Greetings fellow Citizens! It’s time for Meet the Devs with Benoit Beausejour, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Turbulent!

Meet the Devs – Benoit Beausejour

This week the thumbnail for the video lies! This week it’s Meet the Devs with Jared “Disco Lando” Huckaby!

Transcript by Myself

Disco Lando = DL

Benoit Beausejour = BB

DL – How do you say your name?

BB – Boh-Say-Joo

DL – Bo-Say-Jo

BB – Boh

DL – Boh

BB – Say

DL – Say

BB – Joo

DL – Joo

BB – Yeah!

DL – Boh-Say-Joo

Thomas Hennessy – It’s the Joo part that’s hard because it’s not an English sound.

DL – My name is Ben-wa Boh-Say-Zhou

BB – Boh-Say-Joo

DL – Boh-Say-Joo

Thomas Hennessy – Boh-Say-Joo

BB – Yeah, that’s it.

DL – Boh-Say-Joo

BB – That’s right.

DL – It’s like that… see… Du la suis la du la SWAAAAAAAAA!

*BB laughs hard*

DL – “What happened?”

DL – “HE SPOKE FRENCH!”

*BB laughs harder*

*Meet the Devs Intro Plays*

DL – Hey everybody, I’m here today with Chief Technical Offficer of Turbulent Mr. Ben-Wa Boh-Shay… *facepalms*

BB – No. Cut.

Thomas Hennessy – No. There’s no cuts.

*BB laughs*

DL – No… we’re just goin… Tell ’em your name man.

BB – Boh-Say-Joo. Ben-Wa…

DL – Benoit, thanks for coming on. Alright, Meet the Devs. Ben-Wa Boh-Say-Joo.

BB – Perfect. Perfect.

DL – Who the heck are ya?

BB – I’m the CTO of Turbulent and Co-Founder.

DL – …but you’re also…

BB – I’m also…

DL – Who IS Ben…wa Boh… say… joo?

BB – Well, I’m a French Canadian guy from Montreal and uhm… I’m a programmer.

DL – Programmer?

BB – Yeah… and part-time artist and uh… mainly a programmer.

DL – Mainly a programmer. A web programmer?

BB – Yes, yes. Only web, that’s it. Nothing else.

DL – So, not video games, not…

BB – Yes… though I do quite a bit of 3D development using WebGL but that’s pretty much the extent of my experience there. Like… I can’t touch CryEngine… yet… yet.

DL – And you’re one of the creators and co-founders of Turbulent, how’d that come about?

BB – Ahh… well, I was 23 and I was working in a dot-com company where we were making, in retrospect today, a copy of GMail/Google Apps. And the company had got funding and uh… it was going down like this *hand draws a path towards the floor*. The company had no way to survive but I had met a really good… REALLY good project manager there called Mark and so Mark was losing his job and I was kept on board because I was a programmer and he was management.

And so we started talking about how we could start a company that comes from the production floor, right… that comes from the people that actually make things… instead of having venture capital you know… injecting money and eugh. So, that’s how it came about. We just basically started the company with one project. So, we had one gig and ever since we’ve been counting the days that the company has left… but now it’s in years. So, it’s been a crazy ride because the company is now 75 people strong in Montreal and you know, we do web stuff but I’m loving…

DL – How come we only see the same 4 people every time?

BB – Well, because those are the ones working on Star Citizen really… and uh… well the reality too is that a lot of them are French and so you would not understand them.

DL – Fair enough.

BB – So uh…

DL – Boh-Say-Joo

BB – Boh-Say-Joo, that’s it yeah.

*long silence*

DL – I interrupted you.

BB – Ahh, that’s fine… I was done.

DL – Alright. So, we’re making a video game. We’re making Star Citizen.

BB – That’s right!

DL – What are some of your favourite aspects about Star Citizen?

BB – Oh, uhm… oh man… everything! Starships. MMO – I was a huge MMO fan, I played World of Warcraft like no other. I ran high-end guilds. I just went crazy World of Warcraft. So, the MMO aspect for me is important. Like, the universe aspect. The fact there’s stuff to do in the universe that’s persistent, for me that’s really… and the Science Fiction universe! Because all of the MMO games are always in another medieval thing or whatever. I played EVE, I know… I did. I did play EVE but, you know, it’s a spreadsheet game so… moving on… This is not a spreadsheet game. That’s what excites me. There’s gonna be action, the art is crazy amazing. So that’s what excites me about it is just the setting, the immersive element of it, I’m just a huge – I’m probably one of the first top fans just of the idea.

DL – Gotcha! You said you were playing World of Warcraft, what server?

