Interview by Audrey Russo and Jonathan Kersting
What do virtual reality, lifesaving medical training, immersive theme parks and the future of education have in common? Pittsburgh's Schell Games is helping shape all of them!
TechVibe Radio welcomes Jesse Schell, founder of Schell Games, for a fascinating look at how one of Pittsburgh's most imaginative technology companies is redefining what games can do.
From developing experiences for Disney and creating more than 100 games to pioneering virtual reality long before VR went mainstream, Schell has spent decades pushing the boundaries of interactive entertainment. Today, his 120-person Pittsburgh studio is exploring everything from VR-powered education and medical training to a potential new chain of location-based entertainment experiences.
Schell joins hosts Jonathan Kersting and Audrey Russo to explore why VR is far from dead, how games can help emergency room doctors make critical decisions, what artificial intelligence means for education and gaming, and why the next generation of entertainment must deliver experiences people simply can't get at home.
Plus, Schell shares his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, explains why Pittsburgh remains an ideal place to build a creative technology company, and reveals what he'd create if money were no object.
From saving lives to bringing people together, discover why the future of gaming is about much more than playing games!
The Pittsburgh Technology Council produces TechVibe to explore the Pittsburgh region's technology and innovation ecosystem
Transcript:
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[00:00:00] And then by the time it showed up in the consumer space around 2015, I'd already been doing it for about 20 years. Exactly. So everyone's like, "Oh, this new technology. I, we don't know what to do with it." I'm like- Yeah ... "Eh, I got some guesses about what might work." Oh my God. And so- That's so funny. Yeah
Welcome to Tech Five, everybody. Could not be more excited to bring you this front row seat to the absolute cool stuff happening in Pittsburgh's technology ecosystem. And Audrey, today is one of these days where we're gonna have so much fun with our interview today 'cause we are talking to the one and only Jesse Schell of Schell Games.
He is like Mr. Video Game. Like he's literally written books about this. He's more than that. He's actually more than that. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But no, but serious he's like, literally a pioneer. He's been part of our ecosystem for 24 years plus 'cause he was doing- Plus
stuff here before he, he started- Much ... Schell Games back in the day. Yeah. So Jesse, it's just amazing to have you stop by Tech Five and- Yeah, great to be here. Yeah, 'cause there's so many new things happening with the company, and just so much to cover, and it's always great to catch up with someone like you in the Huntington Bank studios.
Yeah. Glad to chat. I've known you when we [00:01:00] worked on the intersection of art and tech, when people thought we were crazy- Oh
to have living and workspace. I forgot about that. Yes. Yeah, he was one of your co-conspirators. Jesse was, I think he's- Yes. Jesse was amazing. Definitely. But I think more important than that, I think let's... People might not understand, who are listening sort of the history. I hate to look backwards because I also- Yeah, sure
wanna look forward. You didn't have to be here. You have a cool story about driving out of town and- Ha. Okay. Yeah. No, I'd been here in the early '90s going to grad school. I was part of the Information Networking Institute at Carnegie Mellon, where- Yeah ... that's when I first started working on virtual reality stuff, actually- Oh my gosh
back in the early '90s. Really? Yeah. Back then. And then, I went from there. I'd been... 'Cause Bell Labs had sent me to grad school, and I was back there for a couple years. I didn't know that. Yeah. And then went from there to I got a job at Disney Imagineering- Oh, yeah ... out in California, so that brought me out to LA, and I was, my, my wife and I were out there for about seven years doing a, a number of things. We built this thing called [00:02:00] DisneyQuest, which was Disney's VR theme park that ran for about 20 years down in Orlando, and made a game called Toontown Online, which was- ... really popular, and in fact still a lot of people play it today.
But then it was, I met Randy Pausch out there at- ... at Disney, and we got to know each other real well. And he'd gotten the with Don Marinelli, they got the Entertainment Technology Center going. And when my wife and I decided we wanted to move back east, it was, this was definitely one of the places we looked at.
And I came back here, started teaching at Carnegie Mellon, and then got Schell Games going alongside of it. That was a long time ago now. It was all 24 years ago. That's a generation. Yeah. But you didn't have to do it here. That's the thing. No. I came here initially to teach, and it was like, "Oh, it'd be kinda nice to get a studio going on the side."
