The Giants of Surfing... and Game Development?

One of my all-time fave documentaries is Riding Giants, a documentary about three of the pioneers of big wave surfing. It focuses on three different 'eras' of surfing, telling the story of an innovator from each. I often recommend it to friends, and sometimes have commented that it makes a good parallel to innovation in the games industry. I'd never written up why I feel this is the case.

Recently, I recommended it to a friend, Mare Sheppard, who asked "Who is gaming's Laird Hamilton?". I figured I'd write up some thoughts as a response.

I love the documentary for many reasons. great footage and soundtrack, superb editing and pacing, etc. However, the thing I like most is that of the three innovators at the heart of the movie, each innovates in a very different way.

The film starts with coverage of Hawaii's north shore in the early 60's and Greg Noll. Noll is a big, brash tough guy with brass balls, who basically muscles his way onto waves no one else will tackle. He innovates with brute strength. In gaming, Noll's equivalent is maybe Rockstar, or Wargaming, or EA. Pick a goal, throw a pile of money and bodies at it. Take that hill.

The latter part of the movie covers Laird Hamilton. He (and to be fair, some others), invented "tow-in surfing", using zodiacs and jetskis to pull them into giant open-ocean waves at high speed - waves too big to paddle into. They innovated through the use of technology. In gaming, Hamilton's equivalent is Valve, or Epic, or Crytek.

The best part of the movie though, is the middle section, which focuses on Jeff Clark, the first person to surf Mavericks in Half-moon Bay, California. After a couple years of looking at a giant wave breaking off the coast into a death-trap of stones, Clark just decides to do it - because in his heart he knows he must. And then, after no one believes he did it, HE SURFS IT ALONE, WITH NO ONE WATCHING, FOR FIFTEEN YEARS! Clark's innovation is driven by passion. By love of the act itself.

Who is gaming's Jeff Clark? All those indies working on those perfect gems of games that have to be done the best possible way. Jon Blow, Chris Hecker, Robin Hunicke, Dan Cook, and so many others I have the privilege of knowing... including Mare Sheppard, which is why I recommended the film to her to begin with! :-)

[btw, while I recommend the film, if you haven't seen it, at least watch this clip on the Jeff Clark piece]

Book Review: The Wave

Sometime last year I heard about Susan Casey's The Wave, when she was making the rounds on the talk show circuit hawking it. Having heard that it covered some of the hairy exploits of big-wave surfers, I ordered it, as I was pretty rivited by the awesome documentary Riding Giants.

The book arrived and I quickly scanned the contents and then sat it in the "to read" pile for a few months as i worked my way through a couple others.

Then the Japanese quake and tsunami happened, and I remembered that I had a book sitting on the shelf that I seemed to remember touching upon the theory that global warming both made our seas more violent and increased the probability of earthquakes and tsunamis, and I figured maybe it was a good time to go read it.

The book is a bit schizophrenic, playing both adventure and science cards, though it doesn't necessarily play them together. There are interviews with experts on climate change, storm prediction, wave dynamics, and other disciplines. In between these, the lab coat is traded in for a surfboard or a trip to ocean emergency rescue & salvage operations.

The latter of these make the book an exciting page turner. I won't go into the surfing parts in detail other than to say that the guys that voluntarily fly helicopters into storms to try and ride surfboards down the side of moving 7-story buildings are crazy, and that Laird Hamilton is either the craziest of them all, or is actually Poseidon himself.

One complaint is that the science-related portions of the book are a bit weak. Casey sought out experts to support her narrative, and didn't try to find the contrarian view to hear it out. Nevertheless, the combination is compelling. One gets the sense not just that the seas may be growing angrier, but the reader is given a palpable sense of just what that means, and of just how feeble we are to withstand mother nature when she decides to show us who's boss.

But then we've seen a lot of news footage over the past couple weeks that made that pretty obvious.

Still, the book is a good read. You'll learn a few things and be riding the edge of your seat while doing so.

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean