Ben Kvalo's Remote Work Revolution: Decentralizing the Gaming Industry - ep. 092

Join us for an engaging new episode of Remotely One, where hosts Rick Haney and Kaleem Clarkson welcome Ben Kvalo, a seasoned professional in the gaming and entertainment industries, and the Founder of Midwest Games! His impressive journey from Portage, Wisconsin, to his current residence split between Los Angeles and Green Bay is not only outstanding but also fascinating. Ben's career trajectory is remarkable, with roots in sports management influenced by his family's football legacy. His entrepreneurial spirit emerged early, starting a radio station in college, which led to a brief stint in professional radio before making a significant transition to the gaming industry.

Ben chats about his pivotal career move to 2K, where he contributed to the success of major franchises like Borderlands, BioShock, Civilization, Xcom, Mafia, and NBA2K. His role at 2K provided him with comprehensive insights into the gaming business, igniting his passion for supporting creatives with his operational expertise. Ben shares his initial culture shock when moving from Wisconsin to San Francisco, contrasting the lifestyle differences and the booming tech innovation of the 2010s.

Interestingly, Ben transitioned from games to the film industry with Netflix, before circling back to the gaming world. The differences between the gaming and film industries are significant, with Netflix's revolutionary approach to technology and streaming standing out. Ben discusses the global accessibility of Netflix, which democratized content consumption and catered to diverse viewing habits.

What took Ben to the next stage of his career? His decision to start his own company, Midwest Games, stemmed from his passion for remote work. This ignites a desire among individuals seeking flexibility and a better work-life balance. Midwest Games embraces remote work, fostering a culture that supports underrepresented developers and prioritizes innovation and creativity, letting people control their own destinies.

Not only are Ben’s ideas technologically revolutionary, but they are also groundbreaking in another way: his decision to focus on underserved populations in his hiring practices. Ben explains that the traditional concentration of the video game industry in expensive cities like LA, San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin excludes many talented individuals from other regions. A study shows that two-thirds of the U.S. video game industry is concentrated in these areas, despite the high cost of living and the lack of necessity for physical presence in the digital age.

His journey from Netflix to founding Midwest Games underscores the transformative potential of remote work and the importance of creating flexible, inclusive work environments. By challenging the traditional geographic concentration of the video game industry, Ben is not only building a successful company but also contributing to a more equitable and diverse industry landscape. Join us for this insightful and inspiring episode to hear more about Ben's remarkable journey and his vision for the future of remote work in the gaming industry. Thank you for the amazing chat, Ben!

Learn more from Ben:

• Ben’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benkvalo/
• Midwest Games: https://www.midwestgames.com/

Transcript

Ben: 0:35

I used to play professional ski ball. Wisconski is my skee ball name.

Rick: 0:40

That's pretty

Kaleem: 0:41

better. He goes by Wisconski.

Ben: 0:44

my, wife plays in the social league and, uh, her ski ball name is Ski Rex.

Kaleem: 0:49

What? Hang on this.

Rick: 0:51

I love this so much. This is great.

Ben: 0:53

And,

Kaleem: 0:54

better and better. We should just have a podcast about the ski boss ski racks in Wisconsin. You kidding me?

Ben: 1:00

Oh yeah, we rolled against the Back Ski Boys, you know, and, uh,

Kaleem: 1:06

just

Rick: 1:06

Oh my god.

Ben: 1:08

And then, uh, yeah. I've been the interim Ski EO of LA Ski Ball for, for a while. There you go.

Rick: 1:16

These puns are incredible, by the way.

Kaleem: 1:18

Bro, why am I laughing so hard at this shit? It's hilarious. You TikTok channel, bro, of just ski puns. You could go on forever.

Ben: 1:27

Oh, no, there's, there's so many. It's, uh, yeah. it's on, it's unscalable.

Kaleem: 1:35

god. Oh

Rick: 1:38

Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Welcome back, everybody, to Remotely One. I am your co host, Rick Haney, joined by my ever esteemed colleague, Kaleem Clarkson. What's going down, my

Kaleem: 1:56

I see you, baby, back from Vegas. I see you. How you doing, man? How you doing?

Rick: 2:01

Refreshed.

Kaleem: 2:03

Ah, you look great, man. Those baby blues are always shining.

Rick: 2:06

Oh. Oh.

