NZXT PODCAST - #135 - How to Get a Job in the Gaming Industry (FT. Eli from Iron Galaxy Studios)

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

On this week's Hispanic Heritage Month edition of the NZXT podcast, we chat with Elijah Montoya, Lead Recruiter at Iron Galaxy Studios and member of Latinx in Gaming. We talk about tips and tricks to help you land your dream career in gaming! We also debate which Zelda game is the G.O.A.T.! Follow Elijah on Twitter: twitter.com/mariogpeno

And welcome to episode 135 of the NZXT podcast, the official podcast of the NXD community. This podcast recorded live every Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific Center time on the official NZXT Twitch. And it's available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. My name is Mike. And with me, as always, is Ivan. Ivan, how are you doing? I'm doing good, Mike. Thank you for another podcast. I'm always excited to do these with you. I'm very excited for today's podcast and as well as this month's podcast because we are celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. And we have a very special guest for our first guest of the series here. His name is Eli, but I'll let him introduce himself.

How are you doing, Eli? I am feeling fantastic. It's a joy to be here with the two of you. It's Hispanic Heritage Month. So I am at my strongest. I'm thriving. Usually it's hoodie season when I'm at my strongest when I can throw on the Star Wars hoodie. right now. I'm feeling good. I'm rocking my Unito's shirt from last year. So like I'm feeling,

I'm feeling the vibes. I'm feeling excellent. And I guess you said introduced myself. So I'm the lead recruiter at Iron Galaxy Studios, but I'm also a member of Latinx in gaming. And we have a lot of amazing things planned for this month. And which country I are you representing today for Hispanic Heritage Month, by the way? Yeah, I am Mexican-American. I am from Mexico. You're just like me for Twinsies. One of us. One of us. So you mentioned that you're the lead recruiter at Iron Galaxy Studios. So what exactly does a lead recruiter do?

Oh, wow. That's a big question. So we are responsible for pretty much the entire hiring pipeline, right? From the initial reach-out email to the entire end of the process and everything in between, your offer letters, your interview scheduling, your communications in between, advocating for the candidates, sending tests. There's all these different things that we kind of have a little bit of our hands in, but ultimately, we're part of the services team. We want to facilitate and make things easier not only internally but externally too.

And I think at Iron Galaxy, we've done a really good job. And I can tell you a million things about the studio, but I think we've done a really good job of making sure that everyone in this process, whether it's in the company or outside that are applying or really respected through the process. We have kind of a pillar of our company where we're like, we try to be quick with our responses. We never ghost anyone, right? Like we make sure that even if it's something where you're not going to get hired, that you at least hear from us when we've made the hire at the end of the process, right? So we try our best not to ghost people.

So I think those are all some great practices. But recruiters also attend events, right? We go to universities and we talk about our studios. We go to things like GDC and PACs, right? We attend these events because we're kind of a spokespeople for the company itself. But I would say that recruiters are people too. So just remember that, you know, like there are only so many people hours. if someone's not getting back to you, they don't want to ignore you.

They just might have 400 candidates, right? Because there's a lot of interest in the games industry, right? We had an art internship, and I think within two weeks, it was just like 400 plus people, right? So just know that, like, there are people behind this process, but we all want to help you. I always tell people applying that recruiters or the HR professionals at your favorite studio. It's kind of like Hogwarts. Help will be given to those who ask, and that's what they want. You know, if you applied for something, you're not sure if you qualify.

You don't know if this is the right fit for you, or if there's a chance that your skills translate to that role. Those are the people you should be reaching out to on LinkedIn, finding those emails because they want to speak with you. So I've kind of given you kind of a lot of clay to play with on what recruiters do. But really, it's a million things and that it's always new things, right? It's just like, oh, hey, there's this new addition. There's this new thing we want to try. We're always kind of evolving and rolling, just like games do, right? They're heavily collaborative and that's what we do too.

We collaborate with the people don't want jobs. Yeah, well, your job sounds, first of all, super interesting. And secondly, I think, you know, your approach to it is, awesome. Like, kudos to you for, like, responding to everyone. Like, that goes a long way because I know it's very frustrating when you apply to a job and you don't hear back and just get ghosted. So I love that. I wish more companies did that. How long have you been working at Iron Galaxy Studios doing this? Coming up on two years now. So, I mean, I've been here a while. Yeah. And it's something where I've been really excited about the changes that we've made as a company

over time. We've grown a lot, too. And our leadership, team, Chelsea Blasco, Adam Boyce, and our founder, Dave, they, I think they really have a ton of excellent experience in the industry, and they've been doing this so long that I think that they really kind of have some of the pitfalls that I would call personally of gaming. You hear those stories, right, about burnout, work-like balance, all of those things being difficulties, and then the stability, the layoff portion of that. And I think the studio that that team is built in all the amazing professionals that are here at this company, over 260, of us now. They've really kind of led with this expectation of 40-hour work weeks, respecting that

work-life balance, and then also having stability. Because our studio, if you've seen Iron Galaxy's website, I mean, we work on a ton of games. It's, you know, if you look at the website, you know, it's things like Overwatch, Destiny, Diablo, Borderlands, Crash, Spiro, Killer Instinct, Elder Scrolls. It's a huge number of titles. We've shipped 60 plus games with 20 plus partners. So I would tell you that, like, that stability side has really figured out too, like, you know, that we've never had layoffs in our entire history. And I can tell you that Iron Galaxy is a place that I feel really confident that when we bring people in, that you're going to have a stable, you know, work-life balance, you're going to have a place that you'll have a job, right?

I think that that's like a rarity in the games industry, to have a company that's been around for 14 years and to never have had layoffs, right? So that's really unique, I would say, in the game space, and we kind of champion that. And that's probably why you see me being so much of a cheerleader right now. Just like, I've been treated very well. I feel that the people we bring in will be treated very well. I've worked in retail. I've worked in insurance. I've worked for comic conventions.

I haven't always felt that I was more than a cog in the wheel or that I wasn't just a statistic on someone's spreadsheet. And an Iron Galaxy, it's completely silly to say that you'll be treated like a person, right? But that's the thing that I do really love our work environment. It is very people-focused in nature. So you've asked how long I've been here, right? It's almost two years, right?

And I've had offers from other places. I've had people try and ask me if I want to go other places. And I do not. I'm very proud and excited to be a part of Iron Galaxy. And that's even where this partnership with me and Latinx and gaming came from, that I devoted time as an Iron Galaxy employee to the last Unidos event and then working with them in that partnership. They're like, hey, we'd like to work with you more.

And so that's why I've kind of become someone more on the backside of things. Because basically my goal in the industry is to give roads for people from all underrepresented backgrounds a chance to be in games. And if I can give you just that 2% or 10% that's going to help you get your next job whether I'm telling you good interview questions. I'm doing a resume review or portfolio review. If I can give you 30 minutes of my time and it helps you get that next gig, hell yeah. That's what I want to do. Nice. Nice. Well, you talked about games that you guys have worked on. Are there any games that you guys specifically released from your studio? Yeah. Yeah. So Killer Instinct

seasons two and three are something that we're really known for in the fighting game community. We have a game called Extinction. We have dive kick as well. But recently on August 11th, we released Rumbleverse, our brawler royale. So it's fists instead of firearms, your elbow dropping off of buildings. It's something that I think is really, really getting embraced by the community. T. Payne was singing free fall and playing it not too long ago. So it's, you know, I think it's a really great game. I love it. I'm not the best at it, but I'm not the worst at it. So, you know, I get some wins here and there, but the player base is getting much, much better since launch. So it's hard to get those Ws. But yeah, yeah, it's something where Iron Galaxy, not only do we work on

partners projects, but we also work on our own original games too. And that's something that I think is really unique in the gaming space, right? It's just like, hey, we're going to support you, make sure you have jobs because there's all these different types of projects you get to work on different genres, different engines with different companies, right? And then there's also original titles that we're going to invest in because we want to, you know, take the things that we've learned in other areas and we want to deploy them on our own original project. It sounds like you're doing a lot of like crazy and like, honestly, it sounds like it sounds like It's very, very fun.