And there are just so many- ... great people here. Initially, I was... The studio was all people I'd been working with at the school, students who were graduating, is what it initially was And we just grew it up bit by bit, and now we're like, oh, 120 people, something like that making all kinds of things and you're quiet behind the [00:03:00] scenes.
Even though you are, this ultimate ... I, and I don't use this term lightly in terms of being a rock star. You've done so many interesting things. Oh, yeah we've done, we've just done a ton of stuff like, everything from, I don't know, we worked on Star Wars games and Spider-Man games and theme park rides and- Science kits
installa- yeah, installations for the Smithsonian and, ... yeah, the Happy Atoms science kit. We've ... The games for the Fred Rogers Company. We did the Daniel Tiger games and we redid one of the rides at Idlewild. There's this ... It's a long list. We've ... over 100 games that we've developed in our time, and so it's
Yeah. Everything from VR to educational games to, I don't know, action games on- Everything ... lots of stuff. So now- Yeah ... let's go fast-forward again to like- yeah ... the current day, 2026. Wow, dude, you're giving me whiplash here. I like this. People have ... want experiences, right? Yeah. And I think that we're in the age of, h- more tactile, more physical- Yeah
more experience. So how does that play out [00:04:00] in terms of the world that you're in the work that you do? Yeah, so I think it, it's ... So for us as a business, we've always, for a long time we've said we have four lines of business. We've got the home entertainment stuff. We do educational games.
We do health games. And we also do theme park and museum projects. We've done a number of those over the years, a lot of the ... if you've been to, to some of the theme parks and seen interactive rides yeah, there's a good chance that was one of those was ours. What's an interactive ride?
Give an ex- example. So if you've ... I don't know, if you've, if if you've been to the Disney theme parks, like nowadays there are a lot of new rides that have, ... It's a ride, but at the same time you're playing a video game while you're on the ride. You can interact with the things that are on the ride, so it's like half video game and half ride.
I can't always talk about them, like by name because it's supposed to be- ... confidential, but, you get the idea. That, that's- I get the gist. So we've done maybe half a dozen of these interactive ride experiences that are kinda half physical, half digital. And one of the big trends that we see right now is we're seeing more and [00:05:00] more location, local location-based things.
You look in Pittsburgh you've seen Sandbox VR and there are some of the golf simulator places. Oh, yeah. That kinda thing is really kinda catching on and- It really is ... and taking off, so we've been looking more and more at that. We ha- we have an idea for our own location-based entertainment chain that we're building prototypes for right now.
That's exciting. We'll see. We'll see where it goes, yeah. You just keep finding new ways to find the latest technologies- Yeah ... and bring them to market to entertain people, engage people. Yeah. No doubt. And it's all coming out of Pittsburgh, and I think, but you're like one of the large, probably the largest gaming company in Pennsylvania.
That's pretty close to it, yeah ... probably Pittsburgh. I'd say it, I think it would, you would probably be, it'd be us- It'd be bigger than them ... and Mega Cat is a question just 'cause Mega- Mega Ca- Yeah ... Mega Cat has- That's right ... people far and wide. Gotcha. So we have more people in Pittsburgh- Yeah
than they do. Gotcha. They, I'm not sure. They may- Yeah ... they may- They have hybrid. They, yeah. Yeah. They may have all told, they may have more folks than us. I'm not sure, but- I think it's impressive ... we're definitely one of the biggest ones, yeah. Oh, absolutely. And so- Ta- let's talk about each of those domains [00:06:00] that you talked about.
Yeah, sure. What about healthcare? Can you- Yeah, games for health is an area we've had a lot of involvement with over the years, and that spans a lot of different things. It's, for us it's been everything from, we have made little training games for UPMC. We'd done ones that were all about stop smoking and appetite control, all th- all those sorts of things.
So we've made games in that space. We've worked with Yale Medical on games that are a- everything from helping young people avoid HIV to if y- someone in your life is involved with opioids what should you do, right? Sometimes it's things like that are either for a patient or helping someone who might be with someone who has, is having a challenge.
But other ones, directly for doctors. We did this one called Night Shift working with UPMC that was training for doctors in emergency rooms who were in, who were dealing with trauma situations 'cause you'd think that trauma situations, of course that's what emergency room doctors are [00:07:00] gonna be great at.
