Matthew's Manifesto

Here are some foundational thoughts and statements which are unlikely to change anytime soon, and which I probably won't update for a while. For more fleeting and up-to-date stuff, see my blog.

I so enjoy exploring Brisbane, playing games of both the digital and traditional variety, and chilling out with TV and music, or just watching the antics of the world’s cutest dog. Life is good and simple.

Brisbane and Australia are wonderful. Sunny, relaxed, warm, with the river, beaches, and bush all right nearby. Australia is a young, exciting, beautiful, progressive country with a bright future poised between the East and West. And we’re always happy to have guests visiting us. We have plenty of room! We plan to become dual citizens soon; we are not planning to ever move back to the USA.

I love being a father and husband. I love making games. I love spending time with friends. I’m highly interested in society, politics, human nature, science, and technology. I love new ideas and perspectives, and I don’t accept the status quo for its own sake.

I met Kat at my parent's house in 1991 and within a year we married. Interestingly (and legally, I might add) my brother Chris is married to her sister April. Chris and April knew each other for years before Kat and I met, and got married several months before us. We married and had Dylan so quickly because then, as now, we trust our gut and know life is too short not to leap when you've got a good thing in reach. Our marriage and our Brisbane family has lots of love, laughter, support, and passion while we all also allow one another a lot of freedom, independence, and individuality. I believe, and I think I am safe in saying we all believe, that possessiveness, control, jealousy, and lack of respect of difference and autonomy are corrosive to true love. But this is my manifesto; I'll let the others speak for themselves. I am the one most likely to rattle on and on about personal philosophy. For my part, I think far too many people who in other areas of their lives challenge and rethink the old beliefs and norms of their parents have a blind spot for their rules and limits in the way they relate to those they love. I don't see any evidence that the traditional style of loving in a closed, possessive, jealous way has come out no worse for wear than other centuries-old mores. I don't think I have love all figured out, but I don't think anyone does. I know what works for me, and the fact that it's unusual is not significant to me. I am used to being a bit of a social radical.

My basic political stance is pragmatic centrism, socially liberal but conservative about many pragmatic issues about how the state should conduct itself. When it comes to the USA in particular, I seriously advocate bloodless revolution, as the forefathers called for in the situation the USA is in now: dysfunctional and corrupted, not in service of its people, and not to be amended by either political party. Overall I feel that Americans have gotten the government they deserve through general ignorance, closed-mindedness, short-sightedness, irrationality, and laziness, and it's not going to improve until the people rise up-- no politician I see anywhere on the scene has any interest in changing the status quo in any meaningful way.

I’m optimistic about the human race in general but alarmed about the state of the world at the moment and feel I have a serious charge to improve things on this planet. It very well might get a lot worse before it gets better. My way to do my part is by being a good father, an outspoken citizen, and a productive creator.

I am an atheist-- I don’t believe in God or religion in the traditional sense, nor do I believe in a conscious afterlife, though it sure would be nice to be wrong about that. Though I am a scientific materialist, I strongly believe in a flow of things that works in ways far beyond our current understanding, and our best science today will be laughable to the humanity of the 22nd century. I find a lot to embrace among the teachings of Jesus, Buddha, and Lao Tzu. I strongly believe in acting in a moral, truthful, and constructive way. I follow an ethic of collective hedonism, in which joy and pleasure are the ultimate goal of all existence and action, but unlike short-sighted hedonism which too greatly emphasizes pleasure for the self in the short term, sustainable hedonism gives great weight to the pleasure and joy of others, and seeks future pleasure as well as present. To maximize the sum of all pleasure created by one's actions over a whole life, one must choose how to balance one's duration of good life against the intensity of the pleasure at any one moment, and balance pleasure for oneself against pleasure felt by those one loves, by people in general, and by humanity of the future. Personally, because I feel that my enjoyment responds most to relative improvement, the fruits of creativity, and seeing humanity progress, my plan is to live for at least a hundred years, make things that bring pleasure as well as advance the technology which I predict will greatly enhance the pleasure and reduce the pain of future humanity, and maintain a sustainable, steady, nondestructive feed of those things which I enjoy while avoiding a backlash from overdosing any of them.

