WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.040 Imagine for just a moment that you are stranded, 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:06.139 and I mean really stranded, deep in a punishing, 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:08.580 unforgiving jungle in Brunei. Right, like the 00:00:08.580 --> 00:00:10.380 kind of place where the canopy above you is so 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:12.560 thick it just blocks out the sun entirely. Yeah, 00:00:12.580 --> 00:00:15.519 exactly. And the humidity is absolutely suffocating. 00:00:15.539 --> 00:00:18.660 But worse than that, imagine that you are starving. 00:00:18.899 --> 00:00:21.480 And not just, you know, skipping lunch starving. 00:00:21.559 --> 00:00:24.739 No, no. Desperate biological panic starving. 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:27.440 You have completely run out of your food rations. 00:00:27.519 --> 00:00:30.219 It's just an awful situation. It is. In a bid 00:00:30.219 --> 00:00:33.100 just to keep your body functioning, you resort 00:00:33.100 --> 00:00:36.359 to foraging for wild ferns. You're so desperate 00:00:36.359 --> 00:00:38.539 for sustenance that you are literally choking 00:00:38.539 --> 00:00:41.619 down rotten fish you managed to find. Wow. Yeah. 00:00:41.780 --> 00:00:44.420 By the time this whole ordeal is over, you have 00:00:44.420 --> 00:00:47.600 lost a staggering 25 kilograms. Which is what? 00:00:48.009 --> 00:00:49.929 Roughly 55 pounds? Right around there, yeah. 00:00:50.070 --> 00:00:52.270 And your body is so battered that you actually 00:00:52.270 --> 00:00:54.850 require surgery just to repair the physical damage. 00:00:55.049 --> 00:00:57.630 That sounds like the inciting incident of a thriller 00:00:57.630 --> 00:01:01.170 movie or something. It really does. But now I 00:01:01.170 --> 00:01:03.450 want you to think about taking that harrowing 00:01:03.450 --> 00:01:06.010 near -death experience, pulling yourself... out 00:01:06.010 --> 00:01:08.750 of that jungle and translating that exact feeling 00:01:08.750 --> 00:01:11.829 of desperation into one of the most wildly influential 00:01:11.829 --> 00:01:15.150 video games of the entire 2010s. It's actually 00:01:15.150 --> 00:01:17.969 the genesis of an entirely new genre of digital 00:01:17.969 --> 00:01:20.549 entertainment. Welcome to this deep dive. Our 00:01:20.549 --> 00:01:23.150 mission today is to map the intersection of extreme 00:01:23.150 --> 00:01:25.950 real world survival and digital game design. 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:28.099 And we're doing that by looking at the incredible 00:01:28.099 --> 00:01:30.920 life of Dean Rocket Hall. We are. We're unpacking 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:33.239 how a highly disciplined military background 00:01:33.239 --> 00:01:35.879 unexpectedly birthed the zombie survival sensation 00:01:35.879 --> 00:01:40.079 DayZ and really how one creator's intense personal 00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:42.620 drive completely disrupted the traditional gaming 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:44.840 industry. This isn't just a standard biography 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:47.260 of a game designer. We're looking at a fascinating 00:01:47.260 --> 00:01:50.430 case study on human resilience today. It is about 00:01:50.430 --> 00:01:52.969 how profound physical and emotional trauma can 00:01:52.969 --> 00:01:56.269 be synthesized, processed and ultimately transformed 00:01:56.269 --> 00:01:59.170 into digital experiences that resonate with millions 00:01:59.170 --> 00:02:01.310 of people. OK, let's unpack this, because to 00:02:01.310 --> 00:02:03.769 understand the jungle, we have to we have to 00:02:03.769 --> 00:02:05.730 understand where this all started. Right. The 00:02:05.730 --> 00:02:08.610 timeline kicks off in a place called Omaru, New 00:02:08.610 --> 00:02:12.849 Zealand. Yep. Born in May of 1981, he attended 00:02:12.849 --> 00:02:15.550 Waitaki Boys High School, and he developed this 00:02:15.550 --> 00:02:18.830 really deep fascination with computers early 00:02:18.830 --> 00:02:22.169 on. Which was a big deal back then. It was. His 00:02:22.169 --> 00:02:24.729 parents bought him an Amiga personal computer, 00:02:24.969 --> 00:02:27.550 which became his very first introduction to the 00:02:27.550 --> 00:02:30.669 actual mechanics of video game development. You 00:02:30.669 --> 00:02:33.430 know, the Amiga was a foundational machine for 00:02:33.430 --> 00:02:35.949 an entire generation of programmers. Oh, absolutely. 00:02:36.349 --> 00:02:38.969 It was accessible enough for a teenager to tinker. 00:02:39.050 --> 00:02:42.169 with its architecture, but robust enough to actually 00:02:42.169 --> 00:02:46.090 compile and build functional logic -based software. 00:02:46.550 --> 00:02:49.830 It heavily rewarded curiosity. And what's incredible 00:02:49.830 --> 00:02:52.229 is that during this time, he wasn't just like 00:02:52.229 --> 00:02:54.530 sitting in a dark room coding in isolation. Right, 00:02:54.590 --> 00:02:56.469 he was highly social with it. Yeah, he was playing 00:02:56.469 --> 00:02:58.889 tabletop role -playing games with a fellow New 00:02:58.889 --> 00:03:01.189 Zealander named Chris Butcher. Now that is a 00:03:01.189 --> 00:03:03.719 name drop. I know, right? If that name rings 00:03:03.719 --> 00:03:06.319 a bell for any gaming fans out there, Butcher 00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:08.539 later became the technical director at Bungie. 00:03:08.659 --> 00:03:10.780 Where he worked on absolute juggernauts of the 00:03:10.780 --> 00:03:13.259 industry. Yeah, Halo and Destiny. That is just 00:03:13.259 --> 00:03:16.259 an immense concentration of future industry influence 00:03:16.259 --> 00:03:19.479 sitting around a single tabletop. It really makes 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:22.919 you think. I actually want you listening right 00:03:22.919 --> 00:03:25.800 now to consider the childhood hobbies that shaped 00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:28.770 your current career. You never really know who 00:03:28.770 --> 00:03:30.909 is sitting across the table from you rolling 00:03:30.909 --> 00:03:34.090 dice, or how those early imaginative problem 00:03:34.090 --> 00:03:37.370 -solving sessions are wiring your brain for the 00:03:37.370 --> 00:03:39.990 future. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:03:40.169 --> 00:03:43.030 what is crucial to understand about Hall is that 00:03:43.030 --> 00:03:46.430 he did not take a linear path. No, not at all. 00:03:46.530 --> 00:03:48.969 He didn't go from that Amiga computer straight 00:03:48.969 --> 00:03:52.090 into a major tech hub or a massive game studio. 00:03:52.370 --> 00:03:55.080 Right, he took a hard pivot. He really did. He 00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:57.379 moved into an environment defined by extreme 00:03:57.379 --> 00:03:59.780 rigidity. He served as a commissioned officer 00:03:59.780 --> 00:04:02.319 in the Royal New Zealand Air Force for five years. 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:05.199 That is quite the leap, going from the boundless 00:04:05.199 --> 00:04:07.759 creative freedom of early computer programming 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:10.240 to the incredibly strict hierarchy of the Air 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:12.159 Force. That's a massive culture shock. And he 00:04:12.159 --> 00:04:14.500 didn't stop there. During that time, he completed 00:04:14.500 --> 00:04:16.779 a degree at the University of Otago. Which was 00:04:16.779 --> 00:04:19.259 funded by a defense scholarship, right? Exactly. 00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:22.420 And later, in 2009, he actually re -enlisted 00:04:22.420 --> 00:04:25.019 in the New Zealand Army. He served as a commissioned 00:04:25.019 --> 00:04:27.899 officer in the Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals. 00:04:28.019 --> 00:04:30.600 Now, the Signals Corps is entirely focused on 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:33.459 communications, information systems, and logistics 00:04:33.459 --> 00:04:36.339 under extreme pressure. Which seem like polar 00:04:36.339 --> 00:04:38.699 opposites to game design on the surface. They 00:04:38.699 --> 00:04:41.319 do, yeah. You have the highly structured, disciplined, 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:45.060 zero margin for error world of the military running 00:04:45.060 --> 00:04:48.139 parallel to the deeply chaotic creative world 00:04:48.139 --> 00:04:50.399 of software development. But they actually complement 00:04:50.399 --> 00:04:53.420 each other. Perfectly. The military teaches you 00:04:53.420 --> 00:04:56.120 how to manage complex, overlapping systems. It 00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:58.199 teaches you how to handle supply chains, resource 00:04:58.199 --> 00:05:00.839 management, and how to operate when things inevitably 00:05:00.839 --> 00:05:03.180 break down. Which happens constantly in game 00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:06.180 dev. Constantly. Those are the exact skills required 00:05:06.180 --> 00:05:08.939 to wrangle complex code and manage the production 00:05:08.939 --> 00:05:11.879 of a massive video game. His military background 00:05:11.879 --> 00:05:14.220 wasn't a detour from his game design career. 00:05:14.459 --> 00:05:17.240 It was the ultimate training ground for it. Here's 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:19.819 where it gets really interesting, though, because 00:05:19.819 --> 00:05:22.120 all that theoretical structure and logistical 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:24.879 training is about to be violently tested in the 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:28.120 real world. This is the Brunei trip. Yes. So 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:31.199 in 2009, during his time with the army, Hall 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:33.720 was posted on an exchange program with the Singapore 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:37.000 Armed Forces. And as part of that exchange, he 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:39.819 was sent to Brunei to complete a grueling survival 00:05:39.819 --> 00:05:42.600 training course. And we should clarify, this 00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:45.319 was not a simulated classroom -style training 00:05:45.319 --> 00:05:48.189 exercise. Oh, no. Not at all. This was a brutal 00:05:48.189 --> 00:05:52.189 physical test of human endurance in one of the 00:05:52.189 --> 00:05:54.050 most unforgiving environments on the planet. 00:05:54.170 --> 00:05:56.730 To make matters worse, Hall was not used to the 00:05:56.730 --> 00:05:59.170 local diet to begin with. That immediately put 00:05:59.170 --> 00:06:01.269 him at a physical disadvantage before the hardest 00:06:01.269 --> 00:06:03.389 parts even began. He was already running on a 00:06:03.389 --> 00:06:05.870 deficit. Right. So as the training progressed 00:06:05.870 --> 00:06:09.170 into the actual survival component, things went 00:06:09.170 --> 00:06:12.230 from difficult. too genuinely life -threatening, 00:06:12.269 --> 00:06:14.470 he completely ran out of food. That is when the 00:06:14.470 --> 00:06:16.949 desperation truly sets in. Yeah, he resorted 00:06:16.949 --> 00:06:19.149 to foraging for those wild ferns I mentioned 00:06:19.149 --> 00:06:21.670 earlier. He tried to eat rotten fish just to 00:06:21.670 --> 00:06:23.810 get some kind of caloric intake to keep moving. 00:06:23.990 --> 00:06:25.769 We really have to consider the psychological 00:06:25.769 --> 00:06:28.670 toll of that kind of severe caloric deficit. 00:06:28.889 --> 00:06:31.949 It changes you. It rewires you entirely. When 00:06:31.949 --> 00:06:34.149 your body starts consuming its own muscle and 00:06:34.149 --> 00:06:36.769 fat for energy, your mind begins to fracture. 00:06:37.290 --> 00:06:40.490 The primal instinct to survive just overrides 00:06:40.490 --> 00:06:42.930 higher -level logic. Everything else fades away. 00:06:43.149 --> 00:06:45.269 Every decision becomes exclusively about the 00:06:45.269 --> 00:06:47.889 next calorie, the next drop of water, the next 00:06:47.889 --> 00:06:50.449 hour of survival. And the physical toll was just 00:06:50.449 --> 00:06:53.490 devastating. By the end of this training in Brunei, 00:06:53.529 --> 00:06:56.529 Hall weighed 25 kilograms less. He sustained 00:06:56.529 --> 00:06:58.889 injuries that were so severe he required surgery 00:06:58.889 --> 00:07:01.089 to repair his body once he was finally extracted. 00:07:01.529 --> 00:07:03.569 He went to the absolute brink of what a human 00:07:03.569 --> 00:07:06.339 body can endure. He did. But when he finally 00:07:06.339 --> 00:07:08.300 recovered, his brain did something extraordinary. 00:07:08.819 --> 00:07:10.860 He didn't just want to move on and forget the 00:07:10.860 --> 00:07:13.199 trauma. No, he wanted to capture it. Exactly. 00:07:13.379 --> 00:07:16.019 He experienced a profound realization about how 00:07:16.019 --> 00:07:18.620 we train people. Hall realized that traditional 00:07:18.620 --> 00:07:20.939 military training was highly focused on tactics. 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:23.360 You know, where to point a weapon, how to read 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:25.560 a map, how to flank an enemy. The mechanical 00:07:25.560 --> 00:07:28.310 stuff? Right. but it fundamentally failed to 00:07:28.310 --> 00:07:30.829 train soldiers for the raw, visceral, emotional 00:07:30.829 --> 00:07:34.089 reactions of a true survival situation. The panic, 00:07:34.230 --> 00:07:36.949 the despair, the way your decision -making completely 00:07:36.949 --> 00:07:38.990 degrades when you are starving and exhausted. 00:07:39.189 --> 00:07:42.170 Precisely. He wanted to use video games as a 00:07:42.170 --> 00:07:45.029 method to simulate that emotional crucible so 00:07:45.029 --> 00:07:47.569 soldiers could experience those feelings of desperation 00:07:47.569 --> 00:07:50.810 and learn to manage them in a safe, simulated 00:07:50.810 --> 00:07:53.430 environment before they ever hit a real battlefield. 00:07:53.689 --> 00:07:56.250 So he takes this brilliant, deeply personal concept 00:07:56.250 --> 00:07:59.230 and he pitches it to the leadership within the 00:07:59.230 --> 00:08:02.509 army. He essentially says, I have a technology 00:08:02.509 --> 00:08:04.949 -driven way to make our soldiers emotionally 00:08:04.949 --> 00:08:07.870 resilient using game simulation. And the military 00:08:07.870 --> 00:08:10.189 shows absolutely no interest in the pitch. Which 00:08:10.189 --> 00:08:12.769 is wild to me. But wait, I have to ask, why would 00:08:12.769 --> 00:08:14.550 they reject that? If the goal of the military 00:08:14.550 --> 00:08:17.050 is to create the most prepared soldiers possible, 00:08:17.310 --> 00:08:20.209 why reject a tool designed to make them emotionally 00:08:20.209 --> 00:08:22.470 bulletproof? It really comes down to institutional 00:08:22.470 --> 00:08:26.139 inertia. Large traditional organizations often 00:08:26.139 --> 00:08:28.860 struggle to see the value in unorthodox technology 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:32.340 -driven solutions. Especially back in 2009. Exactly. 00:08:32.460 --> 00:08:34.860 Especially when those solutions try to quantify 00:08:34.860 --> 00:08:38.019 something as messy and subjective as human emotion. 00:08:38.360 --> 00:08:41.220 The military excels at measuring physical fitness 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:43.879 and marksmanship. Measuring a soldier's ability 00:08:43.879 --> 00:08:46.840 to handle simulated despair on a computer screen 00:08:46.840 --> 00:08:49.960 was likely just too abstract for the brass at 00:08:49.960 --> 00:08:52.379 the time. That rejection is the catalyst for 00:08:52.379 --> 00:08:54.639 the pivot of a lifetime, though. Hall decides, 00:08:54.940 --> 00:08:57.120 okay, if the military doesn't want this survival 00:08:57.120 --> 00:08:59.759 simulator, I will release it to the public. But 00:08:59.759 --> 00:09:01.679 he couldn't just release a starvation simulator. 00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:03.980 Right, to make a grueling emotional simulator 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:06.700 appealing to everyday gamers, he needed a hook. 00:09:06.840 --> 00:09:09.860 He needed a recognizable antagonist to force 00:09:09.860 --> 00:09:12.039 the player into that state of scrambling for 00:09:12.039 --> 00:09:15.039 survival. So he added zombies. He added zombies. 00:09:15.279 --> 00:09:17.980 By adding a fictional supernatural element, the 00:09:17.980 --> 00:09:21.289 zombies. He was able to deliver the stark, hyper 00:09:21.289 --> 00:09:23.590 -realistic psychological simulation he originally 00:09:23.590 --> 00:09:26.110 intended without it feeling like a dry military 00:09:26.110 --> 00:09:29.129 training module. He releases this as a mod, which, 00:09:29.210 --> 00:09:31.269 for those who might not know, is a player -made 00:09:31.269 --> 00:09:33.690 modification that alters the existing code of 00:09:33.690 --> 00:09:36.429 a game for the tactical military shooter Arma 00:09:36.429 --> 00:09:40.129 2. And that mod becomes DayZ. The legendary DayZ. 00:09:40.370 --> 00:09:43.009 The genius of DayZ is how the mechanics enforce 00:09:43.009 --> 00:09:46.809 the psychology. The zombies are dangerous. but 00:09:46.809 --> 00:09:49.129 anyone who has played it will tell you that the 00:09:49.129 --> 00:09:51.870 true danger is always the other players. Because 00:09:51.870 --> 00:09:54.370 resources are so incredibly scarce. Exactly. 00:09:54.549 --> 00:09:57.549 The game forces you into constant moral dilemmas. 00:09:57.710 --> 00:10:00.809 If you find a can of beans and you run into another 00:10:00.809 --> 00:10:03.570 player, do you trust them enough to share it? 00:10:03.669 --> 00:10:05.370 Or do you assume they will kill you for it, so 00:10:05.370 --> 00:10:07.470 you decide to kill them first? It strips away 00:10:07.470 --> 00:10:10.110 societal norms and drops you right into the emotional 00:10:10.110 --> 00:10:12.909 tension he felt in Brunei, the degradation of 00:10:12.909 --> 00:10:15.889 trust under pressure. The military rejected a 00:10:15.889 --> 00:10:18.990 serious emotional conditioning tool, so Hall 00:10:18.990 --> 00:10:22.090 essentially disguised it as a horror game, and 00:10:22.090 --> 00:10:24.870 millions of teenagers and adults downloaded it 00:10:24.870 --> 00:10:26.889 to test their own morality. That's brilliant. 00:10:27.149 --> 00:10:29.669 And the rise of this game was meteoric. Before 00:10:29.669 --> 00:10:32.049 Daisy exploded, Hall was already working his 00:10:32.049 --> 00:10:34.610 way through the industry. After leaving the Air 00:10:34.610 --> 00:10:37.330 Force initially, he worked as a producer at Side 00:10:37.330 --> 00:10:39.450 Interactive in Wellington, New Zealand. They 00:10:39.450 --> 00:10:42.049 worked on Speed Racer, the video game in 2008, 00:10:42.169 --> 00:10:45.330 right? Yes, exactly. Then he briefly went back 00:10:45.330 --> 00:10:47.610 to Army, which is when the Brunei incident happened, 00:10:47.789 --> 00:10:50.529 and then returned to the industry on a contract 00:10:50.529 --> 00:10:53.570 at Bohemia Interactive to work on Arma 3. And 00:10:53.570 --> 00:10:55.769 it was during this time he created the DayZ mod 00:10:55.769 --> 00:10:58.460 for Arma 2. It became such a massive phenomenon 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:00.639 that it was nominated for the Online Innovation 00:11:00.639 --> 00:11:04.799 Award at the GDC Online Awards in 2012. GDC being 00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:06.779 the Game Developers Conference, one of the biggest 00:11:06.779 --> 00:11:09.320 industry events in the world. The success of 00:11:09.320 --> 00:11:12.120 the mod was so undeniable that Bohemia Interactive 00:11:12.120 --> 00:11:14.559 quickly brought him on as the project lead to 00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:17.740 develop a standalone, fully -fledged retail version 00:11:17.740 --> 00:11:21.220 of Daisy. He went from eating ferns in the jungle... 00:11:21.419 --> 00:11:24.360 to leading one of the most anticipated game developments 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:26.620 on the planet. But what I find so compelling 00:11:26.620 --> 00:11:28.759 about Hall is that the self -reliance he learned 00:11:28.759 --> 00:11:30.879 in the jungle didn't just apply to his game design. 00:11:31.139 --> 00:11:33.840 He brought that exact same defiant energy to 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:35.860 the business side of the gaming industry. What's 00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:38.960 fascinating here is how openly he challenged 00:11:38.960 --> 00:11:41.580 the established business models. He really did 00:11:41.580 --> 00:11:45.120 not care for the status quo. Not at all. By 2012, 00:11:45.559 --> 00:11:47.899 the video game industry was heavily reliant on 00:11:47.899 --> 00:11:50.620 the traditional publishing model. Major publishers 00:11:50.620 --> 00:11:53.539 held all the funding, the marketing power, and 00:11:53.539 --> 00:11:55.659 the physical distribution channels. But Hall 00:11:55.659 --> 00:11:58.039 looked at the landscape and saw a massive paradigm 00:11:58.039 --> 00:12:01.240 shift. He publicly stated that the seventh generation 00:12:01.240 --> 00:12:04.080 of consoles, the major platforms of the time, 00:12:04.100 --> 00:12:07.240 like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, were at 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:09.580 the end of their lives. And that the PC platform 00:12:09.580 --> 00:12:12.600 was the space actually driving true innovation. 00:12:12.919 --> 00:12:15.399 He turned down many, many publishers who wanted 00:12:15.399 --> 00:12:18.340 to swoop in and acquire the rights to DayZ. He 00:12:18.340 --> 00:12:20.539 just rejected them outright. And he bluntly asked 00:12:20.539 --> 00:12:23.899 them in very public forums what value they actually 00:12:23.899 --> 00:12:26.620 provided in a modern context. He looked at the 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.360 gatekeepers of a multi -billion dollar... It 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:40.259 was a very bold move. Have you ever looked at 00:12:40.259 --> 00:12:42.460 a gatekeeper in your own industry, someone standing 00:12:42.460 --> 00:12:44.600 between you and your audience, and had the courage 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:47.659 to ask, what value do you actually bring to this 00:12:47.659 --> 00:12:50.600 transaction? It takes immense confidence to ask 00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:53.279 that question, because for decades, the publisher's 00:12:53.279 --> 00:12:56.200 answer was simply, we hold the keys to the storefront. 00:12:56.639 --> 00:12:59.259 But Hall realized the Internet had removed the 00:12:59.259 --> 00:13:02.299 locks entirely. His mod had already proven that 00:13:02.299 --> 00:13:04.340 a direct to consumer model worked flawlessly. 00:13:04.500 --> 00:13:06.919 He exposed the fact that the traditional publishing 00:13:06.919 --> 00:13:10.320 model was in many ways an antiquated system trying 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:13.000 to tax a modern digital workflow. And he put 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:15.720 his money where his mouth was. In November 2014. 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.299 Hall left his highly successful, highly visible 00:13:19.299 --> 00:13:22.539 position at Bohemia Interactive. He packed up 00:13:22.539 --> 00:13:24.360 and went back to his roots in New Zealand to 00:13:24.360 --> 00:13:27.519 found his very own independent game studio, Rocketworks. 00:13:28.009 --> 00:13:30.389 Building an indie studio is an enormous financial 00:13:30.389 --> 00:13:33.429 and professional risk, but it afforded him total 00:13:33.429 --> 00:13:35.789 creative autonomy. No more gatekeepers. None. 00:13:35.889 --> 00:13:38.029 He no longer had to compromise his vision for 00:13:38.029 --> 00:13:41.250 complex, simulation -heavy ideas to appease a 00:13:41.250 --> 00:13:43.690 corporate board. The trajectory of Rocketworks 00:13:43.690 --> 00:13:46.730 really showcases a studio willing to experiment 00:13:46.730 --> 00:13:49.289 and fail. They announced a debut title called 00:13:49.289 --> 00:13:53.169 ION at E3 in 2015, which was an ambitious project 00:13:53.169 --> 00:13:55.309 that ultimately got canceled. But that didn't 00:13:55.309 --> 00:13:57.720 stop them at all. No, they ventured into virtual 00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:00.559 reality with a game called Out of Ammo in 2016. 00:14:01.039 --> 00:14:05.240 In 2017, Hall announced Stationeers, a game drawing 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:07.399 heavy inspiration from the cult classic Space 00:14:07.399 --> 00:14:10.919 Station 13. That one focused heavily on incredibly 00:14:10.919 --> 00:14:15.029 detailed, granular system management. Stationeer 00:14:15.029 --> 00:14:17.210 is a perfect example of his design philosophy. 00:14:17.409 --> 00:14:19.649 You aren't just building a base. Right. You are 00:14:19.649 --> 00:14:21.610 managing the atmospheric pressure, the mixture 00:14:21.610 --> 00:14:24.210 of gases, the electrical grids. It requires an 00:14:24.210 --> 00:14:26.389 almost obsessive attention to detail. And then 00:14:26.389 --> 00:14:30.490 in December 2021, Rocketworks released Icarus, 00:14:30.610 --> 00:14:34.049 which is a massive session -based PvE survival 00:14:34.049 --> 00:14:36.690 game. PvE meaning player versus environment. 00:14:36.909 --> 00:14:38.549 Right, where instead of fighting other players 00:14:38.549 --> 00:14:41.309 like in DayZ, you are battling the harsh, unforgiving 00:14:41.309 --> 00:14:43.850 weather and wildlife of an alien planet. He just 00:14:43.850 --> 00:14:45.830 kept building these intricate, challenging worlds. 00:14:46.029 --> 00:14:48.909 This relentless drive to conquer difficult, complex 00:14:48.909 --> 00:14:51.149 systems isn't just limited to his digital life 00:14:51.149 --> 00:14:53.690 though. It bleeds directly back into his physical 00:14:53.690 --> 00:14:55.929 reality. What stands out to me here isn't just 00:14:55.929 --> 00:14:58.570 his professional ambition, but how this drive 00:14:58.570 --> 00:15:02.450 manifests outside the studio. Dean Hall isn't 00:15:02.450 --> 00:15:05.350 just surviving jungles. He is actively seeking 00:15:05.350 --> 00:15:07.570 out the most punishing environments on Earth. 