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Author: Paolo

The biggest lie in modern tech

Published by Paolo on 28/10/2025

It’s time we look at reality. That quote that rules your strategic meetings? The one that says, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”?

Peter Drucker REALLY said the exact opposite:

“By the time it can be captured in numbers, it’s too late.” — ‘The Effective Executive’, page 17

Let’s talk about the Big Lie that’s ruining your creative game.

The Glitch in the Matrix

The whole mess started long before Drucker was dragged in. It began with V. F. Ridgway in 1956, who said:

“What gets measured gets managed—even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so.”

Ridgway was telling us metrics are a bug, not a feature. Yet, somehow, this became the metric gospel we use to justify every pointless KPI.

And Drucker? He was advocating for perceptual thinking, for capturing the OPPORTUNITY (the “Rare Dot”) before it becomes a measurable fact. Because, just like when your competitor releases the perfect game before you do, once it’s a fact, it’s already too late.

The McKinsey Gold Rush and the Final Boss
Then came the 1980s. IT systems made everything measurable, and consulting firms smelled money. It was a Gold Rush in the form of selling software and services. They needed an authority to market their new Surveillance Manuals.

Their move was an act of pure intellectual dishonesty. Drucker’s real ideas were too nuanced, too complex. So, too uncommercializable. They needed a punchy, two-button slogan.

Their solution?

REENGINEER DRUCKER!

Take his wisdom, strip away the subtlety, simplify it into a powerful tool that justifies their entire business model: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

It’s like using a quote from Orwell’s 1984 to sell the very surveillance system it warns against. A brilliant, deceptive move that made the modern business model bulletproof, but creatively soulless.

Your Trojan Horse
Look around your industry. This Big Lie is the system that’s deceiving everyone into playing the wrong game.

Consultants see it. Risk managers see it. Even some economists see it. But few people stop playing pretend. They think the whole system—their career, their salary, their social validation—will collapse if they dare point out the obvious.

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY.

You don’t need to “burn the boats.” You just need to stop chasing past facts and start focusing on Rare Dots.

Build a small Trojan Horse: a deeply personal, perceptually driven project or strategy, that the metric-driven system itself cannot play pretend with. Find your own “why” and let the metrics follow, not lead.

Stop knocking

Published by Paolo on 27/10/2025

Imagine a big gate. Behind that gate lies the success of the game you are making. Now, imagine you are standing right in front of it. Suddenly, you hear a voice:

“Why should you enter this gate?”

This voice represents all the Players. They want a single, compelling reason for you to gain access to that success.

You could start by listing the good qualities of your game—it’s like sending a resume: “This game does this and that.” Or, you could tell them the game is simply proof that you can make games, which isn’t a terrible argument, considering 80% of games never see the light. You could even beg them to let you in, like a personal favor, so you can continue making games.

Sending resumes, trying to prove things to strangers, or begging will probably not make them open the gate for you. In fact, they need a real will to open the gate in the first place.

Whether you’re looking for a job or selling your game, try to avoid the “gate situation.” Build your own stand outside of the walls, show off your merchandise, and let them invite you in.

We are based on deadlines

Published by Paolo on 26/10/2025

The games industry is a deadline-based industry. That’s why you often see terrible practices like crunch. Crunch is typically concentrated in the last few weeks of a project, and it is fundamentally a management failure. Systemic crunch makes things unsustainable. People will become stressed, burn out, and quit—and this could eventually damage the entire industry.

Great games are made by teams that strive for success. If you are both ambitious and smart, you can design a game to be sustainable. But you must be acutely aware of deadlines and accept that our sector is based on them, because you can’t really control everything else.

Vision and commitment

Published by Paolo on 24/10/2025

In my experience, there are two kinds of teams that achieve success with games.

The first kind is absolutely sure they will make it. They put all their energy and effort into finishing the project. They crunch a lot, and often they don’t respect local labor laws. But they are certain their vision is great, and they may eventually be right.

The second kind believes in a vision as well, but they are aware that the odds are low. They still go for it, adopting the philosophy: “We can fail, so what?” They know they would pursue the project anyway. Life is short, so why not try?

These, in my experience, are the teams that might succeed. Conversely, the people who think like: “Let’s see how it goes,” “Let’s make a game with this new tech because it can be a goldmine,” or “Let’s make a game for this platform because someone else made money,” never, ever succeed.

Vision and clocks

Published by Paolo on 23/10/2025

Recently, I was hired for a gig as a fractional leader on a new genre. The team was skilled and talented, and the environment was fantastic. Also, the vision was clear, and my client was very creative. Without even noticing it, I worked lots of hours—much more, actually, than the hours I billed.

Some time ago, I was working on another project with a different client. The vision was messy and definitely not based on anything apart from personal opinions. The team was split across multiple projects, and the goals weren’t clear. Someone told me on a Monday, “I wrote you the whole weekend over Slack, where have you been?” And I answered, “I’m sorry, I don’t work on weekends.”

I believe that crunch is a systemic issue in our industry, and since we have pipelines, it’s avoidable. However, a team truly aiming for success will always have certain members willing to work extra to contribute to a good project. If someone asks me to work more, I will probably be reluctant. But when I feel I want to, I am happy to work extra hours. Things aren’t always black and white.

