Meet the Devs: Ben Lesnick

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:00

   so I know no one's ever asked this question before but where's your necklace from this is a uh it's from the win matter movie it's the uh the pilgrim cross that the Freddy Prince Jr character wears um I've had it since they made replicas of this back in 1999 2000 I've had it ever since nice [Music] hey everybody welcome back to meet the death I'm James P with me today is someone you should know but let me go ahead and try and get his his official title he is the director of community Engagement online strategy and ships Mr Ben Lesnik Ben how you doing man hello good to meet you it's good to meet you person who I

2. 00:00:47

   employ so yeah it's time it's finally time for for for the community to meet you ah yes I think I did one of these with Sandy back in 2012 or so it's going to be way better than this one so this is this is also kind of a dumb question but how did you get started with Star Citizen uh well I've been a wink Commander fan since uh back when wink Commander started being a thing um when uh 1995 I started a win Commander fan site that was kind of before fan sites were really a thing was there in 1995 there was inet in 1995 um and even before that I was like on a wink commer Club on cop you serve and used my 10 free AOL hours to chat with wink fans just just win Commander win Commander has answered everything um and uh after a while I was running the official win Commander site and wc news oh no W WC news.com yeah um we did the launch of uh

3. 00:01:38

   wi Commander prophecy wi Commander secret Ops Privateer 2 bunch of those games um of course Electronic Arts totally lost interest in win Commander but I didn't so I I got into like the history of it learning about the cancell games meeting the people who made it I got to know Chris um yeah got I gu starting to lead up to the movie the 1999 week Commander movie um we've kind of corresponded ever since um you know whenever he would have some wanted to bring back space sims or win going be a win TV show there's going to be a GameCube game there lot of these ideas I would always come back and he would would ask me for what the community is thinking that's awesome um and you know he finally was like I'm going to crowdfund this new game which was called space Trader at the time um and uh I said well I'll help you out uh do whatever I can and uh it became real thing I ended up getting a good job and

4. 00:02:26

   here I am so the fir when the Inception of the project you worked basically for free right oh yeah we we were all volunteers at that point um 6 months or so um I had my real job and then I would spend six hours every night chatting with it it was okay CU he was on the west coast I was on the East Coast so I I worked at a uh public school system in the day and uh planned out star Sy at night with Chris and Dave hadock Sandy um couple of the other guys why would you ever give up that that sick gig you had at the public school system for Star Sy joke about that but one of the nice things about working for H school system is that you uh you basically have a job for life and uh you don't have to worry about health insurance they have like the best possible health insurance so coming out here was actually a big risk but uh I'm

5. 00:03:13

   happy I I figured I would never get a chance like this again so you kind of hit on who was there at the beginning but as this thing has grown as now we're up what 270 people including contractors how has how has your perception of it changed cuz you I mean honestly I mean you Chris Sandy and had probably have the most interesting views of this project as a whole yeah I mean I think nobody nobody expected it would get here uh it's yeah I have no idea how it did although I helped I guess um no you helped don't be modest no it it was it's it's nice because they're still as big as we are there's still that small company feel I mean I think you could you know you could go and if you had some great idea or were worried about something you go and talk to Chris Roberts just like I could he would he would listen to you as well so it's

6. 00:04:00

   we've done a good job of keeping that kind of intact as big as we've gotten as big as the project is now so you've given your life over to saris in the past three years yes but you're still just love wi Commander correct absolutely I I love talking about you know you know you you were making fun of me just yesterday cuz I was ring at somebody on Tumblr for insulting the Super Nintendo Port yeah hold on let's give context to this it's like 5:30 I'm thinking about maybe it's time for me to go home for the day and I look over I sit right next to him he kind of scoot over look at this and he is just typing and it's just like three page thing and I'm like and I'm just kind of like looking at it being a little nosy and it's like the SNES Port blah blah and I'm like Ben what are you writing he's like oh I'm about to I'm writing this

7. 00:04:48

   tumblr post about how mad I am about the win Commander Port so yeah that that happened so don't act like it's crazy for me to make fun of you for that but I've asked you this before but just so everyone else does what was it about Wing Commander you know I don't 100% know um I grew up like like any serious nerd Star Trek Star Wars Battle Star Galactica and all the Obscure stuff in between uh somehow Wing Commander just like called out to me like that this is your one yeah I think I remember getting on the like Proto internet 1990 91 and you know there were the you back then the internet was really really interesting cuz it was all people you had to be very smart to get there in the first place it was an obstacle course to get on yeah yeah it was like you know if

8. 00:05:36

   you understand how to dial in your modem and when there's no system for that and connect through some University you can get online and so it's all like particle physicists and grad students um so you you kind of looked around like okay I I love I love Dune well there's a dune community and they're they're all a bunch of dicks and they don't want some kid with them there's a Star Trek community and it's too big to ever be a part of and as win man me like he was the right size and I loved I loved Lov loved uh like World War II aircraft growing up um I I would make my parents take me all around the country to a different museums like oh there's there's a there's a junkers there and a dorer I got to go see this and the Mustang whereever I was obsessed with that stuff and when we Commander is very much Young Chris Robert's obsession with that same stuff and Star Wars and Star

