My final wish for this year is to see all the realities I help really grow as they deserve.
I am a lucky guy. I have a great employer, which really cares about my progress as professional and lets me work also in other projects. And I have clients which always pay on time and respect my time.
They both value me a lot, this year I felt really an expert. This is not because I know everything, but because they made me feel like this.
I wish you all to feel the same, have a great year people!
This year (and the past one, too) has been very fruitful on the M&A side of things. We saw a whole lot of companies being acquired or merged with others.
For the next year I hope to see the early fruits of all that movement. I would like to really see how big corporate can improve their portfolio giving always better experiences to the people.
Also, I hope to see more deals made with small realities. I am noticing that investors are always more betting on teams without a single game published. I suppose they bet on their own experience bias, because the founding teams are always composed by industry veterans.
Young talent has a lot to say, and also if I am aware that investors are not willing to trust newbies, I believe that corporates should. They were young and junior at some point. They know how hard is getting. And maybe they can delegate to young startups some quick prototyping or more in general activities which are not core to the business but still really important.
This year we saw limitations and laws being issued by the government of China against video games and companies that make those.
I think that from a European perspective is pretty hard to really understand what is happening there. I read and listened to lot of people trying to explain, but few of them were convincing to me. We all have an image of China that is probably very biased.
My hope for 2022 is to see some opening. The games industry needs China, not just as market. We need the people, as we need all the World to really grow in a sustainable way. My fourth wish for 2022 is this.
I wish that in 2022 more and more industry professionals will start sharing their knowledge. This year has been amazing.
I learnt a lot from a lot of different people all over the world. The global pandemic made it possible, we got in touch with people with huge experience. I feel that my knowledge base improved surprisingly much.
My wish for the new year is to learn more and more from the people working on the games of the future!
For the next year I dream of an industry always more diverse and fresh.
I hope that all communities and also minorities will feel more included in it.
I hope to see also people from other sectors joining the industry bringing some fresh air.
I hope to see more junior professionals with an opportunity to really show off their talent.
I really hope to see this thing expanding as it deserves!
Those days I will publish everyday my wishes for the games industry in 2022.
My first desire for the new year is to see our beloved games industry reach new audiences. We saw in the last decade the increase of the audience thanks to the democratization of gameplay brought by free-to-play.
I believe that play-to-earn will bring new people in. Concretely, those who already like to play on the stock market, making growing or going down real stocks. Those people would probably never invest their time in a videogame. Well, with the opportunity to earn real money I am sure they will. With play to earn for them will be like playing on the stock market, except in a more fun way, without affecting too much the capitalistic market. A true game!
New technologies will probably bring new things that now we cannot imagine. I am happy to live this new change!
If you are reading this post it means that probably you are following my blog. This post is just to say you that I wish you a merry Christmas, thank you for reading every day!
I want to really contribute to the games industry in a meaningful way. I don’t know if I will ever work on a game changing video game, but I know that I can inspire others in doing that. I believe that the industry is going better and better but that we are in the desperate need of new bold ideas.
That is why we are seeing all this excitement around new concepts and technology, such as the metaverse and/or the crypto. Love them or hate them, but the subtle concept to me is that the World is looking for something different than AAA, indie and free-to-play. Something to push the industry forward.
My intention, really, is to help this something to came out from the nowhere. Maybe in a dark cave, with a bull and a donkey! That’s the true spirit of Christmas to me: respect the humble things because from there a true revolution can start.
Merry Christmas!
Are you tired of subscriptions? I am tired of having so many subscriptions.
I am subscribed to newsletters because of my curiosity and need of understanding better the business of making games.
I am subscribed to Google Suite, because I need to have my documents and researches and everything always available and updated.
I am subscribed to GitHub, because of my studies and experiments.
I am subscribed to fundamental things, things that I use everyday. No bullcrap. Still, I feel very tired of small subscriptions.
This year I have worked a lot on hypercasual games. I like the fact that its development requires you not to get attached to any specific idea. You design a game mechanic very quickly, put your hand on the engine with few specifications and then you speak on something done.
It reminds me of a method proposed by Jordan Mechner, creator of Prince of Persia.
Working on hypercasual games I learnt that:
The noob, they really have to understand things well. You need to slow down that difficulty curve, believe me
The pro, they like to have games which permit to spot a perfect path to follow and win
The hacker, they will try to hack the rules of your game. Best games out there permit them to do that, for instance Aquapark.IO
How do you define mechanics and features? This is very important for the success of the development. Many times, we think that just talking about something makes that clear for anyone. This is the most common mistake of inexperienced game designers.
“It’s simple, the character moves with the stick and shoots with the right trigger!”
With this sentence I have a gameplay in my mind and you have another.
You should really make the effort of empathizing with the people you are speaking with. Be as visual as possible. 60% visuals, 30% multimedia and only 10% written content is what I try to follow. It is better to speak on something visual and then find and solve all the related problems.
Often, the things we define will require some further set up. Maybe you will have to decide the speed of something. Maybe the odds for some reward. The best way to communicate this is to show clearly how you would like to set up the things, in the engine you are using or in some spreadsheet!
Do them a favor: speak about your needs!