Ben Starr on Acting and the State of the Games Industry | The AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook

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Welcome to The Game Maker's Notebook, a podcast featuring a series of in-depth one-on-one conversations between game makers, providing a thoughtful, intimate perspective on the business and craft of interactive entertainment.

The Game Maker's Notebook is presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, a member-driven organization dedicated to the recognition and advancement of interactive entertainment.

Hi.

Here's the intro to The Game Maker's Notebook with me, Ben Starr.

And I'm just here.

Just here for the ride.

Please enjoy my podcast.

As always with you, I'm just here for the ride.

Great.

And I just have to accept whatever the fuck happens.

Whatever's going to happen.

And that's why we're here.

Yeah.

Hi.

Hello.

We're here at Dice.

Who do I look?

Do I look at the people at home?

Look at me.

No.

I never do.

Pretend they're not there.

I'm trained for stage.

We never look at people directly in the eye.

We're playing to the back seats.

Well, no one's paying you to do this.

No.

It's not.

I know.

I know you'll do anything for money.

I'll do anything for money.

I'll also do anything for free.

Don't say that.

That's not true.

No, it's not true.

I won't do anything for free.

For me, you will, though.

I will, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you know where the body's buried.

I sure fucking do.

Starting right off.

You've had quite a three years since you were last on this show.

Yes.

Big, big time.

I remember you saying we should get you back on this show and we should talk.

Obviously, I was very lucky to speak to Austin Wintry the first time.

And I didn't think that initially, that i i should.

I remember you were like i don't, because nothing's really happened in my mind, but actually a huge amount has happened since we last spoke and i keep forgetting that so much has happened in that in that short period of time, because for me it's just happening one thing at a time.

But actually when i look back, i go god yeah, kind of no one really knew who i was back in 2023.

Um, now everyone knows who you are.

Yeah, now I've become 38000 different memes that I've curated for myself.

Meme lord.

Yeah.

Amazing.

The best time.

The best times, the worst time, I would say.

Let's unpack that.

Yeah, I'll unpack that.

As my therapist said to me, Ben, you monetize every bit of joy in your life.

Mine said the same thing.

And I think that maybe that's a curse of people who so deeply love the industry that they're working in.

We're getting into this industry because we love it.

And I've really had this strange push and pull with video games, the act of playing video games that I found really really, really hard, because video games are my safe space.

They're the place that I go to escape or understand the world.

And I at times have had this almost like hatred of playing games, at times a refusal, a rejection of the playing of games, which meant that I've had no, no outlet really.

And, and because I'm so deeply in this industry that playing games isn't what it used to be.

And then there'll be a game that comes along that changes that.

And then suddenly I'm back in, um, and i've been very fortunate over the past couple of months to have a couple of games that have really gone oh just when i thought i was out you know um and i'm playing i mean this will this will date this i'm playing meugenics right now okay um uh simply because i love breeding uh no um what i just i thought oh if only i could breed cats for a living um but like last year last year Hades 2 got me through so much travel I've changed the way I engage with games because I was a PlayStation kid like I would say PlayStation master race yeah game gaming for me was sitting at home on my sofa in with a massive TV headphones in playing an immersive game narrative game I don't have time for that and I didn't have time last year because I was traveling so much then i bought a steam deck and everything changed which meant that the way i was engaging with gaming changed and also it meant that i what that steam deck was i was looking for more things to distract me as opposed to immerse me and that i found really sad because actually i really wanted to be immersed in gaming i don't want to be distracted by it yeah um or just use it as a distraction yeah um and There are certain games that really immersed me.

Like, hours went by.

Hades 2, I put 90 hours into that game just traveling.

Well, you're also in Hades 2.

I know.

And I hated myself.

Why?

Because he's a hard boss when you first meet him.

He is a very hard boss.

I sent a picture of Prometheus defeated when I finally beat him to one of my friends.

And I went, fuck me, I guess.

Um again, I feel like there's so much to cover and I'm probably, you know, we're getting kind of like a greatest hits of like this is where my mind is at the moment, but I was in Hades.

You were in Hades.

How crazy is that?

It's pretty crazy.

Crazy, crazy thing.

Is it crazier than being in final fantasy?

Um, it's all cumulative because I think I was able to completely compartmentalize being in final fantasy.

So Final Fantasy 16, I was able to say, this is amazing.

This is my thing.

This is something that I can champion, that I understand that I didn't feel deserving of, but I felt ultimately worthy of taking up the mantle because I had such a huge amount of respect for the franchise.

It felt kind of written in the stars eventually.

Kind of a perfect story.

Yeah, it was this beautiful whirlwind and I was able to say yeah, hello games.

This is me.

I love final fantasy.

Isn't that cool?

I also love so many other games.

Surely i can't be in those games as well?

And then you get the call saying you're gonna be in hades too.

Yeah, i was with you when you got the email.

I know we were, we were, we were at a lunch, we were leaving a lunch we can't talk about in this podcast.

We were at GDC.

We were at GDC and we were about to cross the street and you were like or you came out of the bathroom and you were like I just got cast in Hades too.

And I was just like, what?

That was crazy.

And then that evening we were going to go for, we went to a dinner and Darren Corb was there and I was like, and we looked across the table and went, me um that was cute that was cute it is it is it is really cute yeah um uh and crazy um because i have an incredible respect for super giant they're lovely yes they are like to to to a person they are so lovely so welcoming um the level of talent is intimidating um but when you meet them you're like oh they don't ever considering how talented they are they're the most humble people i've ever been around they're still here yeah like they are making games at a level that i don't think many people are making like that it's it's it's a tier it's a tier of quality and invention and playfulness that is is in many ways unmatched like Hades 2 came out and everyone yeah that's a 10 out of 10 video game and no one would disagree with you in how good that video game is and seeing how witty and interesting and insightful like the writing is how addictive the gameplay is how they listen to fan feedback the early access of it all and how they've managed to refine this thing um I'm able to I was a game and I think the first one for a while that I was really able to play as a fan as opposed to being a part of it yeah it the longer how many years have you been in the industry now three four three let's say three three the longer you're you're in it the harder it kind of gets like you were talking about how games were an escape for you and now it's a it's your job is in the industry.

So playing them kind of becomes something different as a dev.

It's definitely like for me games always an escape, but now I'm playing my peers work and like seeing what they're making.

And that is also informing what I am making.

And also like I have the privilege to be on these awards juries.

I'm on the awards jury for outstanding achievement story for dice.

So BAFTA, all those things.

And it can become like I don't want to say work, but it does sometimes become like oh, I have to sit down.

I have to play these things.

I'm so close to it.

It's a little hard to escape it.

So when something comes along like Hades 2 or sorry, Expedition 33, that's like totally my jam.

Getting lost in.

That really does take me back to like being that 12 year old on the couch, like in my parents basement, playing games.

It i 2025, was an interesting year for me because i remember speaking to you about expedition 33 coming out and i really played it down to a lot of people.

Um, because i don't like hyping up my work really before it's happened.

I really liked it to speak for itself and then we kind of talk about it.

He says you know, i do a lot of marketing for games as well.

Really, really like to my friends and colleagues, I will be very honest about the way that I feel about a project that I'm working on.

And I think there was so much excitement around the potential.

Why did you say it like that?

The potentiality of Expedition 33, what it could be to people.

That I kept being like, just keep your expectations in check.

Keep your expectations in check of what this game is.

It's a team.

They've made it.

It's a brilliant expression of what they want to make.

But this isn't going to be like a smash hit video game.

Oh.

And how wrong I was.

Because it wasn't a lack of faith in the material.

I believed in the material a long time before that ever came out.

I was obviously speaking to you about how exciting it is.

And anyone who was close to me knows how excited I was about this video game.

You were.

But I think the expectations about what it would become, no one could have predicted that.

And I didn't know that 2025 was going to be the year for me of being an Expedition 33.

If I'm honest, I thought it was going to be the year of me dressing up as a clown at the BAFTAs.

I thought that it was going to be that.

That's what i thought was going to be.

My my, my biggest contribution to the gaming landscape was me being an idiot with balotro and um.

I thought i was just going to be in some really cool games that were going to be.

You know, the year was date.

Everything hades.

These were, these are in.

These are indie games.

I'm not in triple a video games.

These are indie games, and so i didn't expect them to have the same impact that final fantasy had, because that's a triple a game, and so the The fact that they had the significant impact that they did, I think, tells greatly to what the landscape of 2025 was.

And it wasn't what I expected it to be.

Like, my contribution to games in 2025 was to indie games.

It wasn't to any AAA video games.

I wasn't a part of any of them.

You know?

Oh, you're right.

If you think about it, it's like, no.

I just assume you're in everything now.

No, of course.

Of course.

Because people are paying attention now.

I don't think I'm in more games than a lot of my colleagues.

I just think you notice when I am.

Well, you do have a very distinct voice.

Yeah, which is deliberate, which is deliberate.

I like having a vocal footprint that people understand and can recognize.

And I think establishing that and establishing my face is important.

Hence why I love being a meme, because I do think actors are often really, really talented.

Actors in this industry are are chameleons, are technicians, are hide behind their work, are so good at changing the way that they sound, the.

The desired effect is you don't know that it's that, whereas i'm like i kind of want you to know it's me.

Yeah, i kind of do.

It's kind of hard to not know.

Yeah, it's you.

I'm also not claiming to be the best.

I'm not claiming to be the best actor in games.

I'm not trying to be the best.

I'm just trying to be interesting, I think and do interesting work.

There are people I know out there who can do stuff way better than I can, but also a great bit of advice I was given way back in 2013 was this brilliant, brilliant actress I worked with on a TV show called The Kensian?

She went, the most incredible thing about you, Ben, is you.

That's it.

That's cute.

Because no one else can do you.

And I've kind of taken that into video games and being like, right, I'm going to be Ben Starr.

And I think if actors can do that in TV and film, then they can do it in games.

And I think it cannot distract from the narrative.

I think me being a part of a game cannot take you out of it.

Some people it might.

When you say narrative, do you mean the narrative of the actual game or the narrative of the game's release and public?

I think the narrative of the game itself.

Some people will say that there is a similarity between Clive and Verso.

Yes, because it's me.

Baby girls.

I think they're very different.

Yeah, Verso sucks.

Yeah, yeah.

They're very different in their tone.

The way that Verso interacts with other people is very different from the way that Clive interacts with people.

