A Get to Know You Q&A with our Studio Co-Founder
What is your role at Wicked Fox Games?
“I am CTO and Co-Founder of Wicked Fox Games. I’m also in charge of our Marketing and Communications efforts.
I’m here to help facilitate and help get everybody moving in the right direction, make sure that nobody has huge stumbling blocks in front of them and we’re all going toward the same vision.”
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from and what was your upbringing like?
“I was born in Appalachia in the state of West Virginia, on a farm on a single dirt road. We had 400 acres of forest around us. There were no other kids around and mainly it was just my family, the forest and the wild animals. I used to track deer out to where they bed down and just wait for them. Sometimes they’d lay down beside you. It was a real Snow White kind of moment. I had some fun adventures like that. It really stoked my imagination, and I found I was writing stories from an early age.
I was also very sick. I still have severe asthma and when I was young I could be in the hospital for months sometimes growing up.
It was so bad, there were parts of the year I couldn’t go out and do anything. One time in second grade I was really sick and my parents bought me my first computer, which was the Texas Instrument TI994A. It had a basic programming interface on it and from that I started coding. It sparked my interest in making games. I would make little rocket games and choose your own adventure games.
As I got older I was able to combine my love of writing, games and technology. There was a natural progression to try to get into the gaming industry at some point in my life. But in Appalachia, there was no opportunity at all.
I moved from West Virginia to St. Louis and lived there for 16 years working in the tech industry, and then eventually moved to California to follow that dream to break into gaming.”
When you’re not at work or playing games, what are some of your favorite hobbies?
“If I’m not at work and I’m not playing games, then I’m probably either developing a new magic trick or performing at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. I do that quite frequently, but I would say probably ninety percent of my life is work and gaming. I think that what draws me to magic is the same thing that draws me to making games.
What we’re doing in both cases is inviting somebody to step into our world while we craft a reality around them, and taking them on a journey. In my case, I like to expand people’s minds with my magic. I want to make them think. I want to show them the world from a different point of view. and I want to do the same thing with games. It’s like I want to invite somebody in, craft a reality around them, tell a story and a narrative, and have them leave thinking, ‘I hadn’t thought about things that way before.’”
What’s something that’s surprised you about starting a new studio?
“Everything.
Haha, I knew starting a new studio was going to be hard. I had no idea it was going to be this challenging. Funding is one major challenge, but we’re also bootstrapping. So I had to ask myself ‘How can [Terry and I] keep morale up?’ How can we motivate the studio towards this collective vision that we all have, under the challenging circumstances that we’re all working without pay right now. I think that it’s been the hardest leadership challenge of my career.”
How would you describe your leadership style?
“My approach involves finding out what motivates people, because not only are they happier, they work better. I’m very big on Servant Leadership, something I learned from my mentor Eric Bailey.
The idea is if you lead from behind, others can go forward and amplify each other through their own abilities. Essentially, becoming a force multiplier as a leader.”
Is there a specific game that sparked your desire to work in the industry?
“When I played Star Control 2, it was the first time that I felt my mind completely blown by the narrative of a game, and I think it holds up even today. The narrative was risky. It was deep. It was mindblowing. I played that game and said, ‘I want to do this.’”
Is there a particular video game character that you think you relate to?
A: “I was pretty emotionally invested in Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. Not only are we both redheads, but she had kind of an outdoorsy childhood. So did I. Then we both got into tech! As I played those games, I found myself identifying with her quite a bit.”
What inspires you about this industry?
“I’ve gone through some dark times in my own life, and games have gotten me through them. The clan that I have been gaming with for almost 15 years has become as close as family. So, I know the impact that games can have on people’s lives. And I know that I can help others by creating good games they can find a community within. They can make friends all over the world and gain different perspectives. I think that’s something unique and inspiring about this industry.”
You were hit by layoffs previously, something that our industry has been greatly impacted by over the last year. What did you learn throughout that process?
“I’ve been involved in layoffs at other places in the last 25 years that I’ve been in the workforce. But it has never hit me as hard as it did being laid off from the gaming industry.
We are truly following our passions when we join this industry. When you work at a studio you look around and feel like for the first time you’re surrounded by your ‘people.’ In the tech world I would take vacation days timed around World of Warcraft or Destiny raid launches, and people thought I was nuts. They’re like, “You’re not taking off for the holidays, you’re not taking off for Fourth of July, you’re taking off for these raid events?” But, when I started working in games, other people would totally get it. And I identified so much with that mindset that it really did feel like family at times.
I still have nightmares based on the layoffs. I have visions of leaders telling me I did a terrible job and things like that. It’s something I’m still working through. And I never, ever want to do that to anybody at this studio.
Going forward, if that means consciously staying smaller, if that means hiring people on limited time contracts so that they know whether a project has an end date, I want to be very up front with that. I don’t want anybody else to experience what felt something like a loss of family that I went through. I know people will read this and laugh about it like, ‘Oh, you believed that your studio was your family?’
