Talk to us about your growing up years. What is your earliest memory or association with gaming?
I grew up in Chicago. I grew up at home living with my mom because my parents were divorced. My dad was into computers, so that was where we connected and that’s where I got my start. I like to say that I was born and bred on the Internet. I was always a gamer at heart and still remember my first 56 K modem.
My dad was awesome. He was a fireman and paramedic, and my mom was an emergency room nurse. My dad always had a passion for computers and we had them at home. My generation is the last one that actually saw the early stuff and used it.
The very first program that I wrote was a Halloween-themed chess game all the way back in 1989. Instead of knights, there were horses that were pumpkins. That was what got to me where I am today, to where I am making video games for a living. That’s one of those things that helped me in the cyber security industry because people in that industry will never see those things happen as they did back then or live in the Wild West of the Internet.
What prompted your interest and subsequently your foray into the tech space?
I lived the big corporate life and I’ve worked for various alphabet agencies in my time. I’ve worked for some of the biggest corporations all the way down to mom-and-pop companies and startups all through my career. I’ve traveled and taught at conferences, but at the end of the day, I love creativity. I love the ability to go in and play a video game. I’m fortunate that I got the opportunity to jump in and live my dream.
How is Ore System revolutionizing the gaming industry? What can be expected from the company in the coming years?
ORE System is always looking to change the conversation with its gaming content. As we dive into the unknown to leverage new technologies, we look to improve content for gamers and developers to remove barriers to entry into the space, ultimately giving the gaming community better content. We have also engaged our strategic partner MD DAO to assist with providing a provider network to connect those who need assistance with getting to someone who can help facilitate these challenging conversations. We wanted a solution ready for conversations that will hopefully start due to the With Them: Frontlines gameplay.
As the CTO and Co-founder of ORE System, what role do you play in the day-to-day proceedings of the company?
As CTO my focus is primarily on making the technical dreams come to fruition. Building and designing tools, video games, and technology is a passion for me. This began many years ago as a kid tinkering and hacking stuff in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Now I get to do it for a living!
The business is driven by the business development team, and this allows me to focus my efforts on building bleeding edge solutions for some of today’s newest technologies. Through addressing and charging into these unknown areas allows no bias, no preconceptions, and allows me to build in a completely unexplored universe.
The organization “work” stuff requires my day to day to support the servers, support the software, and help the development team build the next fun add-on to ORE System. While the business day-to-day is where I spend working to help develop production times, update schedules, and interaction with ORE to help push the technical future of what ORE looks to achieve.
Recently along with your business partners, you released a video game named With Them: Frontlines. Please talk to us about this project and the idea behind it.
We are really excited about this game. With Them Frontlines is a first-person shooter that tells the stories of real veterans and real combat missions, aimed at helping Veterans overcome and find solutions for PTSD. The game enables a Veteran to share their stories as a part of gameplay to eliminate the stigma of talking about challenging situations.
Our team has three veterans with several years of deployed time in combat zones. Each of us has been impacted by one of our peers that have taken their own life. This game means something to all of us. Mental health is one of my first priorities in my personal wellness planning. I see a provider to discuss the challenges of being a veteran with exposure to situations that create different perspectives on life. Mental health aside, ORE System has been in the gaming space for about 18 months, looking to enhance gameplay with innovative measures like this.
When we first started pulling all of this together, we had some candid discussions about potentially making someone worse or contributing to their struggles with the FPS game. After looking at the data and research, veterans are more likely to associate with these types of games as a release from what is bothering them. What better place to connect with other veterans to find similar people who have some of the same challenges that you could be dealing with.
What do you think will be the biggest changes or advancements in gaming over the next 5-10 years, and how do you think they will impact the gaming industry and the way we play games?
The cool thing is the internet has brought a lot of things together. We believe ORE System are trailblazers when it comes to where the gaming industry is going. We’ve revolutionized the gaming industry by reducing the time, cost, and experience a game developer needs to integrate blockchain technology into their games. Within the ORE Ecosystem, gamers truly own the gear, and developers truly own the game. The complete ORE system is the first cross-platform ecosystem available to the blockchain community where for the first time, participants REALLY determine if an item is worth anything.
Finally, what would be your advice for someone developing a new game or concept?
The biggest mistake we made was that we tried to answer all of the questions instead of focusing on one question at a time. In the early days, it was hard for us to find ourselves because we didn’t really know who we were at that point. As we grew, and as we started to figure out exactly what we were trying to do, we’ve been kicking butt ever since.
My advice is don’t get frustrated in those early days. Having the idea of the dream is the first step, but don’t get frustrated when it doesn’t quite go your way. None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way.
My dad is the only reason that I have been able to do as much as I have done in my life. He was into sci-fi and having computers at home in the 1980s when nobody else had it was important.
His motto was “If you hack into my stuff, just know how you broke it.” The rule was to never hack from home. It was the fact that he was cool about allowing it to be a learning process. If you made a mistake, it was fine as long as you learned from it; success or failure, just learn from it. Without him, I wouldn’t have had the career that I have today.
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