Do you have, like, one that, like, stands out to you? Like, what is, like, the most fun part about this job? Like, what is the one that stands out the most? Well, okay, so a lot of the stuff's under NDA, right? So I can't always talk about the projects and all that stuff. But I think, never. How dare you? I mean, if you want to spoil stuff, you're more to welcome to.

I like my job. I would say, I think that the studios, like I said, like I said, like how I arrived working with Latinx and gaming, right? It's at the studio when we have our, maybe this is the biggest compliment I could pay the company because it's like my favorite thing about here or the thing that I like being a part of. Is that there's a lot of, I think, creative people

moving in a lot of directions, doing a lot of things, but it's a team sport. We're all going in one direction, but we have people in Chicago, Orlando and Nashville, right? But what's great is that, like, I can be really hyper-invested in the Latinx and gaming community. I'm a part of our Latinx ERG, and last year we did this amazing video

where we kind of had people do one-on-one interviews, but because we're known for fighting games. We did like a fighting game splash screen and everyone kind of had their character pose in there too. And so like that was stuff like that. But working on things like our presentation for Latinx and gaming, I got to meet people from the studio I hadn't met because we had been virtual at that point, right?

And then there were things I discovered about them that I didn't know about their passions and things in kind of editing and putting the video together that I really love. But it's things like that, projects like that that our company doesn't just have cute bullet points on the website, right? That's like, we care about this and that and that, right?

Like I see them investing in putting money into these initiatives. So there's other developers at our studio that are working with game devs of color, right? And the game devs of color, Exmo, right? But I just happened to be Mexican American and I was very passionate about what the Latinx and gaming team was doing. And my studio supported me. It was very easy to get that support. I just kind of put a presentation together of why I think we should do it. There wasn't a lot of red tape. They're just like, yeah, this is exactly the kind of things that we should be doing. There wasn't either some diversity quota either to come away from the event with a hire either. It's something where they're just like, hey, let's

invest this, let's sponsor these events, and then let's talk to the people and give them opportunities, right? So I really love that, that I don't feel like we're being placated or we're being just like, oh, hey, like we need to get these diversity numbers up. It's like an actual care, like I said, we're very people focused, right? So I would tell you that the favorite thing is just that the company is willing to support a lot of different initiatives, right? We went to the Pride Parade in Chicago, and it was great to see some of our Orlando team members. They came up for it. And it was like, yeah, just a great time. And one of our, managers were just dancing up the storm everywhere.

So I had to up my dancing game. And then our DEI lead, Regess and I, Spice Girls came on and we went and danced near our manager. So yeah, it was very, very fun time. So yeah, I do love that the company does back all those initiatives that you think a modern company or that like a lot of places say when they care about diversity equity inclusion. I'm seeing the company do it every day.

So they're not just, you know, talking to talk, but they're walking it, right? So that's the favorite thing. All the cool things we get to do together. So on the flip side of that So it looks like you had a lot of fun stuff But it's been also the most like challenging Part of this job Yeah I think a lot of the

Gaming space and this is just in my experience right And I'm not in this 10 years or seven years right But when you're trying to make change And give more roads to people from diverse backgrounds There's not always the I wouldn't say the right candidates There's not always it's you have to do a lot of work to find who you want, right? If you're going to a school that's admissions population isn't as diverse

as you want, but that school isn't a location that is convenient to you, right? It's really hard to get people from underrepresented backgrounds, right? If the femme presenting population at that school is less than the male presenting, right? So I think that that's the biggest challenge is that not every arena that you enter is going to be as gung-ho about giving opportunities to people who haven't had them as you might be or as you might want, right? So I do think that that's a challenge, working with groups like Latinx and gaming is a huge benefit there but giving to different

charities, right? We were at a Code Coven event not too long ago speaking to some of the internship folks that they had there and it's something where we're going to keep trying to make those inroads but it is a challenge because not always is the world where you want it to be in that inclusivity, in that

openness, right? Let's say that we have big AAA games that we're working on, right? And if those games are at a certain quality, level, there might not always be fits for associate level talent, right? Or entry level talent. We might need that mid-level talent. But that's a huge thing with students exiting schools, right? They just see, hey, there's nothing but like mid-level roles here. There's not associate or entry-level roles and they're applying to things. So like, that's one of those big challenges about, like,

how do you make those roads? How do you give those actual opportunities? And I think it's something we're still figuring out. We know we're not perfect and can evolve, but we're looking at more internships that we're doing. We're looking at apprenticeships, right? Things like, like that. So we're trying, but we're nowhere near perfect. But I do think that we're well ahead of where many other places in tech thinking it's at, not just games, but just tech in general. Yeah. Well, I mean, working at Iron Galaxy sounds fun and challenging. So thank you for letting us know what it's like there. Be real. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you did mention that before working there, you had jobs that weren't as cool, you know, you've worked in retail and whatnot. So I'm curious,

how did you get started working in the gaming industry in general? Because as you know, and Mike knows too, and maybe our viewers and listeners know, there's not a lot of Hispanics in the gaming industry. And that's one of the reasons why we wanted to have you on this podcast today is to, you know, kind of show people how you got involved in gaming industry and hopefully people can learn a thing or two. Of course, yeah.

So I think that there is that barrier or that bar. And this is something that I've had conversations with people with different cultural backgrounds, but I think in certain cultures, there is that expectation of what you should maybe do with your life, right? I think when I was growing up, my mom wanted me to either go into the military or become a mechanic, right? And I had different dreams than that, right? And I think in different cultures, it's like, hey, you're going to become a lawyer or a doctor or, you know, like, you're going to do whatever it is, right? But like, I think that those familial expectations can be tough when you see a future for yourself. that is different than what your kind of family puts on you, right?

So setting that aside, because I just think that that's a lot of thing that other Hispanics and Latin Americans that I talk with have had that same kind of experience. But setting that aside, for me, it was kind of pandemic-based. And I think a lot of people in the job market right now have had pandemic things. I was working at comic conventions. I had many gigs lined up for the year. It was something where I was comfortable in my space.

and then 2020 happens and no more conventions, right? So very quickly overnight, I kind of figured out that I wasn't going to have the revenue stream that I thought I would have for the rest of the year. I thought I was at the kind of creative, I was kind of the event manager. So I was kind of at the top of the mountain for conventions and then my industry disappeared overnight, right? So I pivoted and I thought, okay, what have I actually been doing? And that was community management, that was brand management, that was social media

management, events manage it, right? It was all in that frame. So my personal journey was I pivoted into volunteering for indie games first. Then I got a job releasing an indie game that went on Game Pass. It's called Rain on Your Parade with Unbound Creation. So it's a game where you play as a jerk cloud and you rain on people's parade. It's fantastic. What's funny is my mom actually got mad that in the credits, it's Eli Montoya and not my full like birth name, Elijah Montoya. So she was just like, why didn't you put your full name of like mom chill like it's not that deep so um but yeah then i went to indie games and then i got hired at iron galaxy and i actually applied for the community manager role at iron galaxy but the recruiting team uh manager when he first talked with me he was like

i want you to join my team right like it was this thing where he was just like do you want to be a recruiter so he kind of invited me in but i mean that's what conventions is right you're working with agents celebrities uh their managers talent podcasters cosplayers right And what you're doing is you're kind of recruiting them into your convention, you're networking and you're doing sales, right? Like that's what a lot of it is, right? You're working with security teams. You're working with limo services or car services, right?

