

00:08:10.080 at the time. And, and so I needed to make money. The American conservatory thing fell through, but the,

00:08:15.880 uh, me working, uh, on, as a grip, the director asked me if I would write music for them.

00:08:22.920 And at first I was like, uh, no, I don't want to prostitute my art. But then when he said,

00:08:29.380 I'll give you 500 bucks, I'm like, absolutely. I honestly said on the first, the first time the

00:08:35.760 producer asked me if I would, you know, write music, she's like, Hey, you, you know, got a

00:08:42.460 degree in music. Why don't you write music for TV and film? And I'm like, I don't want to prostitute

00:08:46.740 my art. So I had been, you know, uh, convinced by academia that, that, you know, getting paid to do

00:08:55.560 music was somehow beneath me until the director offered me $500. And then I'm like, yeah,

00:09:01.160 absolutely. I'm doing it. Yeah. Very fast. Uh, capitalist is born. Yeah, absolutely. And it

00:09:09.240 was funny cause I had, of course I didn't have any equipment. I had no place to go. My friend,

00:09:13.080 Mike Salvatore had built a recording studio in his basement that he had some equipment lying around.

00:09:18.440 I went over to his house. I said, Mike, I'll split 500 bucks with you. If you, you know,

00:09:22.280 let's work on something. And he's like, sure. So we did a bunch of stuff that night, brought it into

00:09:28.760 the director and he loved it. And the rest is history. We, we, we got stuff on TV with like that

00:09:35.000 week, um, doing commercials. And, uh, um, then we started also doing some film scores. So that,

00:09:42.680 that, uh, lasted for, you know, uh, geez, that was early eighties. It lasted over 15 years where

00:09:52.200 we were doing that. And then, um, there was a point, uh, in the early nineties where we were

00:09:59.880 working on a, a commercial, uh, and it was late at night and the client was coming in the next day.

00:10:07.080 And there was a claymation, a set of claymation cats on the screen. And I was, you know, we were

00:10:14.760 working on scoring the cats, doing their little movements and stuff. And at one point that one cat

00:10:20.600 put up his finger and, and I want, I was going to cue that little movement with a flute part.

00:10:26.040 And Mike thought it should be an elbow. I don't know. We had some argument about this

00:10:29.640 ridiculous thing. So it was a commercial for kitty litter,

00:10:35.480 tidy cat. It was a commercial for tidy cat three. And at that moment, as we were discussing how to

00:10:44.280 musically score kitty litters, claymation cats, I realized I had prostituted my art.

00:10:54.680 Maybe the academics had a little point. No.

00:10:56.440 Yeah. It's like, okay, wait a minute. And at that moment, suddenly I was like, okay, this is,

00:11:02.840 I'm making a good living. We got a, you know, a lot of great clients were, you know, make getting

00:11:07.640 awards for commercials. And, um, but I was like, I realized I, I wasn't doing things that I was hoping

00:11:16.200 I would be doing with music. I certainly was not a rock star. Um, so I started looking for how else,

00:11:23.160 what else can I do? And, and it was in the early nineties. Uh, I ended up getting, uh, connected with

00:11:29.640 the people who were, who made the game missed, which was the first CD-ROM game. Uh, I ended up doing the,

00:11:37.800 the sound design and, and working with them on music for the sequel to mist, which was Riven.

00:11:43.960 Um, and then almost immediately found the bungee guys in Chicago, which were just down the street

00:11:50.520 from me and, and got a gig with them and started doing music with them and sound and music and,

00:11:56.280 and directing audio for them. So, um, that was just at the time where music and audio for games was

00:12:04.360 becoming more high fidelity was, was, uh, not what I thought of as music for games,

00:12:10.760 which was just eight bit mono, uh, Nintendo-y kind of, which was great. I mean, I'm not saying I

00:12:18.680 dislike that music. I love those games. I was a gamer. I played games, but I never saw that as a path for

00:12:25.000 me. Um, because it, it just seems so low res. And so, but I, I hit it right at the right time

00:12:32.280 in the mid nineties when, um, the fidelity had gone up for audio and music. So it was great.

00:12:38.040 You mentioned about, uh, getting your bachelor's and master's and possibly going into teaching

00:12:44.520 music. And I've always wondered this about professional working musicians. Do you feel

00:12:49.240 ultimately like that education was worth it? Do you feel like that helped you improve your art in a way

00:12:55.320 that you just wouldn't have had access to? Otherwise, do you think it's more necessary for

00:13:00.040 maybe someone who's looking at classical composition as opposed to someone who just wants to play rock?

00:13:05.400 What, what is the value? Do you think of a formal musical education in academia?

00:13:11.960 So it's a two-edged sword. You'll end up with ideas like, I don't want to prostitute my art.

00:13:17.240 So that's, that's the downside. You will, you will, you know, think you're better than everybody else,

00:13:23.640 which can come in handy when you're having arguments with someone who can't read music,

00:13:27.480 and you're arguing about music, you can pull out the degree and say, this is why this idea is better

00:13:33.400 than your idea. And maybe you can bully them into agreeing with you, which by the way,

00:13:38.040 I did a lot with Mike Salvatore because he was, he didn't have a formal education. So, uh, but it also

00:13:44.840 has to do with his personality and my personality probably. Um, but, uh, it's funny. I've been asked

00:13:53.400 this question before. I think it depends on the person you sort of have, you know, formal education

00:14:01.320 really, uh, it, it fills in the blanks that you would automatically have. It fills in, uh, areas of,

00:14:12.200 of knowledge. You just can't get by using your gut all the time, right? It fills in

00:14:18.120 all the knowledge that people have learned over the centuries. Um, you get exposed to a lot of that.

00:14:24.360 The downside to that is it sort of fills your brain with too much stuff and you have a hard time hooking

00:14:30.200 into, um, just the playful, uh, artistic creative side. You can get so, uh, encumbered by the academic,

00:14:41.240 academic, uh, inf information that's in your head that you're, you're unable to actually tap into the

00:14:49.560 creative side. So I think, um, I've met a lot of people with degrees who just, I feel like they're

00:14:56.840 not very creative at all. And I've met a lot of people with no education who are amazingly creative,

00:15:03.080 but at the same time, some of those amazingly creative people will get stuck in doing things that are,

00:15:09.080 um, just sort of naive. There might be a spark of genius in there, but then they do something

00:15:17.480 that it's like, oh, wow, that's just not, if only you just had a little knowledge, you could

00:15:23.080 overcome some of those, uh, you know, naive things that you're doing. Um, so I, I think it's, it, it,

00:15:32.840 it's like I said, it's a two-edged sword. I mean, I don't know how you feel about your education

00:15:38.040 and writing. And I think we've talked about this before. I think, didn't you go to a party school

00:15:42.620 or something? Yeah. I don't have a, I don't have a formal education outside of a bachelor's from a,

00:15:48.840 you know, from, from a party school in Florida. Um, so, so I, I do come up from the other side

00:15:54.540 because I am now in circles with lots of, you know, I'm, I'm usually the only guy, you know,

00:16:00.080 who doesn't have a doctorate and panels I'm speaking on or things. And so the, the difference I've

00:16:06.020 noticed quite a bit, at least, you know, in the political theory side is, you know, uh,

00:16:11.080 the autodidacts, um, like myself have more, uh, they're, they're willing to strike out and look

00:16:18.540 at different things from a different angle and are more likely to have, um, theorists or authors or,

00:16:23.720 or, you know, just kind of angles that otherwise don't exist. But the guys from the academic backgrounds

00:16:29.360 obviously are more well-versed in the tradition. They know, you know, chapter and verse where

00:16:35.220 everything is and to Tocqueville. Uh, and so, you know, they, they can give you, they're,

00:16:39.680 they're, they're kind of locked in that box sometimes because they have to think a certain

00:16:43.240 way to do the job that, or keep the job that they're doing. Uh, but, uh, obviously it does

00:16:48.620 give them more resilience inside that tradition. So I think probably a similar issue as to where

