Kellee Santiago

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Kellee Santiago
Santiago at the Game Developers Conference in 2010
Born
Caracas, Venezuela
Occupation(s)Game designer, producer
Known forThatgamecompany
Notable workCloud, Flow, Flower, Journey
SpouseMike Stein
Websitekelleesantiago.com

Kellee Santiago is a

Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. However, Santiago became involved in video game design and produced Cloud, a game developed by Jenova Chen
and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.

Santiago produced the studio's first two games,

Niantic
as the head of developer relations.

Biography

Santiago was born in

Tisch School of the Arts of New York University,[3] where she was involved in amateur theater. She focused in theater on developing new works, rather than adapting older ones, and was especially drawn towards incorporating interactive digital media into her works. She ascribes this to her father's work in software engineering and her experiments with computers, which drove her into using them in her performances as she had more experience than the others in her group.[4]

She moved to

Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.[1] Her intention was to remain in theater, but in her second semester took a class taught by Tracy Fullerton on the history of game design, which inspired her to focus her studies on video game design instead.[4] The class caused her to realize "how much hadn't been done" in the realm of communication and expression in video games and the lack of established structure and rules as to how it was best to make games, which appealed to the part of her that was interested in experimental theater.[5] While at school she produced the award-winning game Cloud, a videogame that depicts a story that explores the ideas of an out-of-body experience and was developed by Jenova Chen and a student team,[6][7] and also worked on other video games such as Darfur is Dying.[8]

Cloud was intended as an experiment by the group to see if they could create a game that "expressed something different than video games had in the past", as well as determine the level of interest in the gaming community for video games of that nature. The game received over 400,000 downloads in the first four months after release, "more than every single person in every single theater [she] had ever worked in," which convinced Santiago to remain in the video game industry indefinitely.[2] The strong response to the game, released in 2005, inspired her and Chen to consider founding their own company to continue making games like it after they left school—where the design was based on the emotions they wanted to inspire rather than gameplay mechanics.[9]

thatgamecompany

Upon graduating, Santiago and Chen founded

Gamasutra recognized the studio as one of the "20 Breakthrough Developers" of the year, emphasizing Santiago's key role.[11][12] The second game for the studio, and the first to be completely original to the company, was Flower, released in 2009. Both titles were heavily praised by critics and received several awards, as well as garnering high sales.[13][14] For the studio's third game, Journey, thatgamecompany hired Robin Hunicke as the producer, allowing Santiago to focus more on directing the company as a whole.[15] Journey was released on March 13, 2012; two weeks later on March 29, 2012, Santiago announced her departure from thatgamecompany, not specifying what her plans were for the future.[16]

During the development of Journey, in 2009, Santiago became a

Fast Company focusing on design, technology and business.[20]

Developer relations

In March 2013, Santiago joined

Niantic.[25][26]

Influences and philosophy

External videos
video icon The Art of Video Games: Interview with Kellee Santiago, Jenova Chen, and Robin Hunicke, Smithsonian American Art Museum[27]

Santiago described her work at thatgamecompany as creating emotional responses, in order to demonstrate that video games can create a wider range of experiences than are typically shown.[5] She felt that thatgamecompany's goal during her tenure there was "to create games that push the boundaries of videogames as a communicative medium, and to create games that appeal to a wide variety of people." Through this she hopes to change the rest of the industry to also approach making videogames as a "creative medium" rather than a product.[4] She, both independently with the Indie Fund and through thatgamecompany has tried to support the independent video game development industry by funding and connecting independent game developers.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b Santiago, Kellee. "Kellee Santiago". Archived from the original on 2009-06-04. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
  2. ^ a b c Herro, Alanna (2010-10-08). "Fellows Friday with Kellee Santiago". TED. Sapling Foundation. Archived from the original on 2010-10-20. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  3. ^ Santiago, Kellee (May 2006). "Thesis Paper Excerpts A" (PDF). kelleesantiago.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-11-20. Retrieved 2011-03-15.
  4. ^ a b c "Dopamin statt Adrenalin: der sensationelle Erfolg von Thatgamecompany". Innovation Stuntmen. 2010-10-07. Archived from the original on 2011-05-03. Retrieved 2011-02-02.
  5. ^ a b Young, Nora (2010-12-22). "Full Interview: Kellee Santiago". CBC Radio One. Archived from the original on 2011-05-03. Retrieved 2011-02-04.
  6. ^ "Cloud Creation". University of Southern California. Archived from the original on 2011-05-03. Retrieved 2011-01-20.
  7. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived
    from the original on 2010-03-26. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
  8. ^ Santiago, Kellee. "CV". Archived from the original on 2009-06-04. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
  9. ^ Elliot, Phil (2010-02-07). "Thatgamecompany's Kellee Santiago". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2011-02-02.
  10. Gamasutra. Archived
    from the original on 2010-10-20. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
  11. Gamasutra. Archived
    from the original on 2010-05-13. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
  12. ^ France, Lisa Respers (2009-03-23). "Developer explores the softer side of video games". CNN. Archived from the original on 2009-05-01. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
  13. ^ "2008 Interactive Achievement Awards". Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on 2011-05-16. Retrieved 2011-01-12.
  14. Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. 2010-02-18. Archived
    from the original on 2011-05-03. Retrieved 2010-02-19.
  15. ^
    Gamasutra. Archived
    from the original on 2010-05-09. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
  16. Gamasutra. Archived
    from the original on 2012-04-01. Retrieved 2012-03-29.
  17. ^ Santiago, Kellee (2010-04-19). "My Response To Roger Ebert, Video Game Skeptic". Kotaku. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  18. Gamasutra. Archived
    from the original on 2010-10-17. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
  19. ^ "Kellee & Mike - Our Story". 2010-03-25. Archived from the original on 2011-05-03. Retrieved 2011-01-13.
  20. Fast Company
    . Retrieved 2012-10-26.
  21. MCV
    . Retrieved 2015-01-06.
  22. ^ Gera, Emily (2014-05-16). "Former Thatgamecompany president joins Women in Games International advisory board". Polygon. Archived from the original on 2014-05-16. Retrieved 2014-05-16.
  23. ^ "Credits". nightlightinteractive.com. Archived from the original on 2017-03-31. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  24. MCV. Archived
    from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2015-10-17.
  25. ^ "Kellee Santiago". LinkedIn. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  26. ^ "Q&A: Niantic's Kellee Santiago talks video game development". The Mercury News. 2020-01-24. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
  27. American Art Museum
    . Retrieved February 19, 2013.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kellee Santiago.

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