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Author: Paolo

Blue and red

Published by Paolo on 10/09/2024

Every business owner I engaged with in the last 5 years wanted to find a blue ocean. If you manage to find a blue ocean, they said, you can eventually make it. If you work in a red ocean, instead, is too risky.

But then I look at the history of every successful game out there, and also every successful product. I see that they didn’t find any ocean. They found a niche. And they found them also in red oceans.

An ocean is a deep, dark liquid full of mysteries. A niche is a calm, safe place made out with people. Isn’t that easier?

The “deconstructor” is not fun anymore

Published by Paolo on 09/09/2024

It’s easy to talk about other projects when we are off the hook. Using strong words is also easy to gain traction. That’s what the whole business of podcasts is based on, in the end.

Enrico Fermi used to say that you should never read a book on inventions written by someone who has never invented anything.

The same is valid for what we decide to watch and listen, I guess.

Strong niche

Published by Paolo on 05/09/2024

There is something in common among Minecraft, Fortnite, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Helldivers 2. They all started from a strong niche.

  • Minecraft was a solo project of a developer willing to make something alone. Notch then found his niche thanks to YouTube.
  • Fortnite started like a PvE project in an internal game jam. Something small that found the first formula with the niche that liked both games like Minecraft and shooters.
  • Baldur’s Gate 3 is the 3rd episode of a game created by a company founded by 2 doctors, willing to make something for the niche of D&D role players.
  • Helldivers 2 is the second episode of Helldivers, a shooter with few mechanics very popular among a small niche.

Finding a strong niche is the first step to massive success. Always. That’s also why publishers are investing so heavily in remakes. Remakes are reworks on something that found a niche, they are more probably be interesting for a wider audience.

How do you know if you found a strong niche? There are many ways, in F2P you should measure the % of regulars, people that come play the game every single day. That’s the best indicator that the niche you found is truly interested in the game.

They should give the game for free

Published by Paolo on 04/09/2024

Wicked problems have nuances. How to get people’s attention and understand their motivation to play a certain game.

“The market is oversaturated“, yet I don’t have new games that I am hyped for right now… So the market is saturated for who, specifically?

Creating good free-to-play games means having a game with the biggest spend depth possible. Or that the game is so massive that sustains itself on (truly) micro-transactions. You either make a Witheout Survival or a Candy Crush Saga.

The latter is complicated nowadays because people learn and the market evolves. What had value before is not the same as today. People discovering casual games on a Facebook invitation are not the same as people who decide to install a game after watching a YouTube interstitial today.

That is why modern casual games (that work) rely a lot on ads. Their business is with ad networks, more than players’ wallets. And that is a complicated and also shady business, are you sure that your team is ready for that?

As I said, on the other end we have games with a big spend depth. These games are much more deep and complicated. They manage to create a gamified society, by pushing for regulars: players that play every single day. That’s the single most important KPI of all, if you ask me. In that case, and only in that case, the wealthier cohorts decide to spend high. And that makes your business grow for real.

Making free-to-play games is like making luxury goods. You should aim to the rich, if you want to have more chances. And to do that, you need a strong service.

When we give something for free, time becomes the currency with which people decide. It’s not just “give them for free, otherwise, they will not come“. If you are already thinking like that, you are on the wrong track: you are not believing in your own game.

You need to build something that makes you think “This is an incredibly amazing game, people will play this every day!“. And then, if you’re lucky, you will have a TOP Grossing game with high concurrency.

Market shifts when we move, not when we pay for it to move

Published by Paolo on 02/09/2024

I am an avid listener and consumer of information on the business I love. I like to hear about market trends, data, and insight. It’s not a matter of knowing which trend to follow. I like to learn more about how the market reacts to our craft.

The issue with that is that majority of this content comes from consultants and managers. They pretend to quantify everything, and it doesn’t work like that.

Market trends influence the industry and investments because those act when informed on this data. But data cannot measure intangible things such as cognition and emotion.

Creativity evades quantification. Business people want certainty: I put X and then I will get Y.

It’s what we put out there that shapes the market. We design games for an audience, and we shouldn’t decide to read the previous spending choices for that audience. We should instead focus on what they were looking for, in exchange for their money. Our job is to read something intangible, but existent.