I want to keep making games for a long time. I think they are important for human development and a good way to introduce new technologies into people’s lives. As my blog makes clear, I strongly defend games as a currently immature but significant art form. I believe that the effect of games on nearly everyone that plays them ranges from a harmless, pleasant absorber of time to a highly effective means of provoking thought and nurturing life skills. I believe that I am doing no harm, and making the world a better place, by making games.

Most importantly, my favorite ice cream is vanilla with caramel ribbons.

More about my work

Theatre

The best way to sum up why I decided not to make a career of acting or writing was in the advice a visiting, successful actor gave us when he visited Pomona: "If you can imagine that you could possibly be happy doing anything else, do it." It was great to study as the cornerstone of a liberal arts education. But it was not a profession I wanted to pursue. Ironically, to anyone who wants to be a game designer, I still advise a degree in theatre; it gave me a great cornerstone.

Teaching

I truly loved teaching the kids but I found that the educational system in California, and as far as I could see everywhere else in the USA, was (and remains) seriously screwed up-- not just by the usual villains of a state that neglects the value of education and horribly unjust funding system, but equally by the misguided influence of the political left. I hope to teach again someday.

Atari

Atari was awesome and I was so lucky to work there. I made great friends and contacts, and I learned so much. I still use advice I got there from veteran game designers.

Accolade

Though I worked with some great people, Accolade pretty much sucked. Its management and culture did not, in my opinion, foster success.

Microsoft Game Studios

This was mostly a really good experience. MS is quite an amazing company and I worked with some super smart, hard-working people. I learned a great deal about management and the publisher side of things. At the end though I felt it started to lose its way, and from what I hear from people still there, the whole company is being slowly consumed by the mediocrity and ass-covering behavior I saw growing there, which is really too bad as MS was great in many ways. I am proud of Asheron's Call, both in that AC1 made some seriously big profits, and that both AC1 and AC2 pioneered some new MMORPG ideas which are still in currency today. We introduced some really good ideas into the bloodstream, and a game like WoW, though far better, owes a few of its foundational game design elements to AC.

Overall I can say I learned a lot about game production management and design thanks to AC2, though most of the lessons were wrought from what went poorly rather than what went well. I figured out a lot more about what it took to be a good publisher-side producer, and by extension a good publisher. I also realized that this was not the kind of job I wanted to do anymore. I figured out a lot about what it might take to be a good game developer. I wanted to apply those lessons directly by going back to where I started in the industry, as a game developer in either the game design or production role, or both.

Micro Forte

This was a really good place with excellent culture, and I think MS was foolish not to go ahead with Citizen Zero. It was so fulfilling to work as a developer again, even more so as a designer.

Auran

It's too soon to make a big public statement about Auran. I still have important contacts there. But I have made no secret of the fact that although working there in the trenches are some of the most talented people I have ever worked with, I think it has severe problems in its management and culture, augmented by an unwillingness to fire obviously incompetent people who bring down the whole team. To me it represents a tragic waste of tremendous potential, and a perfect example of why so many game developers founder.

My business

It's early days but I so love working for myself. I now have no crutch, nobody to blame but me for my failures, and that is exactly where I need to be in order to grow. I am highly challenged and excited, and I can hardly wait to get out of bed in the morning to get going. I plan to stay very small for years, maybe forever, hiring nobody but the odd art contract. That way I can afford to try many ideas which can be very innovative because they are low risk, and I don't need to convince anyone but myself that a really weird or edgy idea is worth trying. For a while at least I want to work more like an author than like the big-team leader I used to be. I have so many ideas I want to try, which I can execute myself, that I don't think I will run out for many years.

For more about any of these jobs, take a look at my resume and LinkedIn profile.