Words with Petter Mårtensson

My initial motivation behind this project was to help connect us, the players, with those that we see connected to games or creating content. Over the last couple months we’ve heard from community members, CMs, producers, and more. During this time we have heard about opinions on The Division, favorite sports, favorite burgers, and even what to do with an evil AmperCamper.

Today we hear from Petter Mårtensson (@petterm) who is a Junior Community Developer for The Division at Massive. You may know him as one of the lovely trio of guys who entertain us, inform us, and even make us cringe on the (mostly) weekly State of the Game. Petter can be found streaming the game during the week, lurking on Twitch in streams, and keeping up with everyone on Twitter and Reddit.

Please join me in enjoying Petter’s edition of Words with Baun.

What is your personal favorite game of all time? Why?

That’s one hell of a question — as Terry said, I kinda dreaded it. Picking one is hard, but when it comes to how to it affected me personally I would probably have to go with Star Wars Galaxies. Sure, it could be buggy and glitchy and it was already old when I started playing (post-NGE/CU for those who know what I’m talking about), but the amount of things you could do in that game was incredible. It was the perfect MMO and I miss it so much. It had so much potential still and the guys that worked on it before it was closed down had such a passion for it and kept adding cool stuff. Jump to Lightspeed is one of the best expansions to a MMO ever released. I’ll forever miss my guild, our guild city, hanging out in the Mos Eisley cantina and my quiet little shop that sold noob weapons to people at reasonable prices. And my awesome YT-1300 house, of course!

What was your dream job as a child?

For a long time, I wanted to be an animator at Disney — I loved their films and I watched Aladdin so many times I basically knew the whole thing by heart. Related to that, I also wanted to be a comic artist for Marvel or Image. I drew a lot as a kid and teenager, but the art focused high school I went to ruined that completely (for all of us in that class, more or less). I stopped developing my drawing after high school, so now I can only doodle stupid characters during meetings.

What do you think your younger self would think of your current job?

I wouldn’t have to go back very far in order to be shocked and awed by my current job. I’ve wanted to work in gaming communities for a long time, so it’s a dream come true. Go back two years and I wouldn’t have trusted you if you told me I’d be doing this for a living. My younger-younger self would probably be surprised that I’d ever get to work with something related to an education — I studied a lot of things that would never get you a proper job outside of academia.

“It can be hard to deal with nasty comments (instead of constructive criticism) when that happens, for example. You’re only human, after all.”

What is your favorite part about being a Community Developer? Least favorite?

I think I’m going to echo a lot of what the other guys on the team have already said. My favorite part is interacting with the community, talking to you guys, having discussions about the game and seeing all the crazy and creative stuff you come up with. We have an amazing community, and I love hanging out with you — be it on official or personal channels. I love streaming, being able to sit down for a few hours and just chat with everyone that show up.

Again, to echo others — the worst part is bringing what people see as “bad news”. There’s a lot of pressure when going on State of the Game and telling players what they don’t want to hear. It can be really draining, even if at the end of the day SotG is incredibly rewarding and important for us. It can be hard to deal with nasty comments (instead of constructive criticism) when that happens, for example. You’re only human, after all.

What kind of training/education/experience did you receive to become a Community Developer?

I worked as a games journalist for ten years, doing both freelance writing and full time editor work. I did a lot of the classic stuff, like writing reviews and articles, but I also did a lot of video work in front of the camera (there’s a lot out there if you just know where to look). I also focused a lot on communities, especially MMO communities (as that’s basically all I played for years), in my writing. Together with a few friends I did an indie documentary on the EVE Online community and the infamous Incarna incident called A Tale of Internet Spaceships, for example. Beware if you see it — the sound mix is really rough (and I’m currently working on the subtitles). I’m very proud of it though.

I also have a BA in Media and Communications and I worked as a communicator for a non-gaming related media company before coming to Massive.

When you first heard of The Division what did you think? What got you interested?

First of all, as someone born and bred in Malmö, you pay attention to anything that Massive does by default. There were so many rumors about what the company was actually working on, that the reveal came as a big surprise. The game looked awesome and unique, with an incredible setting and concept. Being a RPG instead of a straight up shooter really spoke to my MMO background too. I got intrigued from the start. The reveal trailer from E3 2013, detailing the collapse of society and the Dark Winter exercise, is a piece of art.