00:16:54.260 you can get very creative when you're outside of academia, but you might have a glaring hole

00:16:58.720 about like just a philosopher you didn't recognize or a theory you didn't understand because

00:17:02.480 you just never went through the formal training of moving through every piece of the tradition,

00:17:06.720 the way that someone who has actually been, you know, trained up in a university setting

00:17:10.540 would do. So, so there's a, a line from, uh, a Japanese poet philosopher, um, and whose

00:17:21.440 name escapes me at this moment, but has something to do with, uh, don't follow in the footsteps of

00:17:27.560 the masters seek what they sought. And, um, I, I've really, I've liked that because

00:17:36.600 you can use your education. And then, like you say, you get into this rigid, I got to take this

00:17:42.400 step and this step. And because this is what the people who I had to, you know, be who come before

00:17:47.340 me did and you start to mimic them, or you think that's the only path. But if you understand that

00:17:54.720 they were seeking something and you can seek the same thing, you can find your own path. That's,

00:18:00.920 that's what I think. Um, so it's, it's not easy to do because there are things you can learn that

00:18:08.980 you need to learn. Let's, you know, if like for, in terms of writing, I mean, it's, it's good to know

00:18:12.860 grammar, but that doesn't mean you have to be, you have to stick to certain, you know, very strict

00:18:19.500 rules when you're writing. The creative writers can, can understand, you know, what grammatical

00:18:25.120 rules are and then, you know, be creative around that. But people who have never had an education

00:18:31.720 can make really kind of rookie grammatical mistakes that just show that they don't know how to write.

00:18:39.620 You know what I mean? It's like, and they, they might show real promise, but they're,

00:18:44.040 they need to learn a few rules. So I think it's a, I think it's tough. I think the individual,

00:18:52.000 uh, we're all, we all have a certain amount of creativity, I think sort of built in and to, to,

00:18:58.220 uh, fan that spark of creativity. So it grows, you need a certain amount of education and a certain

00:19:05.640 amount of just innate talent and a certain amount of fearlessness. Um, and you have to have, you know,

00:19:13.060 I think it's important to have people around you that don't constantly try to like crush your dreams

00:19:18.880 of being creative. So, you know, the parents who say you can't make a living doing that, uh, that's,

00:19:24.600 maybe that helps some people, but I had parents who never said that to me, which was great. So I don't

00:19:31.600 know what your parents were like, did they ever say, what are you doing? You're, you need to be

00:19:36.760 an accountant. Well, I was just teaching, uh, I was just teaching high school until I ended up doing

00:19:42.060 this. So yeah, I was, I did not have the starving artist, uh, phase in the attempt here. I was just

00:19:47.440 working a normal job. Got it. So not, not didn't seem too irresponsible, I suppose, in the handoff

00:19:54.360 between the two. Um, but what, when we look at the video game industry, as you said, you're entering

00:20:00.280 in a time when the complexity of musical scores is increasing the media, uh, that is now that video

00:20:07.880 games are now being delivered on is, is got, uh, more data can store higher fidelity, these kinds

00:20:14.020 of things. And so the, I think a lot of people look at the huge boom, uh, in, in video games,

00:20:21.940 uh, often seems to start, I think, you know, obviously video games have always, or I shouldn't

00:20:27.120 say always, but they have been steadily increasing in popularity and profitability for a long time.

00:20:31.400 But I think a lot of people really in that Xbox generation started to think of, okay, this is not

00:20:37.240 just a kid's thing anymore. This isn't just something, a kid's toy. And Nintendo was, was

00:20:41.920 something you got for your, your, uh, you know, your nephew or something. It was not something

00:20:45.820 an adult had, but now that they played movies and they, you know, they, they had much more

00:20:51.940 complicated, uh, games, much more sophisticated software. This was starting to become a huge

00:20:57.280 market across, uh, the world. And obviously it is now, I think, surpassed, uh, movies and, and other

00:21:02.600 huge industries, uh, in, in its profitability. When you're there at the ground level, um, what does

00:21:10.000 that look like? Did people know that this was going to be huge, that this was something that was

00:21:14.880 really expanding its borders? Did they still see it as something that was mainly made for children?

00:21:19.800 What was the view of video games as you were entering, entering into the industry at that

00:21:23.280 time? Well, you know, I, I was one of those adults who, uh, actually got obsessed with playing

00:21:30.880 Nintendo games, which is, uh, was very unusual. Most of my peers were like, what's wrong with

00:21:37.500 you? Uh, and it's like, no, you got to play final fantasy and you got to play Zelda. These

00:21:42.380 are great games. And, you know, I, so I was always able to be friends with the 12 year old

00:21:47.600 kids, uh, while my 30 year old friends were like, something's wrong with you. Uh, so I was always a

00:21:54.140 gamer. I liked games, especially going all the way back to computer games and, and, uh, um, infocom

00:22:00.240 games, which were text adventures. So you just type, you know, text on the screen and, and it, you know,

00:22:06.580 gave a, you know, unfolded this amazing story that was, uh, you know, a game, but it was all text.

00:22:15.560 Um, so I was very interested into what was happening with games. And then into the nineties,

00:22:22.740 we started to see more complex games come out on the PC and more interesting games come out.

00:22:28.720 Um, you know, Sony PlayStation came out in the mid nineties and we started realizing when I say we,

00:22:37.520 I mean, people who were interested in games, we started realizing it's, it's actually going to get

00:22:41.940 better and better and it's going to be a legitimate entertainment, uh, vehicle. Um, I remember even

00:22:49.680 as a kid, or when I first started working in film and television, I was like, Oh, this is too bad. Um,

00:22:59.280 film and television were very established mediums. Like you couldn't, you know, you couldn't do a film

00:23:05.860 that was super revolutionary and cutting new territory or, or, or TV, like the early days of

00:23:12.900 TV with Rod Serling and, you know, uh, the early days of movies when, when sound first hit in, in

00:23:20.000 1929 and the golden era of movies in the thirties, you know, when, when things are brand new and

00:23:27.220 technology is developing, that's a really exciting time. I was always attracted to those periods.

00:23:32.860 And I thought, Oh, I'm in, I'm in a period where nothing new is going to happen. And then when I

00:23:38.960 saw video games really start to take off, I thought, Oh, I got to jump in on that because this might be,

00:23:44.480 this might be the thing that I was missing. I kind of thought I already had missed it. I thought it

00:23:51.000 had already gone past me, but I think, uh, the, when the Xbox was announced, um, in 2000,

00:23:58.560 we had already announced that we were working on this game called halo and we'd shown it at a Mac

00:24:06.720 world in New York in 1999. So a lot of things came together at the same time. We were going to make

00:24:13.240 something that was very, a cinematic game in a sci-fi universe. And I had already done, you know,

00:24:19.820 monks and orchestra and, and, you know, we had blown a bunch of people's minds like, wow, can this,

00:24:25.620 can, can this be a game? Can you do this? And then almost within six months, uh, Microsoft

00:24:32.400 announced that this Xbox was coming out. And that was a huge leap forward in technology of what

00:24:38.320 could be in your living room that you could play a game with and have, you know, surround sound

00:24:44.540 speakers and a big screen, you know, a big screen for the time. So that was, that was very exciting.

00:24:51.780 I mean, we all felt like, yeah, if we, if we're in on this, we're sort of in on the ground floor of

00:24:57.820 something, you know, at least the next, uh, step in the evolution of games. So we saw it, I'm not sure

00:25:04.820 if we saw it as, as big a thing as it turned out to be, but we knew it was getting bigger and, and we

00:25:12.440 all wanted to be in on that. So I know today, uh, you are now more involved in politics, uh,

00:25:20.400 have, uh, conservative political opinions. I think for the most part, I think would be

00:25:24.440 fair to say, uh, was that always the case? And if so, did that create any tension? Was that,

00:25:30.460 was that an issue in video games at the time? Or was that something that people just didn't talk

00:25:34.440 about much? Well, uh, I've told the story and it's actually, it's completely true. I saw the

00:25:44.320 Beatles on Ed Sullivan when I was nine. And then like a couple months later, I saw Ronald Reagan

00:25:52.260 introduced Barry Goldwater to the world. And I've always wondered like if those two television moments

00:25:59.480 were flipped, would I've gone into politics even earlier? Because as soon as I heard Ronald Reagan's

00:26:04.440 I was like, well, that's it. I'm a conservative. That's, that makes total sense to me. It's like,

00:26:09.740 I just, I saw my life as a nine-year-old, which is really weird. I mean, that's a strange thing.