So there is difference there, other than the fact they sound like this um, but they also don't like there.

There's there is acting isn't about modulating your voice at all.

I think you should be able to have exactly the same voice every single time, in every single game that you do, and if you're playing the truth of the moment, it shouldn't matter.

It isn't distracting when timothy chalamet is the same voice and everything that he does.

It isn't distracting when ryan gosling does the same thing and everything that he does, Because what we're doing is we're believing the characters in the moment.

And I believe that to be true of games as well.

There are going to be people out there and I'm sure people listening to this will just disagree with me, which is also totally cool.

But I'm not going to come out here and suddenly sound completely different.

I'm also not going to try and rehash the same thing again and again and again.

Because, to put a sporting analogy, you can only play the team in front of play the reality of the moment and if you're revealing that honesty, hopefully it breaks people's hearts or it moves them or does whatever like.

I'm so unbelievably proud of some of the work that i've done in expedition 33.

I think it's some of the most like raw i've ever been and it's one take.

It's this i look back on final fantasy 16 recently and i looked at some old um, i looked at some old tapes and i went i'm really good in that.

There's some bits.

I look back and I go you're shitting that.

But some parts of the game I hate.

Other parts I'm really proud of.

But that's when you're part of a 60-hour game.

And I'm one of my harshest critics.

But to be able to look back on something and go, that's actually quite good.

I'm proud of that.

I'm really, really proud of that.

Because some distance has gone by.

So you've done Clive Verso.

You've done a bunch of interesting characters over the last three years.

You were in Warframe.

Yes.

For Digital Extremes.

I love Warframe.

Shout out to my Tenno's out there.

I always get them come up to me in like a convention or in just any sort of gaming environment, and there'll always be one or two that'll just go.

I'm a Tenno.

And there's something beautiful about that community that is insular in some ways, because people don't even know anything about it.

But when you have sustainable community of people who are incredibly passionate about that, that is testament to not just the game, the quality of the game, but the people who make the games and digital extremes, you know, now spearheaded brilliantly by rebecca ford, um for warframe anyway um, they have created a community that feel heard and that is how you make a persistent game.

That is how you make a game that is a free-to-play model that people should be looking to.

Not the model, but the model of how you interact with your community.

That's it.

It's not about how we can exploit you for money.

It's how we can make you feel included, that you feel like you want to give back.

How can we give you so much?

You feel compelled to give us something.

Yeah, because actually, at its heart, it's that.

That that symbiotic relationship of this community only works with you and us at the same time.

And the fact that Rebecca is now creative director started off in community.

That's actually started off in fan fiction as well.

I love that.

Like, like Reb's Reb story of like her writing fanfic is great.

But she's, she's unbelievable.

She's a powerhouse.

As is Meg, as are like, all the people now who work on that community team.

Like you know, steve's gone on and doing you know he's now the ceo and they're doing soul frame and building a whole other thing, and i've been welcomed into this community as kind of like a weird little guy and they let me do weird stuff.

They put me inside of a fridge.

I know yeah, they they're so weird but i play.

I play this very gruff obviously um, this kind of gruff warrior who's really, you know, burdened by life and has the weight of the weight of humanity on his shoulders.

Yeah, but they then shoved me inside of a fridge.

You know, as a joke.

There's the difference physically, not the, not the the, the narrative conceit of shoving.

There are memes.

There are memes that are exclusive to the warframe community, that have not escaped containment, which i absolutely love.

So I have little mini memes.

There's a whole thing of me shouting at a puzzle.

There's this bit where I was on a live stream that we did and I was so tired.

Because I flew over to Canada for like a day and they asked us to play this TTRPG live for charity, which was absolutely awesome.

And then they said, do you want to come on for this other stream?

We're going to be closing out the thing.

I think they raised half a million or something insane for charity.

It's going to be a cozy puzzle stream.

And I can tell you, after however many hours of being awake, I did not want to do this puzzle.

So I just sat there and chatted to people.

They went, Ben, you've got to continue on the puzzle.

I went, no, I simply won't.

So I grabbed the puzzle.

I leant over to it.

I whispered to it why it's pointless, why basically it's a broken picture.

And we've got the picture.

And there's a whole meme community of that that's exclusive to them.

And they have that.

And I love that about Warframe.

I want to.

Okay.

I want to talk about your interactions, like with community, with a lot of the self-marketing you did.

I remember in the months after Final Fantasy XVI, you were a menace on Twitter.com.

Don't laugh at us, producer.

But you're very you kind of like, outside of all of your obligations for Square Enix and everything you were rolling with, like You know, you did like a Mario audition, which is actually how that was my first introduction to you.

Actually was that stupid Mario that you did?

That Mario audition changed my life because actually casting directors saw that.

And that might be why I'm in a lot of games I'm in.

Well, you were.

You were putting yourself out there and kind of like, like you were interacting with the Final Fantasy community, but you were also just like hi, I'm here.

I'm whatever.

Yeah.

And I've seen a lot of other actors often imitated, never replicated kind of start to go the same route of I'm going to use social media content to kind of like just silly social media stuff to kind of keep myself in the conversation.

Was that something that you consciously were like, this is something I want to do?

Or were you just like I'm just being a silly goofy guy and I'm just going to keep doing this?

And then It spiraled, because you're kind of known for being a menace on the Internet now?

Yeah.

And I've stopped over the past couple of months because I just got.

You're booked and busy.

Yeah.

And I got I think, you know, sometimes.

If I'm everything, I'm nothing, you know.

So there's only so much people can take before they get bored of the stuff.

So what are you never?

I don't know.

I can I can be pretty fucking boring.

But to begin with, yes, because I'm no one.

I'm a voice.

I'm a presence for this one character.

And it was intentional.

I wanted to get my face out there.

I wanted people to be able to recognize my face.

I wanted to.

I wanted the four years of Final Fantasy 16 to matter.

I wanted my.

I wanted the legacy to continue and I didn't want this to be the last time I worked in games.

I didn't know how I was going to do it.

I didn't know what was going to happen, but I thought if I put my face out there, something might.

And then I had this wonderful, I mean, I liken it to a British pantomime, a call and response.

I was very, very attuned to the audience that I was making stuff for.

I was doing content that was stupid, that was small, that was reacting to deliberate things that were happening.

And if they liked it, I'd do more of it or I'd pivot or I'd move in certain directions.

And I had this amazing relationship with the fans and people who didn't even play the games.

Many people didn't play Final Fantasy 16, but they knew who I was because I was just putting more and more and more things out.

But I wasn't just putting shit out.

It was me being very, very locked in to what it is that people wanted.

And it wasn't inauthentic.

It was very deliberate.

It was very me.

Anyone who knew me growing up knew me as the clown.

I was always the class clown.

And so it was an opportunity to be a public clown.

And a good colleague and friend of mine I will not name their name said Ben, you take great pleasure in in diminishing and reducing and ridiculing yourself.

And I said, yes.

We've talked about this.

And I said, yes, I do.

I do.

Why?

Because I think it's funny.

I think it's funny.

The work speaks for me.

If you like my work, great.

I don't need to say, if I came on, I'm like, look how great I am.

No one cares.

What I can do is I can be like, aren't I a fucking weirdo?

Resident internet narcissist.

Yeah, I will always describe myself as, here's things that people say about me.

So you know, I will say I'm this person which will be responding to criticism or critiques that I've heard of myself.

Because if I say it first, you can't say it.

And so I'm telling you everything that I know that I am and how I may come across.

Don't worry, babe, I've thought about it.

And so if I come and reduce myself, I'm going, what are you going to do?

I've already taken the piss out of myself.

I got memed at the Game Awards.

That could have been a bad thing.

Twice now.

And that's a good hit rate.

Both times nominated.

No times won.

Came to me both times.

Different lighting states.

Fucking loved it.

I absolutely love it.

Because...

Because you just love it.

Because I fucking love it.

Because it's ridiculous.

Yes, Ben Starr will do anything for money.

Two thumbs up.

I didn't know if Reb was going to actually say that in the real thing.

And then when I saw the cameraman lining up, I went, well, it's happening.

I was actually going to hold up a sign that said, looking for work.

Oh.

I was going to hold up a little sign saying looking for work.

But I think the thumbs up worked a lot better.

So yeah, don't mind, and I think it's a, it's turned out to be a great tactic and I think there was something intentional about it, but also it's protecting, because I will happily be a fool for you.

I will be a fool for you, I will be approachable, I will be authentically myself, because I'm only gonna be in more things with the opportunity for me to come across maybe more arrogant, because i've been very lucky with the opportunities that i've been given and i, the last thing i want to come across as, is full of themselves, full of himself, whatever words fulls of themselves.

If i pluralize everything, eventually something will make sense.

I don't want to be full of myself and i think, to some degree, in this industry, you have to be got to be, you got to believe in yourself, and i back myself and i know that when i get into the craft of it which i'm sure is something we can talk about, like the craft of acting for video games, which i'm better at now than i was, you know x number of years ago i back myself there.

But, as i said, i take the work very seriously.

I do not take myself seriously at all.

So then, where on the seriousness scale does uh, dressing up as the clown from bellatro fall?

Um, thank you, rebecca ford, for the opportunity.

Rebecca ford from digital extreme.

She messaged me and said hey, do you want to play the live action jimbo?

I said yes.

She said great, I'll set up a meeting with Playstack because they were doing a collaboration.

And Wout, lovely Wout, our great friend.

Shout out, Wout.

Had a great idea and went, we want this, but do you think you'll say yes?

And Reb went, I'll text him now.

So she texted me and I immediately was on the overground to record.

I can't remember what I was going to record.

I think it might have been Hades. yeah it was to record hades um i just thought that's cool i'm gonna do that and they just gave me free reign they said you can do what you want and uh we recorded this commercial and we're just gonna get you doing stuff so there's like a rough script we're gonna do this commercial and then they gave me gigabytes worth of outtakes they didn't use for the actual commercial so i said to wout there's more like that's that's what that's actually what i'm better known for outside of the original commercial for it is me releasing these outtakes which are me does like deep throating a banana and just like saying two bananas in my hands would you like to see me eat them like all this like silly silly stuff that again was very was very popular in a circle of people and then like my face got means to high heaven like it's everywhere people didn't even know it was me they just knew that there was this clown and some people still didn't even know that it's me and then i got on a call with uh local funk and um wout and harvey a play stack and i said um i want to do two things one is i want to do a calendar and one is i want to dress up like a clown of the baftas and they went okay that was your idea both of them yeah um and and i said for this because that was it was a gdc it was after the gdc awards that i saw that wow went up again and again and again and again and i went you need to stop getting up because you're tired man i'll do it and because quite rightly local funk doesn't want to get up and accept the awards and i thought this would be really anarchic it'll be weird whatever happens even if you don't win an award it'll be the most interesting thing at the BAFTAs it'll be so weird and then you won in the headline was like man dresses yeah except some people still didn't don't even know it's me and now it's like afters most watched acceptance speech ever you so because it's yeah you hate it I love it I actually wrote I wrote four speeches they were nominated for four awards I wrote four different speeches the first one had to be this kind of like universal like every every all the sentiment needs to be there so that was great but had they won all four awards including game of the year i was going to get up every single time and it was going to become increasingly bizarre if it wasn't bizarre already because there's nothing more strange than a man in a clown outfit getting up again and again and again and again and again very much like the roguelike aspect of the insanity of the whole thing so i curated this entire list of speeches that was like here we are again and i was going to and they were all scripted and they were going to become more and more meta about the night and i'm very glad that they didn't because it like it worked so well as a one and done but yeah we were we it was there was a whole bit but there was a whole bit about gambling there was a whole bit about being 18 and because that was when you know They had imposed restrictions on it for being a gambling game, even though, you know, there's a lot.

I think I described it.

I said it's great to be considered along the bad boys of idle distraction, alongside solitaire or something like that.

Because they just went, yeah, we'll do it.

And I sent all the speeches to them in advance.

They went, yeah, sure, fine.

Because they trusted me.

And then the calendar happened.

And again, I said, I want to do a sexy calendar.

And I said, I originally, I wanted to be in a bath with bananas.

And then, yeah, we wanted to do like Geralt, Geralt of Rivia.

And then the American beauty influence happened.

For those who don't know, I dressed up as a clown for a calendar for charity.

Please go and buy it.

But the great thing is local.

Thunk went away and he said these are the jokers that I would like you to do.

So I went away and curated it.

And then we shot them all in a day um, changing all my makeup.

I got back from sgf of and was incredibly jet-lagged and then the next day i dressed up as the clown and and just got in all the different makeups.

I hate it so much.

Yes, it's horrible and i and i love it, but but that that is great, because that's weird.

That's weird yes, it is incredibly weird, but they don't have a, they don't have a spokesperson, really no, and I provided they had an opportunity to elevate what was already a brilliant, brilliant video game.

They didn't need me to do anything.

But very much like that game, the marketing of it was really subversive.

Everything about it was strange and uncomfortable.

And inviting you to examine the fucking weirdness of whatever that game is like.

It's just so brutally addictive and also terrifying at the same time.

And Jimbo is a weird character.

And I went.

I can be weird for you, absolutely be weird for you.

I sat down at the baftas after winning the award.

It was next to a woman from apple and she was so delighted to be sitting next to the clown.

And the way that i was treated at the baftas was fascinating.

I was treated like a court jester.

I was treated like the curiosity that that it was like oh, look at, look at the weird guy.

And i remember them saying would you like to take it off?

Afterwards i went no, That's the point.

The point is I keep it on.

The point is if you don't win an award, still every photograph is going to be me dressed as a clown.

Every person is going to want to picture with the clown.

Everyone is going to want to do that.

It's a marketing exercise because it's weird.

Yes.

And everyone wants to say I was there and saw the weird guy dressed as the clown the whole time.

I don't mind.

So how do you balance this?

Like you know, we've talked about the being self-deprecating and being a weird little guy.

How do you balance being a weird little guy and the internet's boyfriend?

Uh i, i think that i uh um, i think that, because of the little weird stuff that i do, that's what i, that's what i think.

I think people like me because um, i wasn't like a good-looking kid growing up.

I was like a weird little guy.

So i act like a weird little guy.

I, i act.

I act like i'm the joker in the class.

I was always the person at school where someone went up to me like oh, my friend really fancies your friend, or i really fancy your friend, can you go and do it?

And i'd make a joke.

Humor was my defense.

And so that's why I am the way that I am.

I can't control the way that people perceive me.

I can only control how I present myself.

How you want to receive that information is entirely yours.

And I think if you're able to kind of relinquish that and understand that actually I have no control over how people are going to try and think of who I am,

I can only be version of myself, and i say a version of myself that is healthy to be in public without revealing too much about who you are and giving way too much of who you are.

It is a level of authenticity that i'm willing to be without pouring my heart and soul out.

I have gone on record of talking about a lot of the traumas in my life talking about the death of my father, talking about the depression that i've gone through, talking about all of those things.

I'm willing to talk about that and i love it when people come up to me and talk about how me speaking about that stuff is important to them.

But at the same time, I can't give everything.

No, you can't.

And so dressing up like a clown is a good way, is a good way.

Or the golden joysticks last year, I put the silly.

Yeah, the card.

Because they said, oh, she won't put the clown costume on.

And I went, no, I'm done.

That never needs to go on again.

Is it done forever?

I think so, yeah.

Maybe.

I hate it.

Thank you.

I love you, but I hate it.

But the joke, the joke's done.

The joke worked because it was at the BAFTAs and it was weird.

You don't do it again.

You don't revisit it.

You have to find a different way of engaging with it.

So I went, oh, I immediately knew what I was going to do.

I said, oh, great.

So I want a giant card.

And I want it to have a joystick on it and I want my head to be the top of a joystick so it looks like the top of a penis.

And I'm going to walk on really awkwardly and describe how I'm so tired of people saying yes to me.

And everything I said is that's a great idea.

Ben, would you like to come in so we can measure the size of your head?

At the end of my thing is exactly what they said to me.

No one said no.

They went, great, cool.

Has anyone ever told you no?

Yes, and I get very angry.

Yeah, all the time, all the time.

How do you handle a no?

The same way, I mean, I'm an actor, so I'm used to no's.

I've been, how do I handle a no?

It's not a no, it's just not a yes, you know?

I think that's the like.

Often actors don't ever get actors don't get that opportunity.

I think sometimes to hear the no.

They just, it's the nothingness that kills you.

It's the expectation that kills you.

Actors.

They say like you lose a role when you don't get it, when you find out who's been cast instead of you.

And then when the thing comes out, you lose a role three times.

That's really sad.

Yes.

God, okay.

It's horrible.

And you have to mitigate that.

And there are certain, I don't think I can say this, You can say anything you want.

Fuck it.

Let's say it and see what happens.

I auditioned to play James Bond, you know?

Really?

Okay.

I auditioned to play James Bond way back before I was I was a couple of years into.

I was a couple of years into um Final Fantasy 16 at the time, but I couldn't say.

This is a game, not.

Yeah.

To be, to be James Bond.

And I was fucking terrible in the recall.

I was there.

People were there and there was the creative director at the time of the project just was rubbish.

I didn't get it and i was trying to mold myself into something that wasn't i.

I think i i i crumbled under what they were asking me to do in the room.

Okay, um and it.

I never would have gotten the role.

A bit like i auditioned for for v in cyberpunk and didn't get it.

Like there are many roles that i didn't.

This is all.

Before 16 came out that the in the room because I don't need to work as hard to prove myself because the work already exists.

Like I don't have a show reel.

This is awful.

I don't have a voice reel.

You don't need one because it's out there and that's great.

And so when I walk into a room now I'm also talking about if I'm going to commit to a project.

It's I'm kind of sometimes, if I'm being offered the opportunity, I'm Not auditioning them, but I'm going.

I really want to collaborate with you in a way that is meaningful.

Do I have the time to make this as good as possible?

Because I am fortunate to be doing multiple projects.

And I want those projects to be good because people judge me based on the choices that I make.

And I don't want to be rubbish because people want me to be rubbish.

There are people out there who want to see me be bad and stuff.

Why?

People want to see you fail?

Why?

Of course they do.

I think there are people out there that want to see me fail.

I think there are people out there that want to see you fail.

I think there are people out there who want to see the jealousy exists in the industry.

And I don't mean that in a pointed thing where I've got people in my mind who think that.

But of course there are.

You definitely do.

There are absolutely people out there that resent what it is that I do.

There are people out there that don't like me.

There'll be people listening to this going, what an arrogant piece of shit.

Like, There will be that because, again, you can't control how people perceive you.

You can only control how you choose to present yourself and then allow the chips to fall where they may.

People let me know that because they message me on various sites and tell me how awful I am or how I'm terrible, or I'm the worst thing.

Or I'm the worst thing to ever happen to Expedition 33, or I'm the worst thing to ever happen to the.

Of course,

But if I worry about how every single person thinks about me, then I would die, because you cannot control that.

And I absolutely know there will be people out there that will want what I have and want what I have at the expense of me.

They want to kill you and wear your skin professionally.

Yeah.

And that's fine.

Go for it.

No, please don't go for it.

Don't go.

My skin is so nice, i have lovely.

I have lovely soft skin.

I moisturize today.

Leave him alone.

Um, but yeah yeah that'll, that'll be, that'll be, that something.

The way that you phrase that just now kind of reminds me of what is happening in the industry in general right now, where i feel like a lot of game studios, there's this desire to put out a game that hits like the largest target.

There is like an active fear of negative perception and what we get is like stuff that like maybe is watered down or like doesn't say anything.

Um, jennifer said again writer of extension 33 did an incredible.

Love you, Dan.

Did an incredible talk.

We're at Dice in Vegas right now.

Did an incredible talk yesterday in the keynote where she talked about there are three.

When you're, a successful game has three pillars.

Taste, it's up to taste, execution, and you have to have something to say.

And those three pillars work in concert.

And I feel like and this is from the vantage point of a writer and, as you know, writers are being devalued with the AI stuff.

We were the first to get laid off.

It's really, really hard for writers right now that target of like we don't want any negative criticism, so we're trying to water down or create this thing that will hit the hit the largest bullseye with like fear of negative perception.

But what you're saying is like you, just like people are not going to like what you're doing, but for every, I want people to like me.

Please, please don't.

Yeah, and obviously I know you're not twisting, but I want people to like me deeply.

100%.

I think that pleasing everyone's I mean, this is now kind of a hypothesis on the nature of what's the point of a video game.

I think money is what you're talking about.

The largest possible audience is how do we...

How do we create a system whereby it is financially viable for us to do that?

So you're talking like a cost thing.

And the worst thing to happen to this industry is money.

100%.

Every single fucking problem with this industry is money.

The people who control the money, how they wish to spend it, how they wish to cut it down, the fact that you want to see the number go up.

When people are talking about AI, they're not talking about AI.

They're talking about money.

Everyone is talking about money.

It's not about, it is, why are we laying these people off? shareholders, money, money, money, money.

I've invested at X.

The stock was X.

I want the stocks to go up X.

I want it to be value, because it has to go up, because I bought it a certain amount.

I want it to be worth more now.

But we've hit critical mass with how many people we can genuinely reach, because there's more games than ever.

There's the same amount of people, maybe a few.

The lines are not correlative.

So how do we?

Half of them are playing like live service games anyway, because we've juiced them for that.

So we're just going to lay people off and you know what.

Let's just automate it.

Let's just say that's what we're going to do, because people actually don't care about art, they just care about the, the game that they're playing, and that's what we're talking about.

Money and it's it's so.

Basically, when it comes to that, what should you care about?

You should care about making a game with a budget that is within means, That is specifically for the audience that you're making it for.

If only it was that simple.

Of course.

It is, but it's also not.

It is exactly that simple, but it's also completely not because there are so many external forces.

It's like saying, you know, golf is really simple.

You've got to hit the ball in the hole, not taking into account every other aspect of it.

That's going to stop some guy who literally hits a ball ball in a hole for a living not hit the ball in the hole every single fucking time because conditions change and i yeah, like.

So expedition 33 hit because it was made on a for a very reasonable amount of money, which you know Guillaume has said under 10 or under 10 million, for whatever number that we're allowed to say publicly, let's say that number.

And it also was not made in the United States, which is why it can be 10 million and not yes, 100 million, and this is why they didn't need it to sell so many copies, because they wanted to make it for that and also hopefully, i would like to think, the soundful paid their team and not whatever fucking system set up to protect a group of people who need to be financially reimbursed because they feel like they've earned it, like it's not think.

I think it's fucking bullshit.

I think it's absolute bullshit.

I think this the, the triple-a system, is absolutely busted as hell.

It's an Ouroboros right now just eating it and whatever you what.

I can say this, and you can say like I'm grandstanding, I'm not.

I'm just telling you that's it which is going, the people who are remaining, that people are hoarding the most money and they're going.

You know what we're gonna do.

We're gonna get rid of the people that matter, because actually I've got my little fucking robot friend who's gonna do it all for me and allow me to keep my money, while my little robot friend is who's learned from all the people that i've now just laid off are going to make this game for me and that's going to be amazing.

Don't worry shareholders, keep me on, because i want to go to barbados every fucking year because i don't actually make games, and that is the truth, and i know that, like i'm, i'm deeply fucking passionate about it because i'm seeing friends being laid off from companies that i work for, work with some of the hardest working people who are deeply, deeply passionate about this are going.

Why the?

What did i do wrong?

You didn't do anything wrong.

You didn't do anything wrong and there's nothing you could have done about it.

You couldn't have worked harder because someone just went.

We don't need that.

I'm going.

You're going to eventually need it because what you're going to do is you're going to rehire it on a freelance basis and pay less for it.

That's exactly what you're going to do.

In fact, you're going to rehire the same fucking people, the Except you're going to make sure that they get paid less for the same job that they were going to do.

And they're not going to get the same fucking in-house benefits for it, because you don't want to have to do that.

It's utter bullshit.

And I think that companies that choose to do it, many gamers don't care.

As many of the very outspoken streamers will tell you, gamers don't care.

They don't.

No.

No, they don't, but some people do.

And actually you know, what you should fucking do is, if they don't, you should.

You should because you're losing.

You're losing the heart of this industry.

You are losing it.

You're losing the future of this industry.

You're losing any sense of identity.

Because what happens when an ai continually learns from itself?

What if it's just learning from the learning, from the learning from the learning?

And then it becomes this awkward facsimile of humanity.

And we've forgotten what it looks like.

And I know I'm sounding like some weird guy that's like Skynet's going to become active and we're all going to.

But that's not so far-fetched anymore either.

Well, it's not.

It's not far-fetched.

No.

It's not far-fetched at all.

And actually we can't tell the difference now between reality and AI a lot of the time and going.

Isn't this amazing?

But you can because it just looks a bit fucking off.

No.

And like something you were saying about how this is like the future of the industry.

I did a interview on this podcast with my friend, Liz Moberly, where we talked about one of the biggest things that's happening with these layoffs, with the AI and with everything is we're not hiring new blood and new talent into the industry.

It's really hard to come in from another industry.

And if you are a young person, let's say like a kid graduating from a college program that doesn't studying game design for four years paying hundreds of thousands of dollars you graduate into an industry where there's no room for you we are actively losing the future of our craft because there's no one being brought in to teach it to so it's like mentoring and indie indie development is where we're seeing a lot of this growth and that is that's the story of 2025 let's let's reframe the utter collapse of the triple a games industry let's let's someone has done a great fucking marketing job of looking at 2025 and going wasn't it great for indies going yes but wasn't it fucking terrible for triple a yes absolutely terrible and so you can choose to kind of like ignore someone's dying in the room but it's okay because we've got a newborn baby yeah and yeah and and they're dying of an infectious disease that ultimately is going to kill everyone in the fucking room but we have this beautiful newborn baby or whatever and they're they're ignoring it and the argument of well isn't it great that indies are going to be the future yeah i guess i guess that it is but but we said this in like 20 2014 2015 when xbox rolled out an indie initiative playstation rolled out an indie initiative like there was a lot of money going into indies that's the year years we had thomas was alone octodad there was like this big boom and everyone was like oh the future is indies and then it did And now we're back here again, except this time AAA is dying.

Please don't take this the wrong way.

But for an actor, you are very plugged into dev.

Yeah.

You talk like a dev.

Thanks.

I care.

I care a lot about the ways in which these games are made because I don't just...

I don't just work as an actor.

I work in collaboration with people who are making video games.

So these are literally my colleagues.

I'm not just this person that comes in and is like, look at this.

I did some voices and some faces for this game.

No.

I get really, really close to these people and I come to events like this and then they're like how are you?

And then I'm laid off because of this.

And I also, my life is this.

I listen to podcasts about it.

There isn't There isn't probably an industry podcast that I don't listen to.

I'm that weird guy that goes up to someone at one of these events and goes God.

I've listened to so many episodes of you doing this because I'm listening to industry people talk about the state of the industry.

And it isn't that fucking complicated.

It really isn't.

It's so simple, but we're choosing to overcomplicate the state of what's going on right now.

And I mean, I'm on my soapbox now on this thing about, like you're the one on red carpets talking about layoffs yeah, and i'll continue to do it because also, it's like i, i believe in it and so i know you do.

So we know you like um, and i'll get up.

I'll get up and and i'll say it when i, when i accept an award as well, because i don't, i don't think that it's this isn't me going.

Oh, i really hope that i get points, because i know that i'm going to upset some people by being so vocal about it, because also, bite the hand that feeds you right, which like and i'm not, i'm trying to say that like There is a mentality here that is harmful to the future of the games that these people are trying to make money off.

And there has to be a way.

I fear that there isn't.

I really fear that there isn't.

I feel that the genie's out of the bottle.

Pandora's box is open.

The worms are out of the can.

Whatever thing you want to say, that ain't going back into the thing.

No.

So we have to figure out a way of which we can coexist in a healthy way that also continues to support the future of the industry.

That has to.

And I think that it's going to be ultimately up to people to take young people in this industry and teach them how to do it.

Yes.

And that, yeah, I... Like, PlayStation and Xbox...

It's very simple why PlayStation and Xbox haven't, this generation hasn't started.

This generation hasn't started.

Why are there fewer games?

Do you remember when Xbox said, we've got these many studios working on this many games?

PlayStation went, look at all these things.

We've got 22 games that we're working on.

I think Ryan came out and said, this number of games, every single one of them is fucking cancelled.

Every single one of them is cancelled.

Scope fucked it. they absolutely misled the market.

They went, they sacrificed, they sacrificed art.

They sacrificed art for profit.

And what happened?

They realized the money wasn't there because you cannot have every game as a game.

You cannot microtransact everything.

You cannot.

We had narrative being extracted from video games at the expense of pay for this, and you'll get it.

I'm like, People are smarter than that.

It's like walking into a shop and someone saying, can I sell you this?

Like, fuck off.

I'm leaving the shop because I want to browse at my own.

I want to browse and enjoy the shop and choose and choose the bag that I want to choose.

I do not want you to tell me about this hyper bag with three fucking handles on it.

I don't want that bag.

I want to I want to experience that in my own way and have my own experience in a shop.

Do not sell that to me.

And that's what it became.

PlayStation and Xbox became a storefront and they went.

But how about we put the fucking storefront into the games?

And then what?

Wait a second.

We don't have a game here.

It's like, no, you built a fucking store with no narrative.

And we're taking the narrative teams and And we're saying, build us a storefront.

It's like, sorry, I don't make that.

And now that's why.

So you wonder why we don't have games.

It's that.

And as much as I'm like, I know I'm really, really passionate about it.

That's it.

That's the reason.

And I look at, you remember that state of play.

Listen.

For those of you listening and not watching, he's literally like jumping out of his skin right now.

I'm very, very lucky.

I'm very, very lucky to be in marathon right now.

I'm very lucky to be working with bungee.

One thing that Julia, the narrative now creative lead was very insistent upon when she took over.

She was like, let's make this interesting.

And I really hope that well, you know, this doesn't age badly.

But the care, the care that, like the care that the team have been putting in, a being like this is an extraction shooter.

But we are trying to commit to story here as well, because we want to give you something before we ask for something in return.

And I think there's a reason why Marathon is the kind of the narrative on it being released has turned, because they've kind of gone wait, this looks sick as hell.

They've really kind of gone all in on the world building.

It feels really, really good.

And I love the character I get to play in it.

And from a creative point of view, it's incredibly rewarding.

And it really, really excites me to be a part of it.

But the fact that Marathon is kind of one of the only games that's really survived that thing.

That happened that PlayStation and I don't think it's just because PlayStation spent billions trying to get them.

It's crazy how many of those games that you saw that exact state of play haven't survived.

We just had, as of recording, this happened yesterday.

High Guard released two weeks ago.

Studio shut.

Everyone laid off except for like five, ten people.

And that fucking sucks.

And it was out for two weeks.

It's Concord.

