Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Peters.
Jeff, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Originally, I was supposed to be a lawyer. Being a classic speech and debate brat in high school seemed to push me on my way to various law school applications and corporate law. Then this odd thing happened. Video Games materialized on the scene. This was the 1980s and high school for me (yea, kind of dating myself) and with that, the world exploded with the fascination of this brand new form of entertainment So, much to my parents’ counsel otherwise, my focus began a delicate shift from law to gaming. The issue was, I started to get good at games. High Scores, marathon gaming sessions, and tournaments, they all kept pushing the needle more and more to a competitive video game focus. The catch was, this was all new, it was forging itself on the fly and there was no clear concept of where it all would go.
I guess as a parent myself now, I still don’t quite understand why my parents supported me in that transition, as that path could have led to complete disaster as it wasn’t exactly a traditional career choice, but it ended up being the jumping off point to set the rest of my career in motion.
Initially, it was all about the competition. I was one of the first ‘professional’ video game players (long before the eSports of today that movement kind of inspired) and traveled the world competing against others as a result of this competitive focus. This led to some Guinness Book world records, lots of tournament achievements and then the founding of a thing called “The US National Video Game Team” (USNVGT) (yes, it did actually exist!) Among other Team business activities, this group then evolved into becoming a full-fledged publishing company that created the biggest video game magazine of the 1980s and 1990s, “Electronic Gaming Monthly” (EGM). At the time, we were all pretty young and really didn’t know we were supposed to fail, so somehow we kept it all moving forward with passion and drive. This set the stage for my independent spirit, entrepreneurial focus, and not being afraid to go out and build things if I have the passion for it.
By 1990, I had left the world of publishing and competitive gaming to be on the other side of the video game world, video game design, and development. Since I enjoyed the act of designing and building things, being able to create the entertainment that others loved was my next passion. Since then, the industry has generally treated me well, both as a creator and entrepreneur, and given me lots of good stories to tell along the way.
It’s now been over 30 years making video games and during that time, I’ve spent almost 10 years as an executive with Electronic Arts, started multiple businesses in the independent development space (some grown to successful acquisitions), and worked with a lot of great development groups (including Utah’s own Sculptured Software). I have also been lucky enough to work on such notable properties and franchises such as “Mortal Kombat”, “NBA Jam”, “Madden”, “Tetris”, “Monopoly”, “Metro 2033”, and “Tiger Woods” (including many others) and developed some top-selling products with Viacom, Disney, Amblin, Warner Bros., DC, and Hasbro. It’s been a very unique and fun ride and my original mental leanings for the legal world have also come in handy from time to time.
In addition to the accolades in the video game competitive world, I was also featured by SyFy Games, as part of their industry “ICON” series, awarded the IDGA (Utah) Lifetime Achievement award, as well as inducted into the “International Video Game Hall of Fame” for overall career impact and ongoing contributions to the industry as a whole. So, this has been a crazy ride indeed!
I’ve been fortunate enough to call UT my home base for the last 30 years and have been focused on helping to bring together and grow our local sector here. The business climate and talent pool here has been a wonderful hidden gem compared to the rest of the country and most people don’t realize that UT has contributed consistently to top 10 video game projects over the past 30 years, with the industry still thriving here.
As part of giving back to the community, I am also one of the co-founders of the non-profit group, the Utah Digital Entertainment Network (UDEN), a trade and advocacy group focused on bringing everyone in digital entertainment together while building the community and growing the sector here. I am also the co-founder and COO of Spark XR, Inc., a creative think-tank and development house creating next-gen virtual reality (VR) experiences and location-based entertainment (LBE) solutions, the Owner and CEO of The Bluff Street, LLC, which is a consultant group for the interactive entertainment businesses, as well as teaching graduate-level business course on the video game industry for the University of Utah, as part of their award winning EAE Video Game Program. To add to all that, I also sit on two Boards of Directors of video game groups outside of Utah: SNK, Inc (Japan) and The International Video Game Hall of Fame (Iowa).
That pretty much sums up my origin story and all the fun stuff I’m helping out with here in UT. The big positive thing for me, is that with all that going on, I’m still getting to make video games every day here in UT, which I still consider more fun than actual work.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As you can see from my background, there’s a combination of working with big corporations as well as independent groups, and brand-new startups. With that kind of journey, it’s almost impossible to not have ‘bumps’ along the way. I think you talk to any entrepreneur and the first thing that comes out in conversation are the problems they have had to solve along the way.
Probably the biggest thing I’ve learned on that journey is the single best skill a person can have is the ability to problem-solve. That to me is a big deal, not necessarily something taught in college overtly, but will always provide the biggest dividends in today’s world. When looking back at my own career thus far, the main theme that seems to resonate is the act of working through things you’ve never done before and having to just figure-it-out, much like trying to master a video game. It’s all about recognizing the puzzle in front of you and working through it, trial and error, until you get to the solution you want.