00:26:16.220 Most people, they talk about how you, you, you know, when you're young, you're liberal because

00:26:20.400 you have a heart. And then when you're old, you're conservative because you have a brain. Um,

00:26:25.480 but apparently I had no heart right from the beginning. So I, I was, I've always been a conservative

00:26:31.160 and I've always had that side of things as something I would read and, and be interested

00:26:39.700 in and watch and be fascinated by. I mean, I watched William F. Buckley, uh, debating Gore

00:26:47.360 Vidal on TV during the 1968 Democrat convention. I was there. I was living outside Chicago. I couldn't

00:26:54.680 believe it was happening to the city. Uh, and I would turn on the TV and there's William F. Buckley

00:27:01.040 and Gore Vidal. And it was, it was amazing. It was happening in real time. And I was of course

00:27:06.820 on William F. Buckley side. I was a huge Buckley fan, but at the same time I was doing music and that

00:27:13.600 was my, that was my career choice. So I'm glad it went in that direction. I think, uh, coming

00:27:19.680 during working in entertainment in film, television and commercials, and then video games, the majority

00:27:29.640 of people are certainly not as, um, usually they're not as interested in politics as I am. So I was

00:27:38.540 reading George Gilder and F.A. Hayek, and I was reading all the Mises and like all, I was reading all

00:27:45.940 these things, but I had really nobody to talk to about it. I would pontificate about the current

00:27:51.080 political state to somebody. And usually I'd get, so I'd get a reputation as being the sort of

00:27:56.800 raving conservative. Uh, but I tried to, to keep my relationships lighter if possible. So, uh, most

00:28:05.380 people in the studios I worked with or coworkers, uh, knew that I was conservative, but, um, I tried to,

00:28:13.120 I didn't, I didn't sort of keep it under a bushel as much as I, I tried not to be mean about it.

00:28:19.560 That's about as good as I could do. Very little, uh, agreement amongst people who I worked with.

00:28:25.180 So when you, uh, so I think you come, was it four halo games, five halo games that yeah. Halo one,

00:28:34.980 two, three ODST and reach. So that that's a broad swath of work with a, with a large influence. So you

00:28:42.020 were definitely there to, for quite a ride. You saw, saw these things explode. Did you guys

00:28:48.580 recognize the phenomenon that halo was going to become? Did, did at any point you kind of reflect

00:28:55.240 on this and say, Oh man, you know, this, my music has now reached far more people than it would have

00:29:00.480 had I gone into maybe one of the more traditional forms of, uh, performance, musical performance that

00:29:07.000 I had ever imagined. Um, the pro progression for, you know, halo one was this really exciting thing

00:29:16.160 where we had, you know, I'd worked in a few games prior to that. And then we were working on halo one

00:29:20.140 and I joined Bungie as an employee, almost exactly at the same time that we got purchased by Microsoft.

00:29:27.140 Um, and we knew getting purchased by Microsoft, uh, getting the attention of Steve jobs. So now we had

00:29:35.560 Steve jobs attention. We had Bill Gates attention. We knew we were, you know, had risen in, you know,

00:29:44.200 being, uh, influential in the game industry and having games be influential in the world. We knew this,

00:29:50.420 this was an important place to be, but then your head is down right now. You're working on the thing

00:29:55.920 itself. You're working in halo one, and then you're working on halo two, and then you're working

00:29:59.900 on halo three. And, you know, I would be, I would be going to Hollywood parties and promoting Holly,

00:30:09.000 you know, the games with Hollywood actors and actresses that would show up at these parties.

00:30:14.480 I'd be sort of involved in the marketing machinery that was happening, but it was all happening so fast.

00:30:20.840 You really didn't have time to absorb, uh, this sort of rollercoaster ride going up. Um, so it went faster

00:30:33.420 than any of us, I think anticipated. We were not like, oh, this is going to be an iconic thing. And this is going

00:30:39.040 to influence all sorts of, you know, it was just like, who's our demographic? How do we sell more? How do we,

00:30:45.120 you know, how do we get more commercials on the air? And, you know, oh my gosh, now we're, we're doing

00:30:51.700 a commercial during the Superbowl. And, and I mean, it just like these things just started just

00:30:57.780 happening without any ability to sort of sit back and reflect on the progress that had been made. So

00:31:04.680 it was weird. It's, it's, it's only in hindsight that you look back and say, wow, that was,

00:31:09.580 that was quite the ride. And we, it was amazing. It was like, I guess, just catching a wave and,

00:31:15.120 and being on the surfboard and riding it for as long as you can. You, you have to, you're just concentrating

00:31:20.760 on staying on the board the whole time. You might, you might not even be thinking about what incredible

00:31:26.100 things are going on.

00:31:28.180 So when did you leave the video game industry? What would have been that timeframe?

00:31:31.580 Um, so after I got, so I eventually we worked on destiny. I worked with Paul McCartney. I did a huge,

00:31:41.580 um, pile of music for, for destiny. Um, mostly, uh, a work called music of the spheres, which was

00:31:50.020 ostensibly going to be this musical prequel to the game destiny. The music's that music is in destiny

00:31:58.020 still to this day. Um, but I ended up having disagreements with the folks at Bungie and the

00:32:05.020 new publishers Activision. So I was gone from Bungie and Activision in 2014. So it's been over 11 years

00:32:14.860 since I've been there, but then I started a game company with a, another former Bungie guy. Um,

00:32:21.860 and we made a couple of games at high wire games. Uh, the, the last one was a game that's,

00:32:27.940 you can still play today. Uh, it's still being, I think it's still in early release and it's being

00:32:33.160 improved all the time. It's called six days in Fallujah. Uh, very, very cool game. We made a PSVR

00:32:39.860 game, PlayStation virtual reality game called Golem. And I'm really proud of the, of that game and the

00:32:46.600 music in that game. Um, so I got to the point where I, I realized for many, many reasons that it's like,

00:32:56.200 I think I can't do this crunch, uh, high intensity, uh, work, um, anymore, any longer. So this is about

00:33:09.340 five years ago. I decided I would, uh, you know, sort of experiment with retirement is the way I,

00:33:16.340 I used it. Uh, and so we moved down to Las Vegas and I'm, you know, got my three grandsons here and

00:33:23.720 my two daughters and we're all within five minutes of each other. And, you know, they come over to

00:33:28.760 the house and swim in the pool and we have a blast. And, and I, I just realized I'm, I'm, I still feel

00:33:35.480 like a little too young and too energetic to be completely in retirement. And so some things happened

00:33:41.380 around that where politics came back in and I, you know, it's funny, I might be wrong, but I, I feel

00:33:47.560 like, uh, if I was in Congress, the amount of work I'd have to do and the crunch I'd have to go through

00:33:54.220 wouldn't even compare. It wouldn't even hold a candle to the game industry. So I don't think

00:34:00.120 there's anything that politics can throw at me that will throw me for a loop. I might be wrong.

00:34:04.180 We'll see. It'll certainly be less productive than being, uh, so yes, that I'm pretty sure

00:34:12.120 you're right about. Yes. Uh, so not because of you, but because of the nature of the process.