Again.

I hate the word Concord because the word Concord has become an easy...

An easy slur for people who don't want to actually say what they're saying.

They don't want to say.

It's like taking the word woke.

What do you mean?

What do you mean by that?

Oh, it's going to be Concord 2.

It's going to be Concord this.

What you mean is something so much more than that.

But it's a safe word that you can use.

Concord, by all accounts, was a good game.

It was a good, well-made game by people who genuinely cared about it.

It just didn't hit. for a number of reasons.

And it wasn't that it, it wasn't that it was a disaster.

It just, just nothing happened with it, which I think is, is crazy, is crazy scenario.

High guard, I think is something a little bit more sinister.

I think that high guard was.

High guard was a brilliant game that could have achieved exactly what Apex had achieved had it.

It's a weird one.

It was a great game that probably was being misjudged completely.

I think people came in with bad i know there are.

I think people came in with prejudging something and once once, once you get the ick, people already got the icon.

People wanted to see that fail.

They took glee in it, which is really disappointing because people worked on that game.

Good people who make good games and people who i know made worked really hard on that game.

Was it perfect when it came out?

No, and maybe the messaging was incorrect in saying that they shouldn't have said that it was 10.

They should have come in and said it was early access worked with.

People got up the goodwill.

Let's build this game together.

I think the messaging wasn't great on that.

But i also think, at the same time the, the venom.

The venom that i saw was actually it was bile, and it was bile towards jeff keely.

It was bile towards everyone.

I think everyone just really wanted to go fuck you.

It was weird.

It was a very weird surge of negative energy.

That i'm like why i was at the.

I was at the game awards.

Um yes, you definitely were.

It was definitely the game when that was, when that was announced, and i i saw high garden in the room.

That looks cool.

It looks cool.

It looks cool, it looks pretty cool.

Um, i know, i know some of those guys yeah they're, they look cool, they look cool.

And there are colleagues of mine who who voice characters in it who um like, are in it.

I think that High Guard was done dirty by some people who wanted it to fail and took great glee in making it fail.

I think High Guard was avoidable.

I think High Guard was super avoidable and it actually shows you the power of marketing positive and negative.

It was a victim of very very, very poor experimental marketing that went badly, very fucking quickly.

And you can't turn it around.

Now people will point to where you can marathon had a go, but marathon took a break.

And because the negative sentiment towards Marathon was fucking crazy.

Yeah, that was... Absolutely crazy.

That was the internet's main character for a day.

Absolutely.

And now it's launching into people are really, really excited.

And hopefully when this comes out, people have enjoyed it.

If I'm sitting here being like, Marathon, Ben Stahm murdered after Marathon release.

No, please, please don't touch him.

But yeah, I... It's...

The high guard is disappointing.

And I feel really, really bad for the people who lost their jobs and who worked really fucking hard on that video game.

This conversation got really dark.

Yeah.

Let's go back to acting.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

We went off on a hour-long tangent.

At least you know i'm being authentic no, and that's why you're sitting here with me on this couch, because i know you won't bullshit me.

Um, let's talk about verso.

Yeah, let's do it.

What do you want to know?

Um, what a gift.

Um uh, it's very rare that you get to play kind of one really meaningful character in your career that hits with people in a certain way.

To get to do it again so soon after a game that has provided you a platform to play that kind of character, to get to do it again, was awesome.

It feels like it was written in the stars.

My journey to it was crazy, really.

It was a blind casting experience.

Would you like to come and do a voice for this trailer?

Which is going to be the voice of this character called Verso.

He's this old.

He feels this way about stuff.

Please bring this to it.

I did it on my HyperX microphone on my sofa.

Wow.

I've still got it.

Do you want to hear it?

Yes, I do.

I do.

I remember... Well, you're getting it.

I remember TGA's.

After TGA's 2023, we're standing in line.

I think we were in disneyland and you were like i just got cast in this thing, oh yeah, and i think it's gonna.

I think it's gonna, i think it's gonna be.

It's like it's kind of cool.

It's a small team and you were like very vague about it, but you were like i think it's gonna, i think it's gonna be, i think it's gonna be good.

And it was this.

Oh my god.

No, i say thanks thanks erin, can get this done for you.

I'm away all week, so it won't be free.

For, Oh my god, this is so exciting.

Fucking hell, this is me.

New Wonder self-tape.

Here we go.

This is my... Let me get this.

So I've got to save to documents.

Save to downloads.

It says it was called Project New Wonder.

There we go.

This is for the commercial.

This was the trailer.

Soon she'll wake and paint again.

Paint a new number, a cursed number.

Counting down our lives, erasing us year by year.

One stroke, one number.

And everyone of that age turns to smoke, vanishing into nothingness.

She'll paint again.

And everyone turning 33 will be erased.

Like the expeditioners before us, we dedicate this last year of our lives to that flicker of hope that sustains us.

Destroy it so she can never paint death again.

We are expedition 33.

She'll never paint death again.

Boom, there you go, and that was and that was on.

And this whole thing of like actors needing um uh kind of went on for a while, didn't it?

But hey um, the you're welcome everybody.

Yeah, that was my, that was my audition.

You don't need a cool microphone, i just did that on my my.

You can hear kind of the imperfections and stuff.

It's more just like the, the tone of what it was, and um, that was obviously a script that they redact loads of information so they add loads of stuff and it changes.

But that was my audition for it.

And then i came in and i and i read for this trailer and i started speaking to the team and and then someone figured out.

They went oh, you are, you ben star or you play, you play clive in final fantasy 16.

And then we just started chatting and i helped work with the team because of the way that we were recording was really unique.

Um and uh, there were going to be loads of different versions of how we were going to bring this character to life and they wanted to figure out how we were going to do it, because the intention was always to um, because of budget constraints, you can't afford to get certain actors, you can't get afford to get andy circus in the booth.

So they got some you know some brilliant actors to come in and and do do some mocap for some of the scenes.

But also a large portion of this game was going to be, you know, stuff at camp.

It was like all these very like intense things.

But how are we going to do the technical aspect of taking someone's physical body And then bringing life to that in a way that feels organic?

And so I did a couple of sessions working with them.

I did some lines for Gustav at the time.

I did some lines for Verso.

I did some lines for Monoco.

I want to hear your Monoco.

It was rubbish.

It was so bad.

No, I bet it was great.

They have it somewhere in a vault.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did.

I did all of that.

And this was before they'd cast anyone.

So I was there.

So you were in quite early.

Yeah.

But before all the other actors, yeah.

Before the other kind of like before Jen and before Charlie and everything.

And I did this little bit of work.

And then it was at the Golden Joysticks in 2023.

When someone came up to me from Kepler and said, Ben, congratulations.

Just to let you know that like, we'd love you to to play Verso properly in it.

And that's kind of how it went because I just worked with them.

And I had worked in that capacity.

And so it was more of an R&D exercise.

And I believed in this game that I thought, yeah, screw it.

This looks amazing.

It didn't look real.

It didn't look real because it looked so good.

And I couldn't really believe it.

And actually I thought, am I being fooled here?

Because it was too good to be true.

Guillaume is a huge Final Fantasy VIII fan.

Like, what's crazy.

It's crazy that i get to.

I get to work with someone who's a final fantasy 8 fan.

I get to nerd out about my favorite franchise, um and uh, whilst making this really cool, exciting game that is inspired by it.

And then the whole process was, was was just perfect.

Um, like working with jen jen yen.

Um, working queen working with um joe, the one of the directors from side, was was absolutely brilliant.

Joe doesn't get enough of a shout out.

Um, and also working with obviously uh, jennifer english, who has become just like a, like a lifelong friend now um, and we are like weird little siblings.

Um, he's a complex character and i was very, very aware of the.

For those who haven't played it, go and play the game.

But verso comes into the story at a point where fundamentally, you don't like him very much and i have to win back trust in the most extreme way possible and there are some players that refuse to forgive him, refuse to forgive him or like him or accept him, and i was told that people weren't going to like me and i really loved that challenge and i really appreciate how not nice he is at times.

He's very charming.

He's very um yeah, he's very very, very charming, but he's broken and you're not seeing so many other aspects of him because of his relationship with so many expeditions that have come before.

You're experiencing him in the context of expedition 33.

You're not experiencing him in the context of expedition zero.

It's why my proudest moment of that game and i think that really encapsulates verso more than anything Versus diary entry.

I don't have the right to miss you.

Yeah, I don't have the right to miss you, but I do That was that's a first blind read.

I had never read that before Guillaume came.

I had to come back in and rerecord two things.

One is the voices, one is the noises of verse, who makes at the end of the piano sequence.

You know, when he come, you see him on the stage and he makes all those noises and those breaths and I had to come in and record that.

Yeah, and then I, um which i thought was really cool, you know, interesting all my, all my breaths and noises, and it was about getting there.

There's this moment where you see his hands and i go like, can i make this noise?

That's very much.

He's in pain, he's in agony, but he has to do this.

It's what he is made to do.

Literally yeah, um and uh.

And then i was given that journal to record and um, they just went, just just have a go, and that's the first read that they do and it just it just felt very natural because you just get into that character and the writing is so great that you can just say, and it feels real, there's a lot of darkness in and around verso.

And I think maybe you and I had this conversation about Clive as well but when you're dealing with something that is so heavy like, how do you step in and out of that space without letting it just consume you?

Cause, like from a writing standpoint, it is very easy to like slide into your, into your work and it just alters your brain chemistry.

It is hard to jump in and out. yeah um i love it i love the magic it's a magic trick it's not sorcery it's a magic trick it's not real it's fake but it makes you feel like it's real and that's the most exciting thing i love creating facsimiles of real life and i love jumping into scenarios that are incredibly real because the emotions are real but they're also made up and um i just do i just jump out of it like some of the most emotional scenes i'll always make a joke afterwards and i'll just there's always a bit of you left there's there's the physical trauma of the emotion there's the physical trauma yeah that's been left by your body because you've emotionally left it behind so i don't feel don't feel sad anymore but my body still does yeah so i'm a very physical performer when i when i work on video games even if it's just me at the microphone you'll see me pace around i pace around i leave i have this technique and morgan rushton a great friend and collaborator of mine also on this podcast on this podcast he's he probably knows me better than any any director who's worked with me um he he says i love watching you just leave the microphone because i leave it behind i do the work and then i walk away from the microphone i don't get upset because you can get stuck here you can get stuck in this this physicality and then you can get in you're doing the same thing again again again so i leave it behind and then i come back and um as if there's a real freedom And I'm a real prowler.