But it turns out most it's a small percentage of what happens. Serious trauma situations are s- something fairly rare in emergency room situations. And when they happen, doctors have to make a call. Are we gonna send them to a trauma center or treat them here? And they don't always get good feedback on whether they made the right call.
And so there's a, a doctor here, a Dr. Deepika Mohan. She had come up with this idea for a game that would help train doctors to be better at this, and we helped make that game, and it's been very effective, and there have been some studies. One of the ones I was, really proud about was just the, they've been studying the actual impact this has had on the, on the- That's amazing
yeah, the choices- that- ... doctors have been making, and- Audrey, doesn't that kinda blow your mind when you think about that? The idea that you can gamify something that's gonna train a doctor- yeah ... in a situation like that, to me, is just so powerful. Yeah. It's so interesting, if we could just dive into that one, for example.
So what you're saying is that watching The Pit is not real. If you've ever- It's a show ... because it's a [00:08:00] show. It's fictional- I fell for it ... in case you were wondering. Yeah. So just thank you for clarifying that. And it's one day. It's one day. It is one day. But I still fell for it because it looks like there's trauma all day long.
Yeah. All the time, right? Exactly. All the time. Yeah. So you're saying that- we got quite an education- ... going into this, that, yeah. 'Cause you've been to the emergency room. It's not, you're not surrounded by traumas. It's not, that's not- So as a result- Yeah
you, you don't have the skill set very often because it's not happened enough. It's not happening and the key part that that Dr. Mohan drove home to us is- The, because one of the key questions is send to a trauma center or not is a really important key question, and normally doctors don't always get great feedback.
Did you make the right call? It's just you made your call and on to the next. And so- you can't learn from it whatever it is, right? You, you- There's no loop ... you don't ne- right. The, the loop isn't always closed. Interesting. And- Huh ... anyway and it is a tricky decision to make.
You'd think it would be straightforward, like what do I do? Yeah. But it's actually can be fairly complicated, and a lot of it has to do, for example, with age-related situations. What seems like a [00:09:00] minor trauma, maybe someone has a fall on the stairs or something, for someone who's older could actually be this is a serious deal.
This is, yeah. You better send them to the trauma center versus something that maybe looks really gross. Oh, my God- ... send them to the trauma center. Actually, it's not that bad. You can- Yeah ... handle it here- Is there a- ... for a younger person. So there's a lot of nuance in a lot of that decision-making.
I would just be looking at how much blood is there and be like, "Okay, that's a lot of blood." A- and that's part, i'm out of here. That's part, and that doesn't necess- and that's the key. That, and that is part of the key. So for example, someone who has a fall and has internal injuries, there's no blood.
Exactly. Turns out it's ma- this may actually be a life or death situation. Wow. Man. And it was a very exciting... It was an really interesting game to make- That's really cool ... because we couldn't completely play it, 'cause part of the game- Yeah ... you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna send for these tests," and the tests come back, and there's all this stuff.
And it's like, "Okay, now make the call about what to do." It's like, "I don't know how to read this panel of tests." But it was great for the doctors because they they were very excited to play a game where they're like, "Oh, I can use my doctor skills in this game." And one of the keys with that game was- making it emotional because Dr.
Mohan had [00:10:00] worked on an earlier version which was basically more just we're gonna present you with the cases- ... you make the decision, you get the feedback, and hoped that would be enough. And it wasn't enough. You need to have that adrenaline running, right? And she came back and said, "You know what?
If, I think this needs to be more emotional." So we created this game that was a little kind of set up like a soap opera, and you get to know the patients, and you get to know the other doctors. And so when something happens, like you're confronted with crying families and all that, and that really seemed to make the difference in the...
'Cause emotion, in the brain, the part of your brain that makes the memories and the part of your brain that controls emotions are right next to each other- ... for a reason. Emotion is part of how the brain decides what to remember. And so when we can create emotional situations in a game, it can make you remember the scene and the scenario.
This is why, like the, the art and the craft of storytelling in games can be really important for education and training because that it- it matters. Emotion helps us remember. It does. Like a flick. I've always been, yeah. I've always been amazed with how you've [00:11:00] embraced VR from the earliest of days.
Oh yeah. Now we've seen this technology come to life and it becomes a thing. Like what is it about your ability to embrace these platforms and take these risks, which I think is just so interesting that you're like, "We're betting on this. We think this is cool. It can do things. It can make it more immersive."
