Synopsis

In this interview with Chris Hatala from Games Done Legit, we dismiss some long-held beliefs that video games cannot be taken seriously, uncover ways video games can help businesses build teams, and learn how to translate gaming events into better leadership and business growth. 

About Our Guest

Chris Hatala is the Event Director and Final Boss (i.e. CEO) of Games Done Legit Entertainment in Cleveland, OH. Games Done Legit brings people together through the video games they love (and now virtual reality) at their lives' biggest moments. We build everything from both adult & youth special events to student engagement in schools, because everybody games!

Transcript

Mike: Hello everyone, this is Mike with Modern da Vinci and welcome to another Modern da Vinci podcast. I am super excited today to have with us on this podcast, Chris Hatala who has been an Event Director and Final Boss at a company called Games Done Legit. Their website is gamesdonelegit.com, and I really thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Ahh, Chris, how are you doing this morning? 

Chris: I am great. Thank you so much, Mike, for having me on Modern da Vinci.

Mike: Yeah. Absolutely. I. First of all, I love [laughs] I love your name. I love your-your ahh title for ahhh for your company. Event Director and Final Boss at Games Done Legit. That's really cool. [laughs]

Chris: Yeah. I wanted something that's a little original you know just like our company RIP of ahh you know inserting video games entertainment into special events. You know, sort of company space around so you know everything's a way for us to do with the company, like let's say I have a sitter, it's only to make sense to like the larger you know business community and someone who hasn't played a video game since batman in the 80's, you know my job title still needs to ahhh resonate with them. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, it's true. Very clever. Very good so okay, can you tell us a little bit more. I think you know, people who listen to our podcast, you know, everybody is very familiar with Modern da Vinci ahhh you know, we're trying to help grow people's businesses and to ammm help them become world class leaders. Can you tell us a little bit about Games Done Legit and give us a feel of what you're all about and for how we got connected here? 

Chris: O yeah. Absolutely. Ammm so Games Done Legit, we basically take you know the video games that people love and now virtual reality as well, and we leverage them for the events ahhh that are the most important part of people's lives so any kind of special events, we do like corporate team building activities, ammm four player Pacman and Donkey Kong and like Mario Cart and things like that to VR. Ammm during the course you know we do bat mitzvahs and non-profits like fundraising, you know what video games events and amm even with education or in school programs now and we're very a developer of future of a what we can do with an especially virtual reality in classrooms.

Mike: O yeah. Wow. Some of the virtual reality stuff that's coming out is is pretty impressive. Ahhh, do you. Ahh so the kids ahh I’m sure love it for the schools, what about I mean at the corporate events, you know, are the ahh the corporate people that show up, are they equally excited about amm these team building events that you put on?

Chris: O yeah because I mean what we do you know we for the corporate stuff, whether you know, anyone pretty much under like the age of like 50 now, I would say you know at least you got you know memory, memories of ummm the 80's arcade like. It doesn't matter if haven't played a game since defender. Like that was a part of a popular culture at the time and so there were so few video games so the ones that were popular were even more important in Britain for the people, so you know we go back to you know the 80 things or you know so like umm I'm roughly 34 so I'm kind of like the tail of [inaudible] so like Nintendo and then you know we all played tennis, table tennis and sports games like NBA Jam, you know Maden and [inaudible] everything so you know, you use it's like whatever games ahhh you know really match up you know with that generation that they especially played growing up and [inaudible] are still simple and easy to pick up now even if you know you haven't played them in 20 years and amm they have been they just have this-this really interesting this social power to, you know, bring people together and get people smiling and laughing and kind of like break up sects [inaudible] that ammm companies really seem to find beneficial so far.

Mike: Yeah you know I that's [laughs] that's exactly why I was excited about talking with you. It's that you I'm a huge video game player myself whether it's on my phone, or you know hooking the PC up to the-the television and playing ammmm and I've seen some people talk about the benefit to businesses and schools and ahhh you know different events obviously for entertainment purposes but ammm but this was exciting to me because you seem to be of high ahhh business activity specifically team building which I wanted to ask you a bunch of questions about today into you know the-the sort of fun culture of-of gaming. It's very meaning. So have you have you always done this job? Where did you where did you get your start?