Like all of that is a high-level networking and project management, essentially. So he saw something in me, and we're still friends to this day. He's really awesome. He's over at WB. So Jack, a shout out to you for giving me my first chance in games. But that's what it's about, right? being ready for when you do get that opportunity. And I think what I was going to kind of jump into before I went on this rabbit

trail about the barrier, right? I think a lot of people are kind of maybe not scared of games, but there's a level of pressure because you're like, okay, I'm not an artist. I'm not an engineer. I'm not a designer. I don't have those talents. Or generationally, I just don't have the money to go to those schools to get me those talents, right?

But there are plenty of roles in gaming, whether it's operations, whether it's IT, whether it's HR like me. in recruiting, employee success, learning and development, on the social media side, community managers, social media managers, all these roles are things you can obtain. You can start doing it. I can give some websites where I think people can find that first part-time or remote thing or that first thing to kind of get them just a credit so they can get to the next thing. And it's applicable to artists and designers as well and engineers.

But I do think that HitMarker, H-I-T, M-R-K-E-R, and then work with Indies are two great spaces where you can find just a lot of options for those entry-level part-time kind of roles. And that was exactly how I found my gig with Unbound Creations working on Raymond Grade. I was just like, hey, I reached out to a few different indie developers on Instagram and I was like, hey,

I think that I could level up or get you some more followers, either on Twitter or Instagram, if you give me some access to this. Let me try it out, see how you feel. I was just networking with people. Adiona is a game that I was working on with my friend, that I was kind of volunteering on for my friend Drew,

and he's also Hispanic as well. So it was one of those things where I just found someone I was really all about. Like his game was like a Zelda-like, but each region changed colors and the colors kind of like reflected the people's emotions in the regions. And we even debuted that trailer at the last UNILS event. But like, yeah, it's like little things like that were like, find things that you're passionate about that you love and then see if there's a fit for you because I definitely had more of a go-getter attitude about it.

But a part of it was out of function, right? My industry disappeared. How am I going to pay my bills? And I did. I was in Massachusetts living out there. And I got my, I put all the stuff I could in my car. I sold everything else and I drove back to home. I drove back home to Colorado.

And I had to live in my grandma's old bedroom at my mom's house. That was not fun. I hadn't lived at home since I was 18. But I did it. I paid off my debts. I started just grinding, right? And I, you know, did everything I could on the social media side, chasing down opportunities. And then it led to Iron Galaxy.

And kind of to put a bow on this story is I actually chose Iron Galaxy. Galaxy over other game studios. And a lot of it's based off of the people that I interviewed with and that I interacted with. And the, you know, just, I felt that these were real people that I would enjoy working with for a long time. So that's kind of the origin story may be more in depth than you needed. Well, that's a great origin story.

And, you know, I think your story is very inspiring because, you know, a lot of people, when the pandemic hit, did, you know, struggle. not know what to do. So just hearing how you quickly pivoted and, you know, didn't wait around for the opportunity to find you, I think is great advice for anyone who's looking for a job, especially in the gaming industry, you know, I see a few comments in chat talking about how it's all about networking. And it really, you know, kind of is. You really have to put yourself out there and, you know, let people know what you're about and then hear what people are about so you can get that opportunity. And I know you've mentioned the phrase Latinx and

gaming a few times already and we haven't even talked about that yet. So I want to ask you, what exactly is Latinx in gaming? It is a 501 C3 charity. I'm rocking the shirt. I don't know like if people, it's got the Unito on at audio listeners are probably good to see it, but this shirt was designed by Jaime, who, and we did it in collaboration with the Yeti. So great partners over there, super big fans of them. But Latinx and gaming is a 501 C3 charity. And we really are just about giving people opportunities from all underrepresented backgrounds a chance to get into the games industry, right? So we do that through a lot of things. We have scholarships, we have grants. The grants just went out. You can kind of check that out. But basically, we're

upgrading people's equipment so that they can either develop games or they can upgrade their stream, stuff like that. We work on investor panels so that we can help indie games in other countries get funded. But it's really just a big effort from almost all of us, because all of us are somewhere in the games industry. One of our presidents is that Dreamhaping hack another person's the coalition. It's kind of an eclectic group. One of our other founders is at Brass Lion. Another one is working on Halo stuff.

So it's just the thing where we all have day jobs, but if we're not going to create time and space for us, no one's going to do it, right? Like people just don't open the door and give you that space, right? So we're all devoting our time and volunteering to make avenues, right? Our two big events every year, one's called Connection, and that's basically we invite recruiters from every game studio to meet with talent and we open it to people from all diverse backgrounds, not just Hispanic or

Latinx, right? So for us, it's about creating those roads. Latinx and gaming also has Unitos, which is coming up now that happens in streams during Hispanic Heritage Month. So maybe I'll dance around the other stuff. We can get this specifically Unitos, but ultimately there are game jams we support. There's initiatives, meetups, networking things. If you're a company out there that's interested in investing your time or your resources in the Blackneck space, like your company has done. We thank you.

We're going to have some giveaway things during Unitos as well with your company. So we really thank all of you for supporting us. But basically the ultimate goal is that we're a nonprofit charity and we're giving those funds back to our community to help us grow and to give people roads to games when they didn't have them. Yeah, I'm going to quiz you. When is the Onidos event so people can check it out? Yes.

Okay. So Unitos online is September 30th. That's a Friday, October 1st, a Saturday, and Sunday, October 2nd, right? We pretty much have an entire slate of content that goes from someone cooking tamales in Norway and what the challenges are of finding good tamale ingredients in Norway from someone, you know, streaming Valerrant, right? Like, it's kind of all in between. We have a lot of partners that we're going to announce that are going to be there.

But in past years, we've have some of the biggest names and games there. and we also have a few surprise guests as well. So I can maybe tease some of the things, but ultimately just know that it's kind of part Twitch Telethon where we're raising funds for our 501C3 charity. There's going to be some game companies there with different giveaways that we're going to have. There will be minimum donations.

And then those funds will all go toward our charity events or efforts. This year we're actually raising funds for two really great organizations. The first one, we're partnering with FemDems Peru, and they're trying to put on like the first femme presenting female game dev conference in Peru. So that's something that's really awesome. Yeah, we have a goal of raising $10,000 this year, $5,000 for that organization, and then also $5,000 for an e-sports team in North Carolina that is predominantly minority,

and we just want to help them out, kind of raise funds and kind of level up that gear and that equipment and kind of help them out there too. So those are the two big charities we're raising funds for alongside our own efforts too and all the other things that we want to do. But those are kind of the efforts there. And then when it comes to content, like I said, it's like part talent show. Anyone can submit content and we might be able to show you off.

