Pascal Clarysse (#016)
Some 1.85 billion people, or >20% of the world’s population, experience some form of disability. And yet the representation of disabled people in the media is abysmally low.
Company: Big Karma
Headcount: 14
Stage: Pre-Seed
Tell us your story
Usually in pitches, job interviews or conferences, I tell the story of how, in 1998, I saw the Internet run on a library computer at university while studying economics in Belgium. I then move on to how I discovered I could import video game goods from Hong Kong for a third of their value in Europe; and how I dropped out of university to start a company, telling my mom: “this is a once in a lifetime opportunity! If I fail, the university will still be around to welcome me as a student in a century from now”.
I continue by describing how I moved to Hong Kong in 2002 to become an exporter, getting closer to the Chinese factories following China joining the WTO, and joining Lik Sang as a Marketing Director at a time when nobody really knew what marketing was about. At this point, I describe how we ended up being sued by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo over the limits of what could be done over the internet, celebrating the fact that we became the rare cause of agreement between these giants!
I then fast-forward to the release of the App Store, jumping into software (now as a Marketing Consultant), starting with indies, moving to bigger startups, just as free-to-play and games-as-a-service was starting to become a thing. I name drop big campaigns I’ve run with the top Youtubers and name drop companies like Ubisoft, Garena, Space Ape, Seriously “and many, many more!”
I’ve realised that I always hide the formative years before all this happened. Folks, this is really how I started:
When I was 7 years old, I convinced my mom that owning a computer was the future of doing homework (she was a teacher). I tricked her into buying a family Amstrad Colour PC that I then used either to play video games, or to copy video games from one floppy disk to another using a program called Discology. At 14, I realised I couldn’t trick my mom into buying an imported Nintendo Super Famicom because, well, it couldn’t possibly help me with doing homework (no keyboard). After begging for it for a while, mom caved and said I could buy it, but only if I saved enough. She had realised that it would have taken me 140 weeks to save enough from my allowance so thought very little of it since.
The only thing she didn’t realise was that I’d realised this too and figured out a workaround. I started trading pirated games on floppy disks and selling the latest movies from the US on bootleg VHS tapes. After earning enough to buy the Super Famicom, I started selling ‘back-up stations’ to other people with Super Famicoms and Super Nintendos at school. My biggest achievement was importing the first Japanese PlayStation in my country on day one, for a whopping 1000€. Probably the biggest achievement of my youth.
You might understand why I shy away from disclosing my pirate past especially when I’m part of the gaming industry. But I must confess I’ve always felt I had understood much more about the laws of supply & demand at the time ‘Street Fighter II’ came out compared to what was taught in those economics textbooks at university years later. I now realise I should be proud to say that I started my games marketing career in the high school playground, hustling to pay for my games by selling games to others.
Tell us a story that has really resonated with you
David Aguilar was born with Poland Syndrome in the mountains of Andorra some 20 years ago. His right arm never grew. Aged 7, he built his own prosthetic arm out of LEGO bricks. Now studying Bio-Engineering in Barcelona, and a proud winner of LEGO Masters France, he was wearing the v5 of his self-built LEGO arm when I shook his hand last year. The cool kids today call him Mr. Hand Solo.
What can't you stop thinking about?
Disability’s representation in entertainment media, starting from gaming first.
Raising Ariana for the last few years first changed my heart, then opened my eyes. Ariana has congenital disorders with no formal diagnosis to date (it's what medicine refers to as an orphan disease).
She's uniquely different. And in her first few years of life, I saw her endure a profound amount of suffering. So much so that today, seeing her smile, laugh, or dance excitedly to a beat makes her the engine of our family unit. She made me approach joy and happiness from a much more fundamental angle. Joy being the purpose of video games, it gave me a new appreciation for my craft, too.
She also led me to spend a lot of time in clinics and symposiums, talking to doctors and other parents of children with disabilities. For all the support we would get from the healthcare system, when it comes to survival and dealing with the medical aspects of our kids' conditions, something peculiar struck me hard in the face: what about joy? What about fun? What about entertainment? Are our kids supposed to just survive in hiding?
Some 1.85 billion people, or >20% of the world’s population, experience some form of disability. And yet the representation of disabled people in the media is abysmally low, and worse, normally involves condescending, tear-jerking content. This is not a medical problem but a societal one. And one the entertainment industry should be tackling.
It was when Jean-Michel Boesch and I were looking for inspiration by watching people with disabilities practice sport on social media that it suddenly hit us: these cool people were and are super heroes, and video games characters incarnate! Aaron ‘Wheelz’ Fotheringham, Woody Belfort, David ‘Hand Solo’ Aguilar. We called them all and many more. And one reaction kept coming back: “I've always dreamed of being a video game character."
It struck me that I’d never dreamed of that and I realised it was because all those video game characters already looked like me.
If I could tell you just one thing...
Since you stole your question from Richard Reed, I’m tempted to steal my answer from Les Brown: “There is Greatness in all of you and it is your responsibility to manifest that greatness.”
In my own words: we are all flawed, we are all incomplete, but we have the capacity to learn and rise above our imperfections. And when we find our purpose, we become truly phenomenal.
If you could get a warm intro to anyone in the world, who would it be and why?
Arnold Schwarzenegger. He doesn’t brag about it, but he is the biggest supporter of the Special Olympics. Once the government of Austria wanted to build him a statue, and he turned it down and made them donate the money to the Special Olympics instead. Hell of a guy; larger than life. He is also someone I quote often: “there’s only one way to learn anything: reps, reps, reps.” It would be an absolute dream to count him as a partner and ally in our Big Karma journey.
I’d also say Kevin Hart, ever since I heard that he wants to revive and modernize the Telethon in the U.S. I’d love to find a way to partner up as there are obvious synergies between their upcoming linear media show and our video game. In this interconnected world of ours, all entertainment forms fuse into one giant zeitgeist. Besides being funny as hell, he also strikes me as being a dedicated entrepreneur, an endless bundle of positive energy and a man of great values and discipline. He never heard of us and yet he perfectly represents and incarnates the Big Karma ‘Phenoms’ ideal and value-set. If you work at HartBeat Productions, call me!