Like- Yeah, it's- it's exciting. It's- it's exciting to work with new stuff, and one of the things I've always been excited about is, okay there's this new thing, but what can you do with it? What can you do with it that's gonna mean something to somebody? Sometimes the phrase we use sometimes is, we like to make groundbreaking games for people who need them, right?
And there's a lot of ways games can be groundbreaking. They can use new technologies nobody's used before. But they can also be for audiences that nobody has ever, made something for- Yeah, 100% ... before, right? So we- we like being groundbreaking in all- all kinds of ways but yeah, VR is a- a good example.
I remember, when I'd first heard of it back in the '90s, it's oh, that's cool. That's different. What could you do with that? And started playing around with it. And it's funny 'cause like- I did VR stuff in grad school, and then I was at Disney doing VR [00:12:00] stuff, and then I started teaching at Carnegie Mellon, was teaching classes in VR.
And then by the time it showed up in the consumer space around 2015, I'd already been doing it for about 20 years. Exactly. So everyone's like, "Oh, this new technology. I, we don't know what to do with it." I'm like- Yeah. ... "Eh, I got some guesses about what might work." Oh my God. And so- That's so funny. Yeah, I know.
At this point, we've made something like 30 VR games, a, a wide variety, everything from Among Us VR has been really popular. We did this s- this kinda series of these sorta spy escape room games called I Expect You To Die. Yes. Yeah. That was... I remember the release of that. Yeah. Those have been really popular.
Yeah. But yeah, we've done Star Wars ones and sword fighting games, and we did, we even did a cooking game Lost Recipes. You c- you get to cook in ancient kitchens. Oh. What? No way. Yeah. You can cook in ancient Greece and in medieval China, in, in kitchen- Is that around now? Oh, yeah. You can...
If you got a headset, you can go get Lost Recipes and- ... and yeah, it's, it's- And it'll take me to the store. When I go to the store, it'll tell me what to pick out? Just, yeah just look for Lost Recipes. You can download it. Yep. Wow. Eat some eel [00:13:00] eggs and- so- So you talked about healthcare. Let's talk about some of the other- Yeah
market sectors. Yeah. We talked about, yeah, healthcare, I don't know, education. The education in general is, that's, that's- Yeah, let's talk about education. Yeah, that we... W- we've done a lot of different things over the years for that, everything from things for tablet-based education that's been part of school programs.
R- more recently, been working on VR as part of, So basically VR labs for online courses. So we did one recently- Oh. Yeah, it was a, it was an online electronics course, but we're gonna... You put on the VR headset- Oh, wow ... in order to actually- Okay ... build the circuit. Which is so cool. Yes. 'Cause now you have- I, I- You get-
every component- yeah ... everything that you'd want, and you can kind, you can build the circuits out that way. Can you even burn yourself with a soldering iron if you're not careful? There definitely a lo- are a lot of danger moments because that's part of what we're trying to teach.
That's part of what it's about. Exactly. No, that's part of what's nice is the part of what can be really good with these, these lab simulations, 'cause we'd done one before. We did one, HoloLab Champions, [00:14:00] which was all about h- high school. It was a VR chemistry lab for high school students, and very often, lab situations can be dangerous.
They can involve, electrical things that c- could cause fires. Those Bunsen burners, man. And when you're talking about chemistry, you're talking about- Yeah. ... toxins and acids and- Yeah ... glass and fire. Like, all the things you really- Yeah. Do we really wanna give this to a 14-year-old? We're gonna.
And- ... to be able to practice with that and get comfortable and confident, can make things safer and also you just, you waste less time in the real lab if you've practiced your skills in the virtual lab. So there's, a lot of space for so many things you can do with these technologies with education.
Where is education headed? Ah. 'Cause, I'd want it to, like- That's a good question. Everybody's trying to figure it out. Given your world, right? Exactly, yeah. You're gonna... Yeah, I mean- I think you're, like, our keynote speaker at Tresch. Oh, at Tresch. At Tresch. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, in January, yeah.
So I'm hoping that you're- Very excited about that ... gonna give us some enlightenment there. Yeah. No it's a really... E- education is [00:15:00] going through a really interesting time because there is so much opportunity, but s- there's so much change. There's so many ways to do it right, so many ways to do it wrong.