00:34:16.380 No, no, I think it's just insane. But, um, let me ask you this. So it sounds like you kind of got

00:34:22.380 out of, I guess the more mainstream, larger, uh, process before the woke wave really hit the video

00:34:30.460 game industry build up. Like what, what was your observation, uh, as that, where were you when that

00:34:36.880 kind of started to hit the industry? Yeah, I could see hints of it coming down. Um, I could see the

00:34:43.080 corporations and the publishers, uh, just beginning to try and control, uh, the message of the games.

00:34:52.680 Um, right around the time I was fired, that wasn't why I was fired, but I could see that this was the

00:34:58.660 way things were probably going to go. Um, and I was happy to then be back with a, with, you know,

00:35:06.280 a partner and we had, you know, 30, 35 people in the studio that we hired and we were the ones in

00:35:12.400 control of things and we were not worried about wokeness. Uh, but we saw other, this, we saw the

00:35:18.640 mainstream start to move down that path and it was like, oh yeah, I'm glad I'm not there. That was it.

00:35:23.900 I was just like really glad we didn't have to be influenced by that. We even caught some, some pretty

00:35:29.480 heavy backlash just because we were doing this game called six days in Fallujah. Um, it was a game

00:35:37.000 that initially the concept for the game goes back to, uh, a different developer, uh, back in the mid

00:35:47.160 two thousands where they thought they could do this game, 2008, 2009, someplace in there. And the,

00:35:52.620 the backlash was from the right. And the right was like, how can you do a game when people died?

00:35:58.540 How can you make a game out of a war where people died? And so it was sort of shut down because the

00:36:05.700 Japanese publisher didn't want to screw up, you know, piss off all the, uh, American conservatives.

00:36:12.580 We picked it up, uh, you know, in 2015, 2016, uh, with the guy who still owned the intellectual

00:36:20.640 property. And we had all these Marines that had been interviewed and we interviewed them

00:36:25.660 again. And it's like, they want to tell this story and they feel like the best way to tell

00:36:29.520 the story of what they went through is through a game. I mean, these are guys who, while they

00:36:35.360 were in Fallujah in 2004, were playing Halo. So like, it's like the, we came full circle. They,

00:36:42.600 they were now saying, we want to tell this, this story, but use a game to help, you know,

00:36:48.080 express what it was like. And we thought, okay, can we really do a serious non-gamey approach to what

00:36:55.300 war is like? So we were taking it very seriously. Like if you can do a documentary about a war,

00:37:01.980 if you can do a book about a war, if you can do a movie about a war, you should be, you should be

00:37:07.880 able to do a game about a war. And instead of getting pushed back from the right, now we got

00:37:12.740 pushed back from the left. The left went nuts. Like you are, you know, this is war crimes and white

00:37:23.760 phosphorus and, you know, Bush lied and people died. The, the left went crazy. Like you cannot,

00:37:31.980 we were going to boycott this game because you're glamorizing the war in Iraq. And of course we

00:37:39.980 weren't glamorizing the war in Iraq. We were actually just showing with real interviews, Iraqi people,

00:37:46.880 um, uh, Marines who were there, politicians. We, we interview everybody and then we recreate what it

00:37:56.620 was like to actually be on the ground in Fallujah for both the civilians that were there and the,

00:38:02.300 and the, uh, soldiers who were there. So we thought it was just really weird. We got this,

00:38:08.700 this sort of public, uh, flogging because we were doing a game about Iraq and you're not supposed to

00:38:16.560 do that. And that's, that's another moment where I thought, oh, wow, this, this industry has really

00:38:21.840 changed. And sure enough, um, you know, COVID hit and I swear that the game industry just went

00:38:30.340 high octane woke and now they're paying the price for it. It's it's people are not buying those games

00:38:38.000 and they don't, those, the people who thought that was the way to make games to appeal to the

00:38:43.100 crowd are paying a pretty heavy price. Well, let me ask you that because I think a lot of people,

00:38:49.740 a lot of conservatives get confused because they'll look at a company like Bud Light or they'll

00:38:56.580 look at the video games industry and they say to themselves, well, everything I've been taught is

00:39:01.020 that corporations respond to incentives and all they care about is profit. And at the end of the day,

00:39:05.240 they're going to just do whatever makes them more money. And then you see these companies just

00:39:11.300 become seized by this ideology and they're making decisions that any idiot, you know, is going to

00:39:17.760 look at it and be like, yeah, I think if you slap a trans guy on the side of a beer can,

00:39:22.580 you might anger a bunch of guys in the Midwest who are drinking Bud Light, uh, you know, at the bar.

00:39:29.160 But for some reason they just continuously do this. And I, I wanted to ask you as someone who is

00:39:34.780 familiar more with that, you know, inside the industry, were these choices being made because

00:39:40.280 people truly thought that this was the future of profits or was this an ideology that had been

00:39:45.520 carried into the industry. And these people were just going to do this because they were true

00:39:49.420 believers, no matter what. That's, you know, that, that would be great to try to figure out where

00:39:56.260 this came from. I see it as, as a cancer that grew inside the entertainment industry, inside,

00:40:04.220 you know, mainstream media, it was happening. I, I honestly believe it is the logical result of what

00:40:13.220 happened to higher education, uh, going back 80 years, maybe even a full century. Um, when

00:40:21.380 progressivism started to infect, there were people who were smart enough to know that if you can

00:40:28.800 get that into the university systems, if you can start training people who believe that a college

00:40:35.920 degree is the be all end all and you train them and inculcate them and indoctrinate them into these

00:40:43.020 progressive ideologies, of course, eventually all those people are going to start going out into

00:40:50.520 society, getting entry-level jobs, rising up. And then they are, they're influencing not based on what

00:40:57.200 you just said, which is, Hey, our stock price is going down or our profits are going down or like

00:41:03.560 the incentive system stops being, uh, as important as this ideological purity. And, uh, I think it

00:41:13.060 really comes from people who have this ideal ideology first. Uh, they're not actual capitalists,

00:41:23.100 but they got into these companies, whether it's the media or entertainment or games. I don't know why

00:41:30.000 games, uh, seems to sort of lead the way. Maybe it's because gamers just as a, as a consumer, um,

00:41:41.740 see it when, when they're being preached at and when there's an agenda behind their games,

00:41:46.320 the gamers are just like, wait, no, forget that. We don't want that. So Gamergate, the first Gamergate

00:41:52.800 happened over a decade ago. And it was essentially around this, the beginning of wokeness infecting,

00:41:59.540 uh, game development, but it kept happening and it got, I think it got worse. And now there's

00:42:05.420 sort of Gamergate too. And I think a lot of, um, of the younger conservatives like yourself,

00:42:13.020 who I consider to be one of the younger ones, even though you're not that young, you're not 40 yet

00:42:18.080 though. That's the point, right? Oh, I am. Oh, are you 40 now? Yeah, no, I'm 41. Yeah. Oh, 41. Okay.

00:42:23.160 All right. All right. That was still pretty young. Um, but you represent a bunch of people who

00:42:29.220 also cross over with these gamers who were like hardcore gamers and they really liked the way

00:42:35.160 these games used to be. And they were fun and they were interesting. They didn't preach at you.

00:42:40.540 These are guys who had checked out of like, they stopped going to movies anyway, or they stopped

00:42:44.860 watching television anyway, because there was so much wokeness infecting all of those mediums.

00:42:51.160 Uh, but like once they started touching the games or like, that was like where the line is drawn.

00:42:56.760 We are, we, you, you shall not pass. You will go no further. Um, so can I, uh, go ahead.

00:43:04.400 I'll tell you a quick story of how I ended up here. Uh, so I was, uh, you know, a teacher,

00:43:11.080 but you need side jobs and things, right? Like you got summer, these kinds of things you pick up extra

00:43:15.340 hours. Uh, so I got, I had a friend who happened to be managing, uh, this social media company.

00:43:21.160 That, uh, all the, handled all the online forums and Facebook stuff for, uh, riot games and for,

00:43:29.400 uh, and for EA, uh, uh, Montreal, which is Bioware. Um, and so I was modding the, uh, Bioware 2 and

00:43:38.500 Dragon's Age, uh, you know, Inquisition, uh, forums and everyone age. There we go.