Kaleem: 2:10

Voice sounding silky smooth. I love it when your voice just, you know, it's all smooth in that

Rick: 2:15

not enough O's in smooth. Not enough O's in smooth. Hey. Listeners and viewers, since you know how to find us, go do us a favor and go to ratethispodcast. com forward slash remotely one, and just leave us a review. Again, ratethispodcast. com forward slash remotely one. And if you could do that for us, we would be ever so thankful. Since 2015 remotely one is one of the largest communities of remote work professionals with over 3000. Slack members and 5, 000 email subscribers. It's free to join free F R E E free. So go check it out remotely one. com. And with that out of the way, Kaleem, please give us a tease or two about today's guest.

Kaleem: 3:03

Huh? Brother, brother. Oh yeah. Like you're

Rick: 3:06

Oh, yeah, brother.

Kaleem: 3:07

Really? Much. Savage. Our guest today has gotten me sweating through so many damn shirts. I had to put on, you know, the bear shirt for our guest today. I sweat through like two or three on the shirt because he got me nervous and you're going to find out when we get through some of these cracks. Oh man. I guess. Whew. Let me calm down for a second. Let me calm down. Okay. I'm calm. I'm calm. I'm calm. All right. Um, first something about our guest. They are originally from Portage, Wisconsin. Okay.

Rick: 3:37

Hmm. Ooh, yeah.

Kaleem: 3:39

currently reside between LA and Green Bay. Yeah. Our guest today, they have to go to LA for a lot of shits. So then they, you know, it's probably cheaper to have a place in two places. You know what I mean?

Rick: 3:50

It's a real snickerdoodle. Sometimes I got to get, uh, one place and I'm in the other. Hmm.

Kaleem: 3:56

What in the? What in the? Who's that? Who's that, Rick? Was that our fourth guest?

Rick: 4:00

I guess.

Kaleem: 4:01

All right, let's see. Uh, graduate of Wisconsin. So they are the Badgers. Go Badgers. Did I get that right, guest?

Ben: 4:08

no, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Phoenix.

Kaleem: 4:15

so the Phoenixes. They're the Phoenixes.

Ben: 4:17

Yeah, rise from the ashes.

Rick: 4:21

Yes.

Kaleem: 4:23

do the bird call. Uh, you know, Rick, unfortunately, our guest is also a diehard Packers fan. You know what I

Rick: 4:30

Well, depends on which way you look at it. That might not be unfortunate for

Kaleem: 4:34

Man, it's probably fortunate for him because they've been dominating my favorite Bears team. So I put on my shirt, especially for our guest today. But interestingly enough, the Packers somehow invested in his company. So that's really interesting.

Rick: 4:45

That's special.

Kaleem: 4:47

Yes, Rick, our guests started back in the day while they are a student, kind of similar to some shit that you were doing back in the day, student radio. So we got to talk about broadcast. Remember that? Remember broadcasting?

Rick: 4:59

do. Great memories. Great memories. Yeah.

Kaleem: 5:03

Um, then, you know, they started working at this small little company. If you haven't played, I don't know, NBA 2. Uh, started working at 2K and was a senior global project manager. No big deal. Just a small, tiny little company. Just a small one, Rick. Yeah, then just another small company, Rick. Blizzard Entertainment. You may have heard of

Rick: 5:29

Oh?

Kaleem: 5:30

a little thing may have, may have not, but it was in the e sports ship, man. E sports crazy, crazy. Our guest is partner goes by Wisconsin ski and they play it against. Is it, is it scree X

Rick: 5:48

Ski racks.

Kaleem: 5:49

Ski racks. Wait, no, I get this mixed up. You go by Wisconski and your partner goes by ski racks, right?

Ben: 5:56

Oh, yeah.

Kaleem: 5:56

Okay, cool. And they rolled against a team called, the basket boys. Yep.

Ben: 6:02

Yep. The backseat boys. Yeah.

Rick: 6:04

These are amazing.

Kaleem: 6:06

so he's a professional skee ball player and has played in the world championships, crazy, crazy. Um, oh, he was the lead programmer at another company. That's kind of tiny. Netflix, right?

Rick: 6:19

Never heard of them.

Kaleem: 6:21

Okay, so they send these dvds and movies they send these dvds and they send them to you in the mail, bro That's what this company does.

Rick: 6:30

trust them either. Ha! Ha!

Kaleem: 6:33

So we got to talk to him about being a lead program manager of games at Netflix. His company, they won mobile game publisher of the year in 2022, I guess is the founder and CEO of Midwest games, which also supports underrepresented developers, listeners, and viewers. You got to give a warm welcome to. Oh, that's what we do. And this is

Rick: 7:13

from the block.

Kaleem: 7:14

best part of the show because it makes him laugh. Ben, thank you so much for coming, man. Thank you so much

Rick: 7:21

Did you do that on purpose?

Ben: 7:22

It's

Kaleem: 7:22

I did.

Ben: 7:23

here.

Rick: 7:26

Your life is never gonna be the same, Ben Qualo.

Ben: 7:28

no, it's right. I've been called worse.

Kaleem: 7:32

It has been qualo. It's qualo.

Rick: 7:38

Oh man, we're having fun already. Ben, thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to have you here. We're glad you could join us.

Ben: 7:44

Yeah, it's a blast to be here. Thanks for having me.

Rick: 7:46

Yeah man, so, just getting right into it. You've had some really cool experiences, you know, ranging from radio broadcasting to big roles in the film industry. With all of that on your resume, what landed you in the gaming industry?

Ben: 8:02

Yeah, it was random. I originally went to school to go into sports management, wanted to work for the Packers, wanted to work in NFL, wanted to, you know, wanted to manage, manage a team, scouts, you know, everything that goes into kind of the football operations. And, and I come from a lot of football in my blood. My great grandfather, Is in the Hall of Fame at UW Madison, the Badgers, and then he also was the first American inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame, the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame. So I come from a football lineage and so I thought that's what I'm going to do. And then I, you know, went to college, went to UW Green Bay to be close by the Packers. I thought that's going to give me that advantage. It didn't. And then it did not. And then I ended up finding a path in entertainment, which, you know, adjacent in a lot of ways to what sports essentially is, if you think about it. And what I was able to do was start up a radio station in college. We were the only UW school without a radio station. Did that for a while, built that from the ground up. And that ended up being my first like entrepreneurial type moment in my And I didn't even realize it at the moment. I was just trying to find that thing that I wanted to be doing. And we went from being in a broom closet to the student union, to one of the largest student orgs on campus. And it was a really great experience. And then I went into radio after college and it was horrible.

Rick: 9:38

Yep. Hehe.

Ben: 9:42

And so I got out of that very quickly and was very fortunate to land with 2K in video games. You know, basically I was living in Sturgeon Bay, which is just north of Green Bay, in Door County. And from there, 2K reached out. They were like, can you move to San Francisco in two weeks and start at 2K in this operations role? And I said, yes, and drove across the country. Started two weeks later and then was able to work on the beginnings of incredible franchises at an incredible company That was really small at the time 2k was a pretty small publisher when I joined and then we Started to grow Borderlands and Bioshock, Civilization, Xcom, Mafia, and then NBA2K took off and became the highest rated sports game in the world. And it was just an incredible moment to be part of that company. And that helped accelerate my career into so many other areas of games and then film and then back to games and being able to kind of get the vision. Cause there's only operations person. At 2k besides our executive group. So I was able to work in every single different department within a publishing group. So it gave me a lot of exposure and awareness on the many different areas and how complex this business is, but how incredible it can be. And that really fed what I love about it, which is supporting creatives. Cause I'm like a half creative, like I'm creative enough, but I realized there's There's far more creative people than myself. And so how do I take my operational knowledge and business knowledge and combine that with creativity to support creators? And that's essentially where my career was built off of.

Kaleem: 11:34

unbelievable. So I'm just kind of going back. It kind of sounds like the famous story of I'm moving to the big city mom and dad. I'm going to be someone

Ben: 11:45

Yep.

Kaleem: 11:46

so you move from Wisconsin. to San Francisco and I'm assuming at this point, I mean, like San Francisco is booming, you know, post dot com era. Now it's coming back. Now you're in the middle of all of these, you know, technology enthusiasts right there. What was kind of like your first experience in Silicon Valley? does anything come to mind when you're like, whoa, like, yeah, ish is different here than Green Bay. Anything that kind of sticks to your mind?

Ben: 12:17

Maybe the room size of what I could afford at the time. in San Francisco compared to Green Bay. Like I had an apartment. I think I was paid in radio, my final job in radio. I think I was paid like 24, 000 a year. It's really bad. And I was like, shoot, I'm going to double my salary to come out to San Francisco. And then I got a place that was maybe like one eighth the size of what I had in Wisconsin. And so I think that the size, but. But outside of that, it was just all the things happening, you know, San Francisco in like kind of the 2010s. Was so much tech innovation happening in so many different areas, you know, it was the beginning of dating apps and and and all everything there. And that's where they tested everything. There was, I remember there was a dating app for called Bristler that was for guys with beards, uh, and like, that's how specific that's how specific some things got. And it's, it was fascinating to be that, be there with so many other people trying to come up with new ideas, new innovation, and you just hadn't, or I hadn't been part of an environment that just encouraged so much. So many ideas to come forward and to really be thought about and potentially funded and things. And so to be there and then be in the game space, the early days, you know, the game space, it was so exciting. I remember the moment we launched borderlands two, which ended up being such a huge, huge success in the games industry. And then being able to work on all of these different types of games, some succeed in big ways, some failed, but ultimately being in this really creative environment, innovative environment. You know, it doesn't matter what you wear to work, like, you know, especially compared to compared to the Midwest, which is like very, you know, suit tie, uh, especially during that period. It's definitely changed. Um, you know, the influences change, but ultimately it was just. It's such a different environment. It opened my eyes so much and then being able to travel a lot via my job. I spent a lot of time living abroad in some ways, like in temp apartments like London and Paris and Madrid, Munich, Amsterdam, Singapore, and so it gave me a lot of exposure and awareness to this outside world that just, you know, Has really helped me in my career. I think probably my biggest superpower now is just perspective. Like I've been in so many different areas that it really helps me understand where people are coming from, or at least be aware that I don't know certain things that I need to lean in and learn in certain areas.

Rick: 15:02

Holy cow. Um, You're talking about, you know, getting your feet wet, and then, making a lot of jumps. I mean, you learned a lot in a considerable, well, pretty much a small window as far as I'm concerned. I mean, you did this relatively quickly. So, you start in radio and then you, get into the film business and then you kind of morph into the, to the gaming industry. Tell me a little bit about what the transition was like between, the film industry, and then getting into something where you're like, totally creative. You're an, you're immersed in this new, flexible kind of freedom that everybody is looking for. And you're doing something that you're really passionate about. Talk to me about what that feeling was like and how it kind of led to where you are now.

Ben: 15:50

Yeah, it was actually the opposite. I went from radio to games, to esports, to film, to games, to games, essentially. So, no,

Kaleem: 16:05

good

Ben: 16:06

because,

Kaleem: 16:06

job, Rick.

Ben: 16:07

because your, your point, your thesis of the question, Makes sense. Like it's the, these transition points between many different areas. And, and it's interesting cause even like going from games like triple a games with two K to e sports at blizzard. That was a big transition. It's two completely different things. And I was fortunate to be in e sports at kind of the height of e sports before it's kind of crashed, and come back down to reality, compared to what was being spent at that era, but I learned a lot and then transitioning from e sports into film, it was a challenge, because the film's Studio industry is very different than the games industry. And what was interesting, and I was again, fortunate that I was at Netflix, which embraced the technology end of entertainment within films and TV, which wasn't as embraced at least not until lately by this traditional studio industry, you know, they looked at it a lot, like it was kind of a joke or it was like. Like sub quality film, sub quality TV, if it was on streaming and it was fascinating to come into that realm and see the change from when I came in at the very beginning of Netflix film. I was the first hire on the marketing operations team to help build out some of the infrastructure for Netflix film to three years later. We were suddenly, you know, theaters were dying because of the influence that Netflix films had to change people's perspectives and thoughts and perception of the film industry and the fact that actually you can enjoy a great film anywhere. Some people enjoy it on their phone. Some people enjoy it in a theater. And you can't tell somebody that they're right or wrong about that. If that's how they enjoy it, or that's how they have to enjoy it. If you'd go to many other countries around the world, that's all they have. Their movie theater is their phone. Like they only can ever enjoy content via their phone. And so being able to make things accessible to the wider global community, that's the really the greatest thing that Netflix has done is it didn't just discount people because they didn't have a TV or they didn't have, you know, a theater nearby. A lot of people don't actually have that. And if we can bring it to their phone where they do have that, They enjoy content and delivering content like that. And so was a really interesting lesson again, in perspective of like, what is actually the most important and how can you change an industry like that? But games and films are so different. Yet today, what we're seeing is the convergence. Between all of that, we're seeing more games be turned into films. We're seeing the interest from the films and TV industry into so much content, for example, Blumhouse just had their biggest film success ever. Which is amazing cause they've been, you know, doing this for a while and really successful in the horror genre yet five night at Freddy's, which is a small indie game. Blew up, and the biggest, their biggest film release ever. And so I think we're going to see a lot more of success in kind of the, this combination of games and film and they realize games is so valuable because games can be so valuable. Is actually seven times bigger than the film industry. Games is, is bigger than films, TV, and music combined times about two. So games is the biggest entertainment industry by far. It's not even close. There's 3. 8 billion gamers. It's an industry that's nearing, I think 350 billion and, per year. Like it, it is an extremely valuable industry that's, that has. Made everyone else look pretty small. And so that's why a lot of films and TV are trying to attach onto it. And they're finding it in interesting places. You know, one of the most streamed shows on Netflix is cuphead, which is a small indie game. That is kind of in the vein of like old school Mickey Mouse and like kind of that art style of animation and that has been one of the most streamed shows on Netflix and there's a lot more of that. And we're also seeing anime come into play a lot as well. Anime is just huge worldwide and growing and that kind of has a strong connection to games as well.

Kaleem: 20:51

Jeez, who would have thought back in the ColecoVision days of playing BurgerTime? That we'd be at a point now where you have professional sport leagues. You have movies within video games, you know, like just playing like Call of Duty from back in the day of just, you know, seeing those little video clips. Now, they're like HD films almost like like it's just fascinating to hear there. So now you've you know, you work at all these unbelievable companies and you've tasted these things. Yeah, Netflix. Now, now you just say, hey, I'm going to do my own thing. Like that's that's a big jump in itself. So how we met, listeners and viewers, audience, through online LinkedIn. You made a really powerful comment anytime. I or somebody tagged you in the comment. I was talking on some article about remote work and culture. How to create a setting in a space. That's where, you know, Rick and I talk a lot about. So it's really cool to just have an insight to an industry that a lot of people aren't really up to date on, you know, what is it about remote work that you think makes people so passionate, you know, especially individuals and How have you kind of adopted some of these things with your company? So I kind of like to hear about your leadership style and what it is that Midwest games does and what your thoughts are around remote work culture.

22:20

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Ben: 24:28

Yeah, I mean, it really started with my time at Netflix. Netflix A has just an incredible culture. They believe in it very strongly. They put it out online. You can look up the culture deck and it's really powerful statements. And I embraced that in a major way when I was there and learned so much from it. And during my time there, we became remote because obviously, COVID and everything like that. And so we had to adapt quickly. And luckily, our culture embraced the freedom. Like, a big piece is freedom and responsibility. We always had the option to work remote. Whenever we wanted, if we felt like that was the right option for us it was part of our freedom and responsibility. So when we suddenly transitioned to a full remote scenario, we adapted pretty quickly. You know, you adjust some things and meetings, like how to design, making sure everyone has a voice. It's, you know, it definitely changes your approach. But I took so many lessons from that moment. And then as I, you know, I was in film at that moment and then joined the Games Org to help lead the launch of Netflix games I was like, hey, I keep building all these things for other people like Why don't I go build something for myself and see what happens like see if I can do this and a big piece of it being Well, how do we support underserved, underrepresented folks. And ultimately giving flexibility and freedom to for folks to choose what's right for them. It was a big tenant of what Midwest Games is all about. And so we went into it like that. And what we found was,

Kaleem: 26:14

Why Ben? I'm just curious. Yeah, because you could have just created a company any way you wanted. But why why why?

Ben: 26:24

it A, didn't, Didn't feel right like I'm a believer in you know Letting people be in control of their own destiny and they decide what it is now We have an office that people want to come to it. They can come to it, but do what's right for them and that They will ultimately do so much more work wise. They will feel comfortable in their environment. They will feel like they have the flexibility to, to live the life they want to live. And that just, I think, encourages a more productive workforce. Anyways, and we're in an industry where it works really well. I get that Not every industry is remote friendly. You know, that's a thing a again, a perspective thing. We have to always understand. You know, it's somebody that is in the service industry, doesn't have that choice or that luxury and, but we do in games. And so why don't we take advantage of that? And allow for the flexibility of it. I just think it gives somebody so much more, that they can live for and they can still do the productive work and they can live the way that they want. And what was great by coming out like that and saying, Hey, we want to give these opportunities, but we're also still flexible. It allowed us to find incredible talent. For example, we've been able to find people that are from the Midwest, but, you know, our head of production lives in Seattle, but he's from Michigan.

Kaleem: 27:52

Hmm.

Ben: 27:53

And it allows us to bring somebody into Midwest Games that has that strong connection, understands the challenge of having to move to the West Coast because there was an opportunity in the Midwest, and be really passionate about it, but still live in Seattle. And, you know, if he ever wants to move back to the Midwest, he now has that path. And some people, I think over time will take that path and some won't, and that's okay. He still, Incredibly valuable to everything that we're doing. And there's no reduction in kind of work. If anything, it's, it's kind of nice that we have somebody that's in a different, like a slightly different time zone because it helps kind of stagger our work just a little bit.

Rick: 28:35

Cool. Cool. You know, I, I lived in LA, long before the pandemic. I was part of that culture out there for a time. And I can't imagine what it was like being in, in such a hub of activity during a lockdown. In fact, I was there at nine 11, but that was totally different. The pandemic lasted significantly longer. So in your experience seeing LA, you know, during the pandemic, you know, how has that community embraced a remote company these days? I mean, how did, how has it changed things?

Kaleem: 29:11

Yeah,

Ben: 29:11

mean, everyone's remote. I was in downtown LA when all of this happened, I was on 7th and flower. And so like, It went from being such a busy, like I had a fairly small loft cause you don't need much cause I was out and about almost every single day. I think me and my girlfriend at the time had only ever been home, like Two nights in a row the most like it was always out and about doing something and walkable and I even got rid of my car, because, you know, having been in Wisconsin, you have to have a car. But I was like, Hey, I don't have to have it. So I had gotten rid of my car and being able to just kind of walk everywhere. And then when COVID happened, like it was just, you know, Chaos in a lot of ways, because you, you didn't know what was going on and suddenly everyone had to like basically be cooped up. And that's what spurred me to ultimately buy a house on the east side of LA and get out of downtown a little bit. But then everyone embraced remote work. Like everyone, you know, we had small groupings of people that would come together. We knew it was like safer circles. Um, but then, you know, work wise, like it was just Another day, like we, it just became part of our routine and it gave more back. I was able to actually think about other things outside of my work and, you know, be able to spend more time, you know, with loved ones and friends. And that was just. It changed my entire perspective because I had been so focused on working. I'd sacrificed so much to come out to California. Like you give up, yeah, you give, you give up relationships. You give up, you give up. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, two, well, 2k at a time. And then blizzard, like they move you to where they want and you know, they could lay you off at any time, but they move you to wherever. And then suddenly it's just a shift in perspective of like,

Kaleem: 31:15

Yeah.

Ben: 31:16

Actually, let's take the control back a little bit, and I don't have to be beholden to all these rules of these companies. Like, there's no reason for it in reality.

Kaleem: 31:27

Wow.

Rick: 31:28

crazy, it's crazy to hear that working remotely has literally changed a busy place like Los Angeles. I mean, it has quieted the chaos.

Ben: 31:38

It did for a while. It's, it's backed.

Kaleem: 31:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 31:41

it's, it's back to being pretty busy. Uh,

Rick: 31:46

But, but, I mean, what do you think? Do you think remote work is here to stay? Mmm.

Ben: 31:56

like a combination of those two are absolutely here to stay. Uh, you know, there's always going to be a certain group, a certain percentage that it makes sense for remote, like, it's just embracing flexibility is here to stay. And where there's certain positions that they need. In person, even then they most likely are going to be like, well, you come to the office like Tuesday through Thursday, like Mondays and Fridays are remote. And so I think that is absolutely here to stay. Anyone that enforces a kind of a strict code to things, I think they're going to lose their most talented people because the most talented people will always be given flexibility. So they're just going to lose their best and brightest, and then their companies will eventually fall to the wayside and fall behind more innovative companies that are trying to really think about things differently.

Kaleem: 32:51

So what's fascinating about that statement is you were in LA when the lockdown happened. You know, you were working there and then you decided, Hey, I'm going to do my own thing. And you said, nah, not only do I want to do my own thing, but I want to be able to help underserved populationswho, who are developers that don't get these opportunities to live necessarily in LA to be, because like, that's where I was kind of feeling what Rick was talking, what you were kind of talking about before you had to be in LA to make it. You're not just going to be able to be far away from LA and make it in anything back in the day. You had to be there. That's where every story starts. I moved to LA to do boom. But what I hear you saying is you're like, nah, I'm gonna take a different angle. I'm going to add flexibility, to my company and I'm going to hire people from wherever they want to. I'm going to give them the control of their life.

Ben: 33:48

Mm hmm.

Kaleem: 33:49

Do you feel like that that is a strategic advantage for Midwest Games? Do you feel like that puts. Like, are you kind of sitting back saying return to office five days a week? Ah, like, are you just like, please do it, please do it. I mean, so how do you feel like that that is a strategic vantage? And also when you say underserved populations, that's inclusion and diversity as well. Like you're hitting some pretty like high level societal challenges. What is that impact having on your company? And are you seeing the benefits from it?

Ben: 34:21

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I definitely don't sit back and hope that others like do it, but the reality is some will. Some are. And that sucks for workers, it makes it really challenging and every business has their choice to do that, like it, and that's fine, like they can do it, but I think they're hurting themselves, and they don't have to listen to me, they'll find out over the long run what it does, and so for us, I looked at the game industry, and part of before I left, Netflix games, to build this. I looked at the data and the data is fairly simple. You look at that. There's a 2020 study from the ESA, the entertainment software association, which is basically, you know, the government advocate for the video game industry, and ultimately at that point, 67 percent of the industry, the video game in the U S was in three states, California. Washington and Texas, really four areas, essentially the Seattle area, the San Francisco area, L. A. San Diego area and Austin, Texas, and so two thirds of the entire industry in the U. S. Which makes up that is tied for the largest section of the industry tied with China, in the world. Is is in so few places and then I looked at the migration patterns in 2021 2022 and what you see is people are moving outside of these those cities because they're expensive, they don't have a reason to be there anymore and so they move either to a more cost reasonable place or well and or where they're from. And so many people, and this is what I experienced being at every single company. It's incredible. The amount of people that are from the Midwest, and we find each other. We always find each other. It's incredible, because there's a sense of pride, and resentment towards the forced movement of the population and all the talent away from it, to the point that they say the talent can't come from there when in reality is. People doing everything in the entertainment industry are all from there.

Kaleem: 36:43

right,

Ben: 36:44

incredible

Kaleem: 36:45

from LA

Ben: 36:46

Yeah, no one's from LA No one's from LA. So looking at all the data. I'm like, wait a second. The talent is already elsewhere now so what we're doing is is Bringing opportunity to the talent instead of the opposite, where talent has to go to opportunity. And so just switching that and going to a place and saying, Hey, we're not only going to say that, do that, we are going to live it by being based. And so, you know, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, you know, that's it's not a place that you're like, Oh, yeah, all the tech or video game activity in the world, but it's a place that has the potential to be that. And now that Austin, Texas, you Which was the cheaper alternative to these other places is very expensive. Having just come from it from South by Southwest, everything happening there. My bet is they're looking for the next place. And so what I'm seeing is. That by embracing that we're finding tons of talent that have come back to these other places that are trying to do new things and trying to bring their favorite parts of L. A. or San Francisco or Seattle or Austin to these other places. And so my bet is we're going to see a growth in midsize hubs that has. A lot of like the cool things that you love about a big city, but at a reasonable price in, you know, these kinds of hubs. So places like Madison, Ann Arbor, Cincinnati are all, I think, going to benefit from people coming back and being like, you know, I'm from this place. I want to make this cool. Like some of the elements of LA and they're actually building it themselves. You know, I know one of our game developers that we signed lives in Cincinnati and I hadn't been to Cincinnati before I worked with him and I was amazed. Yeah, and now I have and now I was amazed at the downtown Cincinnati is so cool. There's so much going on and what he did was he lived in L. A. He sold his company. He went back to Cincinnati. He built a game studio. He built a comic book shop. He built a bar all within like this one block area and suddenly like that area is really cool. And brings in creative thought and brings in some of this kind of innovation that that was the same reason when, like going back to San Francisco, like the reason it exists there is because they spur it and it's in, you know, you just have it, um, kind of like on steroids in that space. And the more you can encourage that in the kind of these mid hubs, innovation is going to happen. And then something is going to take off there. You never know what kind of industry or what kind of thing might take off in that place. But something is if there is enough like kind of in the cauldron, you know, being stirred around.

Kaleem: 39:45

That was amazing. Kudos to you for doing that. The great thing that I love about what you're talking about is You can also still live in the city and work at Midwest Games too. Like back to your point is like you can relocate to some of the smaller hubs, but at the same time, if you love the city and you love, you, love freedom and flexibility in working for a good company, then you can still work for Midwest games and back to your point of whatever's good for you in your life, you have that flexibility. So that, that's awesome. So Rick, it's up to you.

Rick: 40:18

So Ben, tell us about a comical or perhaps inspiring moment you may have had while working remotely.

Kaleem: 40:26

yeah. yeah.

Ben: 40:26

Well, since the first

Kaleem: 40:27

ha ha. ha.

