A single idea can open in countless directions. Points of View is a series gathering perspectives around a concept, with each participant choosing their own journey through questions, answers, and the imagination and marvels in between.
This is the first in an edition that explores patterns — including how patterns can shape careers and ways of thinking, and help us predict what’s next (or not).
Here, we talk to Kellee Santiago, an independent business development and partnerships consultant in the video game industry. Santiago co-founded the independent game studio Thatgamecompany in 2006, which became well-known for releases like Flow (2006) and Flower (2009), which both were designed to evoke emotions in players. Santiago left the company in 2012, and has since managed partnerships and developer acquisition at Google XR and then Niantic (where she worked on Pokémon GO), and co-founded Indie Fund, an angel investment fund for independent games. Today, she’s at work on a book to demystify video games for parents and educators.
In this conversation, Santiago reflects on the patterns that have shaped her work, how she distinguishes between patterns and noise in an industry often driven by trends, and how building anything in the entertainment industry is often a “messy process” of constant iteration.
Are there any patterns that have defined your career as an entrepreneur and game developer?
What I have found so endlessly fascinating about video games as a medium is how they are interwoven with the technology and the commercial industry that they sit in. It’s so dependent on the hardware that we can develop on, and that players have access to. I was able to found my own company at the early stages of the digital distribution of console games, which really opened up a lot of possibilities of who got to make a game and why and what they were about. And then I moved to be on the other side of that table and worked with companies like Google and Niantic to start the flywheel of new innovative types of experiences.
Are there any patterns in your work and industry that have been surprising to you?
There was certainly a trajectory where the graphic fidelity was really important. And it’s been surprising to see, largely exhibited by Nintendo and Roblox, that it actually doesn’t matter as much. It’s actually the game design, the interact, whatever it is you’re doing in the game or with other players that just seems to win out over and over again.
One pattern that’s stayed consistent since I was a kid is that although the Entertainment Software Association reports more and more older people are playing games than ever before, there is still this gap in households between parents and kids in their understanding of video games. I’ve been working on a book to demystify video games for parents.
Noise in my field generally comes from unique trends that occur due to a confluence of events... and then a lot of businesses [mistakenly] anchor towards that.
How do you distinguish between real patterns and illusory noise?
That’s a billion-dollar question. Noise in my field generally comes from unique trends that occur due to a confluence of events: the right game [for] the right people coming out at just the right time. And then a lot of businesses anchor towards that and see that as, “Oh, that’s a new pattern, let’s do that again and again and again.” When I’m [trying to determine] “Is this success indicative of a pattern or not?,” I’m looking more at the nuances of the players’ experiences: How they’re reacting.
How do patterns help you to predict what’s coming next, whether that’s in terms of where games are going or what people want from them?
I like to look at a larger cultural and media landscape. I think that is often overlooked in the games industry. So, not just what kind of games are people playing, but what kind of movies are people into? What kind of shows are they engaging with? And then the other piece is what the kids are making. There are a lot of tools now, like in Minecraft and Roblox, where they have a lot of agency to make their own experiences. For instance, there’s this trend right now called “friendslop.” You’re online with your friends, hanging out in an environment that enables fun experiences to happen. That’s something that you started to see a couple years ago through Roblox. And now we’re seeing that happening on PC and consoles as well.
Are there any unhelpful patterns you’ve seen in your industry that you’ve had to break out of?
I think one of the major contributing factors to the current state of the industry was an influx of funding and investment from people and firms that were thinking of games more as technology rather than entertainment. That is a negative pattern that has never served games as a medium because it’s different developing a video game experience than it is developing an app or any other kind of software. It is a very messy process more akin to film or television or music.
Do you think your work has or has potential to change other people’s patterns of thinking?
A lot of people think they don’t like games, but they really just haven’t found a game they like yet. And within games, there are key skills to [learn] about how to come back from failure, resiliency, problem solving. In my own personal development work, I’ve been most inspired by party games and games that create social lubrication. In this era where we’re hearing reports of less and less people having dinner parties or feeling comfortable being in groups, games are a great way to facilitate fun interactions.
Has the work that you do changed your own patterns of thinking?
Game design in and of itself is an extremely iterative process. A great game designer is not someone with one great idea. It’s someone who has 100 more when they find out their first one really sucked. Built into the process of being [in] development is brainstorming, prototyping, play testing, and then going back around that loop again and again. That has informed my approach to pretty much everything, but especially entrepreneurship. It can also lower the stakes around decisions, [so I’m] approaching things like: I’m going to mess up, we’re gonna make mistakes. But the important thing is that we learn from the wrong decisions.
