TGR: So, a lot of talented people are looking to get into the video game industry and really don’t have any kind of clue how to go about that. What would you suggest to someone who wants to work in this industry and what do you look for when you are hiring in...your division, let’s say?

PT: A number of things, I think that it is pretty neat; the industry is still in its infancy with regards to free games that have a micro transaction model attached. Obviously we have a lot of people who play, who actually play the games and have personas within the games.

I think first, having an interest in gaming is always great. But, also, I always look for someone who has had experiences around, obviously the internet, maybe monetizing different, running other, or working out of different websites or understanding basics of user interaction within the websites. So essentially, that combined with the gamer and someone who understands basically the analytics surrounding web behavior and usage. That is obviously very useful.

Obviously, if you are breaking into an industry from somewhere else, that can be difficult, but if you look at my career, progressing, I came from music, so really it was about building communities, having a common interest ,and building something around that interest. I think that depending on what divisions we are talking about, whether it be game, web design or user interface, I think that all of these things have different skill sets attached to them, and obviously at Outspark we have all different types of personalities and people, depending on what their job function is. For example, with the Business Intelligence Division, you can find very analytical numbers-driven people. And when you have the kind of game masters themselves -- which I think this would be more relevant to -- who would be people who actually enjoy interacting with communities and enjoy playing games and enjoy socializing virtually with others. So, I think that those are very valuable skills, also.

TGR: Alright, you mentioned that you came from the music industry. How did that dovetail into the video game industry. How did what you learn through that help you with where you are now?

PT: I think gaming is like the one piece of my entertainment repertoire that was missing. I think that the previous company that I was at just kind of gave me a good foundation in regards to running a business, essentially a big part of what I would call “community building,” the gaming landscape changed a lot. Instead of just playing either one- or two- player, we are into massive multiplayer online games, and I think that online gaming, community building -- those kind of things -- made that. I think bringing over certain artists from small European countries is essentially what I was doing, and that really helped build a brand in the US. Kind of similar to what I had to do with Habbo, which was a small Finnish company that created rather large, obviously teen destinations and math. I think similarly with game sourcing. You never know which one is going to be the breakout title until users start playing it. You start marketing it, then you start collecting just analytics on their behaviour with the game, then kind of refining the game and having features and adding different ways to pay and kind of essentially tailoring the game for your audience.

I think that the experience of…there were a lot of parallels. One was community building, working with different kinds of audiences and really giving them what they wanted, and obviously building out a business. Number Two was, I think, a lot of experience about social networking, virtual goods, which is becoming very prevalent in gaming these days. I think Outspark is kind of the best of all of those worlds. We have a place where communities can really…. Basically people can interact with each other. Users can share each others� information on what is going on with the game. They can post videos; they can obviously become connected that way. But then they can also actually play these games with each other, and I think that the future of gaming lies in basically friendships that are casual and simple in nature.

You have a core gamer that comes to and decides to play a game and really becomes aggressive and tries to get to the next levels and really wants to...wants that status within the community. Then you have, I think, a part of people that really just wants to hang, and I think that Habbo didn’t really have that, and I think that Outspark really allows that opportunity.