I'm a real prowler.

Explain, please.

You see me.

I don't really stand still.

No, you are constantly in motion.

Prowling is the wrong word.

Prowling sounds like it's intentional.

And it's not fidgeting either.

No.

You're just constantly moving.

I'm also figuring out physically how I'm going to find it.

Gen English is the same.

We don't like calling ourselves voice actors because it's not that what we do.

We do so many different disciplines in video games.

And for me it's about how much I can control my voice or my instrument through changing my relationship with my own body.

People always ask me always not all the time, but it's a very consistent question is do you not strain your voice with the way that you do like this voice?

I was going to ask you this question.

No, it relaxes, i release.

You don't get that by people and this is why you can do.

People do bad impressions of me.

I've seen a couple people kind of want to do that and that's bad because that is tensing everything.

You're going, you're closing up every, every part of your voice, but in fact, when i'm doing it, I just relax into it.

So it's more of a purr.

Like everything that happens is is I'm feeling.

I'm feeling my vocal cords fucking flap in the wind.

And then, because otherwise it's just completely unsustainable.

You can't do that for days and days and years and years and years on it.

No, you'll get thrashed.

And I can hear someone doing a bad impression of me, which I love.

But it's like, I'm like, that's not really how it sounds.

No, it sounds like I'm, I don't know. whatever it is that I'm doing.

That's it.

It's a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not roughness.

It is a purr.

Yeah.

Yes.

Ben star purr.

Which as you've heard, it's not how I sound in real life all the time.

No.

Um, but, but that's fine because also the way that you exist around, I would probably be sounding different right now if I could hear myself back because I, I'm, I'm really lucky to have to be very acutely aware of how I sound and, in the context of a microphone and that and how i can modulate my voice to make it sound how i want it to sound um like talking about purr if you've played marathon you will have heard my voice it is if i was part of the um incredible alberto mielgo cinematic short that went out last year uh and I got to do I got to say the Ozymandias poem by Percy Shelley and it's this terrifying whisper but we did so many different versions of it where you can hear him layering the different versions of of Ozymandias on it's really worth it's really worth a watch simply for um Alberto Miel goes a absolutely insane animation it's called the marathon cinematic short and it's me whispering um I met a traveler from an antique land who said the, about, you know, the hubris of Ozymandias.

Um, and I was.

I was so proud of myself because what he required was a very, very specific type of voice control, which is whisper, but don't whisper, be angry, but also do this, do this.

He had so many requirements that I thought, fuck, this guy's won an Oscar.

I need to be good and fortunately i was able to have my instrument attuned at the time well enough to be able to make it work, because sometimes your voice just doesn't work, sometimes it just doesn't do the thing you want it to.

But i'm really pleased with that short because in it what i'm being asked to do is essentially whisper, but whisper like 10 different ways, which is crazy to do because you think whisper's just this, it's like it's not.

It's not, it's it's asking you to communicate in a different way.

But that, but so many different types of degrees of that, like write something different, try something more, try something more, try this, try this, try this, try this and it was um terrifying, but taught me a lot and was also like proof to me of how far i've come as a performer in that space of understanding what i can do in front of a, in a in a microphone.

Because and that's why it's one of the things i've done recently that i'm most proud of, because hopefully you don't notice it, but you'll hear so many different ways of me whispering, because they layer it on top on top, on top, on top

That sounds different.

So thank you to that.

Being purring.

Yes.

Dorian.

Yes.

Yep.

For those who don't know, I play Dorian.

The doors in the house and date everything.

All 17, 17 doors.

I did not know that.

You know talking about like communities that are plugged in.

People are plugged into dorian.

Dorian is a um, dorian is a sexy door.

He's the first, one of the first dateables you meet and he just looks really sexy and also there's like topless versions of him.

I was very much love trap dorian.

Trap dorian is is my favorite Because I leant on a wall and I whispered into this microphone.

Actually, no, my favorite is not Trap Dorian.

My favorite is Back Dorian.

Because Ray told me to do exactly the same lines but faced away from the microphone.

So I'm just in the booth but just facing away, saying exactly the same lines.

Why did you do a dating sim?

Because Ray Chase asked me to.

Because I want to be in love and deep space.

Because I want.

Oh.

Yeah, I never will be.

But I love dating sims.

I'd love to be in more dating sims.

How?

Okay.

I love feral people.

Well, you are feral yourself.

I love it.

I read the fan fiction.

I know you do.

Because I think it's so silly.

It's so silly and so fun.

And also, it's so creative.

Shout out to every single person who writes fan fiction about a character that either I have done or am adjacent to.

It's fucking awesome.

So glad I got that out of my system before you and I met.

Look at you.

You are here.

You present this podcast.

You work in this industry at an incredibly high level.

You're respected by your peers.

And you fucking wrote fan fiction.

Yes.

But it's not something that you should be ever ashamed of.

And no one ever should.

Writing IP is writing fan fiction.

Yes.

Like, I worked on a Marvel game for three fucking years, rest in peace.

That was fan fiction.

Yes.

And I don't think it should be a derogatory thing.

No.

It really isn't.

And some of the most amazing smarts I've ever written has been about characters that I've played.

There's an amazing bit of artwork that is gloriously not made by AI.

That is in the style of those kind of old Mills and Boone And it is Clive and Sid on the beach in tight speedos.

Have you seen this one?

No.

It's amazing.

No.

Tight speedos, like absolutely ripped.

Show me.

I'm going to... Show me.

But the title is The title of the book, because it's made to look like a book cover is Come to Me, Afreet.

And it... It's so... so good that i need to speak about it and to whoever made it thank you i did not prepare for this show adequately because it's it's i can't find it i'll show it to you afterwards you'll be you'll be able to find it um and i went on jen and i went on a podcast and we wore verstav and um cl luna t-shirt verstav is my favorite yeah because it's I love that community because that ship in the game doesn't exist, but it also does.

It also does because it can be whatever you want it to be.

It's great.

Just, just why, why not?

If that, if that is, if that is how you allow your creativity to come out right about it.

One of my mentors, Jason Vandenberg, shout out told me when I was starting out Writers write for two reasons horniness and revenge.

Yeah.

And I'm happy to play all of those characters for you.

I will happily play a horny revenge guy.

Which is Verso, basically.

He is.

But no, I want to go back to date everything, because something that has really kind of exploded in popularity in the last few years with the TikTok generation is audio erotica.

Yes.

And one of the big points of date everything, or the big selling points is all your favorite voice actors in a dating sim like there is an implication there of oh, you like yeah, ben star's voice, you want to and they want him to flirt with you and they get it.

But the great, the great thing about dorian and, i think, the real attention to detail that ray and robbie really, and all the writers on that game um, They were creating a diverse cast of people that you can fall in love with.

Or, you know, when you meet Dorian, he goes, I don't want to love you.

I want to be friends.

Friends is good.

Friends is the best.

Until?

Well, you meet Trap Dorian and he goes, we're still going to be friends, but we can still fuck.

And that's great because that's also true.

Just because we have sex doesn't mean we have to be in a relationship.

We can have a lovely time and we can get into that.

And there are characters out there that, you know, can tickle whatever, whatever.

There's a there's a sexy bed.

There is like. like lux i think is one of the most amazing characters you can be in a relationship with almost immediately and then goes i'm sorry i'm bored now like it's it's great and um dorian i think is the most persistent you have to work really hard in order to actually get a love ending with him he's very hard to romance yeah he is and rightly so but i really enjoyed the fact that i did get to do audio erotica with trap dorian trap dorian is me going like that the whole time do you know what it's actually really similar to um like the limbic system in um disco elysium you know the guy is it the limbic system like the narrator like that entire which i think is one of the great uh video game acting performances completely i can't remember the name of the actor utterly astonishing performance doesn't doesn't get enough credit for how um varied the whole thing is and how completely That is a voice that obviously is incredibly rich, but also the subtle changes in the way that when you're dealing with different parts of the psyche, it's really, truly amazing.

I channeled that very much with Dorian, Trap Dorian.

Can I ask you a weirdly intimate question?

Yes.

I have had sex before.

I've had it at least once.

I've had sex at least once.

Oh, my God.

Shut up.

I forgot what I was going to ask you.

This is really embarrassing.

Don't move on.

Ask me a personal question.

No, the question I was going to ask you is so we Earlier in this interview you talked about, you know, not wanting to give away all of yourself when you're marketing yourself, when you're performing, when you're stepping in and out of a role.

But you're playing...

As Dorian, I'm just going to say it.

There are people out there rubbing one out to listening to you talk.

That's the idea.

So how do you how where does that fit in the not giving it all away?

Or is this something entirely different?

Like, where do you see that?

Because it is intimate.

So where do you see?

Like, this work?

Or, like, how do you feel about it?

Genuinely curious.

No, of course.

When it comes to day, everything.

When it comes to Dorian, I'm playing exactly what the role requires.

Okay.

That's the point.

He's a sexy guy.

And whatever you want to do with that, you can do with it.

I post on Instagram.

Chances are that people do the same thing there.

I post on Twitter.

Chances are people do the same thing there.

If you want to go online, you can find pictures of me and you can do exactly the same thing.

You can go on whatever.

You can go on Tumblr or whatever and see things of me making out with various people that I'm sure people do the same thing to there.

I'm an actor.

Chances are people have done it a lot.

And you just kind of go, okay.

Sure.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you for stopping by my hashtag Twitter, you know.

Please enjoy again.

I hope you had a nice time.

I certainly did.

I don't mind, i don't, i don't get offended.

Also great, you think it's sexy, fucking great, enjoy it, it's fun.

It's a bit of fun.

Um, i don't.

I'm very fortunate because i am a.

I am a man in this space And it is as much as we laugh.

It is fucking different.

It is different.

I know I'm laughing, but it's not funny.

To joke about it, I am a sexualized person.

It is not lost on me the way that people talk about me, the way that people communicate in the comments section.

I see it, but I'm a man, and therefore I benefit from it greatly, which is I get the attention, I get the people who really enjoy it, I get the money, sex sells, but also it's it's it's different and i don't know what it's like to be a woman in this space i can never speak to that and so my experience on it is entirely exclusive to my own you know and that's that what i've experienced i don't mind people you can do whatever you want to the sound of my voice absolutely please do it now if you're not rubbing one out to this podcast right now shame on you no please stop i'm here it's weird please don't are you done Great.