00:43:45.260 And I kept seeing everyone complaining about this thing called Gamergate. I had no idea what it was.

00:43:51.940 I'm just closing these threads of everyone screaming at each other over Gamergate.

00:43:55.920 And so I Google it and I discovered this guy named Sargon of Akkad, Carl Benjamin. And, uh,

00:44:01.740 this is how I discover like all of internet politics. Like I, I didn't even know, I had no idea about

00:44:06.500 these spheres to know any of these people. Um, and so that kind of, uh, that's why I basically

00:44:13.720 ended up making YouTube videos and ended up doing now is because of Gamergate indirectly. So,

00:44:19.080 uh, see, I knew there was a thread that goes back to that. Um, it's because so, so many of the guys

00:44:25.220 that I'll meet in politics now, they're, they either are aware of Gamergate. They peripherally

00:44:31.700 were involved in some sort of Gamergate thing. They're certainly conservative. They're gamers.

00:44:36.200 You know, there's like everybody your age played games. I, I swear you guys grew up

00:44:41.160 playing the games, which is great. It's great for me. Cause then I, I, it's an easy conversation

00:44:46.960 starter. So, but I remember rushing home to play double dragon too. We had to beat it every day.

00:44:52.180 That was what we did. Yeah. So yeah, the, uh, the Gamergate thing is a political movement that,

00:45:00.300 um, whether or not I agree with every single thing that happened in it. And there was some crazy

00:45:05.620 tangential things that happened. Um, but it's like, it's like all these movements, like you don't

00:45:11.080 necessarily, you can't agree with, you know, Alex Jones, like that guy's nuts. But, uh, you know,

00:45:17.000 every once in a while, he, he'll say something that you agree with. So there you go.

00:45:21.920 He's right more often now than he's wrong. Not because I think he's like a genius, but because

00:45:26.220 he just screams at the system all the time and system is mostly full of evil and corrupt

00:45:30.920 people. He gets more often than he misses, even if it's not because he's got like this

00:45:34.900 logical understanding of, you know, politics, that's going to lay it out for you.

00:45:39.480 Right. Right. So I, you know, if the, the, the technology of YouTube and the internet, uh,

00:45:47.900 grew up at the same time games were growing up. I mean, I still remember when somebody was

00:45:53.220 telling me about streaming games and I'm like, wait, wait, describe this again. And it's like,

00:46:00.040 well, yeah, people are just sitting, watching somebody else play a game online. And I'm like,

00:46:05.560 people are watching somebody else play a game and they're not actually playing the game. And they're

00:46:10.540 like, yeah, it's huge. Millions of people are watching these things. And I'm like, oh, that's,

00:46:15.700 that's insane. That's just a fat. That's going to go away. That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard.

00:46:19.840 I make games. So people play the games. I'm the content creator, not those guys.

00:46:25.860 And now I've changed. I, I realized, wow, what a, I watch people streaming games. I watch people

00:46:32.880 streaming games that I've made. And I, I'm, it's fascinating to watch somebody else play a game

00:46:38.740 and discuss what they're thinking while they're playing. It's, you know, so what I, I guess what

00:46:43.740 I'm saying is this technology has organically been growing and, you know, you'll follow somebody

00:46:50.040 because of how they play a game and how funny they are and how entertaining they are and possibly

00:46:54.840 their political views. And it's all starting to meld together. And I think it's great. I really do.

00:47:01.700 Yeah. There is an interesting thing where like, okay, basically the video game becomes almost like

00:47:06.100 a background for other larger discussions that are happening. Uh, uh, you, you have a PewDiePie,

00:47:12.120 you know, obviously it was one of the biggest and he starts off just making memes and playing

00:47:16.720 Call of Duty and he ends up teaching his entire audience about Aristotle, you know, that, that,

00:47:21.320 that's kind of the, the, uh, direction that goes. Of course, there are also, you know,

00:47:26.320 fake communists like Hassan Piker who are, who are, who are doing, so it's not like it's an

00:47:31.020 unalloyed good, but you know, it is an interesting time. And, and actually that's the other thing I

00:47:36.520 wanted to ask you about in reference to at least video games is a lot of people are looking at the

00:47:41.720 industry now. And there's a very strange shift. I mean, I haven't bought a console in a long time,

00:47:46.340 uh, you know, for multiple reasons. Uh, but I know a lot of people are now almost hesitant to pick up

00:47:53.960 the new, uh, you know, stuff because they don't feel like they own anything. You know, we've had

00:47:58.340 big controversies with Nintendo and its policies with the switch. Uh, they feel like they have no

00:48:02.920 control over the product. Now it seems like you can play most video games everywhere. Xbox has somehow

00:48:09.780 almost fallen off the map when it comes to, uh, you know, a distant, uh, third, when it comes to

00:48:15.260 playing marketing campaign, this is an Xbox. It's like, right. No, this isn't an Xbox. I mean,

00:48:21.000 I don't get it. I, I, I hear what you're saying, but what, what do you think about the future of

00:48:26.040 where the industry is going? Because it seems to becoming untethered from the consoles. It seems

00:48:31.560 that people are, are, have mixed feelings about this lack of ownership over physical content and what

00:48:37.440 that means for the industry. Some people are, you know, this has been booming for a long time.

00:48:41.940 Some people have, are saying that a video game bust is coming, that you, you eventually can only

00:48:46.980 sell so many iterations of Assassin's Creed, you know, these kinds of things. Uh, do you,

00:48:51.180 do you think that there is a stormy times ahead for the video game industry? I think it's just

00:48:55.140 which money I, well, um, I think there we're in the middle of some fundamental changes that are

00:49:04.900 coming down the pike. Uh, all you have to do is look at the big video game publishers. Um, uh,

00:49:12.720 they went on a buying spree. They bought Bungie, Sony bought Bungie for my opinion for way too much

00:49:20.420 money, but I'm, I'm happy they did. Cause I still had my stock, so they bought it. So, um, uh, that's

00:49:27.320 the, that's the, uh, capitalist conservative side to me. The gamer side to me is like, what are you got?

00:49:32.120 What are you doing? Sony? And then Microsoft, what are you doing? You're buying, you're spending

00:49:36.780 billions and billions of dollars on all these titles. And then you're deciding we're only going

00:49:42.900 to publish the successful titles. We're only going to be doing Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty,

00:49:49.380 which means that the innovation that is what really is behind why games are good is that you have

00:49:56.160 individual creative teams that are doing innovative stuff. Those, those guys are being fired.

00:50:01.580 They're, they're being let go. They're layoffs. They're huge amounts of layoffs in the game

00:50:05.940 industry. Um, and now we have sort of a double fan backlash. We have the Gamergate 2 fan backlash,

00:50:13.280 which is like, stop preaching at us, uh, stop with these woke ideologies infecting our games.

00:50:21.080 And that's a huge backlash. And then there's the, uh, stop killing games backlash, which is what

00:50:28.440 you're talking about. Um, which is very, very, uh, successful, uh, in terms of like the guy,

00:50:37.720 this guy who started it, a guy named Ross Scott, who, who I've, I've talked to, I'm going to be

00:50:42.460 talking to him on Friday. He, he, uh, started a petition in Europe to sort of like a consumer

00:50:49.600 protection kind of petition. He's got over a hundred 1.5 million signatures for, to, to try to

00:50:56.300 get, um, something passed. So that this idea that people pay money, but they don't own anything

00:51:03.920 is at least looked at like, is this, is this false advertising? Did you think you were owning

00:51:11.260 something, but you don't own anything? There are, uh, you know, end user license agreements,

00:51:16.380 the EULAs that are just ridiculous. If you read the fine print, it's like, you own nothing.

00:51:23.600 We have the right to destroy your car. We have the right to tell you, you have to destroy the copy

00:51:28.160 that you've just purchased. If we want you to, you, uh, we can turn off this game at any moment.

