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Author: Paolo

Readability and permissiveness

Published by Paolo on 05/12/2024

I read that gamers spend more hours watching others play than playing videogames on their own.

This inevitably leads to the creation of games that are more fun to show to others. Games that are too complicated to understand or with many fail conditions are penalized. Games are designed not only for players but also for streamers, which are an important driver of sales.

A streamer wants to entertain but also show that he is good. Spending two hours thinking or losing miserably because you made bad strategic choices at the beginning is not the best. This is probably why puzzle games are not so popular on Steam. This is also why RTS games are not trendy anymore, probably.

Streamability depends not just on the genre, but on two factors:

  1. the readability of the mechanics, having something that can be understood from a 5-second video is key
  2. the permissiveness of the rules, the black box is better if it allows epic wins even at the last moment.

Writing is the most important skill

Published by Paolo on 04/12/2024

The most important skill for a creative person is writing. When you write well, you are able to inspire and explain concepts. I like to write and practice my writing skills. I am not a English native speaker, but still I love to practice my English writing skills and improve them.

I feel that I am more effective on paper than in person. Maybe because I am tall but not intimidating, I don’t know. With my words, I get more authority in what I say, or at least that’s how I feel.

There is a tendency to avoid too much documentation to read and share. I am very much against that, to me, words are important. Words matter a lot, and we should care about that part very much. Both design and tech documentation are very important.

Speaking of which, my game Pawtners Case is going forward. I found an Italian outsourcing company that is helping me with its development. They like to write, I am lucky to have met them. You can watch the last videos here on my Italian substack.

Do not get fooled

Published by Paolo on 29/11/2024

In recent years I have become an avid listener of content disseminated by experts on the video game business. The tendency is to take the few extreme successes and start breaking them down using visuals with curves and Venn diagrams.

Thanks to this content I have learned to interface with the business side, to better communicate my opinions and design solutions. I am immensely grateful to be able to live in the age where all this information is free.

However, I want to insist on one point: a video game is a fundamentally aesthetic experience. Aesthetics means many things, in ancient Greece aesthetics was the science that studied the essence of things. Video games touch fibers that are difficult to explain with charts.

We are approaching the time in the year in which all the experts will make their predictions, stating them with conviction and using swear words to underline the importance of what they say. Inevitably, this will affect some investments and opportunities. As always, those will not become reality, but then the marketer is always capable of changing the semantics.

I just want to say that it can be difficult to see the reality amidst so much noise, do not be fooled.

Monument Valley 2

Published by Paolo on 28/11/2024

Netflix has many games that you can download and play offline for FREE if you are subscribed to their service. I have completed yesterday Monument Valley 2.

I purchased the first chapter of this saga years ago on my iPad 2. The essence of the first chapter is still there, actually, the art style is the same and the core gameplay is almost identical. This second chapter adds an interesting narrative layer, and the theme is the relationship between a mother and her daughter.

Probably I was missing some little monsters and the patterns that are typical in Escher’s work. I think I would have appreciated something like that, representing better the dangers. The only things that break the order are buildings that collapse when the characters touch a trigger (sequence) and a new mechanic with a plant that you grow and shrink. I feel that more things could have been done there.

Monument Valley 2 is a little gem, a pleasure for your senses, a little box full of life. It’s based on Escher’s art and absurd geometries, but it adds color and animated characters to it. It is the kind of game that shows the potential of mobile in telling stories. It features a narrative full of metaphors and few texts, and I am not smart enough to have understood any detail. But it doesn’t matter, in the end. It’s the aesthetic experience that matters.

Find a way to talk

Published by Paolo on 25/11/2024

Years ago a politician spoke from a pulpit and people listened to him. Today there is a dialogue, real or virtual, with people. Otherwise, the politician has difficulty winning.

Years ago television told stories and people watched dancers and presenters from home. Today we see more dialogues and artists who train to become professionals.

Years ago the blog trend exploded on the Internet. People wrote and whoever wanted to read and commented. Today, various types of social media are used to connect with readers and dialogue. Substack works very well.

Years ago a company created a video game and put it on the shelves. People bought it and finished it. Today a company makes a video game and establishes a dialogue with the players. The video game is constantly updated.

The key to the intricate problem of distribution is to ease communication. Even while the game is being developed. Test the product with performance marketing, but open opportunities for dialogue, too.

Distribution is challenging

Published by Paolo on 20/11/2024

Consumption habits have changed a lot in the last few years. Nowadays that is a significant number of people that buy a console to play a single game. Usually, that game is Fortnite.

Games are not underground like before, now they are mainstream. This brings a lot of challenges to distribution. They are cool, they are the normal thing one does. Before it wasn’t like that.

How to face this challenge? Phil Spencer said “less Excel” yesterday, and maybe he is right. It’s not about using a budget to push the thing out, but more about trying to have a conversation with the right crowd.

Why not “best DLC”?

Published by Paolo on 19/11/2024

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is a candidate for “best game of the year” at The Game Awards. But it’s not a game, is it?

It would be wonderful if these events kept up with the times. We are clearly in the era of games no longer as artifacts but as entertainment. Living games, updated to keep the public’s attention for many months.

It is absurd to reward only the new, when an update or a DLC, as is the case of Elden Ring, receives so much admiration from the public. The Game Awards should start considering awards such as “Best DLC”, “best live event”, etc. The market moves on completely different perspectives than 10 years ago when these awards were created.

Embracing creative

Published by Paolo on 18/11/2024
  • creative: a person whose job involves producing original ideas or doing artistic work (Definition of creative from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus)
  • creative director: a person in a company or advertising agency who is in charge of the work involving original ideas about how to design, advertise and sell products (Definition of creative director from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary)

I don’t know if Cambridge University is to blame, but there is a substantial difference between business and design/art in the concept of “creative“.

Concretely, in business, it is important to think about how to sell a creative product with original ideas. However, we often ignore this nuance when we focus on the more artistic part of our work.

It took me a while to understand that a game designer works for someone, not for players in general. In the sense that we have no control over what will come out at the end of the production process. What we have is the responsibility to facilitate this process, which is very different.

When you understand this and accept it, you live much better!

Iterations beat best practices

Published by Paolo on 15/11/2024

Now that money is moving toward financially responsible games, I am studying indie more and more. When I listen to people who have created successful products, everyone has found their way and that way is unique and difficult to repeat.

It could be a kid who has generated hundreds of thousands of euros with a game made with friends, or a company with financiers behind it and a business plan. Knowing some details and how to overcome concrete challenges is interesting, but human creativity is inimitable.

That’s why I do not believe too much in best practices as solutions. They are great starting points; knowing them speeds things up. But then you are in your context, with your skills, and you have to deal with specific challenges. Doing things repeatedly, possibly with the same group of people, is key. Not best practices, everyone can get them easily nowadays.

Setting up the day for success

Published by Paolo on 14/11/2024

I am a morning guy. I never set an alarm because I naturally wake up very early. I made my things to start the day and then I like to do my first tasks, usually related to communications. You know, reading and answering emails, thinking about my daily posts. Stuff like that.

And then I can start to work for my clients and bosses. This is something that only remote work is possible. And the value of this is huge also if often leads to work more time. Having no people around this first hour, maybe two is unpayable. Sets up the day for success.