But there's TTRPGs. There's going to be a Resident Evil 4 randomizer run. There's like so many different things. So all day there's a full slate of content kind of bouncing between like, hey, here's developers talking about the thing that they did. Here's a developer talking about their indie game and kind of doing a deep dive why you might want to play it.

Now here is someone playing Valerant. Now here is someone playing Splatoon or Tetris. And like it's going to just bounce back and forth between this content and it's really just a way to showcase all the many ways that Latin Americans and Hispanics are impacting the games industry. Yeah, two really good causes. And, you know, I recently found out just like this week as I was doing research for this podcast that only 7% of game developers are Hispanic, which seems like a really

though number. I don't know how accurate that number is. but yeah so the fact that you know you guys are raising money for not just a Hispanic game developer community but like a female Hispanic game community like I think that's awesome yeah and yeah what is it the in wiffel Wall Street when Matthew McCona he's like those are rookie numbers you got to get those way up that's how I feel not the 7% rookie numbers got to bump those up yeah why do you think the word or the phrase Latin X is so controversial? You know, the first time I ever heard it, I was just like,

yeah, if this makes someone else feel more represented, more seen, I don't mind changing my language because language evolves over time, right? So, you know, there are gendered languages on this planet, and that is not representative of everyone in the world. I do think that there are a lot of people who have a lot of feelings about how that word is reflective, about how the X doesn't really translate into how you would speak in their native language, right? But for us, at Latin X in gaming, we want people to be welcome. I think anyone who's in fierce opposition of it, you know, everyone's allowed to have their opinion, right?

And I'm not going to have a perfect answer for it, but I know me as a team member, if I can change a letter in a word to make someone more welcome, in my community and to be seen and to be heard and honored, then I'm going to do that because it costs me $0 to do that, right? So that's kind of how I feel about it. The controversy, I think, is just anytime there's something new or there's chains or adopting or adapting something new, there's going to be some resistance from people that

are dug in. And I don't know if they're dug in for their own reasons. I don't know if they're dug in because for an nefarious reason. It could just be like, hey, the way I speak, this sounds dumb to me, right? But I would tell you that being inclusive kind of starts with challenging what your exposure is. And I think if we're just talking just in general on how to have more inclusive thought in mind, follow people from that community that you're not necessarily a part of on the platforms you're regularly using so that you're inundated with the kind of things, the way they're feeling about things,

because you're going to find something that you're not going to consider that you were doing that was wrong. I love that our DEI lead at Iron Galaxy kind of challenges us on speech and things that saying, it's like, hey, we shouldn't use that term for this or for that, right? Like, I didn't, I didn't know initially that the word culture had kind of a, kind of a push-off effect to certain candidates from different backgrounds, right? So there's an article that she shared with me, and I read through it, and we changed one of our interview rounds from like a culture and values round to a collaboration in values round because basically we wanted to be more inclusive in that space, right?

And then at Iron Galaxy, there's a lot of really cool, diverse things that we do. are people who source and sourcing is like looking for Callan on LinkedIn and kind of searching for it. They have this tool called unbiasedify and it blurs out faces and names. So we never know your background. We just see the experience, right? We also do things where, and this kind of goes back to the language side of things where we have a gender decoder. And in our job post, we make sure that the post is balanced with feminine and masculine words because certain words will scare off certain applicants from applying the roles, right? Like the word strong is very masculine. and like you can change that word to meaningful right and there's these little things that you can do as a

company to be more inclusive and if you just give it that 10% of thought you're going to cast a wider net or be open to more people because you know everyone's going to have a different context to the language you're reading there right like like when you text someone versus talking with them the context never translates so especially with the term Latinx right it's easy for me to do because it costs zero dollars. I think maybe like a bit of that pushback too comes from like that old school mentality of Latinos like you mentioned earlier like you know you were expected to become a mechanic you know it's like almost like resistance to change in a lot of ways and you know like you said

language does change and if we can all just say something a little bit differently to be more inclusive why not you know and I also understand like why people don't like it because they do some good points. It's like, how do you even say that if you speak Spanish? Well, it's like kind of hard. Yeah, I've seen Latinesque, like within, within ES or, yeah, yeah. But ultimately, like, I mean, it's easy for me to do, and I don't mind changing it in my speech in my language.

Yeah. And real quickly, can you let people know where people can tune in for Onidos? I don't think you mentioned that. Yes, yeah. It's on the Latinx and gaming Twitch channel. So that's where it'll be. Starting that Friday, we will post the full schedules and time. for everything. But there's going to be some exciting things that entire weekend. We also have a

game jam that we announced. I mean, there's networking events that are happening at TwitchCon. Like, Latinx and gaming is all over this month. This is our month. We've acquired it. Like, just, we're doing the big game company thing. We're just acquiring months, which is funny because it's like September to October, like it's middle to middle. So, in fact, we've acquired two months. I'm very happy to announce today at this conference that we've acquired those months. Apart from Oneido, how can people get involved with Latinx and gaming if they're interested in the org? So I think joining our Discord is a huge, huge, huge way to keep, when you talked earlier about

the networking side of things, right? The Discord is where kind of all of our things are kind of going down, following us in different spaces, retweeting things. And then also, if there's ever any work that you would like to do with us, you can always reach out to contact at Latinx and gaming. But yeah, one of our things is that why we have the open form for everyone to submit content is we want to spotlight the amazing people in our community. So this is something you want to invest time in. We'd love to hear what you'd like to do with us too. We'd love to partner. There's all kinds of things that we're getting involved in, whether there's certain game showcases that are happening later in the year.

Like we're open to all avenues. If we can support you, like really we can share it with our community very easily. And we can build those ever bright events or Tilt-to-Fite, like campaigns. We can do that stuff because technology is so widespread. and it makes so many things easy. So if you need support too, even if you're someone who's like, hey, how do I get funding for something?

Reach out to us. We'll see what we can do for you, right? Because we want to build roads for people to make games. Awesome. So now I kind of want to take this topic and we're going to kind of shift it towards about the gaming industry as a whole. Let's do it.

So we talked about 7% of the entire game industry is actually Hispanic. Do you think that is an adequate representation for the gaming industry? especially for Hispanics? You know, I'd say at our studio, I'd have to get the percentages from our DEI lead, but I would say that that percentage is probably fairly accurate,

and I'd love to see it kind of weighed against other demographics as well, but I would say just from, you know, being in the games industry, you know, helping with hires and seeing that just in the industry at large, yeah, it's a very low percentage. It's an extremely low percentage. And I think the experience for a lot of people from diverse backgrounds in the tech space is that you're oftentimes the only person in the room that is from your cultural background. So I'd say that that tracks without seeing the data or knowing myself.

But yeah, it's all low. It is definitely all low. It's definitely more male presenting. And it's definitely more white in most cases that I've seen. Do you think there's a reason why there isn't as many Hispanics in this industry? Is there a reason for that? Yeah, I think I'd go back to kind of that, that expectations that my family set for me too, right? Like, and then it also, I think, comes back to generational wealth and all of those other things, right?

Like, when I was in school, it was, I was in a military family, and it was one of those things where, you know, you kind of like assimilate, right? It's like to be less Spanish in these spaces, right? And then, you know, as I got older, I got a little more, I would say, open and loud about my, you know, singing Selena walking down the street type of thing, right? So, like, that's the thing where, yeah, I just think. that in the time that I grew up, that it wasn't as open. And to, I think I heard this term before to like, like, it was like, you just need to assimilate. You need to like kind of like become like them or to like, you know, just like, yeah. Like it wasn't a thing where it's like, hey, we're speaking Spanish in public. We were only speaking Spanish when we were like with our families, right?