Would you ever do like a Quinn audio?

Tell me what a Quinn audio is.

Quinn is an app that is all audio.

Oh, yeah.

Fuck yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Of course I would.

What would you do?

What would your if you had to do?

Because, like Jamie Campbell Bauer did one, Manny Jacinto did a really I listened to Quinn is a really good.

He did a really good like sci-fi memory one.

If anyone from Quinn is, just please.

But what would your ideal scenario be?

Like what would you want to do?

Like a fantasy or like a boy next door?

Like what is your...

You would be the librarian.

I would be a British librarian.

Like Giles from Buffy.

Who also turns into a gargoyle.

This is my character I pitched for Love in Deep Space.

Did you pitch to them?

No, I just said it.

Have you spoken to them?

I have spoken to people who work on the team and we have joked about it um, i would never be in that video game.

Um, i've joked when i've met them, being like i want to be in love and deep space, and we laugh because we all know that it would never happen.

Um, they have a very particular policy about the way in which they allow people to engage with those characters, the ways in which those character people who voice them should and deserve their own privacy, whereas i'd be like i'm ben star, put me, Put Ben Starr in Love and Deep Space, except I'm a librarian who turns into a gargoyle.

I'll do it.

Can I write it?

Yeah.

I mean, we should just make a game.

I think it's a wonderful, wonderful thing, and I really don't have a problem with it.

Please.

Well, I don't... Because I think... You said it yourself.

Jamie Campbell-Bowell, Manny Jacinto.

Like two absolutely brilliant actors have contributed their talents to it, because also, the the fantasy of it.

That requires skill, it requires an understanding of the material that you have to work with it isn't.

It isn't without art and it certainly isn't without merit.

Um, and let's be honest, like many people's careers have been made off things like that sure, let's see.

But like Some of the greatest actors that are working today have started off in stuff like Would You Want to Be in Fifty Shades of Grey?

Jamie Dornan, what a career.

It wasn't beneath him to do it.

And he's a fucking amazing actor.

And by all accounts, a really amazing person.

I'll do it.

Put me in your sexy video game.

Put you in it?

Please.

Won't someone...

Won't someone sexualize this man, please?

Won't someone please finally sexualize me?

Finally, after all of this work.

All of this work.

I would, yes, I would.

I would obviously be, when it came to it, it would have to be respectful to an extent.

It wouldn't be me just being massively exploitative, but I don't think they are.

I think they have a huge amount of merit.

So yeah, let me do it, please.

Once again, our conversation has gone into a different What a conversation.

You don't know what you're going to get.

I knew this is going to be chaos when I asked you to do this.

Hard pivot back.

Upcoming work.

You've already talked about Marathon.

Yes.

Do you want to talk about Fortnite?

Yeah, I'm in Fortnite.

When this goes out, I should be announcing it.

I played the Visitor in Fortnite, a character who has otherwise not had an official voice.

That's mad.

Nice change from playing baby girls.

Yes.

I don't know.

He's quite sexy.

No, there's... Have you seen that guy?

What a mask.

Yeah.

It's strange, isn't it?

Because in the same breath, in the same interview, I go on this rant about live service games and all of this stuff.

I don't think i want to rant about live service game, rant about money, live service fortnight, fortnight have nailed it.

Fortnight is a platform yes, and fortnight fortnight gives you everything and then asks for your money, gives you everything and says if you want more of it, you can do it.

And yes, there are so many other things.

Like i said, it's not just hitting the ball into the fucking hole.

There are other aspects of play.

Um, it was fucking cool to be asked to be in fortnight.

That is, i didn't audition, i got this straight offer through.

Do you want to play the visitor?

Fuck, that's awesome shit.

You know i'm working with.

I messaged laura bailey when i was in the booth, being like we're doing stuff together.

Um, oh my god, which is great.

She's awesome, she is awesome and i.

I just had this cool moment.

I went into the, I went into the booth and I did the work.

And before I did, there were all these people on the call.

I think it's weird.

I really like it when I go into the booth and there's like 15 people on a call.

That's too many booths.

No, and there weren't 15 people on this call.

But, you know, I have been on calls where there have been that many people.

When I did Tekken 8, there were like 20 people on the call.

Yeah.

But when you go in and there's, there's, you, you see the, you see the Microsoft teams or the zoom.

And uh yeah they, uh.

Then they scroll across and you're going to see more and more faces, and it's always everyone introduces themselves.

I love that.

And everyone to a to a person was so beautiful and they explained what the role is that I'll be playing, the future of where this character is going to go, and everything.

And they broke it all down.

And I was like, fuck, cool.

So you're at a point in your career where you are just getting offers.

Sometimes.

Yeah.

I mean I've got some really exciting, really small games um that I'm working on, that are just absolute no brainers to say yes to, because they're just really neat and funky.

Um, I'm also auditioning for big stuff like there's this there's a couple of projects I'm working on right now that are pretty monumentally big and I had to work for them.

I had to, like I had to audition for them, had to go through the process, but I'm so excited to to kind of talk about in the future and if I want something I will.

I will seek it out because I want to stay around and do interesting stuff.

So yeah, I do get offers and But also I still have to audition like everyone else.

So obviously a lot of that stems from you.

Know, there are people at these companies that know your work and are like oh you know, dead ringer, let's get Ben Sarin.

But also there's the people like me, the writers in their little hole, who I've had a lot of conversations this week with writers here at GDC.

GDC, fuck, Dice.

Oh, my God.

God, losing my point.

We here at the Game Maker's Notebook hate GDC.

No, stop.

We hate it.

Stop.

Stop it.

I love GDC.

I know.

I love it the most.

I know.

I'm going to see you there soon.

I know.

You were on stage with me last year.

Yeah, I know.

That was fun.

We'll do something stupid this year too.

Can't wait.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

But like as a writer, okay, so a writer in the writer's room, so often when we're writing a character, we – maybe have an actor in mind.

It all depends on when we get that actor in in the process as to how much collaboration and how much time we get together.

So, like I've worked on projects where everything is written and then someone gets cast and it's just them in the booth and like as a writer, like we get to hang out on these, hang out on these calls or be in the booth like provide whatever.

But sometimes we get an actor in super super, super early and we get to actually build that character together.

I did a wonderful interview with Erica Ishii about how instrumental their contribution was to Atsu.

So like for you, how do you like to, I guess, work with writers?

What is your experience with that?

With my little, my little discipline?

Get me in as early as possible, or can get me in as late as you need me to be, i don't mind.

It's i, i will i i, i say this a lot of writers i'm a vessel through which your will is.

Yeah, you keep saying that to me because i, i think it, i think it, i would like to be considered as a part of the creative process.

I mean uh, actors should be yes, i believe, i believe they should be, but i will never be offended if someone comes to me and goes i've, I've written this character already and I'd like you to interpret it.

Because I think, as long as you allow room for the invention in that process, the alchemy of writing, so like inception conception, whatever we're accepting, then the writing and the performing and the directing, like each time it kind of changes all the time, and how the writing and the directing and then ultimately the interpretation of that work is going to be, is going to change.

You and I could have created a character together, but we get into the volume or we get into the booth and it changes because of factors.

And you just have to be open to that and have to be able to allow yourself to yield the floor a little bit.

Give up a little bit of yourself and allow what I can give you, exactly what you want, if you want me to.

Also, I'll do something else.

I might come in and want something completely different.

So allow me to do that.

It might be wrong, but I, I can do both.

And I often like I think the best, the best collaboration is when both of you are allowing yourselves to surprise each other.

The surprise is the best because then you get excited about it.

Then I'm thinking about stuff that you've never thought about before, which brings, which brings new, because obviously we know this is a collaboration process.

If you've written something and I say something or I perform it in a certain way, you go.

Oh God, I haven't thought about that.

Then you're going to go away and reinvent what it is that you write next, because games aren't just spoiler alert.

We don't just go into one session.

It goes away and then more stuff gets written, and more stuff gets written, because this game making includes so many different people and we are those moving parts.

So I love being a part of it.

I just like being given the freedom to bring what I'm going to bring under the stewardship of a great director and an understanding that a writer knows what they want.

Don't just say whatever, have an idea, give me some direction, but allow me to kind of maneuver to to surprise you as well.

You do a little writing too.

Yes, i do, i do do writing.

Um, i i've written a lot actually um, but for me i it was something that i did in between seasons of jamestown because i was optioned.

I couldn't do anything and i just wrote scripts, loads of scripts, right spec scripts wrote.

I had loads of like scripts optioned, and then i was paid by various production companies to write stuff and it was this real burning passion, this like creativity was just flowing out of me.

And then my dad died and i just stopped and i um, i lost it.

I lost the passion to write um for whatever reason.

I just wasn't able to make, make it fit in my mind.

I felt tired, i felt frustrated, that spark had gone and now it's kind of come back a little bit, which is not even a little bit, it's come back um.

But now it's a new normal for me, because now i'm very different context.

I'm working in video games now, so figuring out how i can make those work and how i can kind of like conjoin those two things and i've obviously read a lot of scripts, and script writing for video games is incredibly different.

But um, i know how a script should sound um, and i think i've written a few of them.

So i kind of get how that should work and hopefully that's going to be a thing that happens where those two things can coalesce into, Into something that makes sense.

I also want to shout out, I feel like I've spoken about loads of games I'm a part of.

I want to shout out to Solasta 2.

Sorry to be, I'm in this game because I like all these games.

Solasta 2 is made by this brilliant company called Tactical Adventures.

A tiny French team used to them now um, and they're making this incredible um crpg um, based on the 2024 rules of dnd, and they've got me in early.

They've got me in early and so that's what i'm.

That's like a thing that i love, where i'm playing this character in early access and then i've just started working with them about how he's going to move forward in the story.

I'm not writing the character, but they've changed it and that's a really shout out to them.

It's an early access.

It's they are not claiming to be larry in studios or owl cat or anything like.

They're like with really tiny team, we're making a game that we're really passionate about.

That's going to send a really folk.

You're not going to be able to, you know, have a thousand relationships it's about, which is a shame.

I wish you could um, but they're, they're brilliant and i've really appreciated how they they've got me on board and um, they said would you like to be a part of this process?

And i went yes please um, on your writing and stuff you've written.

We're like, you've written stuff we have seen.

I want to talk about that crazy magic the gathering commercial.

Yes, that you wrote you.

