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Author: Paolo

An opportunity for role playing video games and NFTs

Published by Paolo on 25/01/2022

There is something that I have always missed out while playing role playing video games: interpretation.

Producing a story with many branches and possible endings costs too much, then you have to translate it in many languages. That is simply not viable. Reproducing that feeling of “do whatever you want” that is present in tabletop role playing games is hardly achieved by the videogames of today.

You will also need a human (dungeon master) to adapt the scene and the story to the spontaneity of the moment.

What we have

What is possible right now is to provide tools for the people to connect together in a server. Create and explore virtual worlds, also in real time. 

Having a customized avatar that can interact with things and make gestures is also pretty suitable nowadays.

I was just thinking that maybe those new technologies which promise uniqueness and decentralization may grant tabletop role players being rightly represented inside a virtual community.

The journey

You start playing some designed adventure, just to get in touch with the controls and functionalities from a Player standpoint. Then you can look for your first party. 

When you reach a certain status in the community, playing or mastering stories, the game government (developers) recognize your contribution by issuing NFTs.

If you are a player, the more you play, the higher the value of the Character (PC) represented by the NFT. You can sell it and start with new characters. New players may decide to buy a PC and skip the process of getting noticed, for instance. Developers earn a part of every transaction.

If you are a DM the Worlds and Stories you create will become publicly  visible and free for everyone. You may want to pay for the developers to issue you a World-NFT or Story-NFT. Having one of those you can decide to let parties having an entry fee to your adventures, because you got a name in the community. As a dungeon master you should also create and use NPCs. The more you use those, the more your Players will be able to get in touch with them and enrich their background. Developers may decide to issue you an NFT to the highly recognized NPCs inside of the community, encouraging you to create meaningful NPCs.

Your creativity and interpretation, in that way, can be truly compensated!

Saying that NFT-games is the new F2P has lot of flaws

Published by Paolo on 24/01/2022

I lived in first person the success of the free-to-play business model. I remember the times when you could register your bank account to Facebook, purchase credits and use those to buy items inside of a videogame.

That thing was completely different from what is today the NFT-gaming. One of the main goals for the experience of this new kind of game is not pure fun. It is to try to guess where to put your money in order to get the most benefit. It is speculation.

When I read that NFT games are the future I think: maybe the games of the future will also feature this technology, who knows.

When I read “people were skeptic also with f2p”, I say caution. Free-to-play has been born thanks to widely accessed technologies such as social networks and mobile phones without messing with people investing skills. The business was built on facilitating spending for the 5% of people who are willing to. The value proposition was pretty clear: you invest your money, you get the items you want, you get to overcome your pains and you get extra content. This is NOT what NFT is about.

NFT games are hard to access ON PURPOSE and clearly give advantage to wealthier players thanks to a base of poor grinders.

see you soon

Published by Paolo on 11/01/2022

My plan with this blog is to write a post daily. Anyways, life comes first. Now my life gave me a very hard moment to live and face.

I will be out for some time. I will be back writing for you.

The channel to follow if you are into the Metaverse thing

Published by Paolo on 10/01/2022

If you are willing to start the adventure of developing a new Metaverse, you may want to learn from the history of games the good and the bad things happened to the creators and players of MMOs.

I spot this beautiful channel which dedicate each video to a different title. You can see the struggles and the values that a lot of MMOs brought to the industry.

Josh Strife Hayes, check him out and consider support his Patreon!

A method to think in a new game

Published by Paolo on 09/01/2022

One of the first book I have read to learn game design is one of the best books ever made: The Art of Game Design, by Jesse Schell. I find it the perfect balance between inspirational and practical book. That is why I always suggest start from this book, and some other one.

In one of the first chapters there is a tetrad that the author shows to explain the four main pillars of any game (not just video game):

I still use this tetrad combining it with the classic application of the Pareto’s principle: a new game should be 80% some existing game plus 20% novelty.

Where do I search for the novelty?

I always start from the experience and the feelings we want to give to the Players. Once is decided, generally it is easy to spot the best pillar to innovate on.

Maybe we just want to bring a specific game genre to a new platform. Let’s focus on technology. King is making billions just on this simple concept. They were the first in bringing the match-3 experience to mobile phones with a shared progression with Facebook. Technology was their strength.

Often, we just want to focus on a specific mechanic to bring the same story to the same audience. That are what indie developers do many times, for instance with the game Baba is You.

Maybe we want to create the next roleplaying game? It’s not necessary to invent new mechanics and combat systems, those can just be improved on existent titles. We may want instead find a great story to tell. It is what Horizon: Zero Dawn brought to the industry.

A game can be very successful also if we just amaze the Players with beautiful visuals and sound FXs. Look at GRIS and the beauty of its art and music, for instance.

Will trade events for videogames ever come back?

Published by Paolo on 08/01/2022

Even this year we are probably going to see a lot of streaming on YouTube announcing the new lineups of games for the biggest gaming corporations around the world.

I don’t know you, but 2021 was pretty boring on this point to me. Teasers are cool, I like to see what is cooking. But, also if I have never participated in an E3, for example, I nurture a “saudade” around this old World.

Anyways, the pandemic brought the opportunity to improve things. The future events should avoid being just a walled garden, in my humble opinion. We have the chances and the tech to include everyone. To offer a great experience to the participants, but also to let people from all over the world pitch their ideas to publishers. 