Or like when we were together. But everywhere else we were doing our best to speak English, right? So I think that that kind of maybe ties into it. And then just the generational well thing, right? Like the demographics with more money. might have more opportunity to go to the better schools and those better schools might lead to the better jobs, right? But that's just me kind of being very broad about the subject without the proper articles and support. Yeah, and you can get even deeper than that too.

Like there's a lot of Hispanic parts of the world where they don't have access to internet or they can't buy a computer or a tablet or anything like that or a phone, for example. So I think that also plays into the fact that, you know, there's not a lot of people that work, not just in gaming, but in tech, general is because they don't know how to use it. Like they've never used it. So all good points.

Definitely, definitely. And it's that thing where like that's where I was saying before, like, you can work in IT. You can work in social media or in human resources or work in employee success or learning and development. All those roads are available to I think a lot of people who end up in the project management supervisor side of things, right, even if you're working in the retail space, right? Like so, you know, like the, it's funny because we're not a one shoe fits all company. And I think that when a company touches you like, this is our perfect candidate for this role, right? I think that that's bad because you should be open to people from all backgrounds, right? Because the best user interface designer in the planet could be working on ATMs right now, right?

Because ATMs have user interfaces too, but that person might also kill it on some RPG if you gave them the chance to work in user interfaces, then you taught them that game engine, right? So like that's kind of the thing where I just think that you do have to start with like a mission of being more inclusive and open to people in giving them those opportunities. that's kind of the base level, and then you have to build those roads because the schools or the economic situations aren't going to always give you the talent that's at that level. So you have to build those roads. Very interesting.

So there's a lot of issues with actually getting Hispanics into the gaming industry. So like Buddy Booze says right here, you know, family wants you to get a traditional job or there's basically not an opportunity to do it with money or access to it. So do you have any advice for those that are Hispanic or even, you know, any other underrepresented minority to get into the game industry? Yeah. So I think you have to have that go get around to you. You've got to want it because now more than ever there are tools online for you to learn things, right? You can download Unity right now.

You can start learning things. You could start messing around in there. You can do it with Unreal too. Like if you want to be on the game design side of things, right? There are engineering resources that we share with folks when, you know, they're just about. there at Iron Galaxy and we're just like, hey, if you go through these resources, you know, in three to six months after you go through them, you might be right there, right? So like, that's something where when students talk to me about like, oh, hey, I've been

in one game engine or I've been doing this thing or I've been more job of Python. And I know I'm kind of using a lot of technical terms right now, but basically they're like, hey, I've been doing this thing. And then I'm like, well, this is what we do at our studio. Here's the resources so that you can level up and get there on that, right? So reaching out that the recruiters at the place that you want to work is a good thing. The networking that we've talked about is key, attending all those events, right? Oftentimes, I think it's this funny thing where like, if you go to an event and you meet the art director,

you go to a talk and you meet the art director at your favorite game studio, right? Like, they might not have a role for you, but if they meet you and they're just like, this person's great and show them to your portfolio or whatever, they're going to make a role for you, right? They're going to find a role. Like, that's the kind of thing that you have to think about. So like, yeah, it's tough to get out of bed every day. It's tough to have the social battery to go to these things.

But if you want these roles, those are going to be the things you got to do to get the job, right? So like, yeah, you got to bet on yourself. Shea Serrano, one of my favorite people on the entirety of. of Twitter. He says, bet on yourself today. And I heavily believe in that. And it's not always easy to have the energy and effort to do it. But ultimately, if you want the role, you're going to, you're going to do it. You're going to put it in the work. But also ask for help. Your friends will help you. Like, you might have amazing, talented artist friends or people who are good at public speaking, right? You can have like a mock interview with them. There's so many avenues and ways for

support. And I'm sure a lot of people in the Latinx and gaming Discord would be more than willing to help you. Okay, that's awesome. I love to hear that. And I'm sure you come across a lot of job applicants. What are some common mistakes you see people make when you're trying to get a job? Yeah. You'd be surprised how few people read the job post. That's the first thing that I'll say, right? So I can go down a lot of avenues with advice, but the first thing is read the job application on the official company website because a lot of websites are aggregating data, right so your LinkedIn your zip recruiters any of these other job boards they're pulling information from the company's website but all of these systems have a different way different verbiage different terminology

for all of these things so they might not be capturing the data in a one-to-one sense so i will tell you there are plenty of times that i see someone who's entry level just got out of school or maybe one year of experience maybe they did an internship somewhere and they're applying for a senior ui ux designer role or a lead you know producer role and all that right and that tells me you know, did you read the job description? Because if you read the job description thoroughly, you would have seen that it asked for mid-level person. You would have seen like, hey, like the responsibility is just like,

I find it would be very, very, very difficult for someone to go right out of school to be a lead producer on a game. You'd probably be an associate producer or a production coordinator. And right, knowing the terminology, and like that's the thing, right? Like, not everyone knows what job to search for, what thing to search for. And that's why you ask those recruiters, right? But I think the first pitfall that I see people always stumble into is just applying for jobs that they're not ready for, right? And I know that the games industry

doesn't always have jobs that you can apply for and you just want to apply to something, right? But what you're doing is you're injuring your future self. And let me tell you why. So every company that's hiring anyone uses something called an applicant tracking system. There's a lot of them. You can Google them how they work. Glass store, sorry, greenhouse. You can, I mean, there's a billion of them, right? There's like, lever. We use jazz HR. But like, there's a bunch of these things. But all those do are there nets to catch your information, right? So they get your resume, they get your data, you know, kind of the, not data in a bad way, but, you know, they're just storing, you know, the things so that they can reach out to you and talk with you.

These systems basically have like hired and not hired situations, right? And if you are, let's say, an associate or entry level person and you apply to a mid-level or senior role and you get denied for that role, then you're in their system as someone who was not hired, not qualified, or not hired or whatever it was, right? You're in the red in their system. So let's say two years later, you do apply and you are at the skill level for the role you're applying for. Well, they're going to see in their system that you were rejected before. And if that team doesn't have time because of the volume of applications they're getting,

they might not review your information. They might not look at your application because you've already been rejected again for some other reason. And they might not dig deeper, right? So that's another thing to remember. The humans behind these interview processes because it's volume, right? When we open associate level roles, when we open those entry levels, level roles, there's a flood, hundreds and hundreds of applications, right? So applying early is very good, but also just know that like it is a numbers game. So I can do resume advice next and

all of that. But really the biggest thing that I wanted you to take away from just this section of this conversation is that read the job application on the official company website, read it again, read it multiple times, make sure you know that thing back and forth. You can use that to build your questions. You can use that as a way to kind of tie your experience to the skills that you have so that you have some great things to say about yourself during the interview. But ultimately, you know, if you're not a fit there, let's say if you don't, let's say you check, you know, four or five of the seven boxes, right? Like if you're somewhere in the middle, like you match most or many of the qualifications,

go for it. But if it's something where it's like, hey, has shipped one AAA title or something on there, right? It has three to five years of experience and you're fresh out of school. You're hurting yourself in the future because you might just be a, your email just might be tied to a rejection in the, when you try again. Oh, yeah. I see one of the comments right here says that some statistics show that 73% applications are just straight rejected before even reaching the person.