Rick: 40:30

Ha!

Ben: 40:31

the comical was when we were in my downtown loft in LA and just the beginning of like remote work and everything. You know, you don't always think about like planning out your bathroom breaks and things like that. And so I was in the middle of like an important meeting and all of a sudden, My girlfriend at the time, my now wife, uh, Just, the loudest noise comes because she's like Ends her meeting has like a minute before next meeting and decides to run around the corner to run to the bathroom and then just slides out and basically right behind me. Cause I was like in the living room cause we're in this like small, like loft and it just, just crashes. And then of course I'm like, I'm in a meeting. I'm like, just a sec. I gotta. Go make sure my, my girlfriend's still alive, uh, behind me. Um, uh, she just like, she like had her socks on and like, just like was trying to run to the bathroom and just slip and boom, like just nailed, nailed the ground.

Kaleem: 41:39

was she okay? was

Ben: 41:40

Yeah, she was, she was okay. But my coworkers got a good laugh cause I witnessed it all right behind me. Um, they saw the whole

Kaleem: 41:48

and everything.

Ben: 41:49

They saw it. They saw it. It was, it was hilarious. Uh, I wish, uh, maybe it's in the Netflix like vault. Maybe they'll have a special on it someday.

Kaleem: 42:05

you're on the call. Please. You weren't on a call with like a movie director or

Ben: 42:09

No, no, I don't, no, no, just co workers. And then the other one, the inspirational is I did this, I announced on LinkedIn that, Hey, I'm going to go create this thing. And you know, that post, like I just said, I'm leaving Netflix. And you know, that post on LinkedIn hit 400, 000 people, which is, LinkedIn is not known for virality. It's like really hard to get anything above like a 30, 000 to 50, 000. And that blew up. And with that, I got like 2000 messages that weekend from just different people inspired by the message. And one of them was, you know, a woman that was the head of audience and brand at crunchy roll, uh, you know, basically the Netflix of anime, and she was living in Madison, Wisconsin. And I was like, Well, I'm like, I'm going to have this marketing role. Like I would like be super interested. And you know, what was inspiring was she was like, I was convinced that the rest of my career, I was going to have to work, you know, she like does work remotely, but she's like, I would have to work like nowhere near where I actually work. And she's like, suddenly like she was given this opportunity to be able to be close to

Kaleem: 43:29

Oh,

Ben: 43:29

she works, but still be able to be remote. Um, like that she has the ability to come, you know, to it. It's just a little bit less than two hours away in Green Bay to Madison. And, uh, and the fact that she's like, I can actually like do what I love, be remote, but still, but also be close at least in time zone. With my work. And so that was just, it was cool to see the bet of, Hey, talent is there. And immediately it was like, yeah, it's there. And like, that makes a huge difference in the, in folks lives, that they can do what they love without being the one person that's out in the middle of nowhere, uh, you know, according to the people in LA, right.

Kaleem: 44:14

Mm-Hmm. That's the worst. Man, thank you.

Rick: 44:18

that's,

Kaleem: 44:18

that is inspirational, bro. That is inspirational. My goodness. Thank you for what you're doing, man. Like both Rick and I are from small towns, Bangor, Maine, you know, small state, small population. And we need more people.

Rick: 44:32

Yeah.

Kaleem: 44:36

Hey, look, you know, come work with us. We're trying to help this place do better things. So

Ben: 44:40

Well, we just have an opportunity. Yeah. We have an opportunity, like. You know, especially in our industry and many creative industries were not representative enough of the world around us and we need to if we want to truly entertain the world in these entertainment industries, we have to create. Bring in more from other places that aren't represented because guess what? They're consuming the entertainment and they're like, okay, it's all right, but they don't see themselves in the entertainment. And so the more we can embrace bringing in folks from other places to be able to entertain the world, I think that just the more representative of the world we get to be.

Kaleem: 45:18

that's awesome.

Rick: 45:19

Wow. Aptly put. Ben Quallow, thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Kaleem: 45:24

Thanks, man. Really appreciate

Rick: 45:26

Yeah. can our listeners find you, Ben?

Ben: 45:29

would recommend finding me on LinkedIn. Pretty easy. Uh, With my name, I'm the only one in the world. And also you can check out our company at Midwest games. com.

Rick: 45:41

Awesome. Keep up the great work.

Kaleem: 45:44

Yes, man. Keep doing your thing. Really appreciate it. Hey, I'm going to get some gaming in so I'll talk to you all later. Peace.