Collage of features

Published by Paolo on 22/10/2025

I met a colleague yesterday who is working on a project with no clear vision. Because of this, plans are constantly shifting, and prototypes are discarded just by pointing a finger to the sky. There is no one accountable for the game’s vision; the Creative Director is the company founder, and of course, he cannot be fired. The game feels like a collage of features, not a proper, cohesive experience.

I told him that this is very common, and it’s one of the main reasons behind the failure of so many games. Someone years ago said that 80% of games never see the light. This is why: you don’t have a clear vision of the experience you want to deliver. You only decide on the genre, and then you add, “but we’ll make it more casual,” without even intensively playing those kinds of games. You aren’t connecting with the audience. You aren’t willing to embark on the creative journey for real. So, you end up trying out things, making one prototype, not properly evaluating the results, and then moving on to something else—like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Maybe something will stick, and in rare cases, you might even get lucky and make some money. But that is not the way you build long-lasting, billion-dollar games.

Resist and persist

Published by Paolo on 21/10/2025

Perseverance is critical to staying competent in game design and in the business in general. Making the choice to enter the industry might be easy at the start—games are cool, and we all love them. But you’ll face resistance sooner or later: turning points and real obstacles to your choices.

That’s when you have to show up, put your soul into it, and demonstrate perseverance. Somehow, I consider resistance a kind of grace. Because without it, one would never prove their real commitment to something.

Things get harder when you’re working on a personal project. Aside from all the actual questions about the game you’re making, there are external pressures and survival doubts: Will I make it? Then you connect with people and discover easier opportunities to pick up. Working for others releases a lot of the stress you have when working alone.

That’s why it’s important to set concrete goals, every 6–10 weeks. These are checkpoints to reach, helping you ignore the sirens’ calling and trying to resist. I have seen people make incredible things in 10 weeks if they have a clear purpose. And if you persist and resist, the reward is something that will be with you forever: competence.

Motivation and performance

Published by Paolo on 20/10/2025

I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed the absence of a couple of friends. I met one of them on Saturday, and he’d been laid off from the company where he used to work. He explained it was due to a low score on his performance review, and then he was out in the next round of layoffs. Now he’s going to take a break; he got a decent severance and can take the time to reflect on what to do next. He looked tired and somehow older.

His partner was with him, and she was worried about the instability of the games industry. She told me that she doesn’t know what he should do. Her eyes, though, suggested that the answer lies outside of the industry. And yes, if you look for stability, games are probably one of the worst fields in tech nowadays.

Performance reviews are fundamentally biased. First of all, I’ve always noticed certain affinities within companies that inevitably lead to better reviews. Second, we are not cyborgs (at least, not yet). You join a company for a specific project, and then you are moved to another one you don’t really like. But a job is a job, and you have to go on. Then you witness questionable choices or no choices at all being made. And you are expected to stay there, with energy and motivation, performing.

Well, to me, it just doesn’t work like that. Performance reviews should be normalized by taking into account the real motivation of teams toward a project. Very often, especially big companies embark on odysseys to basically copy existing success stories. That is something that brings entire teams down, and of course, there are casualties—people who simply cannot continue working as before on something they clearly don’t believe in.

This friend was one of them. I know it because last year he told me something like, “The project is clearly going nowhere, but you know: it’s a job.” Which is the normal thing to think when they put you to work on something you don’t believe. You cannot just refuse to employ your mind on that game that is going nowhere. You have to push, but if the forces abandon you it’s not your fault.

Think multiplayer

Published by Paolo on 19/10/2025

Games as a concept were born multiplayer. Single-player video games are a relatively new concept, and now we’re even seeing the rise of single-player board games.

When you’re sketching out ideas for a new game, you might think single-player first. That’s because it’s hard to deliver a high-quality multiplayer game with a low budget. So, you naturally focus on stories, builds, gameplay beats, and so on. And that is great; my favorite games are like that. I’m used to playing my games alone, in my studio.

But games as a concept are multiplayer per se, so it’s not a bad idea to also think about an online version of your beats and narrative. The best common denominator, if you want to avoid too much struggle, is “to be goofy together.”

I leave you with this video on the Evolution of Online Worlds by Raph Koster. What? You don’t know who he is? Do your work, buddy.

I believe in bootstrapping

Published by Paolo on 17/10/2025

Investors will look for 2x, 5x, 10x, 50x, or maybe 100x returns on their investments. So, if you want to secure funding for your game, you should aim for big revenue numbers, or at least make investors believe that your game can make $500M to $1B or more.

On the other hand, when you build a team, it’s better to start step-by-step, gradually building up your skills by releasing small games and then becoming big. But this sustainable model is hard to sell to investors.

So, we have a paradox: you need money to pay your people and make games, but by promising a billion dollars, you put yourself in a position that’s hard to sustain. Furthermore, if you pitch a billion-dollar game, you need to convince your team to make the best possible game, but with an unimaginable objective.

I personally prefer bootstrapping, but the struggle there is finding the right believers. Because, in any case, you need them.

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