Interviews with Talented Game Players #1: Rich Keen, Mind Candy
From playing Nintendo games in the back of his parents’ Honda Civic in the 1970s through to flight simulators with professional pilots today.
From heading up Marketing at Sony at the launch of PS4 and launching games like God of War, Gran Turismo Sport and Horizon Zero Dawn to his present role as Chief Operating Officer of Mind Candy, the entertainment company behind Moshi Monsters.
Rich Keen is a veteran of the games industry, a super-enthusiastic player and executive. A keen supporter of GamesAid, Rich is one of several figures in the industry who have kindly shared their advice and insight with Game Academy. We caught up with Rich in the Mind Candy offices.
GA: What’s been your favourite game in recent years?
RK: It has to be Destiny. It was the first game I think to bring the idea of the Massive Multiplayer Online experience to a mainstream console game. You have to collaborate, work together and constantly communicate with each other to succeed. Those are MMO values, set in a sci-fi universe and seen from a first-person shooter perspective. What’s not to love?
GA: You’ve spoken in the past about the power of gamers’ investing their imagination in games and it being unique. What did you mean?
RK: Games are such a credible extension of what it means to be human. They’re extensions of yourself. You enjoy games in a way that suits you. When I was six or seven, I played the space trading game Elite. This was a huge sci-fi drama centred around a space station and your spaceship and the game was about exploring and fighting your way through the universe, gathering credits to upgrade your ship and gradually improving your rank to become Elite. The game was graphically advanced for the time. It was effectively a spreadsheet but the gaps between the cells and the rows, you needed to fill with your imagination. To succeed in a game like Elite, you had to invest yourself in the game, immerse yourself and your imagination in it one hundred percent to find solutions.
GA: Games have featured throughout your life, right?
RK Absolutely! My relationship started when I was about three or four and lived in Hong Kong. We were given a lot of very early Nintendo Game and Watches. You’d learn the tempo and rhythm of the game and it would help you figure out how to get through tough spots. How objects would drop. Pizzas served left to right. How Donkey Kong would swing. It was all about perseverance playing, playing, playing, game playing until it became a second language.
GA: Do you think that you have learned skills through playing games?
RK: I’ve developed huge confidence, often by playing with and alongside others with great talent. There are also definite skills that you can develop through simulation based games. I drove circuits at Brands Hatch not too long ago and did it at home on my PC before I actually drove the real track. My mates were absolutely terrified that I was driving so fast. They had no idea how I could take the corners in the way that I did, first time out. But I felt comfortable because I’d driven that track hundreds of times in a sim. Games can do that: help you explore worlds in a way that give you skills that you can then translate into the real world.
GA: And has game play impacted upon your talent for marketing?
RK: I think part of being a good marketeer is being able to understand how your customers and audiences are thinking and feeling. Then you have to use your imagination and creativity to be able to figure out how to communicate in a way that is going to get their attention. You have to be able to step outside yourself and explore the mindsets of others and other people’s perspectives and I find that play — that’s using play but also being playful — is a very important part of building that relationship.
GA: You’ve spent some time with us at Game Academy. What do you think is the opportunity that we offer?
RK: Gamers are often driven to play by the thrill of achieving — and parents very often don’t understand this. Often, I’m asked by a worried parent, “What can we do about my son or daughter’s gaming? I tell them that they can play for 30 mins but once they start I can’t stop them — it causes us real issues at home!” I say to the parent that they should be asking their son or daughter another question: “What do you want to achieve with your game today? How long will that take?” I think that in this — and similar — situations, Game Academy can be the supportive parent. Through your service, you can help players and their parents understand the value of their achievement in-game. Help show that in-game achievement can have real meaning and should be celebrated and encouraged.
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