9. 00:06:24

   Trek all mixed into his his vision and I just I I connected to it immediately yeah it's one of the things I I I really like about you not just in terms of I think you're a good boss to save my job but I just think that you love wi commander and like and Star Citizen now so much that you were you devoted to it for so long that you made it a career and that's that's like crazy to me it's not anything I ever expected I do I mean i' I've always wanted to write a book I always want to write a win Commander book someday you know making of this series and how it impacted game development but I never thought I would work for Chris or make video games I everybody grew up with that fantasy they wanted to make video games I absolutely did not I I wanted to be like a marine biologist or something is that why you're always about about space whes no I think those I think those would be a legitimately good game

10. 00:07:12

    toic and no you don't I do I do I really think they would they would create missions the first time I asked you what would they do you said they would jump fart so I don't really think that's how they work have like space Whale hunters in the world and there'll be like space green piece that want to protect them and like yeah I I'm really into things it'll generate missions in the persistent universe so what is your favorite part about stars is I know it's kind of hard because you've been here since the beginning but um I I I love that it's a different way of making games um I love that I'm here I'm super excited about Squad number 42 that's I I say I'm most excited about the single player stuff I and you're the one who sold me on that like I just in general I think we both kind of play games like that so um yeah there's there's nothing like a Chris Roberts

11. 00:08:00

    narrative in I mean it's it's kind of what Define you know any game today has some Chris Roberts DNA you know um and it's not the idea that it's high art or anything it's just this perfect mix of something you can you can understand and it has these emotional beats that actually affect you like Spirit dying win Commander 2 is just spoilers uh there's all this stuff it really brings you into he he does such an amazing job of bring you into the world and and he makes you care about it in a way that nobody had before that's it's the thing that got me was we were doing I was watching you play Win Commander 3 and you were you were talking about on my charity stream I did a while back and just seeing how much things can diverge in this tree that's gets born out of like your decisions and how you affect it like we didn't see

12. 00:08:48

    that in games for like decades after that after win Commander that I can remember yeah it's especially crazy in win Commander one in win Commander one there's like 12 or 14 missions you have to fly if you win every single one you finish the game in 12 or 14 missions but there's 40 some missions in the entire game and they're all different uh he just he puts so much work into that um and even as far as like starlancer which Chris Eric Peterson worked on um Aaron Roberts uh there's an entirely separate campaign that no one has ever played because it's it's the co-op campaign they they like did tell you like 3% of players even ever tried it yeah um but he he just he cares about that experience in a way that very very few people do and it's it's uh I mean not to not to haror Publishers even more but it's one of you know it's it's one

13. 00:09:36

    of the first things that can go you know oh for sure like okay I've made this game it can work this way but I have and I want to spend I want to spend a million dollars on this path and then $3 million the other well just spend the million dollars yeah so that it's great that that's what we can finally do again here is we can do the you know do the other thing yeah it's it's a thing that's prevailing more in in games today where it's like yeah they don't want to spend time developing something that not everyone's going to get to see and seeing how yeah when you did that run through you did it in like what 12 missions like you said but you're like showed me this map of all the missions and I was like I never I couldn't even fathom getting to all those yeah it's crazy all right so before we get you out of here just like everyone else we have some rapid fire questions are you ready I have a feeling we're going to know the answers already but favorite movie not going to say the win Commander movie I

14. 00:10:24

    love the win Commander movie I find it entirely fascinating um hopefully you guys saw my uh my stream with the other day um it's there's so much lore and so much background I I love it but I don't think it's my favorite movie um I love uh Starship Troopers that that that is my ultimate sci-fi movie I think uh it's just the perfect mix of commentary and anything else I've got got the death from above tattoo from Starship Troopers nice um I've always love that movie U I'll go Starship Troopers I remember seeing the movie when I was a kid and being just being like horrified at the bug aliens to me it's it's the perfect anti-war movie you know you have all these Vietnam it's the first Vietnam movie basically you have all these movies where it's uh you stuff like Full Metal Jacket where it's oh the innocent kid goes off to war and then he sees how bad it is and then he become he you know starts waxing poetic about that you know

15. 00:11:13

    the reality is you know the innocent kid goes off to war sees how terrible it is and that's it you know oh you're promoted oh you're reassigned you're whatever you you they they they continue to figure out ways to keep you in that machine and I think Starship tubers gets that across very well in a way that other movies don't all right favorite video game that's not called Wing Commander um that's a good question uh not called win Privateer is that no not okay favorite let me try again favorite video game outside of the Chris Roberts like Aura Spear of influence what about Aaron Robert's Prat to the darkening no um I I grew up loving uh space Quest those old Sierra games um Commander Keen from ID uh all that old '90s stuff I I build uh I build retro

16. 00:12:02

    PCS in my spare time so I'm very into that era cool and favorite ship in Star Citizen I like the Retaliator um I think I've said this in like a million different interviews already but I one thing I always wanted out of wing Commander was like a big you know the wig space equivalent of like a B7 raid over Germany um you know box formations of bombers with Fighters diving in between them Flack going off you know they introduced the the A7 Broad Sword Wing Commander 2 and I was you know it was the B17 equivalent just like the Retaliator in our game but the game engine that you have like eight ships on the screen at once so now now we can build you know hundreds of them and it's going to be I I want those missions all right well thank you again for coming on thank you for continuing to be James Pew all right I try my best to be the best James PE I could possibly be o I don't know how that's going but I appreciate the effort all right once

17. 00:12:52

    again this is Ben Lesnik I'm James SP and you just met a director you got to point the screen no that one no that one point that one okay okay that all right