But honestly, until you live through it – and until you really feel that level of belonging somewhere you are passionate about being, you’ll never understand that feeling. This was what I considered my ‘dream job’ – and I was laid off from it. You can’t help but blame yourself.
And I think that’s the other thing I want to stress to people: a layoff is not your fault. And rarely are the people that made the bad decisions that lead to the layoffs held accountable. It’s always people elsewhere that are affected by their choices. I keep that pain in mind, to help guide the future of Wicked Fox Games, so we don’t repeat that behavior.”
What’s the best advice someone has ever given you?
“Jewish scholar Rabbi Hillel famously said, ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?’
I think I combine that with the idea of following your passions. And that has been a guiding north star for me. If you’re not for yourself, then who’s going to be for you? You have to stand up for yourself. You have to be the driving force in your own life. But if you’re only for yourself, you can’t just be for yourself because we’re larger than that. Whether that’s a family or gaming community or fandom, we live for things that are larger than ourselves. And if not now, when? Don’t keep putting off the things that will lead to following your passion. You have to take risks or it’s very easy to sit back and be safe and watch your life go by.”
As Co-Founder and CTO of Wicked Fox, what do you admire the most about the team here?
It’s incredibly rare that we have something like 20-odd people at Wicked Fox Games, striving to achieve a goal that we all believe in, with no funding. And that isn’t for everybody. Many folks are helping us out while they have day jobs and families and pets and things that they prioritize, and they’re still willing to dedicate time to this studio.
That inspires me. I sometimes look around at the faces in studio meetings with gratitude that these are people that want to change the industry with us. They’re all looking to myself and Terry to make this happen. It’s a massive privilege and responsibility that is not lost on me.”
Is there a particular person that you feel really had an impact on your life or career trajectory?
“Eric Bailey was the Senior Director of Engineering on League of Legends and the Director of Technology at Riot Games during my time there. He’s the person that gave me my shot when he hired me at Riot. He was a mentor. He was a truly inventive mind. I learned so much from him.
When he became the Senior Director of Engineering on League of Legends, I got him a gift – it was a sword that was engraved with “Servant Leadership.” I went to his house, got on a knee and presented it to him. He was such an inspiring leader, and he really shaped my perspective on how to lead a team. He tragically passed away a couple of months ago, which has been a huge professional and personal loss. But he had such an impact on my life and career trajectory.”
Looking back at your career, what is one thing you’ve done that you’re particularly proud of?
“Being on a team that helped launch Valorant was huge. Obviously pivotal. If I zoom out of the gaming sphere, then when I was at Washington University in St. Louis, I designed and developed a massively parallel computer cluster that could help diagnose cancer cells in humans, and create custom drug treatments. We saved fifteen lives in the trial.
So that caused a dilemma for me when deciding to come to LA and break into gaming after being in biotech. I really had to think about my path, and I considered if I continued down the path I was on, I could probably continue to save lives. But when I was deciding, I thought, I think I could save lives working in the gaming industry as well. I believe games can save lives in a very real way. So, in my professional career, those are my two biggest highlights.”
What advice would you give to someone who is struggling to find work in this industry right now or someone trying to break in?
“Don’t be afraid to apply to jobs you’re interested in. As a hiring manager I learned that often women and underrepresented groups will look at a job’s requirements and if they don’t meet every point, they won’t apply. But data suggests that a majority of men would apply regardless of whether they were a perfect fit or not. And what that means is you’d end up with a pool of not very diverse people that often still weren’t 100% qualified, but you still had to pick from that pool. If you are 80% qualified, apply for it. See what happens.”
You said you’re a professional magician? Tell me a little bit about how you got into that.
“It’s funny, because the magic world is small, much like the gaming industry. It’s a lot of people that don’t necessarily fit in anywhere else following their dreams and passion. And in magic, a lot of times you’re your own writer, director, performer, and manager all-in-one. In some ways performing magic gave me the confidence to pursue starting Wicked Fox Games. Before I started performing, I was very much in my own shell. I was scared to talk in front of people. But it was actually a gaming conference that nudged me to take the leap into magic.
One of the speakers grabbed a very tired crowd and energized them. Everybody left feeling excited, and it was a light bulb moment for me. I thought, “I need to know how to do that.” If I want to advance my career as a leader, I need to know how to do what she just did. So I picked my childhood passion back up – which was magic – and started finding ways to break into that world. And through learning from magicians like Jeff McBride, Rob Zabrecky, and Pop Hayden, I learned how to come out of my shell.
It also gave me the confidence that I needed to believe I could do things like that. So, all of those unique experiences and passions wove together to craft who I am as a person. And I don’t think there’s any part of it that could have happened without any other part of it.”