Yeah, yeah. That's called the knockout question, right? So that's oftentimes where you'll see it's like, hey, do you have this many years of C sharp or C++ plus experience or this many years of X, Y, Z, right? So there are limiting factors. I would tell you I love that our company doesn't have a lot of, like we don't have knockout questions for many of our roles. And let's like, hey, it's like something like it's like super senior and you need to have

X amount of like console knowledge or system knowledge or whatever it is, language knowledge, right? Like that might be the specific cases, but we don't typically trade in that realm. But yeah, knockout questions exist. And sometimes they're based around your salary range or things like that. So like, that's why I think it's always best to like list of range that you'd be open in. But like there's probably a million things that I could dive into here. I did do a talk for Connection that's on my LinkedIn that's pinned on my LinkedIn.

It's an hour-long talk where I give all of my higher advice. But yeah, there's definitely a lot of things we can talk about here, today too. Yeah, and I think that's really great advice for not just Hispanic people, but anyone who's interested in getting a job, you know, like really good pointers. And I also want you to maybe give some pointers, like what can we as just regular old gamers here do to help make the video game industry more inclusive, more diverse? Give the flowers to the people that you appreciate, retweet because it costs zero dollars. But if there's someone you're really admiring in the space, like I mentioned,

Shea Serrano, you know, like just like keep, you know, pumping up the people that you love and the change that you'd like to see in the industry. I think that that's the easiest way to kind of pump them up to say, oh man, this is a great stream or like just kind of permeating it in your circle, right? Like I think that that's a really good thing. And then even reaching out to people to see if they want to collab on something, if there's someone who you really enjoy, right? I think that those are kind of some of the main ways,

but your average regular day gamer kind of thing, you can also support studios from, or support games from diverse studios too, right? There's plenty of those out there. And, you know, me, there's a ton of switch games that I buy and not with the intention of ever having the time to play them because my backlog's insane, but I buy them because I want to support that studio,

and I really appreciate what they're doing in the space. of that giving flowers I like Yeah Yeah actually this morning I saw Latinx in gaming Made a tweet about Tagging your favorite

Latinx gamer So I gave I gave some flowers to Former NZXT employee My former sidekick Before Mike got here Dennis Because he's a Mexican American

Like me as well And I was like Here you go my man I love you That's really good Good advice you know just uplifting each other, supporting each other and spreading that positivity.

So love it. So I guess to kind of finish up the Q&A session of this podcast, how do you plan on celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month? I am going to volunteer at Unitos, and I'm going to be one of the voices of the show, hyphen up all the different events that we have going through that weekend. And then I'm also going to head to Mexico with my girlfriend and get some much needed R&R.

Very excited about that. It's that vacation time. Got to have that vacation time. You got to do it. Well, now it's time for my personal favorite part of the show is where Mike asks you the stupidest questions you can possibly think of. Not stupid. Actually, you know what? I shouldn't say stupid.

They're actually very thoughtful. The end part gets a little weird, but the beginning part's pretty tame. I'm good. I love it. I love it. All right. So the goal here is for you to not really overthink it. Just answer as fast as you can.

And we can elaborate a little bit on some of them, but I'll let Mike take it away. All right. For the first question, Panic at the disco or Mike have a whole romance. Panic at the disco, a thousand percent. Favorite band of all time?

Favorite song? Oh, build God. Then we'll talk. Good choice. Great choice. Next question. Michael Jordan or Larry Bird. I'm a massive Celtics fan, so I'm going to go with Larry Legend, number 33, Mr. Bird.

Great, great choice. It's going along with that. Who's your favorite player of all time? This is going to sound whack, but it's Rondo, Rijon Rondo from the 0908, like that, Generation Celtics. I love passing. So, like, I'm going to typically go with any point card. So this could be, you know, your Ricky Rubio's, your Chris Paul's, your Isaiah

Thomas. Like, I just love point cards. I love passing. and Rondo, I just, it's passive or fancy for no reason. You know, that's pretty good. One of the great, I was going to say, Rajon, Rondo is one of the greatest Lakers of all time, right? Oh, I see some pain. I saw some pain.

Especially because I didn't realize, I knew you were an NBA fan, but I didn't know you're a Celtics fan, so. Huge Celtics fan, yeah. I'm sure that that definitely hurt when you saw Rajan put on that, you know, purple and gold. And then win a championship there, yeah, it hurts the most, yes. Now going along with that, who's the greatest basketball player of all time, and you better back it up. Michael Jordan, 6 and 0. I don't care about LeBron's longevity. Also, he's a Laker, so there's no way I could say his name.

I appreciate that. That's something that I don't think many people have also thought about because Michael Jordan also was in the era of like fierce, fierce competition as well. So I'm with him on that one. Pistons. Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah, it was rough. I have a pair of LeBron's bill, but that was from when he was in Cleveland. So, you know. Oh, okay. So it works out. All right. You need to three rankings.

Michael Jordan, Kobe, LeBron James. MJ Braun, Kobe. You put Kobe as last? Yes. Wow, really? Most people usually flip those two. Interesting. Kobe had checked.

I don't want to. not root for or say positive things about any Lakers. Honestly, that's understandable. They're both incredibly good. They are winning players. In fact, I'll say my favorite Laker of all time is Pau Gassau.

Because Pau, I think could have done well on any team. Pau's incredible. Okay. I respect that. You can't be mad at Mr. Gassau. Can't be mad at Gassau. So who do you think is going to win the NBA finals this year?

Man. Probably the Warriors again, just because they're rude. I'll tell you it real quick. I was in the only Chicago, Boston bar. It had Celtics and Bruins flags outside. And I was like, cool, I'm in a safe space.

This is going to be great. This is where I can watch the, and it was the game that they ended up winning that was the championship game, right? So was that game five or six, probably six. But basically, yeah, game six. I was in there. I thought it was going to be a Boston bar.

I walked in downstairs, pretty Boston-centric, but I had a reservation. It took me upstairs for my reservation, Warriors fans, wall to wall. I had to sit there. It was miserable. I left midway through the third quarter because they were like,

smackin on chairs and hooting and hollering, and they kept like throwing fries at me i was like i hate this why is the only boston bar filled with that's funny my nightmare my literal nightmare that's that's that's that's a fever dream right there that's that's scary all right now we're going to move away from basketball in general what's your favorite childhood memory oh okay so cousins had a super nintendo uh fell in love with final fantasy that's the reason i wanted to learn how to read Really? Final Fantasy. That's a, that's, okay, I like that a lot.

Four and six are the best. Seven is whack. Thank you. Thank you. Someone else that was, I have so many friends. I'll be like seven so good. I'm like, it's good. Just not the best. Yeah. Thank you. I like all Final Fantasy's, but like, yeah, I ride for, I ride for four and I write for six. Perfect. Those are my James. Who's your hero? Oh, man. Okay. Um, probably. Probably Shea Serrano. I'm going to go with Shea Serrano. I'm a big fan of like Guillermo del Toro. Bill Simmons. I really appreciate his sports takes. Miyamoto, because like Nintendo was my childhood in my life. So yeah. Like yeah, those are probably Amy Henneg, I think is really inspiring as well. And then Kate Melgru, who's Captain Janeway. I was at a few different conventions, comic conventions and he did panels. And Kate Milgrue like just an inspirational speaker. So yeah, those are my heroes. Sorry.