  • If millions of players play daily a specific game in a genre it doesn’t mean there is an actual market around that genre. They will most likely continue to play that game in that area. And they are looking for another kind of experience to complement the one they get from that game.
  • Also, mobile games have shifted in the last decade from the first long-term minded business based on brand (Rovio, King, Supercell) to the last short-term performance marketing companies (MiHoYo, Voodoo, Playrix). And the results are out there, few winners of the race to the bottom.

That’s where the art of game design truly helps. Too many times our business is led by people who prefer to make something bad but controllable instead of something good but not controllable.

And to make something spectacular, you should focus on making something good in first place.

On success and failure

Published by Paolo on 30/08/2024

I posted a question on my LinkedIn, and most of the answers misinterpreted it. It’s part of the deal of posting thoughts on something so noisy as a social network.

Someone claimed that you should work on something trend-setting when you work on a game. You shouldn’t follow trends. I do agree, but let’s be real: that rarely happens.

If you have the luxury to work on a videogame, you will probably work on a game that never ships. And if it ships, the probability that nobody will play it is high. And if people play it, they will very likely find it a boring or average game. And if instead, it is a good game, the odds are that it will be not great…

What’s the point of my rant? I prefer to focus on the beauty of my craft, intended to my progress within it, and the people I work with. Because making games to be rich and famous can be too much delusional for someone like me.

Pawtners Case first blockout

Published by Paolo on 29/08/2024

This week I have worked intensively on my indie game, Pawtners Case. You are a police dog and you have to help your colleagues to solve cases.

The first level I am prototyping is a medium one. The goal is straightforward, you need to reunite with your colleague, Agent Quinn, and escape a warehouse. There is a bomb to dismantle, too.

This week I have implemented a lot of features, and a blockout. You can see the result here:

For the blockout, I started by looking for references and setting up a moodboard:

Then, I proceeded to create a notepad where I defined my goals, the sequence, and so on. Later I created a map:

Then, in Unreal Engine I set up the level, iterating on the concept. I have to say that I find Unreal Engine versatile for a game designer. It has integrated a gameplay framework that makes things easier. I am happy with my choice!

Why do you make games?

Published by Paolo on 28/08/2024

You will likely work on a project that will not ship when you work for a company. If it ships, the odds say that the game will fail. If you and your team manage to get over the odds, it’s a little miracle.

The same thing is valid when you are on your own. You control the vision of your creation, but the numbers are there.

Are you working in games to be successful or are you doing it for the craft?

Inspired work to earn trust

Published by Paolo on 27/08/2024

Reading and watching the latest releases in video games I arrive to a thought.

You need inspiration to make a good game, no matter the level of experience you have in this sense. If you want to earn the players’ trust, you have to deliver something novel. Not something new, but a product that works and has unexpected elements that surprise people.

People are great at understanding the personality of what we deliver. They understand when there is a derivative choice or something that comes from the truth of our craft. In some platforms, they can decide to close an eye.

  • Whales of f2p mobile games know that the game is designed to grab their cash, and they decide that it’s fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHtNcTA8t6A
  • People playing Helldivers 2 understand when a new upgrade on weapons is made to sell them a season pass.

On compromise and experience

Published by Paolo on 26/08/2024

“I sit here
drunk now.
I am
a series of
small victories
and large defeats
and I am as
amazed
as any other
that
I have gotten
from there to
here
without committing murder
or being
murdered;
without
having ended up in the
madhouse.

as I drink alone
again tonight
my soul despite all the past
agony
thanks all the gods
who were not
there
for me
then.”


― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

The Concord game is out and it looks like a failure. People have worked for 8 years to something that will be shut down in the next few months. 8 years ago, the Overwatch fever brought many companies to invest in this new genre. We are seeing new games with Marvel and Star Wars IPs coming out these days.

The developers have accumulated experience and developed a compromise towards their colleagues over the past 8 years. They made something beautiful. The game is great, but its personality is not in line with the market right now. You can still see beauty, experience, and design.

Can we consider that their job has gone down the drain? It depends on how you see your work. If you are in the “American dream” of making lots of money and success in a few time, maybe yes. Maybe you just lost your time with a failure.

They have worked for 8 years together with other experts. They are more savvy now. Next projects will be benefit from all this. Maybe someone will go and build something different, something new.

The time we invest into our craft is never lost.