Frank Lantz – Director of NYU’s Game Center and Creator of Universal Paperclips

Frank Lantz is a game designer and Director of the NYU Game Center. He cofounded Area/Code Games and most recently released a game called Universal Paperclips in which you’re an AI that makes paperclips.

https://twitter.com/flantz
https://gamecenter.nyu.edu/
http://www.franklantz.net/work/#/universal-paperclips/

The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon – https://twitter.com/craigcannon

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Topics

00:00 – “Games are the aesthetic form of thinking and doing”

6:30 – VR skepticism

9:15 – Universal Paperclips

14:00 – Explaining games to non-gamers

19:45 – Competitive gaming

22:30 – Building life lessons into games

31:15 – Teaching game design

35:50 – Inspiration, hard work, and taste

38:50 – Darker sides of gaming culture

42:40 – The indie game market

45:00 – Unexpected trends in gaming

48:50 – Benedict Fritz asks – Frank you seem much more interested in chess, go, poker, and other games with a long history than most game designers. Where do you think this comes from?

51:45 – Esports

55:10 – Inventing sports

57:00 – Pokemon Go

1:00:05 – Difficulty in predicting successes in entertainment

1:02:50 – Frank’s game recommendations

1:05:20 – @fakebalenciaga asks – Why Tonto?