00:15:07.769 --> 00:15:10.009 He is an accomplished mountaineer. He climbed 00:15:10.009 --> 00:15:13.169 Mount Cook in New Zealand, and then in May of 00:15:13.169 --> 00:15:16.230 2013, right in the absolute middle of the daisy 00:15:16.230 --> 00:15:19.070 cultural phenomenon, he summited Mount Everest. 00:15:19.389 --> 00:15:22.210 He became the 42nd New Zealander to ever reach 00:15:22.210 --> 00:15:24.269 the top of the world. Hall has stated that his 00:15:24.269 --> 00:15:26.690 experiences in mountaineering actively form part 00:15:26.690 --> 00:15:28.610 of the inspiration for his game design work. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:31.840 When you analyze it, the parallels between climbing 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:34.179 Everest and his game mechanics are striking. 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.100 How so? Think about mountaineering, especially 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:40.419 at the level of Everest's death zone. It is an 00:15:40.419 --> 00:15:42.580 environment that is completely indifferent to 00:15:42.580 --> 00:15:45.600 your existence. It is brutally unforgiving. A 00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:47.799 single mistake can be the end? A single mistake 00:15:47.799 --> 00:15:50.919 regarding your oxygen supply, your footing, or 00:15:50.919 --> 00:15:52.980 misjudging a weather window can be instantly 00:15:52.980 --> 00:15:55.860 fatal. It requires constant, meticulous resource 00:15:55.860 --> 00:15:58.139 management. Which is exactly what you are doing 00:15:58.139 --> 00:16:01.399 in his games. Exactly. That is the core loop. 00:16:01.740 --> 00:16:04.299 the central repeating actions a player takes 00:16:04.299 --> 00:16:07.720 of almost every game hall designs whether you 00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:09.600 are managing the atmospheric pressure in station 00:16:09.600 --> 00:16:12.440 years monitoring your oxygen tanks in icarus 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:15.600 or rationing a single dirty bandage in daisy 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:18.539 he's digitizing the mountain he takes the grueling 00:16:18.539 --> 00:16:20.840 punishing reality of climbing a mountain in the 00:16:20.840 --> 00:16:24.039 death zone and distills it into digital mechanics 00:16:24.039 --> 00:16:27.090 he builds systems where patients preparation 00:16:27.090 --> 00:16:29.730 and a deep respect for the environment are the 00:16:29.730 --> 00:16:32.909 only ways to avoid failure. He is simulating 00:16:32.909 --> 00:16:35.230 the Everest experience for people sitting comfortably 00:16:35.230 --> 00:16:37.649 at their computer desks. And his ambition to 00:16:37.649 --> 00:16:40.970 build these extreme simulation sandboxes is still 00:16:40.970 --> 00:16:43.370 driving his current work. Even today. Let's bring 00:16:43.370 --> 00:16:46.029 this right up to the present day. In 2024, the 00:16:46.029 --> 00:16:48.509 gaming industry saw the reported closure of Intercept 00:16:48.509 --> 00:16:50.529 Games and a development freeze on the highly 00:16:50.529 --> 00:16:53.799 anticipated Kerbal Space Program 2. For context, 00:16:53.980 --> 00:16:56.740 the original Kerbal Space Program, or KSP, was 00:16:56.740 --> 00:16:59.639 an incredibly beloved, highly technical spaceflight 00:16:59.639 --> 00:17:01.879 simulation game where players literally had to 00:17:01.879 --> 00:17:04.500 learn orbital mechanics and astrophysics to successfully 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:07.380 launch rockets. It's notoriously complex. When 00:17:07.380 --> 00:17:10.839 the sequel's development froze, Hall saw a massive 00:17:10.839 --> 00:17:15.079 void in the community. In October 2024, he announced 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:17.059 that RocketWorks has started work on a brand 00:17:17.059 --> 00:17:20.259 new game titled Kitten Space Agency. His stated 00:17:20.259 --> 00:17:22.920 goal for this project is to replicate the same 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:25.640 feeling, commitment, and challenge of existing 00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:28.180 KSP. Notice the emphasis on the word challenge. 00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:30.980 He continually seeks to replicate extreme difficulty. 00:17:31.259 --> 00:17:34.220 He survived the jungle, so he simulated starvation 00:17:34.220 --> 00:17:37.140 and paranoia. He climbed Everest, so he simulated 00:17:37.140 --> 00:17:39.579 unforgiving alien environments. And now this. 00:17:39.900 --> 00:17:42.200 He sees a community mourning the loss of a complex 00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:44.859 aerospace simulator, so he steps in to build 00:17:44.859 --> 00:17:47.950 an orbital physics engine himself. He is a person 00:17:47.950 --> 00:17:49.930 who looks at the most difficult, complex systems 00:17:49.930 --> 00:17:52.009 imaginable, both in the natural world and in 00:17:52.009 --> 00:17:54.329 advanced physics, and says, I want to build a 00:17:54.329 --> 00:17:56.230 sandbox where people can test their intellect 00:17:56.230 --> 00:17:59.410 against this. So what does this all mean? When 00:17:59.410 --> 00:18:01.089 we take a step back and look at the whole picture, 00:18:01.230 --> 00:18:05.250 from tinkering with an Amiga in Uomaru, to mastering 00:18:05.250 --> 00:18:07.930 logistics in the Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals, 00:18:07.930 --> 00:18:10.210 to the starving days in Brunei, to the summit 00:18:10.210 --> 00:18:12.650 of Everest, to the boardroom battles where he 00:18:12.650 --> 00:18:15.970 completely bypassed traditional publishers. Dean 00:18:15.970 --> 00:18:19.130 Hall's story is about a man who repeatedly, almost 00:18:19.130 --> 00:18:22.109 compulsively, pushes himself to the absolute 00:18:22.109 --> 00:18:25.130 physical and mental brink. It really is an incredible 00:18:25.130 --> 00:18:27.750 arc. And instead of keeping those intense experiences 00:18:27.750 --> 00:18:30.630 to himself, he translates that raw intensity 00:18:30.630 --> 00:18:34.329 into code. He creates these intricate, unforgiving 00:18:34.329 --> 00:18:37.089 digital spaces so that the rest of us can safely 00:18:37.089 --> 00:18:39.569 experience a fraction of that challenge and maybe 00:18:39.569 --> 00:18:41.769 learn something profound about our own resilience 00:18:41.769 --> 00:18:44.750 and decision making in the process. It is a remarkable 00:18:44.750 --> 00:18:47.529 translation of real -world adversity into interactive 00:18:47.529 --> 00:18:50.390 art, but it does leave us with a rather profound 00:18:50.390 --> 00:18:52.549 implication to consider as we wrap up today. 00:18:52.690 --> 00:18:55.150 If Hall originally designed his survival simulation 00:18:55.150 --> 00:18:58.569 to train soldiers in emotional resilience, to 00:18:58.569 --> 00:19:01.170 literally condition the human mind to handle 00:19:01.170 --> 00:19:04.049 panic, starvation, and the betrayal of trust, 00:19:04.289 --> 00:19:06.990 and then, after the military rejected it, he 00:19:06.990 --> 00:19:08.849 released it to the public, as an entertainment 00:19:08.849 --> 00:19:10.390 product. Okay, I see where you're going with 00:19:10.390 --> 00:19:13.089 this. Are millions of everyday gamers accidentally 00:19:13.089 --> 00:19:15.630 receiving the exact psychological conditioning 00:19:15.630 --> 00:19:18.630 the military rejected? This raises an important 00:19:18.630 --> 00:19:21.009 question. Next time you find yourself playing 00:19:21.009 --> 00:19:24.490 a grueling, hyper -realistic survival game, sweating 00:19:24.490 --> 00:19:27.369 over a digital can of food, you have to ask yourself. 00:19:28.039 --> 00:19:30.740 Are you just having fun, or is the game actually 00:19:30.740 --> 00:19:33.059 training you for the worst -case scenario? That 00:19:33.059 --> 00:19:34.900 is definitely something to chew on the next time 00:19:34.900 --> 00:19:37.319 you boot up a survival simulator. Are we playing 00:19:37.319 --> 00:19:40.019 the game, or is the game training us? Thank you 00:19:40.019 --> 00:19:42.039 so much for joining us on this deep dive. We 00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:44.240 hope you enjoyed exploring the incredible intersections 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:46.920 of survival, military discipline, and game design 00:19:46.920 --> 00:19:50.400 as much as we did. Until next time, keep questioning 00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:52.119 the systems around you and stay curious.