00:51:36.720 Like these, the things that are hidden in the EULAs are, are really, really bad. Now, I don't know

00:51:43.560 exactly where I fall and I'm still looking at it. I don't know where I fall on like where the

00:51:48.880 government should be involved, but I certainly think that the incentives need to be changed to the,

00:51:56.460 the developers and publishers, uh, you know, who are marketing this as though, Hey, buy this great

00:52:04.460 new thing and it's yours and you can do anything you want. And then the next day they go, Oh yeah,

00:52:07.860 but if we want to, we can turn it off and you own nothing. It's like, that's, that's, that is false

00:52:14.060 advertising. And I think there's something about that that is, uh, coming down the pike. And I think

00:52:20.180 the game company is going to have to acknowledge this. It all stems back to the concept of software

00:52:26.560 as a service. You probably remember when that started happening where you didn't own a copy of

00:52:34.600 your word processor, you own a license. You can't even buy Photoshop anymore. You're not allowed

00:52:40.100 to, you're not allowed to own your software. They refuse. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, and that is,

00:52:45.240 there are goods, a good part to that. And then there's this sort of dark, bad side that, that

00:52:50.280 people are starting to realize where they're in the middle of doing something and that, you know,

00:52:54.800 the computer suddenly is updating. It's like, I didn't ask to update. I was in the middle of working

00:53:01.280 and now I'm some software is being updated and now it no longer works because I didn't

00:53:06.020 not update my operating system. And these chain of events that happen, it used to be, at least

00:53:11.700 it was like your decision to buy a new piece of software and stick it in and then have problems.

00:53:17.760 Now it can be done without your conscious decision or action because it's a service and you're paying

00:53:24.860 a monthly fee or a yearly fee. Once games also said we're going to be games as a service, that was

00:53:32.220 actually a, a, a big marketing selling point, or at least internally to the publishers. It's like,

00:53:41.760 yeah, we should do that same thing. It should be games as a service and people don't own anything

00:53:46.440 and we can constantly give them updates and drip feed them new stuff. And, you know,

00:53:52.680 you have services like game pass where you're not buying games. You're just buying a subscription

00:53:57.640 to, you know, the Netflix, Netflix version of, of games, but it even, and I think we're going to

00:54:06.440 have to look at what this means, even in entertainment. And my example is there is an assumed thing when

00:54:13.420 you pay a subscription to Netflix, that the stuff you see on Netflix is going to be there tomorrow.

00:54:19.240 I don't know why that's my assumed thing. Maybe it's just because I'm old and that's how things

00:54:24.780 used to work. But I remember when I had, I bought, you know, had a subscription to Netflix and every

00:54:30.140 single season of Star Trek was on there. I'm like, Oh, this is great. All the Star Treks I ever want

00:54:35.540 to watch every season, all the different versions of Star Trek, uh, were there. And then the next thing

00:54:42.240 I know, like a year later, that's no longer there. They, the Star Trek folks or whoever it is sold it to

00:54:47.760 Paramount. And now it was going to cost money for me to see Star Trek. Um, and I'm like, well,

00:54:55.020 I, that's why I bought a subscription to Netflix was for that. And now without me making a choice,

00:55:01.880 it's no longer available to me, but it's not a big deal. Cause there's a bunch of other stuff,

00:55:06.460 right? I mean, you just feel like that you have this panoply of things to choose from. Um,

00:55:11.340 but you know, they're the ones in control of the content. You as a consumer are not, and you,

00:55:18.980 I don't know what the answer to this is, but I think something has to happen because it's,

00:55:23.940 you know, I don't know. I don't know. How do you feel about it? Like, where are you,

00:55:27.200 where do you come down on this? Well, like I said, it's more, I mean, and part of it is just

00:55:31.600 getting older and being busier and not having, you know, the, the time to, to spend on that kind

00:55:36.640 of stuff, uh, which is probably all for the good, uh, ultimately, but, uh, you know, it more just

00:55:42.420 kind of, I just stop keeping up with it anymore. I just stop bothering to, you know, buy a new system

00:55:49.220 to, to pay attention. If I buy a video game, you know, I don't get me wrong. I still play video

00:55:54.200 games from time to time, but you know, it's more of a casual, like, I don't care what just came out.

00:55:58.260 I'm not looking for the next game. I'm not trying to figure out how to be the best. It's like,

00:56:02.520 I just, if I play something, it's, you know, probably 10 years old. I, I,

00:56:06.360 I probably would play more, uh, Castlevania, uh, you know, like go back and beat old Castlevanias

00:56:11.620 than I do any new games at this point. Well, see, and that's the problem is like some of those

00:56:15.260 things are, you're going to want to go back to that and you're not going to be able to for some

00:56:19.500 of these things, you know, you have to have the original hardware and the original cartridge and

00:56:24.580 you can do it. But if you, if you bought into some other kind of system that depends on servers

00:56:31.060 and active servers and the internet and always being updated, they can turn any of that stuff

00:56:37.380 off at any time. And then you're like, well, well, wait a minute. That's, I bought this and

00:56:42.380 I enjoyed that. And I want to do that again. And the, the publishers are saying, you don't have a

00:56:48.500 right to do that. You didn't read the EULA, which says we control this and we can turn it off at any

00:56:54.360 time. So one of the, you mentioned a layoffs at Microsoft. Uh, one of the things I believe that

00:57:01.360 was part of that dynamic is not only did they lay off a large amount of people across the video game

00:57:06.320 industry, including Microsoft, uh, but, uh, they turned around and immediately applied for a bunch

00:57:10.680 of H1B visas. So, uh, a lot of people were angry, not just, you know, obviously sometimes corporations

00:57:17.980 downside that happens, but downsize it happens. But when you see something like that, it's like, okay,

00:57:23.100 this is clearly, it's not that you need, you just couldn't find these workers in the United States.

00:57:28.360 It's not that we just didn't have the talent here. It's that you literally just wanted to pay

00:57:33.260 people less. It's very clear that that's your, your goal. And I've spoken to a number of people

00:57:38.540 across many different industries who have said that they're seeing this pattern over and over again,

00:57:43.780 where large chunks of their, uh, company, uh, almost get taken over by a large, by a specific,

00:57:51.440 like diaspora of, of immigrants that come in on H1Bs. And that kind of conquers the entire,

00:57:57.460 you know, uh, industry or large chunks of like, especially things like it and that kind of thing

00:58:02.560 get taken over very quickly in this way. Do you feel like the video game industry is struggling to

00:58:09.900 find talent? Do you think that ultimately it is trading American workers for overseas workers? How do you

00:58:15.520 feel about the immigration debate and how that impacts the video game industry?

00:58:21.540 Yeah. Um, this is a, this is a tough one for me because when I was in the business, uh, the H1B visas

00:58:28.920 were, could be really important for that exact reason. Like here was somebody, let's say from,

00:58:33.640 believe it or not, from Canada, or there was, I remember there was a couple of guys from China

00:58:37.400 who were just spectacular at what they did and they offered something that we couldn't find any

00:58:43.760 place else. I mean, we tried and so being able to, but we had to work really hard to, to, with an

00:58:50.100 immigration attorney and convince, you know, the government that this is, we tried everything

00:58:55.460 and this is somebody that we really need to bring in. So I think it's, I'm not against the concept of

00:59:02.420 the H1B visas. Um, but yeah, when they start being used as a, a tool to like, get rid of the,

00:59:11.240 you know, overpaid American citizens and let's just bring in some, uh, smart, but much cheaper

00:59:18.800 immigrants. Uh, at that point I'm like, Oh wait, wait, wait, this is, this is not good. This is not

00:59:24.400 the way it should be. And I I'm wondering how are they getting away with it? When I remember how hard it

00:59:29.380 was to just get one person from Canada. Uh, you know, I remember we had one guy from Canada who

00:59:35.280 was absolutely brilliant. We loved him. Super important to the team. And then he had like,

00:59:40.520 yeah, I, I've lost my visa status now and I have to go back and I can't work with you guys anymore

00:59:46.340 until, you know, and we had to, you know, he was gone for about six months while we were working with

00:59:51.860 immigration attorney to get him back. So I can't believe these people have, they figured out some

00:59:59.980 easy way to do this now. It shouldn't be easy. I guess that's what I'm saying. It should be

01:00:04.320 legitimate. It should be because here's a unique, you know, smart, creative, intelligent, whatever it

01:00:10.240 is, person who brings something unique to the table and they're going to become American citizens.

