Life In Perpetual Beta

Alex Seropian, CEO of Wideload Games  asked us if we could meet him at a little verdant spot near his office in Chicago.  A beautiful little spot of river walk just perfect for filming an interview…. or so we thought.  It turns out that it’s right next to the Boeing building where they make gazillion dollar deals that can either safely fly you over the Atlantic or blow an entire country off the map!  Although the sweet little river walk Alex picked for our interview is technically city property… Boeing had no qualms about intimidating us the hell away from there – and then after requesting that we not film their building ( what????) positioned yet another security guard at the top of the river walk stairs to take our photo – which WE preferred that they not do either.

I in turn took a photo of the security guard taking our photo, and yelled to him that I’d send it to his grandmother (yes, I am 14).

I was very nice and curtious to the Boeing people, but the truth is I was really f@cking angry… twittering furiously about how absolutely stupid the situation was and trying to keep a light heart and roll with it. (How geeky am I to twitter about it?)

Alex – he just took it in a stride, after all, he’s used to confrontations with the MAN – at least in the gaming world he is.  Just look at the game  Halo that made him famous in the gamer community.  It’s all about blowin’ stuff up and justice for the little guy… just like my little film here.

The interesting thing is, Alex sold his very profitable company to Microsoft, and built a new company that was more aligned with his heart and his interests… he wants to make video games that are not violent adolescent fantasies but games that are funny, games that play like Mel Brooks movies.  He wants to make the kind of games that haven’t been made before. Why?

My guess, after meeting him, is a little of what he said in the interview, that he has kids who will eventually play games, but on a deeper level, this guy is just so curious to see if he can make a game based on humor work, he is totally on fire with this idea. And you know what, his idea is infectious, I actually called Mel Brooks’s film company and told them that Mel ought to call Alex and see about partnering on a video game…. I’m a sucker for a curious and passionate mind, what can I say.

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This post is tagged "alex seropian", "mel Brooks", "programming", "wideload", boeing, Bungee, creativity, curiosity, game, gamer, gaming, Halo, life in perpetual beta, melissa pierce