You wrote the final fantasy magic the gathering.

I write.

I write everything that you see.

I do it in collaboration with people sometimes.

So I did it with Magic the Gathering, which is insane.

That Wizards kind of okayed it.

Me sniffing Magic the Gathering cards and trying to do a sexy smell.

Me having a massive crash out.

Or me saying I want there to be a giant picture of myself panned down to a picture of me in exactly the same position.

For those who haven't seen it it's pretty good.

It's pretty pretty, pretty good.

Um, max ward is the brilliant, brilliant director and creative who brought the idea to me.

Well, magic the gathering brought the idea to me and max i said what should we do?

And he brought this kind of like base script and then i just said let's do this, let's go hard on this.

There's some crazy stuff that's left out because i always write more than is needed.

I always know that like i'm going to be edited Because I try and push the envelope.

It's the same with my work with Square Enix and their publisher sale video.

I will write stuff.

I can write for my voice.

And it's a very particular style.

I write for... I do this... very lucky to do this D&D show, Natural Six.

I am so proud of the work that I do on that.

Every time we do a commercial, I write that.

And so every time we have a commercial, I will write a story that's, it's just insane ramblings.

And they are they pay for.

You know, if you pay for a 30 second spot, you're going to get a two and a half, three and a half minute ramble by me.

That is this stream of consciousness that I've probably written on the tube.

But it feels very and so it's about how can I take what we do, and it's very much part of the.

I want to give you something as opposed to asking for something in return.

I wrote a sketch for Magic the Gathering that involved Neil Newbon and Matt Mercer and Jennifer English and Yuri Lowenthal.

That was like will someone play Magic the Gathering with me?

And it was just like this stunt sketch.

No one liked me because apparently I smelt bad.

But you don't.

No, I don't.

That's the joke.

And so Uri Lowenthal was calling me Bing the whole time.

Like, it's Ben.

He's like, shut up, Bing.

And I like that kind of silly humor that a joke's been said and then we move on from the joke.

I used to write all those sketches that I did with sam.

These are these are things that you can find in.

They exist on the internet somewhere.

Like i did a thing with sam lake which was the cool name crime fighters club, which was a stupid sketch where, because we had cool surnames cool surname crime fighters club we were able to able to commit crime legally.

And it's like well, not legally.

And there's a whole bit where i get to say i've got sam lake to say i once shot a jewel thief in the penis and he went yeah, let's do it.

And I like writing vulgar, vulgar humor within, I think, kind of a witty and subversive context.

And that's why I will always be the butt of the joke.

The other person will not be the butt of the joke.

So this is what I have to look forward to.

Always.

Yeah, you do.

Right.

You're welcome.

How long?

Wow.

Curious.

What time?

Okay.

Oh.

It's probably the longest one I've ever done.

What else do you want to know about me?

I mean, I already know too much, but it's what you want to share with the audience at home.

I don't know.

I'm curious.

So we've talked about this a little bit, but I'm curious, now that you have three more years under your belt, from Clive, Clive being your first.

You've been in everything.

You've been in Tekken, you've been dating Sim, you've um revisited final fantasy with tactics you did.

You revisited final fantasy, exhibition 33.

You have a lot of really cool things coming up.

You're writing stuff and dressing up like a clown and you have had the privilege to be in quite a few different developer environments yes, big teams like in the booth for a day, in the booth for a year.

What is something from your unique vantage point as an actor?

What is something you have noticed or learned about this industry that No one knows what they're doing?

No one knows what they're doing at all.

Even when they say that they do, no one knows what they're doing.

No one knows anything.

Yeah, that's kind of true.

And this, this idea of like i'm an expert in this like yeah, you are until you're proven wrong, you know you're only right until you're wrong, and i think is if i treat everyone like they piss shit and vomit like everyone else and so if i meet you, you can be the ceo of whatever, but like Babe, I know you've been drunk on a Saturday night and felt shit and done like you are a human being.

And therefore I treat everyone like a human being.

And I wish to be spoken to like a human being, and I'm going to come at you in a human way.

That's how I want to be treated.

And I think that's what you should do in a, in a collaborative environment.

Obviously, when there are tiers of influence.

If you're going to be a boss, you've got to be a boss.

You have to hit those assessment objectives in order to achieve something.

But ultimately, if you're not appealing to someone's humanity, it won't fucking work.

And there are many people that I think claim to be experts.

None of us are experts.

No, we just know a little bit more than other people because we've done it a little bit more.

People say that I'm an expert.

I go, I'm not really an expert in that thing because I'm not.

I do know more than they do.

But that's because I've just done stuff.

But I'm only an expert until I'm not.

I only know everything until I don't.

You know, all those people that try and predict.

My favorite thing is fucking pollsters in elections.

And they're like, this is going to be a prediction.

And they're wrong every fucking time.

And they're still experts.

No one has a clue.

We're all just pissing into the wind and hoping that we're as right as we were the last time.

You cannot predict anything.

That, and so in game dev, i'm always wary of someone that is gonna tell me an empirical truth that is not, and go.

They're treating speculation like it's fact and i'm like no, you're wrong, you're wrong, we don't know.

As long as you understand that no one knows and we're all just having a go and we're all fearlessly investigating this process and probably gonna fuck up, that's okay.

That's okay.

And I think the best teams come from that fearless curiosity, as opposed to this like dogmatic.

This is the way that we do things.

I'm like well, if the dogmatic, this is the way that we do things, you're going to fucking fail, because I've got so many examples of things that have happened recently where, because you dogmatically do something, because you think that it's going and it doesn't work, this time

And that's, That's what I think.

Fuck you.

Fuck you a little bit.

Fuck you, everybody.

Yeah, you can see I've had a coffee.

And I really, this is an unfiltered view of stuff.

And I'm just a little bit, like, tired.

It is a games industry conference.

We don't sleep with these things.

Yeah, I'm just a little bit tired of stuff.

I'm i'm a bit tired of of a lot of the, a lot of the bullshit that's happening.

Yeah, um and uh, i'm sure people will say what you're doing to change it.

I'm like i don't know some stuff that i can, what i can do to change it, but also i'm just just trying to talk straight to people about it.

Yeah, it's all about finding your pockets of impact, but also just being vocal.

Yeah yeah um, i'm not gonna.

I'm not gonna shove it down your throat like i don't.

I don't preach from the heavens about this all the time.

I just go on a podcast like this at a place like this, days after people have been laid off in an unfair environment.

Yeah, as of today, and i have little doubt, but by the time this releases, there'll be multiple more people who've lost their jobs.

Um, i i think it's really, really deeply unfair.

Um and uh, it's um, it's clearly, it's clearly not going anywhere.

So um boo, you boo.

I mean it will get, it will get better if we all like i hate to be so cliche stick together but like, truly like, looking out for each other in this dev community and just not.

You know people I know there's a lot of we tell you, we talk about a lot, a lot about like, auto culture and like Oh, you know, this studio was really successful, and then they become whatever.

But I really think, especially with what we're seeing now, with double a starting to kind of grow into this massive thing and co-development becoming more and more popular, more and more popular, sticking together is how we all get through this.

Yes also i, i would love, i would love the classifications of video games to fuck off.

Yes yes okay, i don't want to end on a bummer, so let's talk about this instead.

I want, i want, i want, i want a video video game classification to fuck off, because what do you mean?

What do you mean?

Because again, you mean this is what it is to investors.

It's how you define this thing.

You're talking about profit.

That's what you're talking about.

You're talking about how much money you think you're going to make.

It's money brackets.

And now we have triple I, which makes me want to jump out this window.

Because again, it's a funding thing.

It's funding.

It's money.

But triple I is also double A.

It's like the same bracket.

I don't know.

I hate this.

No one fucking knows what they're talking about.

You are correct.

Nobody fucking knows what they're talking about.

And you can create a classification for it because you're trying to.

It's like why we're trying to comprehend the chaos of the universe.

And then if we give it a classification, we can identify it in some way.

It's still the same thing.

Video games is video games.

Some of the highest profits you're making on a video game are in indie games.

But if we're talking about a bracket of profit, surely that means AAA numbers.

What do you mean?

And I get it because for award shows it's very easy to create discourse around what makes an indie game or what is a AAA game.

I don't think any person could sit down and confidently tell you what they mean.

It would be embarrassing.

You could get the most informed individual to give you their little explanation of what they mean, and they would tie themselves up in knots.

They couldn't explain to you the difference between independent AA or AAA.

They couldn't.

You mean a PlayStation first party game?

Is that what you mean?

No.

Which in and of itself is a subcategory, so why should we need AAA?

Right, and now that everyone is acquiring everyone else, we're losing third party.

Is Astro Bot a AAA video game?

What is Astro Bot?

Is that AAA first party?

So, mate is, is alan wake to a triple a video game?

Yes no, they would say it's high end double a.

I hate it here.

I hate it so much i hate some of the highest production values you've seen and they go.

That's a double a video game on the high end.

I hate it here, i know, but we love it here.

We love it here.

Thank you for coming to our chat.

Thank you for listening to us rant for like two fucking hours.

Please excuse me.

Um, someone listened to that in the car.

Someone's, someone's listening, someone is listening to this on their commute.

Yeah, just like completely, and they've had to.

They've had to pause it a few times.

Um yeah yeah, thanks for thanks for chatting to me.

Um, i appreciate you and i i think it's criminal that i haven't gotten to write for you yet.

So let's change that.

Write some nice words and i'll say them.

Just send me an email and I'll just read it back to you.

Thanks.

Thanks, buddy.

Thanks.

Thank you for joining us for The Game Maker's Notebook.

For more information on the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, our podcasts and our other initiatives, please visit wwwinteractiveorg.

[The Art of Being a Meme: Ben Starr on Acting, Industry Chaos, and the Future of Gaming]-[Ben Starr on Acting and the State of the Games Industry]

📋 Summary

The Persona of the Modern Performer

The Craft and the Curse of Immersion

Industry Realities: Money, AI, and the "Storefront" Problem

The Indie Future and the Need for Community

Embracing the Absurd

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[The Art of Being a Meme: Ben Starr on Acting, Industry Chaos, and the Future of Gaming]-[Ben Starr on Acting and the State of the Games Industry]

📋 Summary

The Persona of the Modern Performer

The Craft and the Curse of Immersion

Industry Realities: Money, AI, and the "Storefront" Problem

The Indie Future and the Need for Community

Embracing the Absurd

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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