Obviously AI is the big part of that- ... that's looming so large. Because when you use AI right, you can learn so much so fast, and when you use AI- Wrong ... wrong, you avoid doing the hard work- ... that makes you that makes you a smarter, better person. And so there's a lot that everybody is trying to figure out with that.
And I do think, I'm back to this thesis of mine about experience- Yeah ... tied to what you're talking about, is the way people talk, the way that they communicate, the way that they break down problems and articulate that. I feel like that is a huge piece of learning. And so I'm huge AI adopter, but I worry if people don't have domain expertise- that they can use AI and skip. Yeah. They can skip, skip, skip. And I worry about that in education. But yes, I'm s- yet I'm seeing this proliferation of private schools that [00:16:00] are saying two hours of education and AI- Rest of the day is experiential, which I love which is nature and immersion.
But you really don't have teachers, and- That sounds crazy. Doesn't it? Yeah. But there's this huge proliferation of this on the West Coast. Yeah. I could share it with you. Oh, I, I- These schools- Yeah ... that are, pulling people out and saying, "I want my kid- Yeah ... to be AI literate," right? But instead, what are the skills that they're really working on?
And this is an experiment. This is an experiment, and who's gonna experiment with their own kids? Exactly. It turns out everybody. It turns out everyone is, right? That's how it is. It's... that's how it always is. These new technologies show up and good luck, society.
We're gonna- that's hard reality. Let's see. Te- television, wonder that do to them? Exactly. Social media. I don't know, try it out. Throw it out there. We'll find out. What's television? Unfortunately, that's how sh- Television. That's a good one ... that's how it goes, right? It's true. Remember, it's gonna ruin all of us.
Watching too much TV. Yeah. Yeah. And, and- Google ... does it help? Does it hurt? Google. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we... I don't know. It's e- [00:17:00] we got a lot of challenges and I think a lot of it is gonna be everybody's gonna gradually learn where do you set the boundaries and borders.
What I think is amazing what Schell Games does is that when I've seen what you, the, the things you've built, you're making learning fun and, and- Yeah ... accessible for kids. So it's, they're learning without knowing that they're learning, per se, I just feel like you're building these environments that they can connect with 'cause it's gaming, and now- Yeah
obviously the whole gamification of learning is huge. I just feel like it's just, you- Man, we could go on ... helping a lot of kids- Yeah ... learn the skills. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. It's just I feel like what have you not done? Oh, I don't know. Yeah. Thanks. So you covered- What would you like to do?
Yeah. So you have, let's finish the other two. Yeah. Okay? Keep going. Keep us on track. The... let's see. I don't know. We talked about- You talked about education. Yeah. Healthcare. We talked about education, we talked about the healthcare. The home games we've done a lot of stuff.
For us, we've had the most success in the VR space. It's gonna be really interesting to see how the VR space evolves- ... over the next few years- ... I think. 'Cause we've seen it go through this interesting space where initially it was very, Let's see. The people who are doing it were, I'm gonna say, I [00:18:00] don't know, 18 to 35 was the center of it.
But now we've watched that kind of spread out. And right now it's a huge thing with kids, right? And people don't realize this. Games like Gorilla Tag and Animal Company. There, there are these games that just millions of kids, it's become their ritual. It's a thing they do every day after school.
The way I often think of it is, In the old days, kids of a certain age after school, they'd go out in the woods and, build- Forts ... forts. And it's always gotta be a place where the adults aren't. They've gotta kinda have this sort of- Exactly, ... wilderness playground space.
Yeah, 100%. But the human society's decided kids should not be able to go out unsupervised on their own, so they don't get to do that anymore. So they've found their own way to do it online. VR. Because parents look at the kids come doing VR after school and they're like at least they're not sitting on the couch doing nothing.
They're moving, they're being very active. They're being social with their friends online." And it's... And so they've... The kids have made this kind of secret world [00:19:00] of VR, which is interesting, and it's definitely a thing that's happening. But that's tended... I don't know. It's felt like that's been dominating over the last few years, and I think what's gonna happen with the VR space, it's gonna split into three.
I think we're gonna have this kids zone. We're gonna have the hardcore gamers. I think we're gonna see more emergence of that. We're about to see the, The Steam Frame headset come out. Valve, the folks that make Steam. They're gonna have this new headset, which seems very promising and is definitely much more a serious gamer headset.
And then I think we're gonna also see headsets that are designed for kind of adult professionals being productive. As Apple was playing around with the- ... Apple Vision Pro, experimenting there. I think we're going to see a lot more follow-ons in that space of people trying to figure out, is there a way to have that happen?
So I think we're gonna see a split happening there. So some people have said, "Oh VR was a fad and it's over." I'm like I don't think so." I think it's finding its place. I think it's just taking a breather, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's finding its place. I think it's it's things are cooling off, technologies are advancing, and I think we're gonna start to [00:20:00] see it diverge a little bit into a multiple different markets. Yeah. Yeah. And so did we cover all four? And then I guess the theme park and- ... museum stuff yeah, w- we're definitely looking hard at some of that stuff.
We've created some really interesting experiences lately that have been building our confidence about new things that could happen. We're seeing a big trend is kind of projection based spaces. You might have seen things like the, I don't know, like the virtual Van Gogh experience. Oh yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So they're very projector based. Yeah. They're not especially- Immersive. They're immersive. They're not always interactive, but people have been making other ones that are interactive. There, there have been some that are more interactive. There's a cool Minecraft experience that was created that way.
The... There's the Superman experience out in Los Angeles. So we're looking at things like that. We think there's some, some real potential with that projection based space. Yeah. So have you spent time in Las Vegas? Have you gone to- Sure. So have you gone to- The Sphere? Yeah, the Sphere? Oh, yeah, definitely.
And the residency? [00:21:00] Yeah. The Sphere is, yeah, definitely f- just absolutely fascinating. It's a huge achievement in terms of what it's like to be in there and be in the, those experiences. Yeah, I heard... Have you s- have you been to an event there? Sure. I've been to, Yeah. What have you seen?
Let's see. I- both the Wizard of Oz and the, Did you see the Wizard of Oz? Yeah. How was that? It's de- it's remarkable. It is- I've actually wanted to just go to Las Vegas and experience- it's a huge love letter to the, the- The original ... the orig- 'cause it is. You're... I wasn't really...
At first I thought when they were talking about it, I thought, "Oh, this is gonna be like, just like a tribute to the Wizard of Oz." Yeah. They're like, "Nope, it's an adaptation." It's, they, the... it's shorter. They tried to kind of- Oh, they did? They... Yeah. It was a longer movie. Yeah, the movie...
I don't know. The movie's 90 minutes, and I think they're basically trying to give you- Oh, I thought it was longer. Okay ... they're trying to give you an hour show. It might be a little longer than that- Okay ... but it's not a lot longer. Okay. And they're trying to make the show closer to an hour.
So they trimmed some pieces out, but at the same time, they like... They, the-
It's an incredibly powerful experience. Yeah. And it's fascinating because it not only has, not only [00:22:00] is it just big and immersive and they found a way to just make the scenes bigger than they were, there's all these interesting 4D effects where things, come in- Come out
The moment with the tornado is just- It's probably- I heard that ... it's almost overwhelming. It's like you're wrapped up in it, huh? Yeah. Yeah, 'cause when you, when, you watch the original it's like, "Okay, there's a tornado happening." Yeah. And here it's like- You're in it. ... "Oh, no, there's a tornado."
Yeah. It's happening. And- And it's haptic in the seats and stuff too, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so you're getting all the- There's haptics and there's wind- Yeah, it's- ... and there's physical things moving around the room and space. It's really remarkable. And the part I was most impressed with is just they clearly had a lot of love for the movie.
It really is just, like- Y- they, you could just tell how much they appreciated the movie. And so it, it was nice to see as a real- Yeah ... it really is a treat. I feel when I saw it, it was... I feel like this is the future of how people are going to be engaged. Did you, though?
Yeah. We saw, when we were at CES, we went to the- Oh, you went to that, yeah ... Lenovo thing, and then we got to see Gwen Stefani. And it was- But did you guys see [00:23:00] the Wizard of Oz? Did not see the Wizard of Oz. No. Yeah. But w- just what you can see from what I saw, when you see what they can do, making your- Yep
seats rumble the bringing things off the screen, and the s- the way the sound can hit you from different areas. Wow. It's, I feel like this is the future as to how people are gonna demand to be entertained. Yeah. It's- Not just this immer- immersive space. It's- People are having more and more appetite
like IMAX 20 years ago or something like that, or- Yeah ... IMAX 30 years ago, whatever that was. The, the thing we always say, if you're interested in location-based entertainment, it's rule number one, you gotta give them something they can't get at home. Yeah. And the more stuff you can get on the screen and on your phone and on a game console there's a lot of stuff you can get there.
