As the gaming industry grows with each passing day, the more new possibilities, mechanics, and technologies emerge. We talked to Mike Fischer, the advisor at KRAFTON Inc. and a professor in the Interactive Media and Games Division of the School of Cinematic Arts. We learned about his experience working in the Japanese offices of SEGA and Microsoft, what we can expect the future of virtual and augmented reality to hold, and what kinds of projects have the most potential in the interactive entertainment sphere right now.
“I’ve had the good fortune to work with some of the most talented creators and biggest IP in games.”
— You have a wealth of experience in the gaming industry. It seems like games have always been a big part of your life. Tell us what sparked this interest.
— Games have always been a big part of my life. I was ten years old when Pong appeared, and I’ve been in love with games ever since that time. I remember my parents warning me that I’d never have a good career because I spend all my time playing video games, reading comic books, and playing Dungeons & Dragons.
During my first year in university, I decided I wanted a career in video games. My senior thesis was, “An econometric model of average revenue in the toy and game industry.” It wasn’t very good, but it gave me a lot of insight into the business.
— You started off as a Product Manager at Sega, then moved on to management positions in the marketing departments of Microsoft and Amazon. You’ve also worked with Fortnite at Epic Games, and now you’re an Advisor at KRAFTON Inc. That’s a vast and impressive resume! What has influenced your career the most?
— As my university graduation neared, I wasn’t having any luck finding a job in the US, so I decided to move to Japan, where there seemed to be more opportunities. I was lucky enough to find an entry-level position at Sega in Japan. I started at the bottom and little by little my responsibilities and scope of work grew. What helped me a lot was getting early hands-on involvement in so many aspects of Sega’s business — marketing, PR, product management, and even production and logistics. This helped me throughout the rest of my career.
Me talking to Mike Verdu of Netflix at the Montgomery Investor Summit in Los Angeles
I’ve had the good fortune to work with some of the most talented creators and biggest IP in games — everything from Pac-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog to Halo and Fortnite. I’ve published over two hundred games throughout my career. I’ve also had to cancel dozens of games that either didn’t have market potential or just didn’t meet a certain quality bar. One time I canceled a game at one company, changed jobs, and then found out the new company picked up the title I had canceled!
The sum of all this experience is an appreciation for the unique talent that’s required to make a great game, as well as how market-focused discipline is needed for a game to be successful. Games are both an artistic expression and a commercial product. This crossroads of art and commerce requires a special balance that I attribute to helping games be successful. I am not a creator — I can’t make a game more fun or more engaging, but I do try to help every game achieve its full creative and commercial potential with my support.
— You spent a total of nine years working in marketing for SEGA. You promoted consoles, advertised new products, and organized collaborations — like in 2003, when McDonald’s brought out Happy Meals with SEGA toys. How difficult would you say it is to publicize well-known products that have already won over their audiences? What aspects of your job did that make simpler, and what obstacles did it pose?
— When I am working on a well-known product such as Sonic the Hedgehog or Final Fantasy, I’m a custodian for something treasured and loved by millions, as well as a critical asset for my company, so I begin with a reverence for the game with which I’m entrusted.
One thing I learned early at Sega was to consider the generational aspects of these game franchises. People grow and change over their lives, and it is important to consider whether a game should grow and evolve with that audience (like Final Fantasy) or remain focused on a certain age cohort (like Sonic). When working on Fortnite, my strategy was to inherit the audience that would be growing too old for Minecraft but was not ready for adult-oriented content like Call of Duty.
Understanding what aspects of a game to keep unchanged and timeless, and what to evolve, is a big challenge. It requires both understanding our gamers’ desires and the creator’s vision.
Me with Michael Jackson in 1992
— You worked at Microsoft for seven years, which saw you managing the marketing departments for Xbox 360, Xbox Live Games, and Games for Windows. How challenging was it to stand apart from the PlayStation, which was already popular? How did the team go about promoting the Xbox 360?
— I worked at a really special time at Xbox. Xbox Live was already established and set us apart as the best online experience. All we had to do was focus on great game content and expand our audience. Xbox 360 was built on an honest self-assessment of the original Xbox experience and what we needed to do better. Our approach was called, “Grab the core and go for more.”
We had to keep our hardcore credibility, and we had great games like Halo 3, Gears of War, and even Crackdown to help us on that front. The harder part was growing our base at a time when PlayStation had huge momentum and Nintendo Wii captured the imagination of the youngest market segment.
At the end of the day, it came down to promoting both our own games and our third-party games with the strongest message we could. I then amplified that with marketing partners such as Pepsi (with the first Game Fuel soda for Halo) and Burger King (with our wacky King games). We also doubled down on Guitar Hero by supporting Activision programs and branding them Xbox — anything to get the word out about our great games.
“It was so hard for me to break into the game business, so I want to help future generations have an easier time.”
— Your work on Fortnite at Epic Games is an interesting chapter in your career. That’s still one of the most popular games in the battle royale genre. Tell us, what interested you in this project when you began working on it, and what results did you see over the time you spent with it?
