...in which our hero takes a long journey

This story is told from the perspective of Soma's founder, Chris Skaggs.

One day in 2005, I was avoiding my web development job and reading the news. At that time, a very non-Christian video game was in the news and in fact being debated by Congress who were planning to slap the game with a big fine and give it an AO rating. (FYI: it was Rock Star Games and GTA's infamous Hot Coffee mod). At that same time, I was reading another, counterpoint news article about something called the Christian Game Developers Conference. Now I was/am a gamer but had never even heard of Christian games as a genre and certainly never heard of a whole conference surrounding it, so I kept reading. To my surprise, not only was the conference being held that very weekend, but it was also being held just a thirty minute drive from my house. Maybe all of that was just coincidence, but as I read that story there was that 'ring' in my heart where God told me I should go.

Now that might be the first hee-bee-gee-bee moment in the story depending on who you are and what kind of background you come from. For the record, God did not 'speak' to me audibly like Moses or something, but it's a long topic to try to cover in a few paragraphs. With your permission, allow for the idea that God communicates with us in some way and we'll move on down the story.

Anyway, I registered for the event and no more than 15 minutes later the Conference coordinator sent out a global email asking if anybody was going to be in Boston that next Monday, (it was Wed.) because there was a TV show that wanted to interview somebody from the conference. Again, in that quiet place in my heart, God told me that the interview was supposed to be for me. Keep in mind that I had zero knowledge of the industry, zero experience, and (Hello!) no video game company, but in the end I just knew what I had been told. So I wrote back to the coordinator saying something like, "You don't know me from Adam and I just registered for the CGDC, but I think I'm supposed to be the guy going to Boston." Huge kudos to Tim who wrote back and said. "I don't need to know you. If God wants you to go, you should go. Via con dios!" And with that, I called the TV station in Boston and said I'd love to be on their show – where did I need to be and when?

It was at this moment that I started to ponder what had just happened in the last 30 min.

1. I had suddenly become aware of an industry he'd never even heard of.
2. I registered for an event I knew nothing about.
3. And I agreed to appear on a widely syndicated TV magazine show as an expert in the field.

Awesome!

Now I like video games – and was conscious of the possibility that it might all just be happening in my head. I mean, it would be so cool for God to say in a thundering voice, "Chris – goest thou to produce console games in my name!" I mean that would be really, really great...just pretty unlikely. So as a way to check against my own fevered mind I told the Big Man that if He wanted me in Boston, He had to make it happen. I wasn't going to spend one thin dime.

At CGDC

The next day I showed up for the first day of the conference. Not knowing anything, and certainly not having anything valuable to contribute to the conversation, I just sat in the back and listened to a long discussion of distribution channels, or supply chains, or who knows what. I'm not saying the speech wasn't good or useful, it's just that O was in so far over my head he might as well have been talking about Ewok biology for all I understood.

The interesting thing is what happened at the end of this gentleman’s presentation. He picked up his notes and made a bee-line through the crowd back to me. He just walked right up, stuck out his hand and said, "Hi, I'm Tom. I'm supposed to talk to you but I don’t know why."

I was a little shocked at this introduction but I told him the story of the last day and ended with something like "...and I'm supposed to be in Boston on Monday but I don't know how I'm getting there or what I'm supposed to say."

To which he replied, "Well in that case, I know what I'm supposed to give you." and he proceeded to give me a 30 minute crash course in the finer details of the video game industry as he handed me about 30 pages of statistics and numbers and graphs. It was wonderful and exactly what I needed – but not all that I needed. Over the next three days that exact same thing happened no less than eight times. Never once did I solicit this information. Never once did I introduce myself and ask for anything, just speaker after speaker sought me out and coached my on every topic that might come up in the interview. It was like cramming for a test and by Saturday morning I was rather educated on the whole realm of games in general and Christian games in particular. Somehow I had been totally prepared to represent this entire niche in about 72 hours.

In the mean time, God basically downloaded an entire 5 year business plan into my head including titles and concepts for three games, a name, a basic marketing plan, and we went to work putting together a website for this fledgling company in the same period. In addition, about a dozen random people felt called to pitch in to various things, from renting a car to paying for a hotel. But for all that, I still had no way to get across the country.

Then Saturday's final presenter finished his speech, and did what I had come to expect – he walked directly up to me sitting in the back. After telling him the story, he said, "Well here's what I can do." and he handed me a plane ticket.
I kid you not.
But as if that wasn't dramatic enough, as it happened, the ticket wouldn't work.

It was one of these open ended, fly standby type tickets and now that it was Saturday afternoon, there was no available seat on Southwest's only flight to Boston. So, deflated, I said "Thanks, but no thanks" and wondered what was next.

Then, quite clearly, God said, "Chris – go to Borders...now."
and so I did.

I drove across town (somehow, I just knew which Borders...) and when I arrived, sitting in the lobby was a fellow I knew from church who was killing about ten minutes as he waited for a friend. Well Mike heard my story and instantly said, "I can get you to Boston." and proceeded to buy me a flight that left about 18 hours later.

So in the course of five days God had:

• Convinced me to attend a conference on a topic I'd never heard of.
• Arranged for an in-depth education on a very detailed subject.
• Made it so I was primed to represent that same, unknown industry, to roughly six million people.
• And paid for every bit of it.

You'll have to see more in part two...coming soon.