2.3 Game Production Interviews: Chris Keeling, EP at Street Smarts VR

Game Production Community Podcast

Our guest today is Chris Keeling, Executive Producer at Street Smarts VR and living in Orlando, Florida. Previously, Chris has had a myriad of impressive roles, including Product Director at Wargaming, where he was the first American to join the Eastern Europe-centric company at the senior level. He was Program Manager at Full Sail University, leading the Game Design Bachelor of Science department on behalf of almost 2000 students. Chris served in the US Army as a Sergeant First Class for 23 years, with 10 years of active duty. He has been a game designer and writer and worked on titles such as Panzer Elite, America’s Army, World of Tanks, Master of Orion and World of Warships: Blitz for mobile.
In this episode, we talk about Chris's experience in the military and how that helped shape his approach to production leadership and training. We delve into his thoughts around the Game Design course, then plunge headfirst into Masters of Orion and its path from free giveaway to refocusing it to be a paid for product. Chris believes that producers cannot graduate from college, but should gain experience within game development before being supported and trained as producers. We talk a lot about that too.
Topics include:

00:00 Intros
12:00 Producers need experience in game dev first
15:40 The importance of holding Product Vision
19:30 From writer to producer
22:50 VR, AR, MR
24:00 Game Design BSc
29:30 VR production
32:30 Experience before production, training and support required
41:40 Master of Orion deep-dive
61:02 Movies and Games
65:00 Market Research & Player Types, Feedback and Bias
73:00 Back to Master of Orion for some final questions
74:00 Is Chris still in gaming?
78:20: Educating producers
80:20 Game Crunch and producer responsibility
91:00 Farewells & Wise Words

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