— I had worked on two previous projects (one at Sega and one at Microsoft) that had tried and failed to implement some of the core features of Fortnite — things like the procedurally generated worlds with elements of the environment that could be combined to build your fort.
When I saw that the Fortnite team had achieved this, I was a believer. That’s what motivated me to join Epic. I tried to focus on the generational aspect of a young audience I mentioned earlier, but I left Epic before the team adopted Battle Royale, and that’s what turned Fortnite from a cool game into a global blockbuster.
— You speak flawless Japanese and have done a lot of work at the Japanese offices of big-name companies such as Sega and Microsoft. What piqued your interest in Asia and Asian gaming culture?
— My Japanese is good, but it’s certainly not flawless! I had to learn Japanese as a survival skill. When I started working at Sega in Japan, I had very limited Japanese language skills, and I knew this would limit my career if I didn’t improve. I had a long train commute to the office, which I used as time to study.
My friends, family, and co-workers were very patient with my language progress. By the time I left Sega, I was translating for the CEO and partners such as Ayrton Senna and Michael Jackson. Learning the language is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m still learning.
Me speaking at the Digital Bridge Summit in Kazakhstan
— The Asian gaming market is very different from its American counterpart. You’ve worked with both audiences. Tell us about the differences — what’s worth bearing in mind if you want to promote a Western product in Japan, for instance?
— The important thing is to study and understand the tastes and preferences of your audience. Often, game makers are overconfident based on their understanding of their home market and don’t think hard enough about what’s required for success in other regions. I’ve been really impressed by the success of games like Genshin Impact around the world. Also, the success of Arknights in Japan by the Chinese company Hypergryph is amazing. But this success wasn’t by accident — these teams took a serious study of their audience as they built their games, and I have huge respect for that.
— You’re a professor in the University of Southern California’s Interactive Media Division. How did you get into teaching? What kinds of things do you tell your classes about? What are today’s students most eager to learn more about?
— It was so hard for me to break into the game business, so I want to help future generations have an easier time. That’s why I teach. I’m amazed by the talent and creative courage of this new generation of game makers, and happy to be part of fostering a more diverse talent pool.
Every student’s desires and motivations are unique, but I really like how they are ready to do more than just get a job at a big company — they are fiercely independent and want to make their own games and push creative barriers.
“I received invitations to weddings from people who met playing Final Fantasy Online.”
— You’re an investor in the field of VR/AR. Virtual reality is on the rise — it’s becoming more and more present in our lives. What developments do you think we should expect to see in this sphere?
— It’s still unclear if, when, and how VR and AR will become an everyday part of mainstream entertainment (or work). I have seen the world-changing potential of this technology, but so far it has not met that potential.
We’ve had 50 years to learn how to make games for a 2D display, and less than a decade of meaningful VR development experience. We are still learning step-by-step how to craft these new 3D experiences. The hardware keeps getting better, too. So I’m hopeful but cautious.
— How realistic are the speculations that someday people will stop living in the real world and instead immerse themselves in the lives of their digital avatars?
— These digital experiences ARE the real world! They are an extension of our lives, just connected to other people through games. At Square Enix, I received invitations to weddings from people who met playing Final Fantasy Online. There is no need to make an artificial distinction between “real” and “virtual” experiences.
— Which of the latest projects you’ve heard about in the field of interactive entertainment strike you as the most promising, and which ones, in your opinion, will be short-lived?
— Mobile games still have amazing potential — and challenges. I really want to see mobile games evolve beyond the slot-machine style “gacha” mechanic and reliance on microtransactions. Smartphones bring gaming to billions of new users, but too many of the experiences are exploitive. This is bad for gamers, and it also limits creativity and innovation. I’d like to see a broader range of game experiences be successful. A few companies are pushing the envelope in terms of both creativity and business models, and they have the potential to change everything.
— Is all the new tech in the revamped entertainment industry purely a good thing, or are there downsides to it as well?
— I have seen resistance to every technical advance in video gaming. Even the evolution from cartridges to optical media faced resistance! It all depends on what we do with these new technologies. For example, I’m very optimistic and excited about how blockchain technology can empower new gaming experiences.
But the actual implementation of this technology has not been great. Bad actors and exploitive business models have kind of ruined the experience, and I hope things will improve. I hope we get more from AI than NPCs who won’t stop talking to us. Time will tell.
— Modern entertainment is strongly tied to consoles, VR headsets, and other such devices. What did you do for fun as a kid?
— Video games, comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, and also skateboarding. I still skate, but mostly on a longboard now.
— Do you ever miss the simpler times, when we could have just as much fun without consoles? Or are you eagerly awaiting what the future will bring — a world of new possibilities and technologies?
— Those old-school games aren’t as fun as you remember! What I love about new technology in games is not the faster processing speed or more realistic graphics. What excites me are the new tools and resources that empower independent game developers and small teams around the world to craft high-quality experiences.
I travel the world as an evangelist for game development, and I’m humbled by the talent I see in every country I visit. The next generation of world-changing games will come from every corner of the world, not just the traditional centers of big-studio game development.
