Keith was born and raised in New Hampshire and is currently studying Psychology at Rivier College in Nashua, New Hampshire. His passion for gaming started at an early age and has grown over the years.
His first MMO experience came in 2003 when a friend picked up a game called Shadowbane. Keith was writing a paper on addictions and chose to watch and learn about this game and the people who played it. Soon he found himself immersed in the game and its community. He began to become a part of the games rich lore community and wrote many articles for the ever changing story line. Keith was selected to become a part of the lore team as an advocate in Shadowbane. After awhile he began running a very successful PvP based guild called Rerolled. At that time he was chosen to become a general game play advocate. Keith got to participate in the complex PvP balancing that Shadowbane was known for.
Keith began to branch out and started writing for other organizations as well. Keith wrote for Stratics, MMORPG.com and Guild vs Guild. His weekly column entitled “Mayson’s Musings” was based on game theory, balance and design. For years he has been and active name in the MMO community and continues to work with various companies assisting with balance and design.
Keith’s philosophy of gaming is taken from the freedom and liberties that we all experience in life. He is a proponent of dynamic open worlds in which players control and build their dynasties. An avid PvPer, he openly debates and challenges other industry moguls by raising the bar on implementation of gaming designs through articles, blogs and other media outlets. He believes that gaming companies must reconnect with their consumers and listen to their players in order to establish games that the gamer wants.
His goals in the industry are to expand on the ever growing MMO market by offering the player an experience like none other; open and complete freedom. His groundbreaking ideas will be used to implement a new genre of MMO game in which the player will create the environment, political landscape, economy and who will reign sovereign. He believes that risk and reward must be implemented into the core structure of MMO’s to give players what they truly want, a changing environment.
Keith is a co-founder, author and podcast host for Revolution G.
Aaron Smith was born and raised on the California coast and is currently in the Santa Barbara/Ventura CA area studying film at Brooks Institute of Photography. He is an active and devoted gaming enthusiast with a passion for writing and the social psychology of Massively Multiplayer games. He also holds an in-depth philosophy on gaming theory and a strong interest in how the gaming world will progress and develop over the next decade.
Aaron has been playing video games since he could pick up a controller starting with Nintendo. Among his first video game accomplishments was conquering the first Legend of Zelda when he was five years old. From that point console and computer games were always objects of fascination and interest for him. This was coupled with a particularly strong interest in strategic games from Chess and Axis and Allies to Age of Empires and Starcraft. He has been an active and successful guild leader for the last five years and took part in many focus groups for Wolfpack’s game Shadowbane. In addition he is an editor for Guildcafe.com’s PlayerVox publication and an active writer.
Aaron’s perspective of games overall is deeply affected by a belief in the Greek inspired concept of Mimesis which means “Art imitates life”. It is also impacted by the mythological ideas of Joseph Campbell and the theories behind the archetypical story and concept of the “hero”. He feels that games like films are works of art and that the former, being the more revolutionary of the two because they allow for user interaction, have all kinds of design challenges and potential. Aaron holds that the best “next generation” games will be the ones that are molded to be tools for players to create their own stories. In depth worlds that sparkle with dynamism and epic conflict with thousands of participants will be the vessels for legendary and immersive content the likes of which we have not seen to date.
Among his goals for the industry are to through his effort and passion assist in ushering in a new era for both the game and gamer. One that appeals to an even wider audience than ever before and sucks the gamer into the most intriguing and immersive story of all: their own. He wants to see the gaming industry widely accepted and respected as people come together to create history. The future of gaming is community based, online, and interactive. Today many games are being created based upon a template that is comprised of a prefabricated set of rules and boundaries complemented by continually added content. Aaron wants this streak to end and wants the gamers to create their own content in a world that trumps all others. The greatest stories ever written or shown were all about the human condition. It fascinates us and intrigues us. Aaron argues staunchly that gamers should have the ability to let these concepts come to fruition through natural human progression in a new chapter of entertainment.
Aaron is a co-founder, senior editor and podcast host for Revolution G
Chris graduated from Seattle Pacific University in 1994 with degrees in everything from clarinet performance, to theory, to music education, and even a minor in German. Chris has spent a healthy amount of time abroad in Europe studying and learning its cultures, languages, and most importantly its music. After college, Chris went on to teach music in the public schools for five years. He successfully taught from the kindergarten through high school levels while always demanding excellence from his students and himself. However, Chris had always felt a longing to explore a different side of his musicality. In 2000, Chris retired from teaching and began exploring the world of music technology in earnest.
No stranger to computers, Chris learned the ropes very quickly and began producing music electronically. He took a job working as an assistant audio and recording engineer in late 2000, helping to record and produce major market Hollywood film scores. Chris also had a talent for and fascination with computers, so in 2001 he took a job with Apple Computer and worked in sales, tech, and development of Apple's products. In 2004, Chris left Apple to pursue a career as a sound designer and was successful in finding clients and designing sounds for a variety of situations and implementations. Soon thereafter, Chris was introduced to a company called Reelworld Productions, which produces high end jingle packages for major market radio stations across the US and Europe. He took a tentative position learning the ropes of jingle writing and hasn't looked back since. Chris instantly fell in love with this position that blended his musical talents beautifully with his computer talents while demanding professional excellence at the highest of production levels. After many months of writing/producing/arranging with Reelworld, Chris parted ways with his new friends on very friendly terms. On the heels of Reelworld came the opportunity to produce audio from the ground up on a killer project named Andale Kids. This project is still in the works, but suffice it to say, when it hits the market, every kid in the known universe will feel its presence. In early 2007, Chris began working with Omni Interactive Audio as a full-time sound designer for video games (both console and PC), which only adds to his wide-ranging experience in the area of pro audio. Currently, Chris can be found working on multiple projects for various clients.
Chris began gaming in 1981 when he got his first Atari 2600 (coolest platform ever, period), and hasn't stopped playing games ever since. He came to be with Revolution G and the production of its podcast through his involvement with Aaron and Keith in the MMO Shadowbane. He learned the ins and outs, and absolute joy, of becoming a hardened PvPer who loves to destroy others and plays to win at all times. Through such games as Shadowbane, Guild Wars, WoW, DaoC, Quake, UT, and many others, Chris has developed his passion for gaming (to the point of making it his career in sound design.) Chris loves the direction the industry is moving in, and hopes that the continual development of a truly interactive virtual world will continue as technology and game development allows it to. Chris believes that a truly great game is one that doesn't take the player along a rigidly pre-defined set of rules and goals, but rather one that allows the player to explore, change, and develop their character in whatever way they reasonably want to. A world without boundaries, where the players can be free to genuinely shape their environment via their own actions and the actions of those around them. This is the game that hasn't yet been produced. This is what needs to change in the current world of static, redundant gaming.
When not sitting in front of an electronic studio, Chris loves the outdoors and can frequently be found traipsing up and down the various mountains and trails of his native Washington State. An avid hiker, Chris has explored many of the various peaks and valleys Washington has to offer. Chris also moonlights as a professional clarinetist and saxophonist around the general Seattle area, playing everything from classical chamber music, to full scale orchestral music, to jazz trios, and just about everything in between. He's also actively involved with music at his church, and is often found playing everything from clarinet, to percussion, to penny whistle, among other things. Chris is married to his beautiful wife, Lydia, and they live in the general Seattle area.
Whether producing, arranging, performing, mixing, or just listening to music/audio, there isn't a day that Chris isn't actively doing something audio-related at any given moment.
Chris is the sound designer and editor for Revolution G's podcast as well as the owner of Integaudio.com
