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Month: January 2025

Mismanagement

Published by Paolo on 13/01/2025

I read an article on Bloomberg written by one of my favourite journalists, Jason Shreier. It talks about some of the things that make a videogame fail.

Mismanagement is the keyword for that article. Mr. Shreier shared the article and the reactions were critical with managers. Which makes sense, managers are responsible for the management.

The piece mentioned also an employee who declared things like: “I spent some days just watching Netflix“.

Is this still a manager responsibility?

As an Italian my ethics at work are different from one gal in Shangai or an average lad in San Francisco. So, take my words are mere opinions.

It is common to be in the situation “I don’t know what to do”. Not everyone has the drive to find always something to do even when nobody sent any task. In complex projects, and videogames are wicked ones, there is always something to do.

Part of me believes that there are no excuses for that behavior. If you are watching Netflix while the company is paying you a salary, you are behaving unprofessionally. Another part accepts that we are all different and one can be a talent, but have not enough drive in some moment.

Mismanagement is not always a fault of managers. It still is their responsibility. That’s why it’s hard to find the right managers for a project.

Design works on forms

Published by Paolo on 09/01/2025

In a perfect world with perfect projects made by perfect people, you make a game only when the vision is defined. In that perfect world, building the game means executing the vision.

We live in the normal World, though, and you see rarely a vision defined at project start. As a designer you encounter a direction that is try to understand what to do.

The best way to serve them and the rest of the team is to make concrete choices and execute them.

While directors are looking at the landscape from over the clouds, designers work on the ground. Game design is making concrete choices on a game, no matter what. From the top they say “yeah, sure, let’s try this but then let’s try that“, and it’s fine (well, it’s not fine, but it happens). What we can do is to execute (if we are allowed to). We should find the “this” to execute and go for it.

I have seen the prototyping as a tool for procrastination. To give something to do to the team while the direction can get that eureka moment. That often brings the teams to a bad track. Many potentially good games weren’t successful because of that.

Prototyping is a tool to find the form. But it can be one of the slowest and more expensive ways of finding the substance. It’s hard to build a vision through a set of prototypes.

Researching and engaging with competitors are the best way to understand the substance. Plus, a lot of patience.

Good news for the ecosystem

Published by Paolo on 08/01/2025

Today’s news is that ex-Annapurna staff is acquiring the Private Division team. This means that Annapurna Interactive (the official one) will continue make “transmedia” things with contractors. Meanwhile, Take Two interactive will focus on live service PC and mobile games.

Win win for everyone. I hope this newly formed team do great things. Especially, I wish they start from small things. I have said this many times, I will repeat it: to me the games industry is like a forest.

And a forest to be healthy needs not only big trees. It needs also the underwood, the little mushrooms. The ants working everyday, the snakes representing a danger. Over the last 5-10 years the expectations from investments and media were just looking at the big trees like Roblox and Fortnite. But for Roblox and Epic to survive, a healthy ecosystem needs also small games. AA games, indie games, instant games. Small games.

I like to write and design all by myself

Published by Paolo on 03/01/2025

I am noticing a trend against LLM platforms, coming from people that enjoy writing, like me. On the other side, enthusiasts explain how the performance improved thanks to these services.

It seems to me a case of beauty and intuition versus rationality and data. And this is something deeper than one can think at a first glance. Over the last decades the discourse around productivity and success got a huge boost. AI fits in this because it helps people build a storytelling that may feel credible with a quick read. And if you are not a creative person, this is a wonder.

There are consequences, on multiple levels. Internet today is a different place than 5 years ago, and I believe this is not right or wrong. It is what it is. I watch or listen anything and first thought is “let me check this has not been auto-generated”. Sometimes I fall in the trap, too.

Will AI boost “productivity”? Well, does it really matter at this point?

The most important resolution

Published by Paolo on 02/01/2025

In this fight for taking back our attention, I started unsubscribing from newsletter and YouTube channels. I don’t have specific resolutions for the new year, apart from those who are always in my life. But I got to a level where I don’t tolerate anymore all this information that I constantly have access to. Maybe is better knowing less, but deeply.

This thing is valid for everything, from professional life to the rest of it. I need to get my attention back from infinite scrolling feeds and silly games if I want to really build a good game. I need to focus on other things of my life, too. So that I will probably stop looking at curves and statistics. I will not listen to industry experts building their stories to sell their brand. Not that I don’t like them, please do not misunderstand. I love that thing!

But I feel overwhelmed by too many sources, images, sounds, slangs. It’s just too much to leave into my mind the necessary space to build my things up. It will probably hurt for a while, but I have too. My mind and also my body are begging me this.