Transcriber: Anaelle Fécil Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura
So, I think video games are fucking awesome.
(Laughter)
Now, I know that not all of you are going to agree.
Some of you probably think that video games,
you know, maybe at best, are kind of neutral waste of time.
Some of you probably think that video games are actually negative
and downright bad for you.
And you know what?
I'm not going to try to change your mind.
I spend a lot of time doing that.
I'm not going to do that today; that's not why I am here.
Because if you disagree that video games are awesome,
odds are you're my age, 45, or you're older,
and I'm not going to try to change your mind,
because we're all going to die.
(Laughter)
And it's not going to matter what we thought.
(Laughter)
So, let's talk about high school students,
about kids and what they think about video games.
So, I had a chance to be on an industry panel,
talking to a room of about 400 high school students
from all over our district,
talking about what it's like to work in the games industry.
And it was electric in that room -
the kids were so excited to be there.
And they weren't just excited because here were adults looking at them
and saying, "It's great to work in the games industry."
They were excited because it was adults looking at them and saying,
"Do you know that thing that you love?
That thing that you spend all that time on,
that you talk with your friends about, that you think and read about?
You know, that's not a waste of your time."
And what I saw reflected back in the eyes of those kids
was recognition and acknowledgement that we saw the world the same way,
that we both saw that games were a good use of their time.
So, at that panel, we announced this program
that the local game studios had come together to do,
which is to place kids into game studios
for a work experience project for a week.
We placed 20 last year.
We'll do 60 this school year and more until we wrap up the program.
Obviously, the students were really excited to be part of it.
School District 61 said they'd never had a work experience program
that the students were more excited to be part of.
And it's really interesting thinking about kids coming into a game studio.
Often, when kids do a work experience program -
and some of you might've had this experience -
a lot of times you go into that,
and you're very excited about the business that you're going into,
but what you end up doing is actually stocking shelves.
A kid graduating from high school today,
will have played over 10,000 hours of video games,
and we know from Malcolm Gladwell's work that that makes them an expert on games.
(Laughter)
So, they come into the studio on day one, and they're already an expert,
and they can provide great value to those studios.
Now, some of you might think,
"Ah, this is like a pipe dream or something:
working in the games industry, like, who's going to do that?
Realistically, we're setting these kids up."
Well, what I would offer to you is
that the revenues for the game industry outstrip Hollywood box office revenues.
And if you're fortunate to live in Canada,
we employ more people in the games industry
on a per capita basis
than any other nation on the planet.
We have over 5,000 people working in the games industry just in BC
and a thriving games community here in Victoria.
These are good-paying jobs that you can get right here in Canada.
Okay, so, I'm talking about high school students,
work experience programs,
students who want to do this,
and I bet that everyone in the audience
has a pretty clear picture of who I'm talking about.
And if I asked you, you'd say to me,
"You know, a gamer, a typical gamer, right?
Media's taught me a lot about what a typical gamer is."
And if we said, "What is that?"
you'd say, "Well, male."
You would say to me, probably, "Maybe a little bit of a loner, you know,
socially awkward, maybe a little overweight,
maybe don't get outside enough,
you know, playing too much video games in their parents' basement."
That is the typical media stereotype of gamers.
Is it true?
Half of all people who play video games are women.
Adult women outnumber teenage boys playing video games.
(Laughter)
So, clearly, they're not all male.
(Laughter)
So, how about not getting enough exercise and not getting out?
So, I'm a parent.
My wife and I have three kids.
We obviously want balance for those children in their activities.
And if you look at the research on digital natives,
what they do is not play video games instead of going for a walk
or playing soccer outside.
They play video games instead of watching TV.
So, I can watch a really active kid, like my nine-year-old,
and he plays video games instead of watching TV,
which, personally, I'm pretty happy about.
Then we think about this very progressive stereotype,
that video games pull us apart from people,
that they're something that you do by yourself.
That's a stereotype that's really born out of one point in time
when game technology didn't allow us to connect everything together.
But as technologies evolved
and we've been able to connect game systems together,
video games have become like every other type of game,
like sports and cards and board games.
They're things that we dominantly do with other people
to connect with other people.
They're not things that isolate us; they're things that bring us together.
My wife and I, we play a lot of video games and other games.
We do it with our kids.
and when in my family I can watch my 12-year-old daughter,
my wife, and my mother-in-law
play World of Warcraft together,
(Laughter)
I can watch three generations of women all connecting in a virtual space
and maintaining that connection when my mother-in-law returns to Ottawa
and the rest of us live here in Victoria.
So hopefully by now,
you're starting to see that the stereotype about video games and gamers
is just not true.
There are over 1.7 billion people
who actively play video games on the planet now.
They're boys and girls and men and women.
Everyone's playing games,
and particularly as mobile technology is becoming more and more ubiquitous,
is carrying with it the number one genre of downloaded apps,
which is all games.
Everyone's playing games; lots of people are doing it.
Now, that doesn't mean it's not a waste of time,
just because we're all doing it.
Now, of course, I don't think it's a waste of time.
There's a lot of research on, like, the educational value of video games,
but what I want to kind of highlight is really three things
about why I think video games are awesome.
The first off, that I touched on already,
is that video games can ignite a passion that can lead to a wonderful career.
Obviously, you need to do more than just play video games
in order to work in the games industry,
but every single person that I know started with a passion for video games
that led them on a journey towards working in the games industry.
Secondly, unlike that stereotype of games pulling us apart
and something that's a loner activity,
video games bring us together and connect.
And my wife and I, as our kids turn into teenagers,
we can maintain our connection with our kids and our kids' friends
by playing lots and lots of different games with them.
Thirdly, I think that video games can cut through discrimination.
There's been a lot of talk on this point -
especially stuff in the media recently, some controversy around this -
but what I have witnessed is that when you play a game,
it doesn't matter what your gender is,
it doesn't matter your sexual preference,
it doesn't matter your social class, your ethnicity.
The only thing that matters when you play a game
is how good you are at the game,
nothing else.
A couple years ago,
my daughter, who was 10 then, and my eldest son, who was 12,
were sitting chatting,
and Alizee turns to Darius,
and she says, "Darius,
when we're playing World of Warcraft,
you joke with me, you laugh with me, we have really fun times.
You treat me like your friend.
When we're not playing World of Warcraft,
(Laughter)
you treat me like your little sister, and you push me away,
and that hurts my feelings.
I want to be your friend."
And from that moment,
their relationship went from one where they weren't very good friends
to now, two years later, being absolute best friends.
And that's why I know that video games are fucking awesome.
(Laughter)
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheering)