Lately I have had several parents reach out to me to ask me about video games, esports careers, and opportunities for their sons. Over the last fifteen years, I have learned a few things about coaching young boys, and young men but also, I have had the great privilege of working with some amazing people in the industry. It is my sincere belief that we as a nation, and a civilization will achieve our maximum potential when strong women and strong men in equal number can come together and work on solving the hard problems that face us locally and globally.

I say that because I do not believe encouragement is a zero-sum game. I believe decency and respect can be delivered in equal measure if we make those choices. Why am I saying that? Because I believe I have something to say about boys and video games, and I want to make it absolutely clear this should in no way take away from the support and momentum for girls and women to participate and play video games. In fact, what I love about esports is that we have the opportunity to create balanced, integrated, inclusive competition and programming that is open to anyone. 

Many parents are hearing about esports, and they are hearing things like some video game tournaments are filling stadiums, or one kid winning $3M in a Fortnite Tournament. They might have even heard about some schools offering college scholarships for esports. However, the number of parents who see video gaming as a viable path to college remains small, which is not surprising given that tuition assistance for competitive video games is only 4 years old.

The Trap – One Kind of Relationship for Boys

When I started GameTruck sixteen years ago, I did not see the problem as clearly as I see it today. I started GameTruck because I thought the video games in family entertainment centers were expensive and awful. I started GameTruck because I wanted to share the awesome experience, we had at the game studio with more people. But I also started it because boy’s birthday party concepts seemed to be limited to Laser Tag and Bowling. On the other hand, girls had an enormous number of party concepts to pick from. Everything from American Girl Parties to Princess Dress Up Parties and more, plus everything the boys were into like trampoline parks, and laser tag. I believed GameTruck as a concept would fill a void left by the declining pizza-arcade industry. Boys love to compete, and outside of sports they did not have many options. 

There were other factors that lead to GameTruck’s long term success, but it was that one idea: Boys love to compete. Only within the last few years have I seen that boys not only love to compete, but they are also practically only allowed to compete.

Author Robert Bly, in his book Iron John [1], wrote:

Contemporary business life allows competitive relationships only, in which the major emotions are anxiety, tension, loneliness, rivalry, and fear. 

This pressure to compete has created some interesting challenges for boys. One of them especially is the collapse in access to sports.

No New Teams

When I started GameTruck I also looked at Macro-trends. I believed that increasing parental concern of child safety, in part sparked by pictures of missing children on milk cartons scared a generation of parents into needing to know where their children were at all times[2][3]. One consequence was that team sports became the de facto way to exercise and socialize your child safely with adult supervision.

The trouble is, as demand rose, access all but collapsed. 

Some things are so big they hide in plain sight. Over the last 50 years, the power 5 conferences have not added a sports team. Let me give you an example. When I attended ASU in 1984, they had the largest single campus in the country with 19,000 students. Today, ASU boasts over 105,000 students enrolled. And do you know how many basketball, baseball, and football teams they have? 5 times the enrollment, a massive expansion in campuses. And they have one of each, the same number they had 70 years ago. Yet over the last 50 years the United States has doubled it’s population and tripled the number of kids attending college.

In our local middle school, 145 sixth grade students went out for the boys baseball team. That’s 10 children for every available slot on the team. 14 were picked. The next year, only 20 went out. According to the Aspen Institute, by January 2020, 70% of 11-year old’s will have fallen out of team sports.[4] (Unfortunately the Pandemic only made this worse [5])

Where did 125 children go?

We all know. They play video games.

What is really shocking about these numbers is how rapidly the decline happened. In 2016 the age of self-selection out of sports was 13[6] and a few years before that it was 15. 

I have spoken to parents, both friends and acquaintances that had the same experience. Their child love to play ______ (pick a sport) and at middle school a hundred kids tried out and only a few were chosen. That was the end of their participation and enjoyment in sports.

And this is the issue… if you can’t compete who are you? If the only relationship available to form friendships is rooted in competition… then what happens to your friends when you can no longer “play” together?

Online gaming creates systematic isolation to keep people safe

Even as kids fall into video games, there is another challenge. No publisher wants to introduce you through matchmaking to someone who could walk over to your house and meet you. That would be too dangerous. It is better to scramble matchups and obscure connections. Some publishers go so far as to make it practically impossible to even play with friends at all.

They work awfully hard to keep everyone anonymous to each other. But this means, to play with (i.e. compete) friends, you must already have them. However, it was Robert Bly’s quote that gave me insight into why we see so many athletes game.  Cutthroat sports competition is not all that much fun either. When you are competing with team mates to start, that is also a form of competition that can be characterized by anxiety, tension, rivalry and loneliness. 

Playing together

Hopefully, you are by now getting a sense for the scale of the problem. It was this systematic and random playing against strangers that motivated me to create GameTruck. I wanted a safe environment, at your house, where kids could play together with their friends, in person. And I believe and the science supports that play is deeply human. 

Where to go from here

I have been a huge advocate of parents playing video games with their kids. In talks I have given from New York to California, I advise parents to do two critical things.

1. Get in there and play with them. I call this building a bridge to their world.
2. Help them build a bridge from their world to their future.

Step one is easy. Jump in. Get in there and start playing. You’d be surprised what you can learn about your son’s inner life when you get them to talk with you about video games. It is kind of funny. I sat down to write about step two until I realized none of this information from my public speaking is on my blog in the context of GameTruck – so I had to “set the stage” as they say. I wanted to make the case for why I feel our sons are feeling intense isolating pressure to form relationships based in competition and the stress that is causing. Add to that the loneliness that can come from online only play and the challenge of making friends with your cohorts, and I do believe GameTruck is a small but important step in the right direction, bringing kids together with their friends to play.

But what’s next? I will start a series outlining how video game play relates to education, careers, and yes, possibly even esports. My intention is to give you resources to help you and your child make the most of their gaming, and how to avoid getting lost in it.

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References

1. ‌Bly, R. (2015). Iron John: A Book about Men (3rd edition). Da Capo Press.
2. Jin, L. (2020, December 18). The Rise and Fall of the Missing Children Milk Carton Campaign. Medium. https://medium.com/the-collector/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-missing-children-milk-carton-campaign-4e9228d34cb7
3. Ta, L. (n.d.). The missing kids milk carton campaign started in Iowa. Des Moines Register. Retrieved April 18, 2021, from https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2017/09/04/missing-kids-milk-carton-campaign-outcome/627165001/
4. Survey: Kids Quit Most Sports By Age 11. (n.d.). The Aspen Institute Project Play. Retrieved April 18, 2021, from https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/national-youth-sport-survey/kids-quit-most-sports-by-age-11
5. Aspen Institute’s Project Play Report Shows Kids Are Losing Interest in Sports During Pandemic. (n.d.). The Aspen Institute. Retrieved April 18, 2021, from https://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/press-release/state-of-play-2020/

Miner, J. W. (n.d.). Why 70 percent of kids quit sports by age 13. Washington Post. Retrieved September 24, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2016/06/01/why-70-percent-of-kids-quit-sports-by-age-13/

It is somewhat hard to believe, but GameTruck was invented before the smartphone. That’s right. Before Apple announced their exciting new “gadget”. Apple was the maker of quirky computers and amazing music players. No one in their right mind would consider buying a phone from Apple. And then the iPhone came out in on June 29, 2007 almost a year after we had performed the first GameTruck party.

During all the amazing changes, I believe there is one reason GameTruck has remained as popular as ever. Yes, there are all the features and benefits – the convenience, the video games, and the very cool gaming theater. If you ask our customers, gamers, franchise owners, and coaches what makes a GameTruck party so special, you are likely to hear something along the lines that, “it’s the experience.”

This is a very illustrative word, experience. Not because what it says, but because of what it does not say. Isn’t everything and experience? How can you not have an experience? After spending a lot of time thinking about this, I believe the reason you hear this word over and over again, is that the structure of a GameTruck event triggers a deep seeded psychological need we all have. It is in this depth of feeling that we lose our preciseness of language.

This for example, is one of the reasons that describe food and wine tastes can be very difficult. It is not only that we might struggle with the vocabulary. Our taste buds are connected to the oldest part of our brain, the part farthest away from language. We often struggle to articular what we are experiencing. Simon Sinek in Start with Why makes a similar argument about decision making. The part of your brain that is responsible for making decisions is not the same part that is responsible for language.

He cites the example, when we talk about someone we love like a spouse and say, “She completes me.” What, are you missing a kidney or something? No. But there are emotional states that evade our ability to define them with language. I believe this is why we see the word “experience” used so often, because we are trying to describe a series of intertwined events and emotions that produce a positive memory we wish to hold onto.

What Is The Experience?

I believe that what the gamers are experiencing today, and why the party experience is so powerful for them, is that we are delivering on a profoundly human need to see and be seen by the people in our social circle.

Yuval Harari in his amazing book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind points out the incredible power of story to link humanity together. The historical record is clear that human beings have been social animals for tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of years. Jordan B. Peterson in his latest book points out that our mental health may depend upon how successfully we are integrated into a robust social network.

With so much communication forced online or through narrow voice channels (throwing away up to 55% of the interpersonal information available in ordinary human communication). Essentially, more than half of our communication is non-verbal.

A GameTruck event does something unusual. It unites people who normally would only place separately, to play together in the same space. And one of the things we have learned during the past 12 months, is that face to face, in person human interaction has a special power to connect us.

Joseph Grenny showed me that office environments are designed to bring people together to form relationships. It is in the casual, unstructured interactions that friendships are made and strengthened. When we are aligned by common interest, and we have time to interact, this is when our tribal power is at it’s strongest.

Like Marbles In A Jar

According to Psychoanalyst and theologian [[Roger Moore]], all people, but especially preteen boys have a need to not only play but display. There is a need to be seen, something that rarely happens in online gaming. Somewhere along the way, male relationships have been condensed into a single axis. Socially boys and men are expected to reduce their relationships to competition only. However, human beings are wired for richer, cooperative and collaborative efforts as well.

Within the space of a GameTruck party, playing side by side, the players can begin to reconnect with those needs to be see and be seen. To borrow a phrase from Mr. Grenny, the players are like marbles in a jar. They interact because they have to, but also they want to. It is this unstructured interaction that leads to stronger relationships and friendships. Yes there is competition, but there is also negotiation, cooperation, comradery, and collaboration. And it is all supported by rich, visual communication and feedback. 

The experience that I believe most people refer to is the profound sense of being embedded in a likeminded community that can express a wider range of interactions and relationships aside from anonymous cut through competition. Everyone plays. Everyone works together so everyone can play. This socialization around mutual interest enhances the bonds between the players. This is fertile ground for friendship.

Summary

The next time you have a GameTruck party, or you get invited to one, when you see the kids play, don’t just think, “they’re having fun.” You might also pause to listen, spend some time and watch how they interact. There are high fives, jumps, cheers, and yes, while there is always a little good-natured competition, can you see the validation that comes from the Adult Coach appreciating the achievement of the players? Can you feel the energy as the players suddenly have access to the full range of interpersonal communication available to them? Can you sense the potential energy build as they realize they share interests, and get the chance to explore those common bonds unfettered? This is the experience we are talking about. The sense of being deeply connected and aligned with people who have our wellbeing in mind and at heart.  This is how friends are made.  

And delivering this experience is what we have been delivering for 15 years.  Perhaps that is why we are still as popular as ever.

—

References

1. ktmoelle. (2017, October 6). Taste In the Brain [Text]. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/taste-brain
2. Sinek, S. (2009). Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (Reprint edition). Portfolio.
3. Harari, Y. (n.d.). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Retrieved March 9, 2020, from https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316117/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1583793092&sr=1-1
4. Voss, C., & Raz, T. (2016). Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It (1st edition). Harper Business.
5. Grenny, J., Grenny, J., & Grenny, J. (2020, November 30). No one is talking about the real problem with working from home. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90579969/no-one-is-talking-about-the-real-problem-with-working-from-home

Power Posing Is Back: Amy Cuddy Successfully Refutes Criticism. (n.d.). Retrieved March 9, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2018/04/03/power-posing-is-back-amy-cuddy-successfully-refutes-criticism/#70da9113b8ef

It was about this time, sixteen years ago when I first had the idea for GameTruck inspired by Halo. A few things happen this time of the year. One is baseball. The other is the National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas. I was busy trying to figure out what I was going to do next in my career and I thought the idea would be to create video editing software for families. Like scrapbooking but with video clips. I was also researching everything about arcades, and the depressing reality of the entire arcade industry was settling in. This was an industry that cared about boxes. They did not see gamers as people, but sheeple that fed coins into their precious boxes.

My idealist dream of a new arcade where you could play the best games with your best friends was all but over. The people who cared about the players had gone into Local Area Network Store (LAN Center, or Gaming Center) businesses renting computers by the hour. This business has blown up (in a good way) in Korea and tried to come to the United States. However, a combination of cultural factors kept it from ever becoming successful here. One in particular is this. American parents want to teach their children to think for themselves, where in Asia, they are more likely to let children act by themselves often crossing the cities on trains unsupervised. In essence this created the type of ready consumer who could access the LAN Centers.

South Korea saw demand for gaming centers blossom overnight. In fact, the language of Star Craft by Blizzard-Interactive surged through Korean youth much like Fortnite has with today’s American Youth. 

Other Complications

There were other complications as well. Computers were expensive and needed to be upgraded constantly. The software licenses had to be negotiated with each publisher and developer. And there was that old bugaboo, parents not wanting to pay for their children to play video games. Putting an annual pass on a credit card and forgetting about it is one thing, but in the early 2000s very few systems were in place to make that easy for retail locations. So the kids were expected to pay every time they played like at a regular arcade. As you might imagine, parental resistance to paying was pretty steep. That was not all however, news reports started to come out of young people (mostly men), dying at these centers by refusing to eat, sleep, or leave. They literally turned into zombies. As if parents don’t have enough to worry about.

A few businesses in the United states did make a go of it, but more often than not, they could barely earn enough money to pay for their equipment, staff, rent, insurance, and the loan they took out to buy the equipment in the first place. This left them virtually nothing to invest in new computer equipment and games. As a result, most centers lasted one generation of hardware then folded.

There’s another way

I was explaining to my old next door neighbor Al, when he said, “Why don’t you try Xbox.” I looked at him. Al is a super smart IT guy, amazing golfer and huge Nascar fan. I wasn’t expecting to hear him talk about Xbox. Al, also happened to be one heck of a halo player. He set up for me in a conference room, four Xboxes and four projector screens. Then we had 14 other friends come over and join. We setup a 16 player halo match that lasted for hours. I couldn’t believe it. Halo, of all games, supported not only local area network play, it also supported split screen network play. I had never seen anything like it.

“We have to show this to more people,” I told Al. He shrugged. “How?” He asked.

I wondered why I hadn’t seen this before, or even heard of it. As I studied that LAN stores, it dawned on me why not. They had a very PC – or personal computer centric frame of mind. Why would you ever split the screen if you could have a screen all to yourself. They would never share screens. Console gamers, for the most part at that time, did not think of playing much online. If they did, they treated the Xbox like a discount personal computer – one player per console.

What Al had showed me was a completely new way of thinking about the problem of playing together. But we just had to find a way to make it available to people. 

The Living Room on Wheels Concept

I knew from making games, that most video games, including Halo were played in living rooms. What’s more, unlike standup arcade cabinets that were designed to eat quarters in 2-3 minute pick up and play experiences, console video games could take 20-30 minutes just to get into the meat of the play. People needed to be comfortable. I started to realize that the best way to present a sixteen player Halo party would be to create a living room… but how could I do that?

This is where my trip the NAB conference in April pivoted. Instead of searching out font libraries and motion clips and talking with people about licensing motion graphics for video editing, I started hunting down all the news vans, and trailers, and anything and everything I could find about mobile power and video electronics. I was shocked to learn how much equipment put into a news van is the same equipment used in the studio or elsewhere. It was not the equipment that was special, but the van. They designed the van to meet the needs of the gear it had to carry and power.

I left the show realizing that I could do that, but instead of a video broadcast station in a van… I could create my dream living room on wheels. Ultimately, this game theater went into a trailer, and we called the business GameTruck. Seeing Halo in 16 player system link set me thinking. I found out that Nintendo and Sony also had their own versions of system link. We even used Mario Kart Double Dash on the GameCube at our first ever GameTruck party. 

It’s the Action, Not the Idea

I recently came across a quote attributed to Seth Godin. “Ideas are worthless. Action is everything.” Had I not gone to see Al’s Halo setup, had I not gone to Las Vegas to research vehicle based mobile power and electronics, I might not have ever founded GameTruck. However, I did take those small steps, and those steps let to more steps which eventually lead to founding a company that has entertained more than 10 million children. 

Now that the spring is here, and optimism like the Phoenix seems to be rising from the ashes, what ideas have you had that might inspire you to take one small exploratory step? Grab a controller, plop down on the coach, and let’s play some Halo while you tell me about it.

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References

1. Jenkins, J. (2013, June 21). 5 Differences Between Japanese and Western Parenting. An Epic Education. https://www.anepiceducation.com/japanese-western-parenting/
2. https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/xbox-360/console/connect-system-link-play#:~:text=System%20link%20play%20is%20a,can%20play%20the%20same%20game.
3. Inc, S. (n.d.). Is the age of LAN parties dead? The Spiceworks Community. Retrieved April 4, 2021, from https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/230569-is-the-age-of-lan-parties-dead
4. May 26, H. C. & 2006. (n.d.). Gaming heaven for Southern California residents—Howie’s Game Shack. Tom’s Hardware. Retrieved April 4, 2021, from https://www.tomshardware.com/news/howies-game-shack,2827.html

Halo: The Master Chief Collection (Xbox One) Co-Op Information. (n.d.). Co-Optimus. Retrieved April 4, 2021, from https://www.co-optimus.com/game/3476/xbox-one/halo-the-master-chief-collection.html

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