When comfort becomes the trap.

Is that something you'd do yourself? But at no point, you mean, is it something you'd buy? Uh yeah, that's it. That's why at one point I looked into the possibility of running ads on Reddit.

But in my head, I thought, this is completely absurd, you know it's, it's, it's a minimum, uh, to have something relevant. At one point I was discussing 10,000, 10,000 dollars for, uh, for a campaign, and at one point I thought, but this is so not the place for that, because for me, all the ads there are on Reddit, I don't look at them. I'm like, no, I just want to get the info I'm looking for, to have people's real lives, actually. That's why there's never an ad, or if there is, it's by accident that I clicked on it.

I don't know. Yeah, I get the impression it's something that's a bit of a downside for Reddit, but advantageous all the same for the community, which is that people are extremely skeptical about content that's selling them advertising. So when you've got actual ads. Yeah. Well, they'll just turn away from it, they'll even recognize it, like, that's an ad.

Yeah, yeah, it disqualifies it right away, it disqualifies it. And I really like your analogy of, I think of a time in my life when I'd go to a buddy's place in his basement, smoke some joints, then we'd watch stuff on the screen and we'd make fun of everything, you see. But between us, we'd talk about subjects like, how do you do this? How do you do that? Really that feeling of, we're among ourselves because we have subjects that connect us, uh, and everything that, uh, you, we think we know everything about the world.

So we have, extremely, a lot of ease in criticizing what comes from the outside, and what isn't part of our world. But between us, we're hyper sincere and hyper vulnerable and, uh, so it has a lot of value, you see. It's, it's a kind of cocoon you have to protect. So I also understand why, and it's the digital version of that, a bit ridiculous to me, you see.

It's, I kind of understand why people are hyper aggressive when you come in and you completely ignore the context, when you don't take the time to get into the right vibe, uh, and you just barge straight in. Yeah. You're going to get pushback. That's for sure, and it's, it's a place I really like precisely for that period where, in the end, you're in startup mode and you're trying to understand, and you can even talk about anything. It can be something very personal or something very technical.

Uh, as long as you choose your subreddit well, you're going to have enormous interactivity with it. Uh, for my case, it was really more like, is this a subject that people are passionate about, and is, uh, I like to call it the Cool Story Bro, in the end, which is a status I like, it's, uh, you're going to have the three statuses, like if you have content that's really bad, there are people who'll cross the threshold of, like, dude, your thing is really bad, or you know, like, but if you manage to make something that's quality. Yeah, uh, but that changes nothing in anyone's life. Then everyone's going to say cool story bro, like, it's, it's nice, it's really, no but I encourage you to do it and all. Go for it.

And actually it's something you shouldn't go for, actually. You can go into it, but it means that, well, you haven't found the right idea. You presented it well and all, you have passion, but the side of, does it resonate with people, uh, isn't there, so you have to turn away from it, whereas if you manage to make something that's sometimes an extremely simple idea but you see people engage, so you get past the cool story bro, it's like, ah it's really nice and we could do this too, how do you set this up and what would the limits be? Could I do this? Like, I have this side, I have a little project where I'd want to learn that, where I'd want to explore that, is that something I could do with your thing?

And when you have that kind of question, then you know you're onto, a, a, a, a, a something that people like and that changes something in people's lives and that they'd want to see come to life intellectually. Intellectually, they're seduced. That's exactly it. They're no longer in the cool story, bro.

Yeah, there you can, plus you know, like, there are the magic formulas, uh, of if someone, you present an idea with the approach of, here's my idea, what do you think? And if there's a guy who comes along and says, like, ah, if this thing existed, I'd definitely pull out my wallet. Yeah. You know, like, there it's still OK, it's a strong signal of, like, ready to pay you for, to do that, because it's on Reddit, someone who'd be ready to pay. No but really that's it, it's, yeah, I'll admit it.

The question that's also nagging at me is, uh, what made you choose the smart game versus the addictive game, uh, was it deliberate? Do you have an ethic behind it, or is it just because it interests you more? There's definitely an ethic, but not too pushed either. Yeah. In the sense that, actually, there's, there's everything that's Gacha games, those are betting games with boxes, currencies, currencies of currencies.

Uh, there are dark patterns and actually it's more a kind of psychology of addiction. What are the recipes for making players addicted? They're not called dark patterns for nothing, you know. Like, it's like, why, you know, like, you're really going to, for example, use gambling tendencies in people and exploit that.

So I'm like, I don't really like that. And for me, definitely, the meaning it gives me is extremely limited. I even think it takes some away from me, actually. It goes against your value of contribution.

That's exactly it. So that takes meaning out of my life. So I find it interesting to understand the weaknesses we can have as humans. Uh, but you can also, because I use my own weaknesses against, for myself, with, when I say I press the buttons in, in my brain, it's like, OK, what works with my inner monkey?

What does he want? And if I ignore him, I know it degenerates. So there's a place where you can put yourself, or offer him things that will lead him to do activities he doesn't necessarily want, but that in the end he's going to be really happy he did. You negotiate with your inner monkey. Exactly.

And as for, for that side, actually, of the patterns, it's interesting to know them, but it's not something you should develop. It's something interesting to understand so as not to go into it, or else to use to create a game experience that's interesting. For example, if you put money into it, dark patterns, I think it's really pure, hard exploitation of, OK, weakness in players, and I'm able to make them sensitive to a purchase and push them to buy at that moment. Me, I prefer to use dark patterns in, like, OK, there's a moment in the game, it's a difficulty progression, and there I feel the difficulty is a bit, a bit too frustrating, and so they have to, and we're forced to go through it because I have trouble seeing another progression.

Uh, so I'm going to use dark patterns to make the thing a little bit more bearable for the player, because there's, like, ah, I'm still going to go, I'm still going to go, I'm still going to go and get past that step that's a little bit hard. So it's just in those moments where I think you should use that thing. So for me it's more, what gives meaning to me as a developer? What do I want people to come and tell me afterward?

I want to be congratulated for things that are quite specific, and for me what gives me the most pleasure is, ah, I played your game and I learned something. And that, for me, is the thing that, it's one of the biggest compliments you can give me, because for me, if I play a game and I've grown as a person technically or humanly, uh, through that game, and same with anything else, like if I see a film that makes me think, me, it, I love that. It's like, OK, I'm someone different when I came out of that film, you know, like there's something really, for me, really full of meaning for me. That's it. A human, it would be invented systematically.

Yeah. And if I manage to have that experience in my game and people tell me, that's the experience we're having. It's not just me imagining things, saying, yeah, that's the experience I'm offering. For me, it's learning. Uh, you could end up a teacher if you keep going? I've already been a teacher.

I've already been a teacher. And what, but it's work. What, I don't like that, work. No but what made you not, apart from the fact that it's, well, it's performing too.

It's maybe the side of facing a group constantly, or it's, what is it that, no, I really enjoyed my experience as a teacher. There's a lot of upfront work. After that, you can quickly fall into a, I've got a deck and I've got a plan, it's going to work. So, so it stays nice all the same, and you can largely, at least me, I can largely exist in that, where in the end you see new people and so you explain to them and you support them.

You try to understand those connections. Yeah. In the end you were the teacher of the developers at Ubisoft. If I caricature it a little.

Yeah, I'll never, yeah, someone who has interesting ideas and who tries to share them, then I don't want to try to, because there's a relationship of authority with, and I don't want to be in that. I just have a thing, then I want you to bring me things too, and so I get the exchange going, and if you're able afterward to do the same thing, not just with me but with everyone, I find that's, that's great, and if all teachers could think like that, which is really not the case, I think that, yes, teacher, student, those are roles you should be able to, in your own head, know how to adopt fluidly, even within a single discussion, change. Yeah, from one sentence to the next, and, and interchange them really, uh, but yes, as for being a teacher, yeah, no, it's, I could have existed in just that side, purely human, and I give people meaning, but it's more the technical development side and all that, you tend to get stratified into a thing and you don't change it much afterward, because that's the program. Then, then it could come back later, because, uh, the only time in my life where really I had a teacher, uh, well no, I'm exaggerating a bit, but really the one I remember, it was a, a, a year of transition toward graphic design, blah blah, because I was in IT before, and the guy was a photographer, but he was an active photographer, and I remember one day where, already, he didn't give a [ __ ] about the program, you know, he'd come in, it was, fine, this program here, it's a bit of crap. I'm going to talk to you about the real stuff, you see.

So he was already talking to us about the field. So there, I've got everything. And secondly, I remember one day where his partner comes running into the room like, hey, are we here. Yeah, look, we're, he pulls out a Luxembourg magazine, it was called Paper Jam, I remember.

Paper Jam, and it's like, those were office photos, it was really basic, you see. But for them, it was the achievement. And, uh, they look, they're all happy, they're, it was still kind of their gateway, I think, into the corporate world, into doing nice photos, nice portraits and all. Then just seeing that, I think, damn, him, I want to learn from what he's telling me, you see, because he takes risks, and the other teachers who are only into theory and who sometimes take pleasure too, which is what I don't like, is that they take pleasure in showing you how much more they know in theory than you do. Yeah.

And you, you're like, just tell me what I need, and they slow you down on purpose almost. Yeah. And keep you a bit in that zone where they're in control. Yeah. There you go.

They're in control. Yeah. That's, that's what maybe pushes me away a little from that teaching side, you see. But at the same time, I tell myself, right now it's a good moment in Quebec, at least, I'm discussing it with certain people in the field, uh, of why not set up a program for those, the graduates, uh, who see that there are no openings in VFX, and less in gaming, but in VFX even less, and who tell themselves, well, why not create my company, you see? Both of us, we know Maureen Faver well, who left Hybride, who, uh, who put out top notch results.

In any case, go check out 212, uh, on YouTube, uh, of Star Wars. Me, I think there are going to be more and more Hybrides, uh, because precisely, uh, yeah, that's it, it's possible more than before. So, uh, absolutely, very cool. Uh, I'm wandering off too.

I must surely be a little bit dyslexic too. Uh, we're not, we're not following the plan. Yeah. No, honestly, the plan is just to have a thing, some keywords.

Uh, but you also talked about the permanent prototype. Yeah. Uh, indeed the, the permanent prototype is kind of interesting, and it's kind of a way of pressing one of my buttons in, in my brain, which is how to move away, in the end, from the danger of perfectionism. Hm. It's to embrace that side of, like, it's going to be imperfect.

So if in my discourse publicly I say, like, it's not a prototype, but I call it an early access. So I still have a level of quality that justifies the fact that people buy it. They can play tens or even hundreds of hours for the most passionate of my hardcore players. I'm still in that, but I have that side of, like, careful, there are going to be elements where if you click, there's probably going to be some crashes.

So I still want to reduce that to the strict minimum. You don't want it to crash, uh, but, like, stuff that's a bit janky, uh, people are going to be very patient with that, as long as you present that thing to them with, uh, humility, you know, like, this is going to be, this is what you're buying, it's, yeah, it's something innovative, but so it's a bit, we're testing, you know, then the next releases are included in the price, that's exactly it, so basically you buy, it's a bit the danger, and it's hard to draw the line between early accesses that are more in crowdfunding mode rather than an early access that's a marketing tool, in the sense that you do an early access and actually the game is already finished. Yeah, and you just do a pass of testing and bug fixing at full scale, you know, like full scale, and afterward you can do a release in good and due form, because there you have a level of quality that is, because there's nothing like, you know, like, full-scale testing that will say, like, OK, these are our problems from a software standpoint, whether you're, like, UX on your UI or even your infrastructure behind it, how you size all that. So it's super important to have that phase, but so there are people who'll use early access for that, and there are others who'll use early access for more, kind of, crowdfunding. Me, I'm more in that case. OK.

So the idea is, like, you have a start of the game that still lasts, you have around fifteen, between 15 and 20 hours of gameplay. So I, I make peace with that by saying, like, you can have that gameplay time by paying, so it's 15 US dollars. Yeah. Uh, you can, so I have that side of, like, OK, you've got that experience, so I'm not selling you, like, there's, I'm not selling you hot air.

That's it. There's, you'll go to the movies, you'll have less fun time than that. Uh, you'll go get a coffee. Your coffee's just going to last half a morning. You know, it's, there are ways to calm that side a little, that side of, OK, I'm asking people for money, so it has to be perfect.

But no, I'm like, no, you still have something that's cool, and compared to other things, it stays extremely cool. And on my side, well, I'm still in prototyping mode because I like, anyway, to stay in that state of research and exploration, and, uh, and of discovery too, as a result. And, uh, and so it's a bit that side, there are going to be portions of the game that are much more final, and there are definitely portions of the game that are very experimental. Yeah. Yeah.

In experimentation, and, uh, and, and, and that I try to put, like, OK, no but there are people who like that side, like, or, ah, I'm trying a thing that's really new, then, or it broke. Right, they quite like being, that's it. As long as you told them, you know. They even have that anticipation, is it going to work well and all, then in the end when it works well they're happy, and when you have enough players for long enough, and you presented, this is what you're going to have, and that afterward, in their experience, well, no, it works relatively well anyway, uh, they're actually going to become extremely patient with that, and actually you can stay in that loop of, there's always a portion of my game that's in prototyping. Yeah, for the prototype side, there are a lot of phrasings that'll say, like, oh, OK, a prototype is good enough to be launched. There's, there's still some hygiene of code and of release and of quality to have, because it's prototyping, but not really, you know, in the sense that it's not the open door either to too sloppy.

A real prototype is, you do new project in some thing, then you, you put code here and there. You take all the shortcuts you can to have that visual trickery that's going to work, and that if you do those clicks in that order, it's going to work to make yourself a video or a pitch. That, that would really be the pure, hard prototype. Here it's more, like, OK, there are experiences in the game that are very simple, very basic, that are still going to work, that are going to give an idea, that are going to sell an idea.

Do you like it or not? Potentially they're also going to have small technical problems, but it has to stay in the order of a few percent and not, like, 50%. Yeah, there's a ratio, and if you manage to always have that standard of quality for those prototyping phases. Yeah, and people are going to get used to it, and actually you're going to have plenty of players who'll stay a bit in that and who'll come to rediscover the new experimental things there are in your, in your game and give their opinion, and then you, as a result, can stay in that loop of, like, ah, I'm trying something new. Some mini blank pages, you know, like, I try something new, I set it up, I do, me typically I quite like doing tournaments where I put experimental stuff in and I watch to see if people manage to do the, the tournament. So there's still an im, because the people who can't finish the tournament, it's still very, very sad. OK. Uh, but you still put something in their hands, or else they use it, or else they have a way to, you know, like, to get around the thing, but so to still present that experience so that your, your feedback of, does it work, does it not work.

Yeah. Uh, because I find that's super important, the pre. I'm getting carried away. It's, uh, no, no, it's very cool because precisely, uh, it ties in with what comes next.

Uh, but before moving on to what's next, you just made me think of a question. You see, during episode 2 of Transmission, there was Thomas from Flyos, and he talked a bit about, you see, about creating experiences for others, and he does board games. Did you have to rewire your brain differently to be able to put yourself in the skin of the architect in The Matrix, you know, who, who creates experiences for others? Is it something that, that, it takes a different mental gymnastics?

How does it go when you create a game for others, precisely, saying to yourself, ah, here, they're going to try to do this or that, because you surely have several possible solutions in your game? How does it go? Uh, yeah, definitely, there's, there's, it's the experiences you set up, they're experiences that are interactive. It's, it's, you watch how people, because you could do, me I could do code that would make a processor in the end, and even that would potentially be simpler for me, but you can't ask people to code, because that's not the idea of a, of a game. There are games where you learn to code, but then it's learning the language as such that becomes the game.

Here, what you learn is the architecture. It's, that, physically, how it's laid out, a, a computer with transistors. Yeah. And, uh, can someone who knows nothing start? Definitely.

OK, well, I'm going to get into it because it interests me. It's a puzzle game that's quite, uh, challenging, but that, I think, then you understand the basics, basics, basics, basics of computing, actually. That's it.

And I think it's something I also like with Hardchip, is that you can start at the beginning and actually quickly understand what the complexity is that's hidden behind. It gives an understanding of the complexity. It's no longer a magic chip. Yeah.

Yeah. If you understand, OK, I see, I've understood a bit the fundamental concepts, then it's just, you do that at scale, and so you see a bit what it takes. Uh, so it's something that, it's an experience I also want to offer. People who just want to learn that, they don't want to make a complete processor, they just want to learn the rudiments, and they can also learn that with a chip.

Ah, so as for the, uh, experience and being an architect. Yeah. Uh, it's definitely that. I try, I set up something, what do you think of it?

And afterward, uh, based on the feedback, I change it, and I don't change it. I also put in my own feedback, because it's also my own vision in which I push things. But it's going to be systematically that. How can you, players, me it's through Discord, how can we improve things.

I try to take action as much as possible on everything I'm told. There are plenty of moments I drop the ball, because there are a lot of messages too. Yeah. Uh, but to make a voting system, for example, there are plenty of people who talk about that, it's like, well, OK, I'm going to go more in that direction, or else just sometimes the idea is so good and so simple, there are people who put emojis on it, and you're like, well, OK, I'm just going to develop it.

Yeah. Uh, and when you manage to see those interactions that are extremely, requests that are extremely specific. Yeah. And when you've taught your players that actually when you ask them their opinion and they reply to you with very precise points, and so you take action quickly or you ask questions quickly, and afterward you take action on those precise points, that as a result the game grows thanks to that. Yeah.

Uh, it really creates a loop that's very, very strong with those players who, as a result, are always going to give you feedback like, OK, is this what we want? No, this isn't what we want. Yeah, that's how you create a community, for real. That's it. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, how many hours a day, a week, do you put in, the ratio, working on the game versus taking the comments, managing the community, do you manage to, there are going to be periods, it's, it's, but if I put an average, because there are weeks where it's going to be, like, OK, right now I've just got one thing in mind, I'm going to try to go hard at it, or else, OK, right now I'm more in mode, I'm going to try little things here and there, I take ideas and what's my next direction? So there can be big weeks, there's going to be almost no interaction, then it's just going to be friendly exchanges. Yeah.

Or else there are going to be other weeks where it's, for example, the tournaments, I quite like that because there's a time dynamic. You have to, you have a week to do your thing, then there it's daily, I'm going to spend, I don't know, one or two hours chatting, in the end, on, on Discord, sometimes in a group, sometimes one on one with people. What do you think of this? What is it that slowed you down on all this? And people come on Discord because you, you, you promote the, the Discord, uh, on the Steam page mainly.

You think that's why they come, or, uh, there are going to be several places where, uh, but clearly my funnel, like, for example, in the game itself, in the main menu, your first button at the bottom in the list of links, it's Discord. Yeah. Uh, there's, for example, you have a bug button, then marked on it, if you go on Discord it's going to be much faster. Yeah, so, then, then it makes sense relative to the theme of the game, even, to go on Discord, you see, unlike Tomb Raider where there you don't necessarily want to go on the Discord of Tomb Raider.

That's it. No, clearly it's, I want to reproduce a bit that side. It's not exactly that yet, but reproduce that side of, like, ah, I'm playing this game. Hardchip is still not, uh, super good at explaining everything you have to do. You can deduce, but there's no nice presentation of, this is how you should do things.

You can do things as if it were Lego sometimes. But do you have a tutorial at the beginning? Yeah, there's a tutorial that explains the basics and how to use the gameplay of the game. Then afterward, you can have ways to build your, your chips in a way, you have, you have plans and you can follow the plans.

After that, the idea is that you challenge those plans and you go further, because afterward you have a performance report. OK. If you only follow the plans, you're going to be in the average, the low average, because there are players who really push very, very hard. Then between the basic solutions and the most optimal solutions, depending on the, the challenge, you can have differences that are in the order of 10x or 100x.

So it's, it's, if you don't have the right approaches from the start, well, you're going to find yourself widening the gap with the best, and the best afterward are going to say, like, well, you see the graph and you say, oh my god, I'm really crap, someone who's 100 times better than me, and actually no, it's, you have to come back, and you have processes, and actually it's a bit those questions, those processes, that I want to suggest to players to come on Discord, that actually they discuss, it's almost, it's part of the game, actually. I, I try to make it so it's an integral part, that people play this game together. Ah, through learning or advice, like, how do you do this? Why? Why is there such a difference?

I don't understand, I do everything right, and, but at the same time it lets you understand something real. It's not just a game that didn't bring anything. Me, it makes me think of the node in Nuke. Since I was a digital compositor originally.

You start, you don't optimize your thing at all. To render an image, it takes you 10 minutes. The other guy, the same image, he renders it for you in 3 seconds. You see, you say, what did you do?

Actually, it's, it's the order, the optimization, the tips and tricks, as you say, you see. So I think this comes very close to that. Except that for me it's in Nuke to generate an image, but for you it's in, you know more about how to optimize a processor. That's still even more useful, I find.

When you think about it. It's really cool, that thing. Then I get the impression that you're building all your, wait, before, before talking about that, I wanted to ask you just, are you planning to do this on other platforms? I'm thinking of immersive with the Apple Vision Pro or VR, or mobile apps.

No, we, if there are, and same with all the feedback I can get, if there are people who push hard for that, uh, potentially I'm going to go into that because I'll see traction at that moment. Cool. Me, I'd quite like to have my processor in three dimensions with a headset. Oh, transistors, so cute.

Yeah. Uh, but, uh, I don't get the impression there's a big audience for that. Already on desktop, where everyone is on it, well, a lot of people are on it, and Steam as a distributor, which is an enormous distributor, uh, there's a portion of players that's not negligible, but which is, it's not a game that explodes in terms of popularity. It's a, it's a game that grows little by little.

It's word of mouth, it's students or people who, developers, uh, or developers who are interested. Ah, I'd like to go a bit lower in level of abstraction and understanding of the tool I'm using every day. Uh, so it's reducing that to just the, the audience that's VR, that's with a headset, you divide that by, uh, by, I don't know how much, 10. Yeah, the effort ratio, it wouldn't work.

It doesn't work. Yeah. So, but if people are there, for me, me, I love people who are enthusiastic, me, it, two comm, there are two comments in this video who ask you for them. Come on, I'll do it, like, I'll give you my, I'll give you my money.

Let's go, challenge. Uh, no, but what I also like in, in everything you've said since the beginning, is that actually, you're very, very self-aware, in the sense that you know your weaknesses and you build your work ecosystem around your weaknesses to compensate for them, or even to turn them into an advantage. But I, you see, always have this, this question, uh, for me, which is, what makes you so aware of your, your weaknesses? Because it's really a difficult question, a bit of a cliché, because either you're aware or you're not, you see, but really the majority of people, in any case from my experience, their biggest problem, by the way that's why monExpansion, the program for, you see, when you're bored at work, how to find the flame again, it starts with that, it starts with self-awareness, because most people are just not aware of what they're fighting against, actually, that they're fighting against themselves. And you, it seems like, yeah, it's logical. Uh, I analyzed that, I saw that, and I saw that, you see.

But, but it's so not the majority of people who think like that, that I ask you the question again. It's a thing I quite like. It's not a question, why did I develop that? How did I develop that?

I couldn't really say. It's the systematic questioning, uh, I, maybe a childhood trauma or whatever, that I don't know exactly what the ramifications are, where it comes from exactly. Yeah, but I think it's clearly one of the, if we want to kill some big buzzwords and all that, it's one of the superpowers you can have, it's how much the intuition of your weaknesses, uh, is important in what you undertake, because it's going to, if you choose a thing in which you think you're strong, hm, hm, and that you exist a bit too much in that, you're even, well, you're often going to meet people who are far stronger than you. To say, I'm crap. Yeah.

Uh, whereas if you start from the principle that you're crap, especially. Yeah. Uh, but not with a, a cynical outlook, you know, like not with a cynical angle, it's like, I'm crap, but I'm like, super. I was like a, a child, you know. But I try, I don't care, I try, that's it, it's like, for example, I still have that arrogance of thinking I can do anything as long as I put my mind to it, like, like for example, at the beginning, before doing, I had, I, I set up a company, then did the paperwork, I did my accounting, I even did my own corporate taxes all alone the first year, whereas everyone does it with an accountant. Yeah, and then it was clearly, like, no but I'm able to do it, I can effectively, yeah, I think that everyone, everyone is able to do it.

On the other hand, it's really super annoying. Super tedious. Except for my wife, who loves that, she's an accountant. She, she'll do Excel.

It's an experience. I exposed myself, I tasted the cauliflower of, of my parents. No, I don't like that. It's not for you.

But I tried, and actually it's just that, that candid, a bit naive naivety of trying the thing knowing you're going to be crap, and making peace with the idea, yes, what you're going to do is going to be bad, and even having that, that kind of self-deprecation and a bit of fun with it, where you're like, I did that, what was that, it was bad. And you know, you can involve your friends and all in that, because if you manage to surround yourself with friends who have a bit of that side too, self-deprecation, it's ideal, where actually you don't want to exist too much through your successes, because most of the time, well, what you do isn't amazing, or in any case it never reaches, you know, what the criteria of excellence are that you'd want to have. So when you have that frame of, like, ah no, uh, actually, uh, I'm bad at everything, and me, that's kind of what I apply. By default, I try things and I just follow this candid and naive curiosity of, ah, I'm going to try, we'll see. People tell me, ah, a company party and all, it's super annoying and all, and don't do that, it's really a waste of time. And then me, I'm like, yeah, maybe, maybe not, I've never tried. Yeah, that's it. For myself, to say, I'm going to say exactly the same thing.

It's, but you don't repeat, you don't repeat what others say. You speak from your experience. That's it. And I like that side, in the end, it's, you say something because you know it, you've experienced it, and not something you repeat because you heard it.