To me trade events will come back strongly!

Here what I think of all this crypto fever

Published by Paolo on 07/01/2022

I think that technology is beautiful and is never neutral. I believe that video games have always been on the front line of tech utilization. Video games have always pushed the boundaries of technology. In the last decade, they started to become a real massive entertainment medium, influenced by movies and streaming platforms.

NFT, cryptocurrencies, tokens and so on are technologies. As technologies, I think that they can really help with some use cases and features for video games. As technologies they are not neutral. Right now, according to the experts, it is a problem for the environment. So that not only are they not neutral, they are at this very moment a dangerous tech. Also, those technologies will never become games themselves.

Play-to-earn games, for instance, are fun. They offer the investor fantasy, but in the long term when Players take them seriously, they are not a game anymore. They become a gamified investor experience, which is way different from a game. A gamified experience is an experience that adopts some element from games to be more enjoyable. Hardcore players of play-to-earn games do everything to earn more money. They actively participate in a community, they share things and make meaningful experiences. But the end game always involves a marketplace. Not beating the final boss, not climbing a leaderboard. Not for now, at least.

Then there is the industry. As I said in previous posts, the industry does not exist to me. People do. My honest fear is that a lot of money and effort will be completely wasted. Why? Because I look for the names of the founders of new startups and cannot avoid noticing that those people before were all-in on another smoky concept: e-sports. They focus on attracting investments and brands and create hype for some metaverse, but they are not fully aware of what it is to really make video games. They ignore the basics. That could never be good.

On the other side, I see veteran game developers lose their time on Twitter speaking against the “cryptobros”. They speak as the owners of the truth, they lived in the industry since its beginnings. And they mostly still have not realized how many surprises this industry brings. I remember greatly the things they said against the free-to-play business model. History proved them wrong. More than 50% of the global video games revenue comes from mobile. The industry grew and conditions for workers improved a lot thanks to the free-to-play. Whoever denies that, does not see the truth. Full stop. They are the people which really can use NFT tech in a useful way, anyway. They know how to create games and great playful experiences. If they could only put their ego aside, I am sure, they will really help shape the future of all of this.

Can you do the creative work?

Published by Paolo on 06/01/2022

Yesterday a contact on LinkedIn asked for help because he is not able to find any job sending resumes to companies. I told him that that system is completely broken. To me, in fact, it is. I suggested him to focus on his job, to do the job. Then the salary will find him. I am pretty sure about that, especially in a talent eager industry such as the games industry.

Today I read the same guy saying that he would like to create a network of people who can donate maybe 1 euro for him to research and learn new skills everyday. On the same network, on LinkedIn, which is a professional network.

If I imagine to be a company recruiter and I read something like this, in this exact sequence, what can I think about this guy?

Creative work is very different from performing creative activities. If you really want to work in a creative industry like the games industry you should really show off your ability to solve problems, from one side, and be professional from the other side. If you can, you should also worry about what you are sharing with your community.

Working in the games industry is not having creative freedom or being in a hippie community. This is a business that moves billions. You should constantly do the job and learn new things to stay in line with the times. You are there to create serious value bringing fun to people.

Can a test help find a good game designer anymore?

Published by Paolo on 05/01/2022

Technical tests are part of the selection processes of the majority of big games companies all around the World. I tell you something: I have never passed a single one. Am I a bad designer, or is it just not the proper thing to do to find people like me?

Today we are in the times of multipotential. Profiles like a game designer are hard to find, because our value is shown more on the long term. I mean: a programmer can show instantly her C++ skill. An artist can show off 3D Studio Max abilities. When I say instantly, I mean the very first days working at a company.

A game designer is a facilitator of the act of game design inside of a team. We have technical skills that are just hard to show off in a small test. That is why usually the technical tests last one week. But, there is people like me that struggles really to work on anything for free. It is a matter of respect, a matter of professionality. Our time working has a value in money. Full stop. That is why people like me put a small effort in those tests.

“Oh, but if you want to join our company that is your goal!”. Unless you are very big and important, times are not like that anymore. Nowadays I don’t really know if I want to work with you, unless I spent some month already living the reality in working with you.

You can see my portfolio, you can speak with me and check out how I face the problems. That’s it. You don’t need a test, you just need to work with people like me and see what I am capable of.

Less broken features are more value

Published by Paolo on 04/01/2022

These days I am reading the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It is definitely not an easy lecture, for a non-english speaker. You need time and dedication to fully understand it. I am sure I will need more lectures.

In the edition I have, on chapter 15 called “Linda: Less is More” there is a paragraph where the author reports an experiment run at the University of Chicago. Professor Christopher Hsee asked people to name a price for sets of dinnerware, using a method called “joint evaluation”. The method consists of compare two different sets of things and propose a value. The Set B had a list of items, all in good conditions. Set A, instead, contained the same items of Set B plus more items partly broken.

Since Set A contained exactly the same things that B, but with more things (partly broken), logically participants valued Set A more than B: $32 versus $30 (average).

The professor run the same experiment but with single evaluation. The result is quite interesting: Set B was priced way more than A. $33 versus $23 average.

What does that mean to us game designers? Sometimes the best you can do for a game is to remove some part that is broken. Having a feature that does not work can be a problem. It is better to remove features, and test if the things improve without them. Players can genuinely value our game better without that synchronized broken multiplayer mode, believe me!