>>This was at the time when it was all like, mobile social games,
so it was a little bit easier to get a job in the video game industry
because there was a lot more smaller studios.
There was me and one other lady, and someone came into the office
and they looked at us and they said "Oh, you have women working for the company."
"That's, that's cool."
And my boss said
"Yeah, we're very progressive here."
And it's like, we were 2 out of 8. Like, I guess.
I guess, man.
Steve Gaynor is one of the studio leads at Fullbright
and he was the writer of Gone Home, and at the time he was looking for reference.
And so I was talking to Steve a little bit because
my wife does a lot of fan art.
You know, she's a comic artist and they were sort of Twitter friends.
When he started looking for people to research for Gone Home
he was like, "We should meet up, I should talk to you guys."
"I should interview for this game I'm working on."
And I remember being very nervous. I was like
"The Steve Gaynor?" Like, I know this guy from the internet!
So I was very sort of shy.
He was asking me during the interview first of all about my wife and
my background because he was looking for reference for
women who had grown up in the 90's, and who identified as lesbians,
and who were willing to talk about that stuff.
We were just kind of hanging out talking about that stuff and he asked what I did,
and I said I was an environment modeler.
And he was like "Oh, really!"
He was like "You should submit an art test to us."
I had just spent you know 3 years making mobile games
and I didn't know if my skills would translate.
He was asking me to make really high fidelity stuff that I wasn't used to.
I had never made like a normal map,
or done like a lot of sculpting.
So I was sort of faking it, I was like "Yeah, yeah, I got it. It's fine."
"This is good."
And then when I was at home, I just like sweating, just like
Being so anxious. I was like, I don't know if I can do this.
And it was sort of a learning on the job thing.
But it went ok, I mean, I'm still here. He hasn't given me the boot yet.
>>We had never made a game in Unity before,
Kate, our 3D artist, she'll excuse me for singling her out,
She'd only worked on Facebook games before and we asked her to build
practically every piece of 3D art that made up our entire
hi-res, first-person game.
And you know, she nailed it. She killed it.
But we didn't decide to work with her because she was
already the best person for the job.
She became that person.
It's often the people who are unproven
that end up doing the work that changes us.
>>I wasn't the best person for the job.
If he wanted someone to start an indie studio,
he could've picked someone that was local. They could've picked someone
that had experience, or you know, they
all the Fullbright team comes from the world of Bioshock.
So often, that's been the argument that I've seen sort of levied against people who
are kind of new to the industry, or like ladies, or like
you know, I've seen it in the Gamasutra comments like a million times.
Uh, but I'm well suited to Fullbright, I think. I really
I really like everyone there and I know what they need and etcetera, etcetera, and
yeah, I wish more employers
would take that sort of tack.
Cuz I think it works out well for everyone in the end.
I was taking the bus to Fullbright to go to the launch party,
and 'launch party' is just like drinking beers in Steve's backyard.
And the Wi-Fi was really spotty on this Bolt Bus.
And I was trying to see if the reviews had come out.
And um,
you know, halfway through this trip, the Wi-Fi starts working again.
And I see that like, you know, Polygon's giving like a 10 or whatever, and like
Kotaku's like, "Yeah, it was really good!"
And all these things, and I was just
completely like losing my mind, but there's nothing, you know you can do on a,
sitting on a bus. [laugh]
I was just sitting there really excited being like "Oh, they liked it!"
"Oh, I'm so glad they liked it."
"They REALLY liked it!"
These days, I, you know, everyone, I just,
I say "my wife" in the video game industry and no one bats an eye.
At least, I mean, I'm very fortunate to work at Fullbright
where of course that's no problem.
But you know back in the day it was a little different, and
I don't know why that's changed but I'm glad it slowly is, I suppose.
At least in my experience.
I remember at the time, this is when a lot of the conversation
around like representation really started.
I think we started making Gone Home in 2011, 2012?
And I would see people on Twitter talking about how like
"There's nothing out there!" You know?
And I was just, you know at home being like, "I think this will help!"
Like I think this is a, I think this is a game that actually
you know, I hope people will identify with.
And it was a nice feeling. It kind of keeps you going when you're like
you know, you see something, someone being like "Gosh I wish there was this."
And then me being like
"Well, there is!"