At SEGA, I wasn’t the driver of the initial vision, like many of my peers, I was an innovation made manifest by its execution. They hired us initially as writers or testers, then we became video content makers, and finally, experts in the new fields of online media creation and distribution. I pioneered the role of Multimedia Content Developer and worked on the team that grew one of the first online video game communities from nothing to more than 2 million users (that was a lot back then), using a fictional character to function as host, moderator, evangelist, and public voice of the network, and later launched new gaming platforms. This work birthed a new industry: digital creation and distribution.
We developed early models of distribution for user-generated and branded ‘social’ content. We embraced innovative tech-to-post-processes, editing, compression, conversion, and distribution of content, in many formats, before that was a thing. Multimedia content development was the backbone for the launch of the SEGA Dreamcast Console, which sold 1 million units in the first 24 hours of sales.
After 3.5 years with SEGA, I moved to the newly emerging mobile gaming side of things and our division was acquired by NOKIA to launch their big gaming bets. There I generated video/multimedia marketing plans and original content supporting NOKIA product launches, including the N-GAGE platform and NOKIA Mobile Games. I also facilitated gaming community development through multimedia implementation, including the support of early social media development on mobile. I left video games when it became apparent that the iPhone would leave room for no competition (at least for a while) and I was ready for new adventures in creative: the lucrative world of documentary filmmaking and the spiritually profound world of reality TV (irony intended, the double irony was a surprise).