BB – Arthas.

DL – Arthas.

BB – Arthas. First PvP server in the list. That’s right.

DL – Okay… so we know you don’t consider your decisions before making them…

BB – That’s right, first one.

DL – Boom. Horde or Alliance?

BB – Alliance all the way.

DL – Alliance… really?

BB – I played one character. ONE character my entire career… WoW career for 3 years. Played one character.

DL – Race and class?

BB – Paladin, Human.

DL – Human Paladin. I was a GM when WoW launched.

BB – Really?!

DL – When I came to work here, in the kitchen the first day seeing people like Darian and I’m like, ‘Hey!’ So I remembered… Human Paladin.

BB – 192 days of play time on that character… on that one toon.

DL – I don’t know how much play time…

BB – Yeah it was pretty intense.

DL – I was an Undead Warrior.

BB – Ah, cool… that’s a good skin.

DL – It was just something I picked up.

BB – Yeah, but you know I learned a lot of stuff doing… I consider that I’ve learned a lot of stuff playing WoW. Leadership qualities, raiding with a bunch of babies trying to get a dragon killed… you know. It takes a lot of management out of you.

*DL laughs*

DL – Tell me you’re not one of those people who put on their resume that you led a WoW guild.

BB – No, no.

DL – For management skills… no? I’ve seen that before. I’ve had resumes come across the table where people are, ‘Oh yes, I ran a 40-man raiding guild! Not the 25-man raiding guilds. I ran a 40-man raiding guild for years, so I exhibit leadership skills and co-ordination and organization.’

BB – Oh yeah… I would put it…

*both laugh*

BB – Yeah, I loved that period but at some point you gotta move on and come back to reality. And so… that’s where the company started. *laughs*

DL – Our Around the ‘Verse interview ran a little long so we’re going to keep this one short. James usually ends these with three rapid-fire questions.

BB – Okay.

DL – First, your favourite video game of all time.

BB – My favourite video game of all time would be… Shadow of the Colossus.

DL – Shadow of the Colossus. That was a PS2 game… PS1 game?

BB – PS2 game.

DL – PS2 game. I’ve seen it. I’ve never played it actually.

BB – Oh my god… It’s a milestone game that has gotta be played.

DL – It looked amazing, I just didn’t own a PS2 at the time so I never…

BB – You should get one right now.

DL – And I don’t have any friends so it was never an option…

*BB laughs*

DL – Second is favourite movie of all time.

BB – That’s gotta be Back to the Future.

DL – Back to the Future…?

BB – Yeah, I love that movie.

DL – I’m not saying it’s not a great movie…

BB – You know like… that’s the first one that comes to mind all the time.

DL – But in the realm of Jaws, Lawrence of Arabia, Empire Strikes Back…

BB – Back to the Future.

DL – Back to the Future. Why Back to the Future?

BB – There’s like a childhood connection to that film, the music, the idea of going back in time or forward in time. The car. I don’t know, for me it like… it marked me. But of course if I think more about it and I go more into sci-fi then Empire for sure but like I just picked the first one and that’s the one…

DL – And you’re okay with Marty killing the alternate Marty at the end though?

BB – Yes, totally…

DL – He just comes and assumes his life…

BB – Yeah, and that’s it…

DL – Whatever Marty existed at that time just gets murdered, erased from existence…

BB – Yeah. I’m totally okay with that.

DL – Old Marty gets the new life. Steals the new life.

BB – Breaks the continuum, whatever. Like… I would do it. *laughs*

DL – That’s cold man. That’s cold. Representin’ Marty here.

BB – The original Marty…

DL – I was gonna say the original Marty or the new timeline that got erased by the original Marty.

DL – And third, your favourite ship in Star Citizen.

BB – Constellation.

DL – Constellation.

BB – I know that’s too bad… that people are gonna say, ‘Eh, it’s a classic choice.’ But for me it’s the Millennium Falcon, right. Here we go back to Star Wars again but for me the Constellation is the one…

DL – Andromeda?

BB – You can play with friends… Andromeda, yeah. Original. And yeah… that’s my ship. That’s the one I bought… the first one I bought when I met Chris.

DL – It’s the first ship I bought.

BB – There you go.

DL – Rear Admiral package.

BB – There you go… *laughs*

DL – Cool man, thanks a lot!

BB – Thank you very much!

DL – That’s Ben-wa Bo-Jay-Saw…

BB – Boh-Say-Joo

DL – Boh-Say-Joo. I’m James Pugh, and you just met a dev.

BB – *laughing* That’s right.

DL – I did it better than he did.

Thomas Hennessy – You know… there may be a chance that none of this is usable.