Yeah. Uh, so that intuition of being aware of one's own weaknesses, for me that's the best thing you can have, and not to focus, well, it's important to know what's good about you, but generally people don't have too much trouble with that. Sometimes they even tend to overrate how good they are at certain things.

Yeah. But to put it in perspective with what's really bad about you, and so to put yourself in places where, in the end, the bad aspects about you, that you're aware of, are actually, actually when you're going to fail, it just makes for experiences, opportunities for fun and self-deprecation. Yeah. If you manage to put yourself in projects or activities or tasks where actually it's failing, that's what it produces, well, all the better.

Because as a result, you won't be afraid to go for it, you're not going to procrastinate, because there are no consequences other than just having fun. So it stays cool all the same. Yeah, that's true. It's, it's not traumatic.

That's it. I'm not going to say that I'm, like, oh no, I'm sure of myself and all that. Uh, it's more, like, what pleases my monkey. It's the fun.

And actually when I, when I fail at a thing, sometimes it makes me laugh how a bit bad and chaotic it is. And sometimes I even quite like to say, actually I make it a point of honor to be extremely bad. OK. When you do a something where you compare with people, uh, sincerely try to be the most, the most bad.

Not just to sabotage, or, but to do something sincere and candid. But, but, like, you have to be the worst of everyone, you know. Like that, like, I was really crap, guys. But at least you can test, for example, me what I quite like with that approach, and not just being in mediocrity, that's not what I'm talking about, it's really, like, I have this problem with these components, this dimension where I can move my sliders, and, like, OK, I should put my slider somewhere in the middle, in all those dimensions, to have a solution that works. It's like, no, don't do that, but one slider completely to the right and the other completely to the left.

Even if people say, ah, don't do that, it doesn't work. But what, what happens if we put these two things at max? Is it funny or not? Like, it's really like making a machine that's going to run super fast and super hard and explode, hit a wall. And it's like, that has to be spectacular, you know.

And when it's spectacular, you've already, it's fun, but on top of that you've, you've learned some limits. Yeah. You're testing the system. Yeah, that's it.

System, and with that, it lets you really afterward be much more precise about, because there are people, they're going to lock themselves into a local minimum, uh, for safety, where people, well, that's what works well, and even if you try to optimize the thing. Whereas if you take things, you push them to the extreme, you're going to get a bit out of, in the end, find very original things. And in the end, it's the only way to really become good. Yeah, I imagine, because I'm also thinking back to VFX.

At the beginning, you're a bit paralyzed by doing wrong. And, uh, it's true that at the beginning, I had started really at the very bottom of the ladder, uh, in Montreal. We were a group of, I don't know, 12, there were a lot of graduates from Jonquière. Me, I already had a career in, in TV in Luxembourg, so I arrived a bit older, and I could tell right away, uh, who was going to stay or not.

Because actually the, those who were going to stay were the curious ones who tested things to see how far it would blow up. Yeah. Who afterward repaired the errors, you see. But it was to see, OK, are we able to go that far or not? And the others, they stayed in their comfort zone, sometimes they even had their phone with the game of, OK, on the side.

I, it's for sure that won't work, because you're not into it, you see. And then it's, it's not a job you can just do like that, come, clock in, it just doesn't work. I have a similar experience to an anecdote where actually we were at a party, I was with some, uh, VFX students too, and actually we were talking a bit about everything and nothing, in the end. Yeah.

And there's one, there's someone who started, actually, to show how much certain software has UX patterns that are really disastrous, and that as a result you find yourself doing, breaking your thing in a kind of grotesque way, and, and actually they started to show their render where actually it was still, my god, it's terrible what I did, I don't want to show that, and I'm like, go ahead, show it, and actually he shows it and it's hilarious, and we were all bursting with laughter, I'm like, you guys do that, like, make posts like that where you put, like, yeah, when you forget to do, you do that and there's this, and you put a post like that on, you know, like, Twitter, Reddit, whatever, you know, like, some social media or other, it's for sure it's going to explode, because everyone's going to look at that and smile really, really hard, saying, like, I've already been through that, and it's really, really funny, and actually it becomes a driver because you have an interaction and it becomes very, very strong, and so actually when you, you have other experiences like that, you're, you're more, ah, I'm going to laugh too again. Yeah, you feel less alone. And, uh, and I found it's, no but you, that, ahead of time and hilarious, then. It really shows an approach of, like, oh, well, we're, for me it's, I know it's not everyone, there are people who stay glued to a, to a kind of appearance of professionalism.

Look at how perfect what I did is. Me, if you show someone who tries strong things. Yeah, strong, and who shows how much they failed, but how much they tried. Yeah. And who's motivated, for me, it's like someone I want to have, because eventually they're going to, they're going to fall, actually, and they're going to, for me, it's my own learning process.

Yeah. That, they're actually going to fall on, they're going to become really, really good with, with time. So if you're able to give them the time and the space and the fun of having those experiences, uh, that guy, you have to recruit him, because actually he's going to, he's going to learn in an extreme way, and he's going to, he's going to manage to have a process at the end where it's, like, here, I tried everything, here's what works best, and it works really well, it works really strong. That's pretty much what they do, by the way, uh, what's it called, Nvidia, with their, their closed system where the robots, they do all the falls possible, imaginable, and that's how they learn to be good.

That's true. In the end, uh, it's the seniors that I saw, actually, the seniors, the real ones, the best of the best, it was the ones who were always excited by, uh, and if we did this, what does it give? I could see it in the ear, mischievous, minutes, let me think about it. I had a hack, almost, he completely diverted the software for, uh, a question relating to, but was there a piece of news at one point of, if AI designed a processor, uh, it would be completely different from what we know but much more efficient?

Was it, was it a real thing, that, or? Ah, uh, I imagine so, because there are, we have, we have computer architectures that are extremely, uh, old. Yeah. And, uh, and sometimes complex, and actually it's a process that's, we're more used to, because it's a standard that took, uh, it's like old mainframes that have existed for super long. It works and it works well, we're not going to change them. And it's true that actually it's easy to stay in those paradigms, and actually you don't need to find, to have a model of, that makes a computer architecture that's completely exotic. Yeah. You have plenty of people who think of models that are extremely exotic and that are more, kind of, pet projects, a bit, like, oh, it's interesting, but actually it, it creates, actually, a paradigm that's so different that, we can't use, it has no more interoperability, that's it, we can't use it anymore, so it stays something that's very, very fun, but since there's no large-scale use very quickly, actually it just becomes things that are curiosities on the side, so often, in fact, it's going to be advances that are going to be compatible with architectures that already exist, or else have old architectures that are, well, ARM, it's relatively young, but relatively old all the same.

Yeah, that's the basis of, like, phones, everything that's Apple, in the end, before, it's more, more X86. Yeah. Uh, then now we're going more toward technologies that are a bit more ARM for the general public and at large scale. So it's the phones, and you see, you can see it very well, if there hadn't been the phones that over-developed, actually, that technology, because the phones, actually, it was, uh, absolutely mandatory to have a battery that runs well.

OK. Yeah. Whereas X86, that's, that's plugged into the mains, otherwise it eats your whole battery. OK.

Uh, so, actually, it started to develop that side, but really we're talking about generation and generation of phones that developed that thing a bit. And in the end, actually, we realized. It's a bit, I think, the realization that Apple made before starting to do everything that's M1, M2 and all that. The Apple Silicon, it's OK.

Actually, the phone, it displays videos, you can launch your Google Doc in it. You can, actually, if we had a big screen with a keyboard, a mouse, it would make a computer at that point. Yeah. Yeah.

And actually, well, the computer lasts a whole day, so it's still much more efficient from an electrical standpoint. And not only that, actually, it's that, it's interesting because the, the architecture is more simplified, in the end, compared to X86. OK. They do fewer things, but actually they're operations that are more legacy, and that we use more these days, but actually we still embed them because you have to stay compatible.

OK. Uh, so actually the phones don't have too much of that, that baggage, uh, of age to support. Smartphones, that dates from the 2000s, whereas computers, that dates from before that. So you have, you have a bit of that side that over-developed that architecture.

Yeah. But so we still have these two predominant paradigms, X86 and ARM. But if you look at other exotic paradigms. Yeah, hundreds and thousands. There are plenty of people who do tests on computers, architectures that are sometimes even just theoretical, and that have better performance on paper than big architectures that are omnipresent today.

But it's just that, actually, the path to bring that to the general public doesn't really make sense, or in any case not yet today. So you'd say there are two types of architecture. One that's for the general public and one that's more for the render farms, the hyper-performant things that consume a lot. Oh yes, yeah, yes, yes.

You can have, well, for example, everything that's, definitely we clearly see there's a traction in the, the market that makes it so we want to over-develop those, those, those types of processors, for example. It was the same, for example, for Bitcoin. OK. Yeah.

On a smaller scale, but you really have an enormous, smaller scale, it's still staggering there, but, the CPUs, in the end, the, the, we call those ASICs there, it's really, circuits that are dedicated to just doing that type of operation, which is extremely much more performant, in the end, than anything else. OK. Yeah, we're talking 10, 100 times, 1000, you know, like, it was very, uh, but there was, there was a traction, there was. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Strong incentives.

Uh, but for AI, if we managed to have an AI that would potentially, we could imagine an experience, I think that from a complexity standpoint, the, the, the complexity is still too great for an LLM model to hold that in a context and do something coherent. Yeah. Uh, they can no doubt do micro portions of a processor, and afterward through games of abstraction, you know, assemble those, those pieces together, potentially. But actually, it would make a computer architecture that would be at least as interesting as someone who's at university who made a theoretical thing, and actually because it plays with the same bases, the same pieces.

That's it. And in the end, actually, it would stay an architecture that would be, well, what do we do with it now? There's no path toward the general public, in the end. OK.

Uh, have you already explored a little bit the quantum, the quantum computers? Yeah, it's a bit, a bit, yeah. I'll admit that every, I've watched plenty of videos, there's always that little, uh, click that I haven't exactly had in, in, in my head. I know that you, like, it's really with the multiple states and all that.

So it's, I know there are even games that try to popularize that. Uh, is it close to, closer to the organic than current processors? I wonder, no, not really, uh, it stays, it stays just, it's as if you changed the paradigm with a processor, and it's just that, for example, a processor, the transistors, so you have 0 and 1, and actually it's that you add additional states, and sometimes actually that are mixed, that there's still a part of observation and all that, so it's OK, but the basic electrical components are relatively the same for quantum, no, so you're going to have qubits that are different. The qubit, you're going to, uh, it's like an environment, uh, with an absolute zero, without going too much into the details, because clearly it's a subject that exceeds my, my understanding. I have vague ideas, but I don't know it well enough to popularize it properly.

Uh, but you know, like, the, the fundamental basis for a classic processor is transistors, whereas for quantum it's going to be something, uh, different. OK. Yeah. So it's just another way of computing, actually.

That's it. You're going to have other, like, the modeling of the problem you're trying to solve with your computer is radically different, because in the form and in the answer, you're going to have a form that's different. Because with a classic computer, you have 0s, 1s. Yeah.

On the other side, you have, like, a kind of mathematical formula with, with, with data that has several values that are a bit, for me at my, at my stage, a bit esoteric to understand. So it's, uh, it's an interesting problem, and I know that one of the only interests right now in over-developing that, that technology is, uh, there, everything that's cryptography. Yeah. Uh, because you're kind of forced to be, you are, cryptography, instead of using, uh, you can't really do a calculation to arrive at a solution. You're forced to say, OK, I try one, now I try two. Trying, it can't be sequential.

That's it. So you're forced to do plenty of tests, and, uh, and by chance, you're going to land on the right key. OK. Yeah.

Uh, whereas with qubits, you can manage to solve problems, uh, of decryption, because you manage to model the problem and have an answer that's going to give you, in the end, the right key. Uh, so that's the biggest stake with, uh, with quantum computers, in any case the biggest driver to try to push that thing. Like, it could be interesting to maybe one day there'll be a Hardchip on quantum computers, or who knows, I don't know, but I, but anyway, that's, uh, but to come back a bit to your way of seeing things, uh, you told me, in preparing this show, uh, how you'd handled a pretty toxic public feedback on your Discord, uh, that me personally, honestly, I would have just shut down. By the way, I saw a, a podcast by, I forgot his name, who said kind of the same thing.

But ever since you, you, you explained to me how you handled that, I've called into question a bit my, my way of doing it, because I found it really almost more effective. You see, we're talking about optimization of, of, of a processor. There, I really have the impression that you optimized your way of handling, uh, uh, the feedback, purely, uh, you see, purely, the guy, he came to express his frustration. Uh, can you give a bit of detail about that event?

Yeah. Uh, I assume that everyone is good, that's my starting point, and that people can be angry. And when they're angry, like me, I was when I was younger, I scream, and actually my, my feeling is genuine, but in the end the expression is completely chaotic, and I don't arrive at an interesting conclusion. So I put myself in his place, the guy, he sees something and he was frustrated, and actually for me it's, it's, you have, uh, it's, it's bad what you're doing.

Cool story bro. Uh, ah, it's interesting. How could I use it for that? And afterward you have that last notch, which is, like, ah, it's really crap.

Uh, I hate it. I don't like this evolution at all. It's someone. He's passionate because you have, you have, and he's so passionate, you broke his heart. Uh, and for me, I'm like, like, oh, he, there was really something extremely powerful in him. Yeah.

Uh, that led him to be so gratuitous on the internet. And there, you tie it back a bit to your physiological reactions, physiological, that you yourself could have when you have an anger that rises. Actually, you, you see a bit, you, you sense that in what he writes. I think everyone has felt that where you have an anger that rises, and I haven't always been super eloquent.

So me, I had the luck, as a result, of having anger fits very early in, in my childhood and my adolescence, actually, that brought absolutely nothing. Yeah. Uh, people were just afraid of me afterward, and actually that wasn't very interesting. Uh, it's that, as a result, I was like, well, I was misunderstood, and afterward even more alone.

So it's still, that didn't bring anything good. I kept a bit that approach of, no, the guy, he's really passionate, he loves the game. You're going to have people who are a bit troll, you know, they're going to come along, then they're going to, pleasure, they get pleasure, but they're going to choose places where precisely it's controversial. Yeah.

If for example you put a thing that's a bit political, or, uh, social conditions of any kind, you can easily go fishing for trolls, because the trolls, what they want to have, uh, is, uh, the rage bait, and, you know, people who come and who interact. If you come on a nerd game where you scream like that, there's no one who's going to react. Yeah. You don't get a crowd with you.

That's it. So for me, there's, like, OK, he can be a troll, but I think most people aren't, in any case clearly don't show signs of, of being a troll. Ah, it's interesting, that, to also dissociate the nature of the intervention. You have trolls, but you have people who are actually being aggressive too, and who are passionate about your game.

Yeah. And so at that moment, same as the guy who pressured me in the office a few years ago, like, we're watching you, uh, you stay calm. Uh, me, I was still angry. Yeah, because he had insulted your players too.

That's it. He had insulted my players, and then I, still, like, you can insult me, I don't care. Uh, you'd have to be too stupid to play a game like this, something like that. It's, you'd have to be a psychopath to play this kind of game, all the same, huh.

And I still, I don't really like that. So actually it's, to stay cold, actually it's to put yourself, as soon as you, you interact with that person, if you say, OK, uh, I understand your frustration, in any case I try to understand it. I feel there's something, and I feel it's strong. Uh, I'm sorry that there are things that don't meet your expectations, or whatever, whatever it is.

And afterward, you develop by saying, like, OK, but on the other hand, I think that qualifying, uh, players as psychopaths and all that, it's not constructive. I'd like you to stop that a little. You stay just, by saying, like, listen, uh, actually you have something to tell me, you missed that. I didn't understand what you mean.

That's it. I'm giving you another chance to, to tell me what's really important to you. Like, you, I'm listening to you, and so think a bit of certain conversations in couples. Ah, really?

Yeah, but it's, you can generalize that to everything, friends, family. You're trying to tell me something there, when you tell me I'm a big jerk. And so, and then it's not just presenting it, like, oh, I was angry, I understand. It's, it's really, like, now, uh, I want you to tell me, like, OK, I understand that, don't do that anymore, and don't keep getting in my face. And, like, I said it once, I'm not going to say it again. Yeah.

Uh, but now I'm going to say it several times. I want to hear what you have to tell me. It seemed important, you know. Like, you took the time to, to really do that.

He came on Steam and on Discord. He did it in two places. Ah yes, I'm like, no, tell me, what is it that's important? Afterward I even contacted him directly in DM, direct message, like, listen, I really want to, because I'm like, like, you have a thing to tell me, but to respond on that, it would be more like, a child, in the end, you know, like, having the affection that you, or the tenderness that you can have for a child, but understanding that when he's going to throw a tantrum at you, it's just that he doesn't understand exactly what all the tools are that he could use to really convey what his message is, and so to just be patient with, have the same tenderness toward him, that child.

Well, children, I find they're selfish and they just want to have attention, the, all that, but, but, but to understand that they have a thing to tell you, that you, you want to take action on what they have to tell you, you want them to be well and all that, and, and in the end, you just try to be patient with the form in which you present it, and not take things personally, because, well, he's criticizing because he wants attention, actually. Yeah. Yeah. And if you, if you frame people as adults and as responsible and sincere people, they're often going to go into that frame.

And if they refuse that frame with incentives, a simple incentive of, like, OK, I really want to listen to what you said. Then who keeps saying, it's crap, and it's crap. There, at that moment, you have consequences that are different. OK, you're going to, you're going to ban him or time out, or whatever.

You don't give him the platform either to get his kicks. Exactly. But you make him understand that, no, no, no. OK, I want you to tell me what you had to say.

It was important. Yeah. Hm. And so on top of that, what you were telling me is that you got interesting things out of it. Yeah.

Actually, I think I had an additional player who's not an ambassador, but in any case more, uh, motivated by the game, because now he knows there's a slightly more benevolent relationship between me and him, between him and me. And also he, he finally told me what it was that he was missing. Well, when, what he found sad. OK.

I was like, well, I didn't know it if you don't tell me. Yeah, yeah, I was happy to take it, because for me too it was an important element of the game that's often actually, uh, discouraged by, by plenty of other players. OK. And I, no, I'm happy that there's someone who's also passionate about that aspect, because for me, what is it, was it a moment where he was stuck in the game or not?

Actually it's that the game, it, you build, build chips, but you have a sci-fi story portion with a, you're in a kind of, of a factory or spaceship, we don't really know, to give some context. And so you have a lore with little, and all that. So you have a little story that gets set up, but it's not developed compared to the puzzle portion. Actually it's, you spend less than 1% of, of your time in the spaceship, and all the rest you spend, building chips, because that's kind of the, that's the goal of the game.

That's the goal of the game. But so him, he wants to dream, in the end, in that universe, and that's what pleased him. And actually, it was more the universe that led him to build chips than, ah, he wanted more of a ratio, uh, and he wanted that. And so, it's not progressing, because, like, I work a lot on the editor rather than on the story.

And even though I've thought a lot, uh, it's just that since I react to the incentive of my, the direction that my players want to have, the ones who speak up the most, uh, well, as a result, I, if everyone tells me, ah, I don't want to go into the story, it annoys me, we want a mode where we can just remove the story. Me, I'm like, well, I'm going to leave it because I think it's important for me, but I'm not going to over-develop it. And there, as a result, there's someone who's passionate about it. I, ah, it's cool. Yeah.

And so it's feedback that's super important, and I thanked him for finally telling me what he wanted. I mean, next time you tell me directly. Tell me these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But precisely, there's a part relating to that where you know, because I watched, I'd have to watch it to refresh it in my head, Indie Game. Then there were a lot of quotes and, and situations where you saw that the game developers, they kind of merged with their game, not so much through the graphic representation of the game, but through, uh, the interaction they had with the players, you see. It became a bit like a kind of entity that the player associates with their pleasure of playing that game, and when it didn't go in the right direction, uh, they took it very personally. Uh, you, do you have a way of dissociating yourself from that? Do you, do you keep that side of, uh, here's the contract that protects you a little, or how, how do you make sure it stays healthy for your own development too?

I, on that, the contract is that it's, for me it's in, I'll admit it's a bit weird because it's still my players who pay me, but it's in the other direction that I have it, it's that for me a company should try to do everything in their power to make it so that you're well, in the sense that it's they who ask you for something. Hm. Uh, so it's, as long as it still makes sense for both, that the company can grow and, and, uh, for me it's making profits, but for me profits is just making capital to develop that service and that product, and to make it so that you make a service that's important for society. Making profits to make profits, it's not super interesting. Even though profits can be used for, like, I don't know, plenty of employees who became very, very rich, and so they're going to become economic agents themselves, and, like, develop restaurants.

There you go, it's never just accumulation of capital. That's it. It should always be a means to do something. And the more you do things that are interesting and that improve the lot of society, the better it is, I find.

I think that's the basic idea. It's the basic idea. It should stay that idea. I think we deviate from it from time to time, from time to time.

By the way, just to come back to what you were saying before relating to contemplation, in this show with, it ties in with the two ideas. You had the philosopher who told Oussama Ammar that she came to study a bit the crazy entrepreneurs of, of Dubai, and that there was still a, a philosophical approach that said that contemplation, the fact of not being productive, is something that's fundamental for human beings, and that we're not designed to be productive all the time. Uh, so maybe actually it's also a way, uh, for our body, when we procrastinate, you see, to tell itself, OK, I have to immerse myself in beauty, I have to immerse myself, because I'm also talking about, about, about the book Via Le Renard. Me, it's, it's a project I associate myself with, that I want to develop, that I want, it's, so, a, a, a children's book that I want to bring to life with its author Jonathan Bellîil. Not to be productive, but because for me it's beautiful when you read it, and there's, there's a contemplative aspect in it. And, and it really pleased me to hear that part, that philosophers recognize it as being something profoundly.

We're talking about microprocessors, low level for computers, but there it would be a bit the equivalent of the low level for a human being. It's yes to being productive, but yes also to having that part of contemplation and just appreciation of beauty without any goal, that sometimes in the entrepreneurial world we can find as completely absurd and useless, but that in the end if you think, uh, me it's always tickled me, and I tell myself that no, it's an integral part of, of the process. I have no idea why I went off on that. But yes, identity relative to the project.

Yes, indeed, I, if you want to do a bit of, yes, I think creative wandering, there you go, uh, curiosity, boredom is also an extremely important component, with procrastination, it's that as a result, as you say, you immerse yourself in, in beauty, or you can immerse yourself in boredom, but so it becomes a kind of, of boredom that becomes not productive, but, and that pushes curiosity. It's, like, yeah, because there was the guy, the screenwriter of Bref, who talked about it, who said that he treated his creativity like a buddy who shouldn't ask him for stuff all the time, otherwise he had, his buddy was going to tell him off, who had to leave it a little too, and rest from time to time, and indeed afterward there are, there are people who never use it, there are some for whom it's, it's a, a relationship that you have to cultivate over time. But for example, procrastination, I find it's an element that's major in people who have, uh, as a result, those, those creative wanderings. Uh, how exactly they're linked, I'd have trouble describing it, but it's often together, of, if you're a procrastinator, you're often going to want to think a lot about how to do things more simply, or how, in a more pleasant or more fun way.

Uh, because as a result, you, you dread the boredom behind it. OK. Yeah. And as a result, boredom can become an ally in, in those cases, because as a result, it becomes a driver of, well, of motivation for, ah, go on, I'm going to, I want to read, uh, that book because I'm really bored, you know, like, watching, uh, the same film that's been made 10 times but a different one, but it's the same film, you know, you can have that form of, and, in front of that film.

Yeah. Whereas when you go looking for films that you think are a bit too far from you, but that you're like, I, I want to try a thing there, I need, I need, I have this boredom that, and you go into it, and actually for you it's a waste of time. So there's procrastination that's often linked to that, where in the end I, doing the things that are the least necessary. And so actually, you can find that, that kind of, all those factors where you can press those buttons, where actually you push yourself to discovery, to exploration, to creative wandering, as I like to call it, or that allows accidents, positive accidents, as, you know, a bro would say, or. Yeah.

You couldn't have otherwise. That's it. I find that's important, indeed. Uh, but to come back to the identity of the, for the project, uh, that we had a little phase of wandering there.

Little phase of wandering. Indeed, the game, the product should be, uh, you should put a bit of yourself into it. From the time, from the moment that it's, it's, the success of the project depends entirely on you, you have all the incentives to make it so that it works better. So you can go harder at it, and going harder at it often, use aspects, appropriate aspects, you know, like, identity aspects of, of its success, you know, and appropriate them, that can work too, that can become a driver. To be careful, same, it's a matter of middle ground, not to fall into the, the absolute forgetting, uh, of oneself to become one's project, because at that moment, if there are things that go wrong, you can fall into a kind of paralysis, or, in, you take slaps in the end from which you don't get back up.

Yeah. And you also have to make it so that it's something you have to be able to lose, and that if you lose, you don't lose yourself. OK. And that, it's really important, I think.

So it's, you know, like, for example, uh, hm, I don't know if it's a good one, but, like, for example, an, an absolute forgetting, it's, it's being a parent, you, or an investment, or an investment. Yeah. You can't lose, in the sense that, you know, you play, I don't know, a bitcoin, but you play it only if you're able to live without it. Exactly.

If you manage to be in that case, it's good. Uh, then it can become a side that's more, oh, I quite like to play a bit with my money, even though I find it weird, but why not, or else, ah, I'm trying to invest in that thing, but we can't go through normal channels, so I go with bitcoin or whatever. Uh, that, that can work, but you, you have to stay on a line where you appropriate the thing but you keep in mind that it has to stay a productive approach, and it's good to use catastrophe scenarios to say, is there, like, I think it was the creator of Fez who said that in, in your notes, I forgot his last name, that creator, who's, like, I only exist through this, and here, this, you see, in his, I no longer exist. It's, yeah.

Yeah. It's cool because actually it creates a work that's of an absolute sincerity. Yeah, it's visceral. Uh, but it would have been a shame if it didn't work, because it would have been dramatically dramatic for that guy.

So even if it works, I find it's not balanced either, you see. It's not a good way to, there's clearly a way to be, to be there and be passionate about what you do and still exist through other aspects that make it so that if that aspect, the game, your professional project, collapses, uh, other aspects of your life are going to make it so that it's worth it anyway to continue, because precisely there's maybe less that contribution side and more that significance side, which is, I find, the most insidious human need, because we do a lot of things for, how could we better translate significance, it's, uh, huh, of, yeah. Of, of, of distinguishing oneself, or in any case for oneself and for, and relative to others. Uh, and, and it's something also that, that I study a lot relative to the, uh, emotional wounds that Lise Bourbeau tries to map out, but that I also find incomplete, you see, because in the end we're reaction to that, but I think what's really useful is a bit, what you do with it afterward. You see, that's why I'm asking you all these questions relating to that, it's that you, you really managed to convert your, all, all the, the situations that were maybe incomprehensible, or that you didn't know how to handle at some point X, into, like, experience, to, uh, rebalance yourself and build on top of it in a positive way, you see, balanced.

And that, I find it's much more relevant than trying to, you see, to dwell on the past or to try to see, because in the end, as I was saying on our show one moment, an emotional trauma, it's your mother who came to pick you up 10 minutes late at kindergarten, and you created a whole world around that, but in the end it's nothing at all. Uh, it's more like, what, how do you say with today? Then, uh, then yes, you see it, uh, the guy from Fez, he's, you see, he's, he's gnawed at, he's consumed by his game. Heh, that's, that's clear.

The game, it's too cool. My son played it, he loved it, then at one point he saw that it turned in 3D, he goes, what? But is it worth putting your life in danger? I'm not sure, you see.

Ah no, I'm clearly not, you have to put yourself into your project, you have to sincerely believe that you still have something to lose, but not, not, not, not your life. It's worth your mental health, you know, at the same time, you still have to, in the end, be, because what is, succeeding, it's having taken a risk and that it, that it worked. Yeah, that's it. Otherwise, stay in a company and stay an employee, you won't take risks but you'll have a comfortable life and all that.

Yeah. Get paid all the same, that'll be, that is to say, the big problem. That's it. So it's important to put a bit of one's, of oneself into, into the game, but in a sensible and moderate way.

Yeah. Uh, always within, it's sincerely me, but, uh, it's not my bad sides. Uh, it's not my, my devouring passion. Uh, even though, as a result, you can have a work like Fez, to the extreme, the guy, and, and you can actually immerse yourself in that world, but it's like watching a film with characters who have completely crazy lives.

Yeah. And you're still, like, whoa, it's crazy, I don't want to have this life, but it's crazy for me. Yeah, that's it. You just want to dream, and actually, shelter yourself there in the comfort of your seat. Uh, and it's a bit, it's a bit that.

So you can still manage to offer a bit of that. Show your inner world. Yeah. Without, without going into extremes, in my opinion, without going into extremes like that. Especially if you want to keep doing it longer than a single game.

What is, uh, Étienne in 5, 10 years? Uh, who is Étienne? What is, or what is it in the sense of, relative to your company? What I'd quite like, there for the moment, actually, the path has been company, then there I was like, OK, I'm going to prove myself, uh, I'm sick of not making a difference.

So I, I start something on my own, I have complete control over it, the arrogance of thinking I can control everything, and the choices of my weaknesses, I, doing a thing that's deliberately simple, and there in the end it's rediscovering a bit more the side of, I know now sincerely, uh, there are things that, doing it all alone, I can do. Yeah, but actually I, I just have to choose, and so there are necessarily things I can no longer do, and that it's not a question of personal limitation. Yeah. Uh, it's just that if I want to get to that, and especially that I want my players to be able to say, OK, we want to see you get to that. Their expectations too, actually, it's, as a result, to surround myself, uh, with people and, uh, and a team, maybe, uh, so that in the end we can deliver a bit more on that, on that vision, because, like, me what breaks my heart is that that guy who's really angry, hears about, and who talks to me about a thing, and I'm like, well, no, I believe in it, like, doing what you just told me.

I'd like to be able to set it up, but I know I have big weaknesses, so I try to see shortcuts in that, but it's not always compatible with going fast, and, and just compatible with the other aspects that are demanded much more by other players. Yeah. Yeah. So having a structure, a small team, uh, people who work a bit with me, uh, who believe in the project the way I believe in it, and, and with whom it works well, because I know that the team is everything, it's, it's that that makes a product, it's, for me there are a lot of companies, even from a purely cold and financial standpoint, who are going to buy a team rather than a product.

Yeah. Uh, hm, and so to go a bit into that. I want to stay, uh, extremely independent, uh, live off the, the revenue, uh, of the game only, and not go off into investing forward with investors who, as a result, have expectations. Yeah.

Uh, so I try to do a thing that's a ball that grows, a snowball that, that gains momentum by itself, and it's still kind of a game that could work in that, and it wouldn't bother me to continue and to still be on Hardchip. In 5 or 10 years, but to have brought it to a stage that makes it, uh, an absolute reference in terms of, of learning and discovery for the, the logic of the transistor, and how it's built, and how you want to discover that and learn. And, uh, and also that little side, kind of story, that's really important to me, since I love story, for me, that's what gives meaning to just doing puzzles. Yeah. Uh, can you really reduce the game to just doing puzzles?

Uh, creating a story that's interesting, like, I have big inspirations, uh, that I find fundamental, like, for example, it's a game called The Talos Principle, which is a pure, hard puzzle game. So it's puzzles where you have a, a, systems of puzzles that are made for, uh, well, systems that are made just to serve a puzzle, for it to be fun. So a puzzle, a good puzzle, it's, OK, I get to it. Ah, obvious solution, so it's a, a misconception, you do the thing, ah, it doesn't work, ah, shoot, and you think hard, and afterward you have a moment.

Ah, you do it, and there it works, like, I'm super intelligent. And, and it's really that, that, that experience, which is, uh, created by puzzle masters, which is really hard to do. OK. The Talos Principle does it super well, but in the end it stays only puzzles, and actually they created a story, a lore, and a narrative experience that's just crazy, in my opinion.

You can do without it, you can just do the puzzles if you just want to do puzzles. But there's an approach that's so rich on the lore that makes you dream. Uh, they tackle plenty of very philosophical subjects with, theses that take you into, sometimes, philosophy texts. Yeah. And that make you, they just make it so that you, it makes you think of something, it makes you reflect, it calls you into question, it even invites you to go check out those works, without ever saying, like, you now have to read them to understand what you have to do next.

Yeah. As a result, it sublimates the puzzle experience. Exactly. And actually it's, you, you do the puzzles because they're cool and you feel dumb and intelligent in that, that experience that I was describing to you, uh, of the puzzle.

But you also have that side of, like, but what's going to happen? Where are we going to go in the, the reflection. Yeah. And not just purely philosophical, but you know, like, there's, there's also the story that's really very well developed in the, you, you satisfy the different types of intelligence. The appetite for variety of, of story, romanced, let's say, but also, uh, just the, the algebra, you see, the more, uh, direct thing, which is the technical calculation. Yeah.

You play a bit on the two types, it's clear that I understand why the two go together, you know. It's a bit like activating the left brain and the right at the same time there. So that kind of experience, that would, I'd be really happy to have managed to create that and to be recognized for Hardchip, recognized for that. So it's kind of that, the, the vision.

Very, very cool. We can maybe finish on a piece of advice for someone who wants to get started, according to you. Uh, what would, well, we, we've gone through yours. Uh, but what would be the, the minimum necessary steps for someone who wants to get started creating their own game?

What would be the, the basic survival kit, according to you, to go from employee to independent? What are the, the, you see, the non-negotiables that, that you have to be careful about? The non-negotiables. I'm going to try to generalize that, because me, I have a chaotic approach, I'm not organized, well, I try to be, but I'm not very organized.

I have, the, creative wanderings. Like, I try to do plenty of things here and there. It's very, un, you have to be, that, already actually the first piece of advice, take your weaknesses into account.

You said it yourself, indeed, thanks to monExpansion. Exactly. Notably, indeed, to revisit, it's, you have to leave a company in peace, uh, because that means you understand the situation. It can become, the anger can become, or the frustration can become a driver of decision, but the final decision, the, the final act, has to be an act of peace.

You know, or, and, uh, and so it's kind of that process that you should have, uh, internally when you're still in a company, in a company. After that, you also have to set aside the fact that your subsistence needs have to be covered for a non-negligible period. 2, 3 years if you have, if you're able, or else you try to size it. OK, I only have 6 months. You size your project to have something in 6 months.