I went with a few. Nice list. All inspiring humans. Great list. What is your proudest accomplishment or moment? So I did comic conventions for a really long time. And I think the stuff is always those little moments that are not for you, but are for the fans. So like we were at one Comic Con and like the person who was like, who was the arrow.

Like we gave him a foam like Nerfo to hit. people with arrows to select them for questions. So, like, that's those kind of things, right? Like, the thing that's like, hey, I'm not the biggest green arrow fan, but I know a green arrow fan would lose their mind if they got hit with an arrow from the arrow, right? So, like, those little moments where you can, like, really give someone their fandom in a way that's just so, like, revolutionizing for them. So, like, stuff like that, I think.

And there was, you know, probably a couple hundred of them throughout the Comic-Con run. But I also ran this movie premiere company called Movie Camp, and we would do movie premiere parties. It was like a game show before your movie. And so like you'd get like a limited edition poster, the like 45 minutes before the 7 o'clock premiere on Thursday of the Marvel movie or DC movie or whatever it was. We'd do this entire game show.

So that was about seven years of my life. And I collaborated with a lot of cool people. And we made people do ridiculous things. Like for Black Panther, they were like licking milk out of like a little saucer bowl because they were the panther. And then for Infinity War, we had the Infinity Gauntlet and they had to make a PB&J with a gauntlet on.

so it's so hard to make a P.B&J with just one hand. Like, if they're just the big, like, Thanos Cotlet. So, yeah, like, I could give you, like, a bunch of examples of ridiculous, like, games that we did like that. But it was, like, a variety game show before your movie to get you hype and to get you in the right mood for the movie. And, like, it's that thing where, like, we told people it was okay to cheer. Like, you're allowed to have fun.

Like, that's what this screen is about, like, be a fan, yell, hoot and holler when Chris Evans is showing his booty on the screen, you know? Like, live your life is what we wanted people to do. That's America's ass, baby. Yeah, exactly. So we hype people up. So yeah, I'm very proud of what we did there. It was tons of fun.

I love that. What is one thing you want right now? Oh, man, the new Legend of Zelda game to be out. Yes, I've hyped for it. I looked at it. I'm like, I have high high, that's the thing, is I have high expectations because breath of the wild. It was great.

I really have high expectations for it. Tears on my face. Oh, I'm going to say something that maybe will make chat despise me. I do not like Breath of the Wild I respect it and think it's a masterpiece of the game I think Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece of a game I don't think it's a good legend of Zelda game and it's the breakable weapons and the mini shrines

I just I just told Mike that yesterday when they announced the new Zelda game and I told them I'm not even looking forward to it because I didn't like Breath of the Wild and he was shocked by my I see the shock on the face and dude like for me so for me it did not feel like a Zelda game at all

like in the least bit and it just felt like I was walking around the entire time so I like to call it Zelda walking simulator or whatever but Mike loved it I've had a friend try and fight me because I called Okami the best Zelda game one time

and he got really bad at me but I actually love Twilight Princess because the dungeons I think are incredible like the spinning top the dual hook shots the upside down iron boots thing and then Link's Awakening is actually my favorite Zelda game I love Links Awakening.

I played that at a time on my Game Boy as a kid. So yeah, I love that. But yeah, yeah, I get it. Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece. I understand why everyone loves it. But I played Zelda for the dungeons and puzzles, and I felt that the puzzles weren't as refreshing or exciting when they're broken up in little five-minute chunks.

I felt like it was like the micro-mini games, like the mobile version of Zelda, right? And I just want to be in a big dungeon and I want to solve puzzles for four hours. And so they just made a Zelda game that wasn't for me. That's fine. Like, I love that people love it. And the destructable weapons frustrated me

because I'm the kind of person in like a Final Fantasy game where I just don't use my elixirs or high potions or any of that stuff because I'm like, oh, I'm going to need it. So like all the good weapons I had, I just never used because I was worried they were going to break. So that's my anxiety coming through. Mr. Miyamoto, Mr. Hanuma, you're fantastic.

I apologize. I'm just not made for your game. That's funny. Okay. That I agree with because I do the same thing. Like, it'll literally be like the final boss. You'd be fighting like Gannon. And I'd be like, you know,

I could use these potions right now. Boy, what if I need it later? And I never use it. You always need it later, too. You always need it later. So you always, you can never use it. So you know what? Okay, I respect that.

It's rough. It's a good game. Not a good Zelda game. I will, I will. Yeah, and I love that they made something new and different. But yeah, I just, I just want to do puzzles. Puzzles make me feel like I'm smart when I'm not. Yeah, exactly.

All right. Now we've got some would you rathers. These are really fun. Okay. Would you rather eat only cheese for a year or not be able to eat it for a year? Eat cheese for a year. Gouda specifically. Gouda.

Okay, you're a Guta person. Okay, most people I say is like Brie and stuff like that. Okay. Can I have bread too? I mean, I say you have to have cheese with every meal, basically. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Done, easy.

Easy. It's easy being cheesy. What you're talking about? Yeah, I know a lot. of people would be like, even their lactose intolerant to be like, yeah, I'll still eat it. I'm like, yeah. Lactose intolerant, probably scary.

They're the scariest people I ever imagine. I had a friend in college that literally, terribly, terribly laxos and tolerant, got a garbage plate, which, if you guys know from New York, it's basically like french fries and like sour cream, ranch, cheese, and I'm like, why you eat just like, I wanted it. And I'm just like, scariest people I've ever,

I've ever met. Yeah, yolowing into life. Yep. Scariest. Would you rather lose the ability to lie or believe everything you're told? Lose the ability to lie. Okay, okay. I like that.

You just have to be a truthful person. It'll suck what you have to tell them truth, but, you know, at least it's on your mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think I favor tell many white lies, but also, like, maybe being more blunt is good for people to get constructive feedback on humaning. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be very awkward when you get, like, the, uh, you know, know, the questions where it's like, you know, I'm like, oh, I really don't want to answer this

question because it's a lose, lose, no matter what. That's going to be hard to be. Well, because I think you could still think things, right? You're like, it's just like when you're speaking. You can't just say it. Okay. Yeah, because like I was at a concert the other day and someone was just singing very off key. And in my brain, I was just like, I wish I had a pitch pipe to give them so they could be on key. And I just like, just blow a little, the tune. It's like, please be on key. But like, I was just thinking it. I didn't have to say like, hello, you're. off key. Yeah, you just think about it.

And you just go, okay. You don't say anything. I liked it. I was like, that is loud and off key. All right. Would you rather always hit a red light for the rest of your life? Or always have slow internet after the sun goes down? Huh.

Well, gamers, we got to always hit the red light. I can't be having, I got a raid on destiny. What are you talking about? And those sometimes my friends are not great at it. And when I say my friends, I'm including me in that. And one time we were, you know, doing something to like two in the morning. So yeah, I need that fast internet. Yeah.

Sorry. Red lights always. But Chicago, I take, I take buses. I take trains. I don't even got to be. See? Sneaking around your parameters. There you.

I like that. Yeah, public transportation is the easiest one through this one. I hate red lights. I go down. Okay. Would you rather be able to only whisper or only able to shout? Oh my gosh. That's so hard for a recruiter.

Because. That's hard. Take this job. I really did this job. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I got to go, I got to go whisper. Whisper. Yeah, you know what?

I say whisper because at least you could just be like, oh, I'm a shy person, you know, so you can kind of play it up. But if you're just shouting the entire time, don't be like, I can't hear. Whisper is kind of creepy, though. It can be. But you can just be like really soft. token, you know. Okay, whisper the next question.