01:00:14.880 I mean, a lot of these folks come in on H-1B visas and work and then, um, this is the country they want

01:00:23.060 to be in. And I, I feel like that's what immigration should be about. Um, but the, this is not the

01:00:31.380 replacement theory. I'm not going to go down some crazy, uh, you know, thing, but I do believe that

01:00:38.260 there is, you know, now that we've been, we've proven that we can secure the border. Uh, so somebody

01:00:44.860 the other day was saying something about, it's not like you just, when a criminal comes into your

01:00:49.740 house, you don't just lock the door, you know, and, you know, close the door and then lock it

01:00:54.820 because the criminal is still in your house. Like you got to get rid of the criminal and then close

01:00:58.960 the door and lock it. Um, so there, I think there are, you know, we've always said we need to reform

01:01:05.400 the immigration system, but the first of all, we need to secure the border. Trump came in and bang day

01:01:12.440 one. He secured the border. I mean, just look at the statistics. I can't believe it was that easy,

01:01:17.280 uh, for, for him to be able to his administration to secure the border. But now we do have to have

01:01:22.800 very serious discussion about immigration all the way from the H1B visas to number of people we let in.

01:01:29.800 What does it mean to be, to become a citizen? Uh, how do we count, um, you know, immigrants,

01:01:37.360 how do they count in the census when it comes to congressional redistrict or congressional

01:01:43.400 districts, you know, and the electoral college, all that stuff has to be looked at birthright

01:01:48.620 citizenship. I think now it's time to have real serious discussions politically about all those

01:01:54.340 things. No, I agree. And ultimately, you know, I understand why you're hesitant around the phrase,

01:02:01.000 uh, you know, great replacement, but honestly, when the Democrats are openly bragging about,

01:02:06.700 you know, yes, we are bringing in people specifically to change the demographic,

01:02:11.080 to change the voting, to ensure that we're going to win, to make sure that, you know, the,

01:02:15.460 the route, the conservative rubes in the middle of the country don't have control. I mean, when

01:02:20.180 they openly say that, you know, I, I don't really know, you know, at some point, I think we're just

01:02:25.160 being, you know, we're hiding the ball for people who aren't, you know, they're, they're very clear

01:02:30.040 about kind of, I agree with you. I think they are very clear about this. There is that,

01:02:34.020 you know, the official sort of, uh, conspiracy, great replacement theory thing that is its own

01:02:41.460 thing, which I don't want to unravel too much because I feel like it's got some crazy sides

01:02:47.400 in it too. But the idea is sort of the principle of what they're trying to do. Yeah, they are trying

01:02:53.640 to do that. It is. I agree with you on that. So there's, I don't, I don't know what the great

01:02:59.780 replacement theory seriously is in terms of like, you know, Davos and, you know, wherever that

01:03:06.880 started, it had a certain amount of conspiracy, crazy ingredients in it that it's like, okay,

01:03:12.620 well then I can't use that term. Sure. So, so I guess it's, I guess it's kind of like the QAnon

01:03:18.340 stuff in that, like, obviously there were evil people running the government and they really did

01:03:23.220 like, you know, deep state really did manipulate and basically run the presidency of Joe Biden and

01:03:28.140 these things. Yeah. But there's also not like this, like secret ring of guys who are going to come

01:03:33.040 and save you from, you know, so there is some truth to what they were saying, but obviously you

01:03:36.540 don't want to attach yourself to all the crazy and in the same way. So actually the phrase was

01:03:40.620 originally, uh, coined by a French philosopher, uh, Camus, uh, and, uh, you can read some of his work

01:03:47.340 and it's, I think pretty reasonable. Uh, but obviously, yeah, you can start attaching a bunch of

01:03:52.400 other, uh, you know, uh, more conspiratorial material to it. And then that kind of scares

01:03:59.040 people off of it in its entirety, even though I think as we've pointed out, there's a lot of truth

01:04:02.980 there. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is, this is the problem with, and you and I've sort of discussed

01:04:08.100 this before, but I believe that it's, uh, you know, I, I I've used the, you know, goose of the golden

01:04:14.600 egg, uh, analogy metaphor because like the middle class and the working class and, and the business

01:04:22.080 owners, that's the goose that has laid the golden eggs for, for the United States, for, for the

01:04:28.100 history of the United States. And it's not so much that when they killed the goose, they just stopped

01:04:32.920 their, they're being mean to the goose, the politicians, which means if you're mean to the

01:04:37.600 goose, you won't get, get more golden eggs. And so that's an easy one, right? Don't be mean to the

01:04:42.720 goose, be nice to the goose. We'll get more golden eggs. What I, what I love about what Trump's doing

01:04:46.680 is he realizes this basic idea that it's time to be nice to the goose again. Uh, but then there's

01:04:53.280 another fable, which is boy who cried wolf. And this is the state we're in right now, which is

01:04:59.220 there's been so much boy who cried wolf. There's been so much lying that there are no institutions

01:05:05.540 that we believe in anymore. There, there are no institutions that we say there's truth coming from

01:05:12.100 that place. So we have the skepticism, which is healthy until the skepticism, skepticism becomes

01:05:20.380 unhealthy. And the fable, uh, when the villagers stop believing the boy, even when the boy is telling

01:05:27.860 the truth, uh, they don't believe him. And so the sheep die. So I think we're in the period where

01:05:33.280 we're going to see sheep dying because we don't believe anything. We, we, and they brought it on

01:05:39.540 themselves. Like these people have lied to us for so long and these institutions are untrustworthy.

01:05:46.920 We need to get trustworthy people back in to positions of leadership and power so that there

01:05:54.600 are places that we can start trusting again, because we need to be able to trust something.

01:06:00.920 Otherwise we're just scattered and the conspiracy theories run rampant. And that's sort of the state

01:06:08.340 I see us in right now. Like on the internet, you can say something very clear or, and, and then you'll,

01:06:14.820 you'll look, you read the threads and you'll see, oh, all the crazies came out and they're either

01:06:19.700 disagreeing or agreeing. Like either one is not good for you sometimes. Right. Cause like, I don't want

01:06:25.220 that guy agreeing with me. He's, he's insane. So a lot of people don't understand about internet,

01:06:31.780 uh, you know, interactions. A lot of times people who are angry at each other are actually only angry

01:06:36.420 at each other's followers that the person can't control. And so you end up in that dynamic quite

01:06:41.540 often. Well, you and I sort of went through something like that recently. And I completely

01:06:45.780 understand that it's, it's, it's a difficult period because what I'm, this is why we're saying

01:06:53.460 thing, there are some catchphrases that can be used that we know are going to trigger the crazies.

01:07:00.580 So it's like, we constantly have to check our, the language we're using because if we're using some

01:07:07.140 of these catchphrases, I've used some, some phrases innocently. And then I find out, oh, that's a,

01:07:13.540 that's a, you know, a dog whistle to some group of people that I didn't realize. And so I have to go,

01:07:19.540 oh, I got to be careful about that. It's a weird time. It's a weird time. My opinion.

01:07:24.820 Well, I think you're right that ultimately what we're going through is a, we have, we have a

01:07:29.620 epistemological crisis. We need exactly. Yeah. We, we need a civilization to scale, but we don't have

01:07:36.820 the ability to maintain the institutions that would mediate truth for that many people anymore.

01:07:42.740 They, they've, they've become too corrupt. And so, because we're still trying to operate a

01:07:46.700 civilization at a giant scale without any credible institutions, we're just tearing ourselves apart.

01:07:52.300 And I think, unfortunately, I think the answer is probably not going to be, I don't want this to

01:07:57.420 be the case, but if I'm just putting on my, you know, my, my prognostication hat, I would say that

01:08:03.580 we're, we're probably more likely to watch all of these systems fail than we are to watch them

01:08:08.780 resurrect themselves, which is why I think parallel institutions are more important than reforming

01:08:13.980 current institutions. Yeah, I agree with you. But I would, I guess what I'm saying would say is that

01:08:19.260 the, these parallel institutions, which are starting to organically grow, we still have to make sure that

01:08:24.940 they don't fall into the same traps where like we, and it's, to me, it's about the people who are leading

01:08:31.820 these things. Like they have to be trustworthy. They have to like, we, they have to prove that they're not

01:08:37.420 lying. You know, they have to be trustworthy, be in order for us to trust even the new institutions

01:08:44.140 that are going to start coming up. So yeah, it's not easy. It's going to take time. Because people are very

01:08:49.500 skittish, in my opinion, and rightfully so.

01:08:52.780 Yeah, I think there's just been too many times where the people have been lied to, where they've been told,

01:08:56.940 we're going to reform this, we're going to fix that, we're going to take care of this. And each and every time

01:09:01.720 they find themselves losing out, you know, how many, how many times can you watch a bank get bailed

01:09:05.940 out? How many times can you watch, you know, the entire biomedical tyranny regime take over the world

01:09:12.640 and then basically pay zero cost and make a bunch of money and be immune from lawsuits? I mean, there

01:09:17.900 is at some point where, you know, at some point the people are right to tear down, you know, the

01:09:23.240 institution. I know that's not good for society. I'd like, I understand ultimately to have a functional

01:09:28.080 society. I need to have these credible institutions. But if you pull the consequences

01:09:32.940 away from the institutions for their failure forever, eventually the people will come for

01:09:39.020 them. They can't be too big to fail forever, you know.

01:09:41.980 But I mean, this is why I'm looking at the boy who cried wolf as a story and as a metaphor for where

01:09:47.480 the situation we're in, is because as much as we understand that the villagers running with their

01:09:53.900 rakes and their torches and saying, we don't, we don't believe you anymore. We, you know, you're

01:10:00.640 throwing you out of this job. The, the actual end of that story is that the sheep die, like, and the

01:10:09.180 sheep were not responsible for anything. So I don't know what that means. What I'm saying is that

01:10:13.520 I understand why we're all upset and no longer trust anything, but there's going to be consequences.

01:10:20.920 You know, the CDC says there's a new pandemic coming and we're all going to go, yeah, right.

01:10:27.580 And then what if, you know, millions of people die from some disease? Well, it's, I blame the CDC for

01:10:34.100 lying to us in the first place, which means they, they've lost their position of, of trustworthy

01:10:40.100 authority. But the downside is going to be that we're going to have death and destruction. I, I don't

01:10:47.960 mean to laugh about it, but I mean, I think the sheep will die, whatever that means, because

01:10:52.940 we're in this, we're in this period where we no longer will trust. And in order, we, we don't know

01:11:00.920 how to, I think we can see signs of new institutions growing and trustworthy things happening, but we're

01:11:07.440 going to be in this gap period where, you know, the skepticism is going to win out and, and bad

01:11:14.460 things will probably happen as a result. That's my dark, dire prediction over the next few years.

01:11:21.160 Well, you're on the right show. We're not known for a lot of optimism on the Orrin McIntyre show,

01:11:25.920 so you came to the right place. But speaking of, before we wrap this up, I know that you have

01:11:30.460 transitioned into the realm of the political as you were hinting to kind of come out of retirement a

01:11:35.420 little bit to engage in this. You've got a new show, you're looking at political office. Can you tell

01:11:39.780 people a little bit about what you're doing now? Yeah, I'm actually, I've been asked to run for

01:11:45.620 Congress in my district, District 3 in, in Las Vegas. It's go to martyforcongress.com and that's

01:11:54.440 how you will find out about me and be able to contribute to my campaign and all the normal

01:11:59.800 political stuff. The important thing for me is that this is a district in Nevada that voted for

01:12:08.620 Trump and also voted in a Democrat Congresswoman. And she's horrible. She's a mouthpiece for the

01:12:16.080 Democrats. And the, there's only 13 districts like this in all of the United States where Trump won

01:12:22.920 and the Democrat also won. So it is a very close, it's, there's a target on this district.

01:12:31.620 George Soros has a, you know, $52 million allocated to these districts. And then he's going to,

01:12:38.480 he's going to throw a ton of money to try to get her reelected. And so I've got some people,

01:12:46.220 I've put some money in, I'm raising money and I am determined to, to make her go away.

01:12:54.120 She has to go. And, and the midterms are going to be really tough, right? The midterms are going

01:12:59.320 to be very tough. They always are for the, for the party in power. But I just believe that Donald

01:13:06.860 Trump, President Trump deserves four full years of what he wants to get done. And that means we have

01:13:14.180 to, to win in the midterms. So there you go. That's, that's the most, I'm a conservative. I'm,

01:13:21.800 I think I'm probably, I'm far more conservative than Donald Trump, but everything Trump is doing

01:13:26.600 is conservative. He just didn't grow up probably as a fan of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater,

01:13:32.120 like I did. So, but I love, I love all the new conservatives and the, and the, the populists

01:13:40.420 who are basically saying it's time to return to normalcy. And, and we, we have to just reject all

01:13:49.120 this deviant stuff that has like taken over every institution. And so I want to help Donald Trump and

01:13:56.640 his administration have a full four years, and then we can look down the road. I think the future is

01:14:02.680 really bright for, for conservatives and Republicans, which by the way, as you know, are not the same

01:14:08.340 thing, but they're close. Anyway, that's, that's where I'm at. So Marty for congress.com. It's real

01:14:14.540 easy. The real, the real critical question is since you wrote the songs, can you use the halo theme

01:14:23.560 for the campaign ad? Because I feel like that will compel many a donation.

01:14:28.020 That is a really good question. I have something, my, my podcast has something that seems very close

01:14:35.140 to halo, which is of course I wrote all that. So I think I have to be slightly careful. I'm not sure

01:14:41.620 if I can just lift the recording and play it directly. Although I, I think Microsoft and Sony,

01:14:48.580 they have enough on their plate that I don't think they're going to come after me if I do. So it's, it

01:14:53.460 remains to be seen. I might, I might do something like that.

01:14:55.960 I mean, you, you wrote it, you could just do a remix, right? Like I could re, you know,

01:15:00.340 rearrange it subtly rerecord. Yeah. I'm sure I could do all that.

01:15:04.640 All right. Well, that's great guys. Make sure to check out Marty's work. Uh, of course, uh, Oh,

01:15:10.600 do you want to tell people where to find the show as well?

01:15:13.140 Uh, yeah, it's the Marty O'Donnell show. It's on YouTube. Just look up Marty O'Donnell show.

01:15:20.160 So I do it once a week. It's, it's a lot of fun. I've been having a lot of fun and I talk about

01:15:24.940 everything like you and I today talk about politics and games and media and all that stuff.

01:15:31.600 Fantastic. All right, guys. Well, like I said, make sure to check out his stuff and maybe throw

01:15:34.880 some support to his candidacy. If it's your first time on this channel, remember you need to

01:15:39.680 subscribe on YouTube, click the bell notification. So, you know, when we go live and remember this

01:15:44.980 isn't a live broadcast, so sorry, we'll be able to answer your questions today. However, if you'd like

01:15:50.680 to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you need to subscribe to the Oramac entire show on your

01:15:54.340 favorite podcast platform. And when you do, if you'd leave a rating or review, it really helps

01:15:58.460 with the algorithm magic. Thank you everybody for watching. And as always, I will talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - August 13, 2025

The Rise and Fall of Video Games ｜ Guest： Marty O'Donnell ｜ 8⧸13⧸25

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