It's very hard to do something in 6 months. You can do small games. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But make peace with the idea that if you have only 6 months, for example, you're going to do 6 months and actually you're going to go back into the salt mines, uh, into salaried work, pardon. And afterward you can redo the process maybe a bit later.

Yeah. Hm, but you have to, your, your basic needs, if you're not able to put food on, on the table, your questions of fulfillment and meaning are going to lose meaning very quickly. Yeah. Yeah, that's clear.

You're going to go back to basics. That's it. You have to settle that. So that, you have to be able to be rock solid on that.

Uh, that can come through, you know, being a bit more, uh, simple in your, uh, spending, your, your spending. Uh, but you have to be able to say, OK, I can live with that, uh, for an interesting amount of time, and if you want to make a game that's really very creative and that doesn't exist, uh, plan for 2, 3 years. You want to reapply a recipe that already exists, that has a niche, well, that has a niche, that has an audience that exists well, uh, that you can size, say, like, OK, there are, there are millions, millions of players, I have that market size, uh, I have operational excellence because I come from a studio that already makes games. Uh, well, I can start executing on a thing and know what that time is that you'd need, and stay with your, like, little buffers of, of delay, like we all have. Yeah. And to be, to be smart with that time.

But you have to know what the horizon is that you have. If you don't know where you're going, you have to go for 2, 3 years. If you know what you can do, what your capacities are, what it takes, you can try to go for much shorter periods. OK.

Uh, but at that moment, it's more someone who'd be in the field, who'd already tried, who'd also seen small projects, because people who work at Ubisoft, they don't necessarily have a good vision, because it's a, yeah, it's so big, an enormous mastodon that manages way too many things, that you're really going to fall into the, the details of operation that are really costly in time when you're all alone. Yeah. Uh, so it's, it's kind of that, it's that period of time that's really major. Afterward, I think that from a personal standpoint, internal journey, on top of being at peace with the company, knowing your weaknesses, it's having tried and attempted some approaches to entrepreneurship, where you try to promote a project and you try to promote projects for devs, or if you have access to clients directly, for those clients, or for your directors if you have an audience with directors, or things like that.

So to try to put forward things to, uh, work that muscle a bit, of, of exchange, of community. Me, I quite liked working with all the other devs because as a result it's, like, we're peers and I want to help you, help you, and then you can help me, then we try to go into that, and you try to promote a project. You're going to have limitations. People are going to say, it's cute, your thing, stop, or else, like, yes, ah no, go ahead, continue, but in the end they really prevent you from going there.

But that's not the objective, it's actually it's practicing being able to do it. And once it's 100%, because I was doing, I made a, an internal documentary as an employee at Rodeo. Uh, and actually, even, you talk about practicing, but even that made me progress in my career as an employee, because precisely you do something that no one asked you for, that's about putting the company in a good light. Uh, in this case it was the documentary on how we worked on Deadpool, uh, that the boss was like, whoa, but it's great, and at the end you, you marked, made by the employees of Rodeo. We did it in ninja mode, we didn't spend money, it was like, we did that really with not many hours, so we didn't bleed the company, let's say, then it gives a hyper strong message, actually, to the people you work for, you say, OK, these people, they're really passionate, and so we got promoted, you know, based on that. Absolutely.

It can be as simple as having the nerve to say, OK, I'm going to, there's a, a tournament, whatever, a thing where you, you have an audience with your colleagues, and so it's, OK, I'm going to present things. Yeah. Knowing that you're going to be bad at the beginning, a bit clumsy, you're going to have people who'll say, no, it's, or else people who'll say, ah, cool story bro, then afterward you're going to have people who, ah no but actually how can we use this and that. Yeah. If you manage to reproduce those experiences and that journey of, you managed to convince, some, some people, you're going to find yourself in a better position personally to talk to perfect strangers who don't give a [ __ ] about you, and so as a result you're going to be able to, you'll already have that muscle and that, that reflex, and also dissociate the, the effort and the reward that you have at, OK, actually I make the effort but it's going to be much later in the end, the consequences and the benefits that, yeah, I'm going to get, so for me it's kind of those sides, the, to sum up, it would be your subsistence needs. Uh, knowing, as a result, the, the amount of time you need relative to your weaknesses, that you're able to execute or not.

If you're in learning mode and you don't know the field, you're going to have to have time. If it's a new game that doesn't exist, you're going to need a period of creative wandering. If you're in a recipe that works and you're already in a field extremely similar to just doing video games, or video games, well, there you can have a lower time budget, but it has to be covered. It's that freedom of mind there. Uh, inner peace, uh, because I think it's important to be at inner peace relative to the company, use, uh, extreme ownership or whatever, to say, OK, they have their approach, it's something that doesn't work with me, uh, but I respect it, and it's something that works and that stays beneficial, and last, to have that little approach of, OK, I'm starting, uh, that entrepreneur, entrepreneurship side, of presenting things, of talking to people, of trying to present my ideas, of having them criticized, of having people tell me, no, it's crap. People who tell me, cool sto, cool story bro, and finally people who say, ah, it's really interesting how we can set this up. If you manage to have those elements, I think you can get started and have something interesting, make peace with the idea that you're going to make, you know, like, as much as in your company.

Yeah. Yes, that too, huh, it's important to note. You're going to, you're going to have survivors that you mustn't look at, that you, don't compare yourself to, like, Fez or, uh, Stardew Valley, or, uh, any other project in your field that are, the, the, stars, in the end. No, for them, there are a thousand people who failed or who didn't make something, yeah.

Yeah. Of, functional. Yeah. Because it can be a trap too, comparing yourself to those goals, because as a result it's, you're sure to, to not succeed, or, that, never compare yourself to those people. You can use them for pitches if you're going to go looking for investment, because you don't have enough, and you want your time, as a result, to be paid by an investor, and you give them counterparts, shares in the sales or whatever.

Yeah, you can go look for figures in those games because it's investors you're talking to. But when you try to convince yourself, you mustn't lie to yourself. Yeah. If you set your, your bar at that level, it's almost a way of self-sabotaging.

Yeah. Then it's for sure that you'll never get there. You'll never be as good as those people. I said it in the previous podcast, but it's, those are people, they've been doing this for, uh, if you compare for example to Fez, compare, a guy who's been doing this forever, he spent, uh, years doing that, he destroyed himself, he's miserable.

Stardew Valley, we won't even talk about it. Today, it's going much better. He's clearly in a thing that works better, for 7 years, and it was just a miserable guy. Yeah.

Uh, and well, he was happy but he was, like, he clearly had, uh, personal issues that gnawed at him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, uh, and is it something you really want to live? Is, is it the same goal to reach? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's something you can maybe live when you're a, when you're 20 years old or things like that, because you can still forget yourself in passions and try to do something with it, and that you forget yourself and that the, the consequences stay not too dramatic. If you're too old, you have to have a more, uh, pragmatic approach with that. Yeah.

More sustainable, because anyway you're not going to, you've already no doubt had traumas in your twenties that you've fixed, that you told yourself, well, I don't want to redo it, it's just too dumb. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but afterward who knows, huh, you never know, uh, how much you, you know, you, I find, I find it's better to start with sustainable goals and to let yourself be surprised if ever, there you go, uh, the appearance on a YouTube show makes it so that there are suddenly 15,000 players who come. Yeah, maybe not now, but when there are 100,000 subscribers on the channel, leave the door open, surprise too.

Nice. Is there something we haven't covered that you wanted to cover? Uh, we can cover plenty more subjects, but I think that already the, the structure, it's a bit chaotic. It's a bit my own, too.

Me, I adapt, huh, to the guests. I'm very chaot. You can launch me on plenty of subjects. I'm going to, I'm going to bounce off them.

There, there are plenty of nuggets. Me, I think there are really a lot of useful things that were said. I think you're still going to have a little challenge trying to sort out the good from the pure, hard wandering, which is in the end a bit difficult to justify, maybe. I don't know.

No, on the long version, I know that anyway there won't even be less than 1% who'll listen to it in full. OK. So I leave them the pleasure of, you see, it's a bit like the equivalent of the Discord where people, they want to see, they want to be part of the complete experience. For the others, it'll be the short version, 5 minutes, or the shorts.

OK. Yeah. Listen, me, I listen to long podcasts like that, very long, while doing activities, walking, and then it, it pleases me precisely to have a bit of that side, I really want to go all the way to the DNA of what they say, to really, how do you say in NLP, map out their, their mindset, you see, the more you hear them talk, the more you manage to understand who they are as a, like, thing, I quite agree that long, long formats let you understand people well, well, very, thank you very much for the supplement of soul that you added to this conversation. Thanks for having me.