And so if you're gonna, if you're gonna give something, Yeah ... you just gotta give them something they can't get at home. And there's- I'm s- yeah, I'm super c- ... a lot of ways you can do that ... I'm super curious when you say that, 'cause it gets me thinking, Audrey, I'm like, you've been developing games for 30-plus years- Yeah
altogether, and experiences. What are the core things that remain the same despite 30 years of technology advancement? I feel like- Oh ... there's, like, table stakes here, where you're like, if you don't have these things, doesn't matter what technology you have or what scene you [00:24:00] have it's not gonna work.
Yeah. It's- Yeah ... always about connecting with people, giving them something that is meaningful to them. And there's so m- there's a lot of things that are meaningful to us in our lives, like people are looking for a way to exercise a skill. People are looking for a way to feel meaningful progress and get better at something.
They're looking for social experiences and a way to connect with people that they care about. People are looking for ways to be creative and ways to express themselves. None of that stuff changes. That's all the same, but there's just new ways to show that and provide it. And it pops up in ways you wouldn't expect, right?
Who would've thought that in the game Fortnite there'd be so much dancing? But there is because it's a social place, and people- Wow ... wanna express themselves. Yeah, and they already have an avatar, and they dressed up the avatar, so n- let's make the avatar dance. And okay. Human beings are human beings.
The fundamentals- Gotcha. ... of what it means to be a human being don't change. It's just- I love hearing that, 'cause it's- Oh, yeah ... at first we wanted to say everyone's different, and it's like, no, we have the core things that make [00:25:00] us humans, right? No. I mean- I love it ... yeah, when it comes to the basics of what do we do?
How do we like to spend our time? That stuff doesn't- Yeah ... that stuff doesn't change. It's the same. Wow. Super cool. This is so cool. D- I, Audrey, we get to have the best time. If people are listening- Yeah. ... first of all, they should go to S-C-H-E-L-L Games. That's it. You can go to, yeah, schellgames.com. You can if you're local in in Pittsburgh, you can sign up to be a play tester.
Something we always appreciate. Oh actually, I guess even if you're not local, 'cause some of our play- Yeah ... testers are online. Some of them involve coming into the studio, but, Very cool ... yeah, you're welcome to, to sign up for that. We always welcome folks- Oh ... who'd like to be one of our, one of our play testers.
That's so cool. But Audrey and I have one last question for you. Oh, I have a question. Oh. We can ask more questions. Okay. But truly, I can keep talking for hours. Okay. I was just, I wasn't... I knew Jesse's a busy guy, but we're... But before we go, and you can... Do you wanna ask your question?
Whatever it is. I just wanted to say- You go ... as an entrepreneur. Yeah. Just as an entrepreneur. Someone who's, built this yourself, obviously with- ... a good team, but built this company yourself. Yeah. What... as so many [00:26:00] people are thinking about their lives and thinking about what they wanna do, and there's more and more, we know that in our region, we need more people building stuff and building companies.
Yeah. What are some what are some guidance, what are some thoughts that you have if anyone's listening and trying to build something? Yeah, building stuff is never easy, and I think the important thing is always to take the long view. You might look at it and say, "Oh, I don't know how I'd build that in the next six months."
Yeah, maybe you couldn't, but could you take steps toward it in the next six months? 'Cause sometimes things, take a long time before you get there. 'Cause sometimes it's you need to build the expertise, but then also you need some other, a network of people and then you need the right opportunity at the right time.
So it really is just about what are you excited about doing and what's right in front of you? And pursue that, right? You don't need to know the exact answer and the exact destination. But if you've got something that's hey, right in front of you, let's go for it and let's try it and let's see if we can get it [00:27:00] going.
And maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but even if it doesn't work, it might lead to the next thing, which might lead to the next thing, which might lead to the thing that- ... you've been supposed to do all along. Yeah. It's basically, don't be shy. Start building the thing. Start talking to people.
