USA 2014Video Coverage

Oliver Miao is Connecting People Through Games | Casual Connect Video

July 30, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

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USA 2014Video Coverage

Oliver Miao is Connecting People Through Games | Casual Connect Video

July 30, 2014 — by Catherine Quinton

Oliver Miao recounted an experience of how they helped a player of their game, High School Story, after she expressed a desire to commit suicide. “We ended up exchanging messages with her for about a week,” he said. “It was one of the most nerve-wracking weeks I’ve had. But at the end of that week, she told us she was finally getting professional help, and she also said that it was because of High School Story that she was still alive. And that moment showed us how powerful a game could be.”







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Oliver Miao, Co-founder and CEO, Pixelberry

Oliver Miao, the co-founder and CEO of Pixelberry, emphasizes, “Gaming connects people. Gaming has always connected people, but nowadays, the connection is happening at deeper and deeper levels.” He maintains that certain things in a particular game resonate strongly with players. It could be a character, or sometimes a funny feature, or just that everyone is playing the same game at the same time. And because people feel so connected to games, they are becoming the social platform of the future.

Creating The Connections

As a result, Pixelberry is working on features that will make people feel more connected as they play. One feature, launched in June, is called “Your Voice.” It allows players to share their thoughts on pop culture as well as more serious events. Miao believes that seeing what their friends think about the latest trends will make the game world feel alive to players. He also hopes it will make players pause and consider topics that they don’t often think about, like net neutrality or what’s happening with Syrian refugees, .

Their game, High School Story, connects players to each other, but they are also using the game to connect players to non-profits. Pixelberry has partnered with The Cybersmile Foundation and the National Eating Disorders Association to make more of their players aware of what to do if they or their friends encounter cyberbullying or body image and eating disorder issues. In response, their players have sent messages of appreciation, knowing the game they are playing is helping people.

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Their game, High School Story, connects players to each other, but they are also using the game to connect players to non-profits.

Earlier this year, Miao’s high school invited him to talk during their Yellow Ribbon Week, which is focused on mental health for teens. He relates, “It was incredible standing in front of a gym full of high schoolers, talking about my experiences growing up, getting into the games industry, and working on this game that many of them had played. The room was quiet as I told them about a player who told us that they were planning to kill themselves. And it erupted into relief when they learned that our game had saved a life.”

Miao says that he loves making games, and combining that love with making a difference is absolutely amazing.

Rising From The Ashes

He started his first game company with college friends in 2000, just before the dot-com crash. For a year and a half they lost money while, at the same time, learning a lot. Finally, just as they were closing the company, they were saved by a contract to make games for cell phones. They realized that their failure was not focusing enough attention on business, so Miao switched from mainly doing programming to concentrating on business full-time. He admits, “Cold calling people and talking to strangers at conferences was far beyond my introverted level of comfort. But it worked.”

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The Pixelberry team having some fun

Today he works with an extremely creative team that really cares about what they do. Some of them have worked together since he founded that first company, Centerscore, through its acquisition by Vivendi and sale to EA. And they are still together at Pixelberry. He finds it especially rewarding to work with these people and see them grow together.

Connecting at Home

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A couple of teens in High School Story having fun.

Growing up, Miao always enjoyed games: games at recess, board games with friends, and the Famicon console in the family room. But these were always different games at different times. Now cell phones have changed the way people play games. They can play the same game whenever they want. And he is certain that for many people, the total time they spend with one mobile game outweighs the time they have spent with any other game ever.




Miao owns an iPhone, a Nexus tablet and a Kindle, claiming these may be the most prolific devices ever in terms of variety of games available. These days he is most often using his iPhone to play Plants vs Zombies and Plants vs Zombies 2. From the original game, his favorite level is the “It’s Raining Seeds” minigame. In the sequel, he keeps playing level 24 in the space theme, figuring out ways to beat the level with interesting permutations, like only using Kernel-pults or Bok Choy. He says, “If their analytics show one crazy person who has played that level more times than anyone else in the world, that’s me!”

On weekends, when Miao is not working, he likes to take his five-year-old twins bike riding on the campus of Stanford where they learned to ride bikes. They love to pedal to the top of a hill and coast down as fast as they can while he and his wife follow them on roller blades.

 

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Catherine Quinton

Catherine Quinton

Catherine Quinton is a staff writer for www.gamesauce.org. Catherine loves her hobby farm, long walks in the country and reading great novels.

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