Randy Pitchford Explains His Use Of Magic And Understanding Of Psychology

The president of Gearbox Software, Randy Pitchford, was one of the numerous speakers to grace the stage of this year's DICE Summit. But Pitchford's talk was a bit different from everyone else’s, largely due to his approach to making games. And much of it stems from his unique background: he used to be a bon afide magician.

As Venture Beat reports, Pitchford was able to pay for college by being a magician, and was married by the Magic Castle magician’s theater in Hollywood. Though more importantly, he was able to tap into the skills learned from that rather quirky trade when making games. Especially when it came to dealing with gamers.

Because the relationship between a magician and his audience is much like the one between game developers and their customers. One that is built around trust. As Pitchford explains:

"Same deal [with games]. Come with me into my world, follow my line of logic, understand and follow my rules, and trust me — and there will be a payoff.

With magic, the impossible happens… In a game, it is a sense of gratification. We are purveyors of pleasure. Follow me, and you will be rewarded."

This trust is essential when convincing someone to hand over $60, which is the average price of a first run console game these days. And as a result, credibility is key:

"We have to do this with integrity, delivering more value than we get back,” he said. “If we don’t establish credibility quickly, we will lose the audience. They might not trust us again."

Pitchford also touched upon his understanding of psychology. An example given, that Destructoid points out, is when a player chooses between two weapons that are comparable early on, it becomes their 'best' weapon. Even if the effectiveness ranking says otherwise.

And thusly, the choice that has been made becomes the good one, over time, and the one that was not chosen is therefore the bad one. Even if the actual numbers and stats say otherwise.

The same train of thought was applied to consoles. When someone can only choose one system, they get what they believe is the best, and therefore all the others are bad. Thus we have console fanboyism, and people tearing down the other consoles, with such passion and fury, as if they held stock in the company that produces their preferred system.