What are you most proud of when it comes to The Division community as a whole?

The creativity. Not only fan art and cosplayers (who are amazing), but also all the different projects people got going. Words with Baun is a great example of that, #AgentActivated too. We have all the YouTubers and streamers, big and small. I love dropping into small streams and either chat or simply watch. I just had some fanfiction sent to us, which was really cool. I get to see James, our Community Representative, put together our Agent Highlights articles each month, getting regular updates on cool stuff I might have missed every week. It’s great and I love it.

I’m also really proud of the way our dedicated players welcome new Agents to the community. You see it a lot on Reddit and Twitter, where community members are more than happy to answer questions and offer their help. Every thread always includes people leaving their Uplay/Xbox/PSN handles so that the new players can be shown the ropes in the game too. Even during “hard times”, we see that happening. We love you all for that.

What do you wish the average player of The Division knew from your perspective?

Can I echo other people again? I’d really like emphasize how passionate the team is, even if it sounds cliché. From the developers to the business teams, we all love The Division. It’s our baby. I agree with Yannick that there’s a lot of people “in the shadows” so to speak, that you never really see. Ubisoft is a big organization with many moving parts, same with the studios, but it’s all filled with people who love the game.

I also wish that more people would understand how complicated it can be to run a live game and how hard it is to develop games in general. What appears to be a simple fix can be much more complicated than it seems and what looks like big changes can be done easily. It’s huge and it’s complex. Game development is hard, you guys. I can recommend the Noclip documentaries, especially the one about Horizon Zero Dawn to get some insight into just how crazy it can be.

What is a game genre you enjoy that would surprise people?

I have to be honest here and say I don’t think I have one. While it would be great to say that I’m a gaming hipster and only play cool indie games, I’m actually pretty mainstream (don’t tell anyone). The indie games I do play — like Papers, Please and This War of Mine — are all pretty mainstream too. The only “different” kind of games I love are narrative, text based games on mobile, like 80 Days and Sorcery. I’m not a fan of mobile games in general, but those are awesome. 80 Days is one of my favorite games, period. So many lost hours of sleep…

What is your favorite non-work/game related thing to do?

I love tabletop RPGs and play with my closest friends every Monday. We’ve played for years (and played together as teenagers too) and since we do it so often, we can easily jump between several campaigns — right now we play Pendragon, Dungeons & Dragons, Mutant: Year Zero, Call of Cthulhu and Night’s Black Agents. It’s a huge part of my life and my Monday evenings are sacred. I also do a podcast about classic Doctor Who called Who’s Who every week together with a friend. We’ve been at it since 2013, which is crazy.

As Johan mentioned in his interview (which spawned a fabulous piece of art), I love reading. That’s how I spend most of my lunches, hidden away on my own in a café reading. I just finished Steven Erikson’s giant The Malazan Book of the Fallen and will continue my fantasy binge with Robert Bennett’s City of Stairs and Glen Cook’s Black Company books. My bookshelf is my most prized possession, without a doubt.

What is your most embarrassing guilty pleasure you’re willing to admit?

YouTube videos that analyze some form of popular culture or games. Long form essay videos, like the ones from Joseph Anderson, are the best. I never played Fallout 4 or Super Mario Odyssey, but I’m totally down for listening to Joseph analyzing and spoiling them to bits for hours. For some reason I like anime related channels like Mother’s Basement too, even if I hardly watch any anime these days. I’d also listen to Dan Olson/Foldable Human, Mr Clemps and Super Eyepatch Wolf for days, crashed out on my couch with my cat on my chest. Wonderful way to spend an evening after a busy day at work.

And last, Yannick and yourself have a “staring contest” where the first person to laugh loses. How do you make Yannick laugh?

Have you seen Yannick’s piercing stare on State of the Game? It wouldn’t be a laughing contest; I’d break down crying long before any laughter happens. I guess that could make him laugh at me though, so maybe that’s a legitimate tactic to win?

I sincerely hope you all enjoyed Petter’s edition of Words with Baun. I have some more amazing guests coming up and I can’t wait to bring them to you. I want to thank everyone for enjoying this project with me.

Until next time. Be cool. Be calm. Be collected.