But you rather other people's thoughts? Wow, that one's tough. I think other people's thoughts purely for, like, selfish gain so that, like, I could, like, you know, I don't know, if there's, like, some billionaire that I'm playing poker against that I could take you for all their words. Because, like, animals are dope, but, like, really, I don't want to know most people's thoughts because I feel like that would drive you insane. And, like, you just walk by someone and it's like, ooh, you ugly.

And you're just like, dang, I'm ugly, okay. But like, I mean, I thought I was a six out of ten, but I get to like the seven or eight with charm and comedy. But okay. But like the animals thing. Imagine though, if your dog is like, man, you're ugly. That's what you're like. That's the thing, right? Like you think your animal loves you.

And then if you can find out that your animal doesn't love you, that's just heartbreaking. Yeah. So I go with the other people's thoughts. Yeah. So there's like the two sides of this question. Like you can speak to animals and know other people's thoughts. but there's like the one where you can control it or you can't control it. So what if you can't control it?

What would be the choice? Like you just hear other people's thoughts or you hear animals speak. Yeah, because at least like people's thoughts would at least it would drive you insane, but at least it would be known or like something like. And then like a squirrel would just be like chattachada, chattah, chattah, chattah, I'm going to get this rat or like, you know, he's like saying something insane. So like that's like I just don't want to just be like, If animals speak and rhyme, I would be the happiest person in a world.

They can only speak and ride. Yeah, like choose goose from adventure. I would be the happiest person in a world. Just know that they'd speak in like poems. Yeah, like a rabbit, just like, to cross this street, I need to have quick feet. Like, choose to go to me. Like, what is happening? Rabbit.

You know what? I'm all for this. Mike, we have one more rapid-fire question. so you have to scream this one since you whispered the last one. Would you rather jump in, was it? Oh, a sleep pool for puppies or cats? Oh, cats? Because I feel like, okay, wait, how long,

how long have the puppies and or cats been in this pool? No, they're just like recently. They just, like, put a bunch of them in there, like, super cute ones. Okay, because, like, I feel like the cats are less likely to, like, go to the restroom in the pool, and the dogs are more likely to go to the restroom in the pool. So like that's the thing that I would just like, I don't want to dive into a pool of puppies

and potentially other bio-things. But the cats, I feel like will be respectable. And also I feel like the cats will move out of the way if I'm hopping in and then the dogs will just be oblivious. Well, dang, well, I don't want to like break my body. So I also don't want to land on a pile of puppies. This one sucks. You'll be going into them.

It's just like which one would you want to be smothered in, basically? Okay, okay. Like you're not jumping in. You're not canniballing into these things. You're nowhere to. We're away from animal cruelty in this podcast. Okay, then I'll go with cats. Okay.

I feel like the cats would just scratch your eyes out for some reason. Just imagine them like not liking that. I've got glasses. I'm protected. It's fine. Yeah, yeah. True, true, true. All right.

I think that is it on the rapid fire questions. Do you have any announcements, Eli? that you want to get through before we get to our announcements. You know, just please check out Unitos Online, September 30th, October 1st, and October 2nd. It's going to be an amazing time, but also if you can, if you have the facilities to, please donate if you can to excellent causes like FemDev's Peru, who are going to be putting on that first female or FM presenting event in Peru, and then also that e-sports organization that were raising funds for the Red Box.

So yeah, please, if you can, donate. And also, there is a little bit of incentive for you to do so because a bunch of game studios are giving us some codes. So every donation, you'll see kind of the minimum donation threshold. You might have a chance to win an amazing video game. And then also, you might be able to win something also amazing from the NZXT team. I love that. I actually do want one more question.

Actually, 2722 actually asks a very good question. And it's a very fun one. What favorite food are you most looking forward to eating during your vacation? in Mexico. Oh, man. I'm a big fan of an alpastor taco. So like pork and pineapple is just put it on my face. In fact, any barbecue meats, like I had family stationed in Hawaii.

And when I went out there, just like, it made me fall in love of barbecue meats. So just, yeah, any, meat. I'm excited for meats is what I'm excited for in the Mexico streets. I'm going to keep rapping if I can. Oh, yeah. Getting that pork is my plan. All right, I guess we'll go into our analysis real quick. For us, we have a promo going on with Marvel Spider-Man remastered.

So if you purchase a qualifying Nvidia-G-Force RtX-3000 card with our PC, you can get a free copy of Marvel Spider-Man remastered. Go ahead and check it out as X-o-Mach-2-Py-Pyter-Man. We also have a lot of people joining our partner program. So please, if you guys want to join the N60 family, check out X-Mach-point partner. There's a ton of people. You guys will get a rejection or an acceptance lover. Just like Eli, we try to respond to every single one.

So if you don't get it, that means we haven't gone to it yet. So please be patient. We have a lot of entries and a lot of applications to come through it. We've launched a ton of products, monitors, cases, keyboards, mice, thermal pace. We've launched everything and anything, and there's even more to come out. Check it out, nzcc.com. We got tons of more things coming out. Keep an eye out for it.

And as we say here, Eli has been an awesome, awesome guest here. So please go ahead and follow him on Twitter. He's going to be showing everything that he's been doing. Follow him. Awesome person. Awesome guest. Please give him a follow if you can. And it's also part of our, is also part of our gleam giveaway.

So please get those entries as well. If you guys want to learn more about Latinx in gaming, please, please, please check out their website. I just posted a link in the chat right there. Please, please, please. Consider donating to these wonderful, wonderful causes. $5.00. A dollar. Even a dollar.

If everyone here donate a dollar, that's almost $100 right there. Do it. It goes to a good cause. Please. And now for those that have been here, we have a secret little code that we always do for those that are listening to podcasts. I'd be thank you for listening in. So the secret code, I'll go ahead and post it into the chat.

Make sure to refresh your gleams just in case, sometimes it takes a little bit. The secret code is, Windows, you and I, DOS. Please, please, please, please, please. Also, check out the actual event going on under actual Twitters as well. Please consider donating. And if you don't donate, I'm coming after you. that pool of puppies and cats you don't know what's going to happen

if you don't donate. Okay? So please consider donating. This is the code I'm posting in chat right now. You and I, DOS, please add that for 500 extra entries. By the way, for those that don't know, the 500 extra entries is actually like key. It says thank you for those that staying on the podcast

a majority of time whenever we pull winners. Majority of them, like a good 60-70% of time, it is those that use the code. So please type in that code. And this is a thank you for being on this podcast and listening in and also showing support to Eli as well. And I guess that is it. We want to say thank you guys for listening and thank you to Eli for being an awesome guest

and showing us a lot of advice on getting into the gaming industry and overall to Hispanic culture. So please, please, please, please, please consider following Eli land next to gaming. Was it ironworks game like everything there? Please check out the Glean giveaway follow and keep those follows. And I think that is it. Do you have any other announcements before we go? You already thank Deli, so I just want to thank everyone for tuning in live

and wish everyone a happy Hispanic Heritage Month. Exactly. All righty. Thank you guys for joining us. Remember, tune in live every Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard time on the official NCC Twitch. And don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Alpa Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. And please leave us a positive review if you like what you hear. and even if you didn't.

Got any questions for us, send an email to podcast at nz60.com or tag at n60 on all social media platforms. Happy Hispanic media, just much, everyone.