Life & Work with Joe Mares of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Mares.

Hi Joe, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
As a child I had 2 dreams, to be a game designer, and to be a pro wrestler. My pro wrestling career was short lived, but it gave me confidence to pursue my other goal to be a game designer, and I’ve been doing that for 21 years.

I’ve had a really interesting career, I designed an experience that was played at Disneyland, I designed an award winning board game with Nolan Bushnell (Atari and Chuck E Cheese founder and godfather of the game industry itself), I named the game League of Legends (probably one of the biggest games in the world), and I just founded my own start up VR haunted house business.

Along the way I developed a universal formula for fun. Based off my various experiences in the game industry, developing for different genres, platforms, and audiences, and also interviewing creative professionals like Disney Imagineers, Reality Show Producers and Comic Book writers, I was able to create a foundation for the rules of fun. I released the book earlier this year, it’s called Blueprint for Fun.

I mentor and teach other young creatives on the side, and I am big into finding out what makes creatives tick and how to be authentically you and why its important.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t know what smooth is. The biggest one is that the game industry is nomadic at best. You need to constantly move and be on the lookout for a new job. We love the game industry but the game industry doesn’t love us back.

Founding your own start up is also non stop problems and issues. You find out a lot about yourself and the reason you’re doing something. I always say that you need to be passionate about your work, not because the work will get better, but its the only thing pushing you forward when it inevitably seems impossible to. That being said boot strapping a product and taking it around town when its an unprecedented one, is extremely hard. People love it, but there is also no market for it.

The current state of AI has disrupted a lot of studios, I’ve been a part of 2 companies that have replaced creatives with AI. the job market in games and tech is also currently very bad and lots of people including me have had trouble finding work. It’s an issue I’m also passionate about.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m mostly known for naming League of Legends. I specialize in making things fun. I am not limited by the genre audience or platform, I specialize in the psychological needs of the audience when it comes to entertainment.

I’m most proud of my startup Thousand Bit. Because we are literally defining and starting our own vertical where none has existed before. It’s really hard to make something unprecedented but that people also love immediately.

What sets me a part from others is I set out to answer the question “what makes something fun”, and I actually answered it. It took me about 15 years of research but I released my book earlier this year. Knowing what makes something fun from a universal level has made me able to design anything for anyone, and I cut through very difficult design/creative decisions easily because of it.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
It is extremely important to know yourself, and then be able to express it. The only thing that makes you special is understanding what resonates with you and expressing it unhomogenized.

Pricing:

• Blueprint for Fun book $25

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.harbingeroffun.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joemethod/

Image Credits
Myself and Tony Baxter after I interviewed him. Myself and Magic Johnson, I designed a VR attraction he invested in. Myself performing in a wrestling show. Myself performing improv on stage. Myself and the entire Riot Games company (2007)