When I interview people for roles within my groups, that is the single biggest thing I’m looking for is their ability to work through puzzles and problems they’ve never seen before. The video game business is all about doing things you’ve never done before, since every game is a brand new thing that has never been created until you breathe life into it, especially with all new technologies constantly evolving alongside. Then, add all the normal problems of running a business (startup or established corporate life) combined with the fact that nobody has to care about what you’re building, and it always feels like the deck is stacked against you.
In my early days of turning competitive video gaming into a business with the US National Video game team, and then transitioning that to a publishing business for video game magazines, none of us had business degrees or mentors to show us the path. We had to invent it at every step. When coming up with the idea of making a magazine, there was no book to buy with instructions and Google wouldn’t exist for another 20+ years! I tell people we were too ignorant to realize that we were supposed to fail. This is a lesson I still use today and teach to my students as well. Sometimes the passion for a project and the ability to problem-solve your way through it are the most valuable things to bring to the table. In today’s world you have so many resources at your fingertips, far more than we had in the 80s and early 90s.
It would be fun to share all of the different stories of failure and success during that journey, but that’s probably enough detail to fill a few books at this point.
Whenever you start a new company or a new project, you better have a passion to get up every day and keep working on it, because every day there will be countless reasons and problems in your face to give reason to stop. That passion has to keep pulling you through every day until you can actually see the finish line. Everyone starts something, but very few will finish.
My first two companies were self-financed, which was both good and bad. On the plus side, we didn’t answer to anyone else, didn’t have to give away a large part of the company and decisions of what we needed to do were all ours (i.e. no oversight).
On the flip side, it also meant that we were in danger of the utilities being shut off (i.e. “Is it the red notice yet?”), not sure if we were making the right financial decisions, guessed our way through who we should work with or not, and there was no oversight. In the process, we created countless problems that were all self-inflicted and we then had to problem-solve our way through those as well.
The good thing about creating problems and then having to fix them, is that you begin to learn what works and what doesn’t. The rule I took away from this is that it’s ok to fail, as long as you learn from that experience and don’t repeat the same problem twice.
Each company I’ve had the pleasure to work with had its own unique set of situations, problems and successes, but the best outcome has always been the act of shipping and releasing a new game. It’s still a thrill to see people ‘choosing’ to play your game, because we all know that in all reality, nobody has to care about what you’re making, which is true for all entertainment; the deck is always stacked against you and that’s a constant dilemma to contend with.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Spark XR, Inc.?
Today my daily work gets divided between four different groups, all based here in UT. After more than 30 years in the business I look at dividing what I do into two basic camps: pushing the envelope on new products and ways to give back to a new group of game makers.
Right now I’m pushing the envelope with Spark XR, Inc. which is focused on all things immersion. Our Industry has always been tech-based, and as new technologies present themselves, we’ve figured out ways to exploit them and push the boundaries. Today that frontier is being pushed with VR and AR.
Not everything currently happening in the worlds of AR and VR are well-received and this sent us on a mission to figure out, “What’s wrong with VR?” Too many experiences have made people sick, not really immersed them, provided clunky execution, and generally not equated with what we all WANT from an immersive experience, which is best related to either the Star Trek Holodeck or what has been promised with Ready Player One. So Spark XR is trying to advance immersion to those levels of expectation by changing how we think about software and hardware development.
With that, we’ve now designed and engineered custom hardware, developed proprietary software tools, and even filed patents for the cool tech we’ve developed. So we’re problem-solving our way through the issues we’ve identified and putting smiles back on players’ faces as a result. Our first public release is innovating in the area of virtual tourism with “AlUla Adventures” (www.alulaadventures.com) which takes customers on an “Indiana Jones” style of adventure to be teleported to a thousand-year-old UNESCO Heritage site in Saudi Arabia.
On the giving-back front, that comes from three different endeavors at the moment. The Bluff Street, LLC acts an independent consultancy working with VR, LBE, and video game-focused developers and publishers to assist with: creative direction, vision and game design, business modeling and strategy. The goal is to assist other groups to help solve whatever hurdles they may have on their way to being successful.
There’s also teaching as part of the EAE Program at the University of Utah, and I’m happy to have been involved with that program in various ways since its inception. It’s fantastic to work with students with that passion and desire to make a difference and see what innovative creations they may have in them.
Lastly, there’s the Utah Digital Entertainment Network (UDEN) (www.utahden.org) whose goal is to build a healthy ecosystem and strong community focused on growth in the entire digital entertainment sector here in UT. There’s great talent already here and some amazing success stories all originating from UT, and with that community focus we believe as we grow one, we grow all. UDEN is not trying to replace any existing group, forum or network, but instead focused on being that kind of air-traffic control needed to help guide groups to the solutions they are looking for. Prior to the pandemic, we sponsored free-to-members events, panels and keynotes on everything from financing, development, sound design, investment options, influencers, etc. Now that we are starting to come out of that phase, it’s probably time to kick off a few events again. All of the tools, videos and network connections are free to our members and you can find all these materials on our website, YouTube channel, or Facebook page.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I think one of the big convergences now happening in entertainment, is how film, video games, and most pre-recorded shows are using the same skills, technologies and teams to create them. Essentially we’re all building using mostly the same tools and similar talents. Right now there is a conceptual separation between the different entertainment mediums, but looking forward, I think we’re building similar types of entertainment on similar technology-based platforms and the key decisions will be, is the narrative linear (i.e. film) or interactive (i.e. video games)? The confluence that is happening here is that video games are now more focused on believable characters and story-telling, and major movies are building most of their content digitally in video game engines. I see lots of great content being made as these two groups overlap even more.
With the industries melting together, we also have the concept of how will teams work going forward. This one is probably the most obvious based on where we are as a society, but it’s clear that remote teams will become more of the norm rather than the exception. It’s definitely nice to work across the table with your fellow teammates, but most of the work we do in our industry day-to-day doesn’t require that face-to-face exposure all the time. Most tech industries that decided they could never work with a remote workforce are now successfully engaging with remote employees and contractors. Granted this will definitely change how we think about office space going forward. To add to this model, I also think that the video game or interactive entertainment industry will focus on fewer full-time employees and more contractors to help manage overhead and costs, since development costs have been exploding over the last 10 years or so. Basically, the model we’ve seen working in Hollywood (small production companies with big contract teams brought in when needed) will continue to bleed its way into the gaming space. There will still be the need for large teams on certain projects, but based on the amount of content current productions require to be competitive, the contractor model starts to make more sense. It also provides a far more flexible lifestyle to those who’d like it, options to work on multiple projects, as well as change location more easily when the desire fits. Combining this with the ability for more teams to work remotely, there’s a new lifestyle model developing pretty quickly. I currently have friends in the video game business that are definitely enjoying traveling the world as contractors, since their location isn’t important anymore.
With all the talk about VR, AR and XR (mixed realities) and whether there is enough adoption or killer aps, we will be seeing both AR and VR separate more into fixed interactive experiences with different goals and purposes. VR will continue to push the boundaries of immersion, always trying to shut out the real world and lead us closer and closer to the Holodeck (thus, one of Spark XR’s missions). This technology will focus more on entertainment. This allows us to create alternate worlds you can begin to believe are real, as well as create experiences that generate real and lasting memories. Outside of entertainment, this medium also will facilitate education, learning, training, simulations, and anything where being completely immersed and generating memories is a key factor. AR will be less about entertainment and more about information gathering and interacting with the real world. This will be the medium of advertising, shopping assistants, visual navigation, heads-up displays of all kinds, and helping to visualize elements relevant to where you are at that moment. Think of walking into a clothing store, looking at a shirt and your AR glasses tell you where the shirt was made, gives three more retail stores nearby with better pricing and also which location has the exact color you are looking for. AR promises a portable internet that interacts with just about everything you see, which is demanding quite a lot from technology at this point. That’s also the main reason why it’s not quite ready for prime time yet either.
On a similar subject, which may be a bit controversial, I also believe there will NOT be A Metaverse. There will indeed be lots of shared virtual spaces for consumers to congregate, the largest in my opinion, being around video games as a starting point. There will also be platforms and technologies that allow people to connect for virtual meetings and social exchanges, but I don’t see the promise of a single ‘metaverse’ taking over, especially in a largely capitalist environment. We already have a lot of inroads to those shared digital spaces, but we are at the infancy of how we’ll use them going forward. Right now, the internet is providing the backbone of connectivity for all these connected spaces, which essentially makes the internet the closest thing to a ‘metaverse’ that we’ve get, and that I don’t see changing anytime soon. In fact, a faster internet will become even more important to just about everything we do. I see lots of money being lost on ‘metaverse’ labeled projects in the near future.
Lastly, and this is more of a personal trend I see going around, is that we have now become consumers of entertainment where we no longer own anything and all this entertainment is disposable. That means video games, movies and streamed series have the ability to just ‘disappear’ when they are turned off. That concept will push consumers back to the value of ‘owning’, which means a greater focus on limited editions, collectibles and making personal statements on what entertainment-related objects are purchased and displayed for others to see. We’ve seen this concept of owning bleed over to the NFT (digital) world, although that world is still trying to figure out what it is and what real value it provides outside of ways to use your unspendable crypto. This will also continue to put a focus on retro collecting (since all those were tangible objects) and are limited in supply (i.e. video gaming cartridges, DVDs, pinball machines, branded tchotchkes of all types, etc.) We are a digital populace now, addicted to our phones, but I see us coming back to physical representations more and more as general entertainment continues to be disposable.
Those are the things I’m seeing at the moment, at least at a high level, and much of my business work is following those future trends as well, so once again I’m following my passion on where we’ll be heading as an industry, and hoping I can solve enough problems along the way to keep making ‘fun’.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sparkxr.com, www.utahden.org, www.thebluffstreet.com, www.alulaadventures.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UtahDEN
- Twitter: @sparkXRtech, @jefftimism
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sparkxr1548, https://www.youtube.com/@udenutahdigitalentertainme1230/featured
Image Credits
Jeff Peters, Jon Dean
