Entertainment Software Producers

Tom McMail works in the External Research & Programs group at Microsoft Research, focusing on strategic collaborations with key universities and researchers. He is extremely passionate about education as an enabler for humanity. His first university training was in Psychology (with a specialty in Psycholinguistics) after which he spent time as a social worker, teacher, and later, as a professional musician and composer. He later returned to school for a degree in Computer Science, worked in the computer gaming industry and as a producer of educational software. He has spent nearly 12 years at Microsoft, focusing on online community architecture and educational issues. He lives outside of Monroe, Washington with his family in the beautiful rural foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

citation: Pacific NorthWest Economic Region 2007 Annual Summit

What made you decide to join the industry? Where did you work?

I had just completed a degree in CS and was looking for an opportunity that would engage multiple areas of expertise.

What genres of music did you compose, and what were your major influences?

Many genres – I composed whatever was needed for the product, in whatever styles were appropriate for the goals for the game, including Jazz, Rock, Blues, Medieval, Renaissance, Classical, 20th-century music, atonal music, funk, and pseudo-rap. More specifically music and sound effect creation was focused on war games, puzzle games, space adventures, RPGs, etc. In this sense it was like composing film music – fit the feeling to the context. I once had to compose all music and FX for a role playing game (RPG) that represented adventure along the ancient Nile valley, including themes for travel, exploration, trade, war, conquest, and identifiable themes for different cultures (Egytian, Hittite, Nubian, Hykso, etc.).

As a composer, what did you feel were the biggest challenges in your job?

Those who are involved in other facets of game production often think of music and FX as something created after the fact, which doesn’t work on a limited timeframe release schedule. It was most useful when I was given upfront an idea of what they would be wanting so I could start producing ideas in anticipation.

Did you ever feel that there was a difference between the way you intended your music to be interpreted and the way the audience interpreted it?

There were a couple of titles in which people liked the music so much they put the game in a pause loop so they could hear the music while they went and cooked dinner, for instance. Never expected that to happen.

You have a strong background in teaching and education; what stood out about video games to you that made you decide to start producing educational games?

Video games are compelling and can even be addictive, and this can be a good thing. Traditional education, as usually delivered is boring. Traditional delivery of education is in fact, provided in a way that is least useful to the way the human brain is organized –the book "Brain Rules" describes the specifics of why this is so. See: http://www.brainrules.net/ On the other hand, video games deliver information in the best possible way for learning, including elements of repetition, relevance, goal-directed activity and all this in an experiential model.

What do you see as potential pitfalls in the current education system, and how do educational games fill these pitfalls?

Wow, where to start?

1. Low relevance
2. Boredom (related to #1)
3. One-to-many "talk at the students" approach
4. Passive acquisition of knowledge instead of experiential learning
5. "One size fits all" thinking
6. Just in case education: "Learn all of this because someday you may need one of the 10,000 things we are going to throw at you"
7. Not enough emphasis on collaborative learning

That's just a start...

Do you see a limit to what games can bring to education?

Not really. Much of discovery and most of learning comes from interactively "playing with ideas" which is a widely known fact. Why we have different categories for learning and play blows my mind, really. Human beings are learning machines, and for infants play and learning are indistinguishable for the most part. I can imagine a day when we don’t think separately about games and education just like today we don’t distinguish between computers for number crunching and computers for communicating.

Only a few years ago, parents complained about their kids playing games and may have been skeptical about their use in education. Now the parents play Wii Sports. Is this the perfect time to push games into education?

Yes. Full speed ahead. Damn the torpedoes.

Most video games on the market are competitive in nature. The basic motivation to play is to "win", either playing against the computer or against live competitors. How can educational games cater to this desire to win? Can we use competition to reach out to all of the players who like head-to-head matches, or are educational games limited to noncompetitive endeavors?

Any game has to be hard enough to pose a challenge and yet possible to win. This doesn’t necessarily require an external competitor. There is a lot of variability from person to person in terms of how competitive they are, and how important the interpersonal type of competition makes it "interesting" to them. How about competing with self?

What advice do you have for someone aspiring to the industry, either into development or into sound and music in games (both technical and composition)?

Talk to as many people as you can who are currently involved in gaming, from a variety of roles, not just game composers (they may look at you as competition). Find out what producers, directors, programmers, and if possible, heads of game studios think about music/audio, and where the opportunities may be growing in this field next.

What opportunities in college should students look for to help them succeed in industry?

Get good at what you do in all the related areas covered by courses, because they can give you broader perspective, and get good at the rest on your own. Many of the most productive, successful and passionate in this field are self-driven and reach out to everyone.

Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost has proposed that games should focus on using the interactive nature of the medium to elicit specific emotional responses in games (e.g. when you’re playing a game where you’re the manager of a Kinko’s, you simply can’t win because it’s such a frustrating experience). Developers like Sid Meier and Will Wright, however, propose that games should be about giving the player the chance to accomplish something great based on the choices that the player makes. What do you want players to take away from their gaming experience? How can the philosophies of Meier, Wright, and Bogost apply to your vision of games for education?

All of these perspectives are true in their context. Emotional response makes the experience relevant – humans remember based on the emotions with which they tag past experiences. Have you ever thought, "I remember what a tough time I was having when that song was popular." or "The scent of those flowers remind me of when I first met Mary Jane!" I recommend "Brain Rules" again for insights into how the brain works, what can be fun, learnable and memorable. Giving players a chance to accomplish something great is key to great storytelling, and can meld the interactive world of gaming with the usually more linear world of storytelling, which in my opinion can be a very satisfying marriage of both media and approaches.