Real Story: You grew up in Alaska. I picture wolverines, huge snowfields and Dick Proenneke. What was it really like?

Garrett Link: You left out Igloos.

I grew up in Anchorage- a town of about 250,000- but aside from the weather and outdoor activities, I suspect it's about like any town its size.  You're right about the wolverines.  Alaskans, some Alaskans, use wolverine fur for their parka hoods and trim -- it lasts for ever and is "frost-proof."  Of course, it was rare to see one around town. I never have.  "Snow fields" is a bit romantic. It's more like snow and ice, everywhere. Especially the roads, where they lay down tons of sand salt all winter long, which makes everything brown and dirty and trashes your cars!

And no, I didn't live in an igloo. Although I built several at various times in my life, and called one home for 3 nights of "wilderness survival training!"  We lived in a house like everyone else.

RS:  How did your childhood affect you having a successful career in the gaming industry?

GL: Childhood is when we learn to play.  I did a lot of playing with my four brothers.  My older brothers were the rule makers. Whatever came in the box was never the right way to play, and as one of the youngest of five, my opinion mattered little.  This led to a lot of creative play and experimentation that has stuck with me over the years.

My first exposure to "video games" came through the Atari 2600, which ushered in a whole new era of gaming in our household.  All of a sudden the "machine" made the rules -not my older brothers.  We were captivated by Air Sea Battle and Football and even Warlords!  Soon came Apple ][ computers. We had one in the house, and this gave me some exposure to coding. You'd be amazed how I hacked up some of those old games in junior high school!  We also had a modem, a 110/300/1200 band one, which allowed me to dial into some of the very beginnings of the Internet through local BBS's, and an early ancestor of  "social games."  At a very young age I found a passion for connecting with people and playing games that has stuck with me throughout my life.

I also credit my 7th grade science teacher.  He told us if we could juggle three balls for 15 minutes, he'd give us an A.  I probably earned the A I got, but I did learn to juggle, and I often remember that the threat of a bribe (juggling for an A) inspired me to both get an A AND learn to juggle.  Perhaps more interesting, was that my teacher was  also the faculty sponsor for chess club.  I signed up.  Chess was easy enough to pick up, but it's been a lifelong pursuit to master.

Every time I pick up the juggling balls, or whatever threesome of juggling objects on hand, I think about my 7th grade science teacher, my A, and chess club.

RS: Was there ever a moment in your life that you didn’t care about games?

GL: No, that's silly.

RS: What is the one piece of gaming equipment that had the most influence on you over the years?

GL: Me.  I use my brain to solve the puzzles and my hands (and most recently body) to execute my brain's desires.  I use my brain to share my gaming experiences with others as well, which is one of the greater joys of gaming.

There have been countless technological and product innovations along the way, and I know there will certainly be more in the future.

Right now, the iPhone is very influential to me in that I've found a gaming device that is always with me, charged and connected to the Internet and to places and people I care about, like Facebook.

RS: How did you get started in the gaming industry?

GL: Stuffing poster tubes as a temp at Humongous Entertainment.  I was doing odd jobs at the time, temping a lot, and obviously not too proud to be stuffing poster tubes.  While I was on site, I met some people that were testing a war game!  I quickly got myself a job in the QA department testing on the game that later became Total Annihilation, a RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game published in late 1997.  I was really lucky - both to have stuffed poster tubes and to have worked on TA, as it was really innovative for its time.  In GameSpy's 2004 top 10 of all time RTS list, TA took the top spot.

RS: How do you feel about hundreds of millions of people flocking to farm games on Facebook?

GL: That's hundreds of millions of people a day!  Mashable covered this recently and it's all the buzz in the social gaming space. There are at least a dozen "farm" games!  I think it's great so many are moving to Facebook and playing games, but I doubt it's sustainable.  People will quickly be looking for similar but different games to fill their gaming needs.  Social gaming and using the social graph in gaming is really new, and what we're seeing now with the rush of farm games is the first generation of social gaming playing out.

I'm also a bit jealous. I would have liked to have had the first farm game out there.  The work the first guys did was innovative and has helped define the characteristics of a genre of games that can be re-applied many times to many games and many themes.  So, my hat's off to whoever was first!

RS: What is Gamehouse doing in the social space? Do people even know we exist there? How do you plan to grow that space?

GL: We are just getting started in the space.  We believe social networks offer new opportunities for people to play games and more importantly share their game playing experiences with people they know.  We've taken a couple popular multi-player games- Scrabble and Uno- to Facebook, and one of our oldest hits, Text Twist, as well.  We're very pleased with our success so far, and are going to continue to develop and publish great games wherever people want to play them.

Millions of people have played our games, so plenty know we exist.  We're not a top player in the space yet, but I think in time you'll see us emerge as a leading gaming company.  All the pieces are here for us, and we're just putting them together like a puzzle.

Grow the social space?  No need. It's growing itself just fine.  When I got involved on Facebook, I think they had 50M monthly users. Today, it's over 250M.  That growth happened in less than 2 years.  It took radio and television how long to reach 250M? Once people find a social network, they tend to flock towards gaming.  The trick is to make great games. Growing the share of players playing is simply about making it, "all about the game." That's a nice phrase our division President John Barbour rallies us around at team meetings!

RS: If you could be any game character who would it be and why?

GL: May I have a pass please?  I have thought about this for four days now, and my only answer is:  Myself.  This is what I like so much about the games on Facebook today, they allow you to be you.  Sure, over the years I've role-played lots of characters, and I've identified with countless other characters and monsters from games, but I really just want to be me.  No, this is not an invitation to put my likeness in a game.

RS: You said that every politician should have to play and master real-time strategy games. Why?

GL: Well, this is a topic of a future book I might one day write, and it's probably very cynical and a little dark, so take it with a grain of salt.  Most RTS games are war games.  Politicians start wars.  To be successful at winning a RTS game, you must first control the resources.  This is the part I think politicians can learn from.  To win the war, they must control the resources.  In the past, most military successes happened this way.  Today, I'm not sure that is the case.  Imagine if the USA had gone into Iraq and taken control of the oil along with all the rest of the resources.  Many more options for victory.  That's all I'm saying.

RS: Why is there such a stigma associated with the word “gamer”?

GL: One word:  Jealousy.  It happened when "play" became intertwined with technology, specifically computer and console gaming.  Very early-on, games required a skill set that I tend to refer to as "twitch."  High hand-eye coordination combined with great reaction time.  The children were good at it, the parents were not.  The parents became jealous, in part because they lacked the skill, but also because they were worried about the amount of money it cost and, possibly, what the impact would be on their child if they were playing games and not outside playing.

Well, that's what I think the genesis is, but I think we've come a very long way.  Today, many people play games regularly and don't consider themselves "gamers."  I think this is much more a reflection on gaming's place in society today.  Gaming is a hobby just the same as reading, fly fishing, riding a bike, and so on.  Most of us who play and consider ourselves gamers, also play sports, listen to music, follow politics, and so on.