And do what you can do with what you've got right now Some great advice. Get people thinking. What's your question? My question is this. All right. Let's pretend money's not an object and physics do not exist. Wow. This is a- Oh. ... this is a big pretend. Yes. Really? This is a big pretend. Oh, I've been waiting all day for this one, Audrey.
Okay. Yeah. What game would you build or what experience would you build- If money was no object ... if money was no object? Yeah no, it's a great question. 'Cause if it's good, we're gonna find some funders. Yeah, I guess so. I guess the way I look at it is, yeah if really, if if there was no, no constraints, then you don't really have to worry about money and whether it's gonna be profitable, in which case you wanna make something that's gonna be as helpful as possible.
Okay. Yeah. This is awesome. As helpful as possible to the world. I don't know. When I look at it right now, I think the thing the [00:28:00] world could use the most is- Games that are gonna help people come together, right? Love it. Right now we've got so much media that wants to push us apart. And, you know- Me too.
I love it ... fragmentalize everybody and put everybody in a bubble and make everybody else the enemy, and that's all fake. None of that's real. Yeah. Every... You go out and look in the real world, it's no, it's just everybody's just trying to live and and just trying to live and survive.
And if, yeah, if I had unlimited resources, I would be focused on, okay, how can we create experiences that help people really see each other for what they are? And so that we... and to, to break down some of these, these fake boundaries and get people to connect and help each other.
I love it. And I feel like you have a giant head- Wow ... start in that because you knew the fundamentals you were talking about before. The, all of us, s- whether you're Republican or Democrat or whatever it is, we all have these core things that we wanna do as human beings. Yeah. And you know that so well. So let's get building on this, Audrey.
Yeah. There you go. It's so cool. Y- your work is like, I've always said this about- Yeah ... Shell. It's [00:29:00] psychology it's human computer interaction, it's t- mashing all the skillsets of graphic design, computational design. Yeah, it all- And the interdisciplinary- Yeah ... teams that you've built- Yeah
is just so- It's crazy ... fascinating. No, it's a, it all comes... the way the, 'Cause it's fine to look at technologies and understand the technology, but you can't... If you don't understand psychology- ... you'd have no idea whether the technology's gonna be useful. People build great technologies all the time- that nobody uses 'cause it doesn't match- ... like what people actually are willing- Right ... to do and use. Which is why the next conversation that I wanna have with you- ... is about guardrails and AI and what you've learned- Oh yeah ... in your world. Yeah. No it's, no it's a, it is. There's plenty to talk about there.
We're all... Everybody, the, The big task I think human society has before it right now is to figure out where to put up the boundaries- ... with AI. What are the, right. Everybody's figuring that out. So that's, that's- What are the guardrails, ... that's a big, that's a big conversation.
And you have amazing perspective because of the work that you've done. Yeah. We've- For- [00:30:00] we're, w- it's clear that that's what's gonna change the game industry more than anything else over the next 20 years. And so we're all w- looking at it, learning about it, and trying to figure out, okay, how do you draw those healthy boundaries so that- ultimately, our responsibility is any technology that shows up, okay, how can we use that for good? Yeah. How can that make the world a better place? Audrey, I'm like mesmerized. Wow. Flat out, man. I know. Thank you, Jeffrey. This is so much fun. Sure. Appreciate you stopping by hanging out. Yeah.
Like I said, you have a return invite. We'll get that all expedited and put together so you can come back and talk about the guardrails and so forth. So great. But in the meantime, thank you for your candor today, and really just giving us some fantastic insights- Yeah, sure. Glad to drop by ... of what you guys are up to.
We are so proud you are in Pittsburgh doing what you guys do. Oh, it's just- that's so c- 24 years in P- wonder- There, there's no better place to do it in the world. Oh, I love it. You just, you got the best people. The b- the best engineers, the best artists, the most creative people, and it's just a wonderful place to be and to live.
So it's- Awesome. Yeah. We'll leave it on that note. Thanks. Audrey, so much fun. Thanks. If you want more conversations like this, keep coming [00:31:00] back to Tech Vibe, Audrey. These are the people- Great ... we like hanging out with, right? Really great. Thank you, Jess. All right. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
Absolutely. Once again, it was shellgames.com. Check them out. And this has been Jonathan Kersting. And this is Audrey Russo. And we just love bringing you Tech Vibe as often as we can because these are the stories happening in Pittsburgh you're gonna find nowhere else. We're gonna see you on the next one, everybody.