Before Elon Musk developed obsessed by space travel and electric cars, he was a kid who played a lot of video games.
Speaking at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) video ploy convention in Los Angeles earlier this month, Musk addressed the impact video games have had on his vision and the trades of engineers everywhere.
“Part of the reason, maybe the reason, I got interested in tech was video games, ” Musk indicated. “I probably wouldn’t have started programming if it wasn’t for video games or wouldn’t have been as interested in computers and tech if it wasn’t for video diversions. I think video games are a very powerful force for getting young kids interested in technology; it has way bigger knock-on intentions than people may realize.”
Elon Musk, multi millionaire, rocket scientist, Tesla and Space X founder and the man who invigorated Tony Stark’s character in Jon Favreau’s ‘Iron Man’ at his desk March 19, 2004 in El Segundo, Los Angeles, California.
Paul Harris | Getty Perceptions
Musk speaks from experience. At just 12 years old, he coded and published a space fighting game called “Blastar” which later pushed for $500 to trade publication PC and Office Technology magazine. He once worked at a gaming startup ( “Which weirdly was called Rise rapidly Science — fate loves irony,” Musk has joked). And though his more recent birthdays may have been all in pulling all-nighters at Tesla, Musk once celebrated his birthday by asking for a life-size statue of Vault Boy – the fictional mascot sort from video game Fallout.
But Musk isn’t the only one who has found inspiration – and success – through gaming. The link between the two is pronounced when he interviews his future employees.
Participants sit at computer monitors to play video games at the 2018 DreamHack video gaming birthday on January 27, 2018 in Leipzig, Germany.
Jens Schlueter | Getty Images
“If we’re interviewing somebody for a software engineering character at Tesla or SpaceX, many times we’ll [ask], ‘How’d you start programming?'” Musk says.
“I think many of the with greatest satisfaction software engineers in the world are at, or spent much of their career at, video game houses,” Musk says, accent how problem-solving in video games transfers over to problem-solving in software engineering. “If people had to try to create incredibly realistic graphics reasoning very little computer power, it’s a hard problem, so a lot of people had to write really tight code and come up with actually clever ideas to do that.”
For Musk’s team at Tesla, the enhanced graphics in video games enable them to punter simulate self-driving cars with the help of artificial intelligence. He tasks his simulation team with creating a photorealistic age of what he says are some of the most boring things: skid marks on the road, concrete curves, shadows, and smoked street lines. These simulations have been essential to the development of autopilot cars, which are scheduled for a satiated rollout next year.
He also credited video game Cyberpunk (as well as the movie “Blade Runner”) as the stimulus for the Tesla pickup truck.
A sketch of a Tesla pickup truck concept, revealed at the firm’s Semi truck and Roadster actuality in Hawthorne, California on November 16, 2017.
Tesla
“It definitely doesn’t look like a normal car, it looks like it should not be on the lanes, like it came out of a movie or something,” Musk says. “It won’t appeal to everyone, but it’ll be something that’s different. I think I longing buy it.”
Musk wasn’t just at E3 to talk about his new pickup truck. He announced the addition of video games to Tesla means — drivers can play games on the car’s center screen while docked at a charging station. He even hinted at developing events for his space capsules going to Mars.
“My experience is, if you’re trying to figure out what others love, but you don’t love it, it’s really acrimonious to make that great,” he says. “So when you work on something, if you fall in love with it, that’s a good flag – and then don’t worry about if others do. If you do, others will.”
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SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk reacts during a conversation at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, June 13, 2019.
Mike Blake | Reuters