Not That Kind of Doctor -- Why I left academia for the game industry

One of the most inspiring and memorable days in my career started with a scary email.

The Appointment

Recently, everybody on my team received an appointment entitled "Mandatory Team Meeting".


"Mandatory"? Nobody uses language like that. Not at a game development studio. That, plus the short notice, put me on edge -- it put a lot of people on edge.

Lunch would be provided. I imagined the catered, unwieldy turkey sandwich I would eat from a box on my lap, drink on ground, so that we could operate efficiently and not consume regular work hours with meeting time. I resented my imaginary sandwich.

This morning I woke not feeling great and considered not coming in today. But because of that ominous meeting, I decided that I better go.

In fact, I decided to be prompt. Prompt for a meeting I was confident would bring depressing news.

We went to the meeting room and found tables arranged festively, covered in green and red tablecloths, and an unusually ornate buffet spread that included truffle mac-n-cheese (my name for it -- probably has a fancier name). Delicious.

But still ominous.

As I sat down I noticed that one end of the room had black paper taped up. Those around me joked that behind the black curtain, storm troupers waited with rifles.

Sure, it was in jest. But it reflected real tension. We expected something bad.

Phil Frazier, our leader, announced that, as we had by now likely realized, this was no meeting, but just a thank-you lunch for the team.

Actually, we hadn't figured that out. We still expected a PowerPoint deck itemizing disappointments. Bad news oft comes with a pep talk and a catered snack.

The Band

Phil announced that they arranged entertainment for us -- a band. A famous band, Phil dryly claimed, from the 1980's -- Rock-afire Explosion. They used to play at Showbiz Pizza, said Phil, and they hadn't played in 20 years.

Implausible, I thought. Maybe they hadn't play much but surely they had ventured out elsewhere before playing in a meeting room at a software development studio.

At the front of the room, John Taylor pulled down the center segment of huge sheets of black paper to reveal an animatronic ape with a musical instrument. He pulled down more and more paper, revealing more and more giant robot animals with instruments -- two bears, a giant mouse, a giant wolf, a giant bird, a giant dog, a meta-puppet -- filling the breadth of the room.

They started playing music.

There must be some business that rents out these robots, I figured, offering a canned performance. Weird. Whatever.

Impressive (really impressive) that they got all that equipment in here, I reflected, but the content -- kind of... dorky.

My view of all that was about to change.

The Awards

Phil announced that they'd hand out awards for people: Special awards, for this particular occasion. He searched for the awards list.

Then, one of the animatronic animals piped up that it had the awards list.

Unexpectedly specific for a canned, generic performance. This animatronic-animal-band-business, I conjectured, must offer a variety of canned formats: An awards show, maybe a birthday program, maybe a bar mitvah, maybe weddings. *shrug*

One of the animals started a gag about Phil. I mean, jokes about his specific name -- "Phil". That further challenged my hypothesis about this being canned.

They must, I surmised, have a repertoire of gags about specific common names.

Then their schtick got even more specific -- jokes about Phil's hair and glasses.

How did they do this? Who are "they"? What is "this"? None of this makes any sense. Is this somehow live? Highly unlikely.

The robot clamored that he wanted to emcee the awards ceremony. And started fighting Phil over the sheet of paper with the announcements.

This is getting interesting, I thought.

These videos might reveal a glimpse of the surreality of the event:

• Stone Face
• Not That Kind of Doctor
• Tied for First
• Tightest Graphics on Level 3
• Behind the Scenes

This was not a generic performance offered for hire to just anybody. This band literally had not played in 20 years, just like Phil said. This performance -- this material, this dialog, these lyrics, these animations -- it was all made just for us, just for this lunch.

I later learned that the robots operated on pneumatically driven pistons and that the setup required a car-sized air compressor which was out in the parking lot. They had run very long hoses from way out there to inside this room. That was but one of the incredible feats of this event.

The planning. The logistics. The inspiration. The fact that it didn't crash or explode. It all washed over us with wave after wave of strange, edgy surreality and resin trophies.

The Aftermath

A colleague later revealed that during the show he wondered if he was dreaming. He was not being poetic. He literally questioned the state of his own consciousness.


At the end, they handed out presents: a commemorative mug. Extremely cheesy, in a way that perfectly fit the surreal, cartoony vibe of the event.

On the mug, under the picture of the band, read the caption: "I WAS THERE". Fitting words. Because, no matter how we try to explain it, nobody will grok what made this ephemeral mystery work for us.

The more I pondered this event, the more it sank in how much creativity the people behind it have, and how much effort they were willing to put into this.

And for what?

For the pure joy of it.

It had been a long time since I've seen that kind of selfless, mischievous, weird frolicking.

Fun, after all, is why I joined this industry.

I might fail to convey its splendor, because part of why this event made me so happy involves the sunken context from which I entered it.

Academics take themselves seriously. They have to. Their competitive environment fosters egotism and narcissism.

But, as I have been reminded, I am not that kind of doctor. Or anyway, I don't want to be.

Sometimes we, as engineers, focus on efficiency, best practices, maintainability, reliability and a lot of other buzzwords that matter but ultimately do not get us out of bed in the morning.

A lot of us had forgotten why we were there and today, some of our friends and colleagues reminded us.

We're there to create joy.

Thank you, John Taylor, Ben Burbank, Phil Frazier, Aaron Fechter and everybody else who made this happen. Thank you for reminding us how and why we do what we do, and thanks for this memory.