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Tag: ideas

Discipline in the attention economy

Published by Paolo on 30/10/2025

Microsoft’s CEO said that Xbox is competing with TikTok, not just with PlayStation and Switch. He is the CEO of one of the top companies in the world, so I assume he is correct in his observation.

Well, if I’m honest, that worries me. To me, video games are a powerful medium that can improve our chances of survival. They are entertainment, of course, but an important form. One of the best things they can teach us is how to wait for a reward. This might seem minimal, but it’s absolutely useful for our well-being in life. Discipline and self-control are probably more important than intelligence in this sense.

TikTok, however, is designed for the opposite: it’s an infinite feed of passive content to consume, like a digestive tract. We absorb whatever comes our way, passively. TikTok is entertainment because it’s capable of quickly satisfying our instincts. And it’s true that, in the attention economy, it is in direct competition with a gaming console.

But if top industry players decide to fight that battle, I’m afraid that the very purpose of video games will get diluted into videos with minimal interaction. That is a problem, and an opportunity for the brave.

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.

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.

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.

Surrender

Published by Paolo on 16/10/2025

Whenever you’re struggling with a creative problem, there’s a specific moment when you feel you desperately need help. Today, it’s very easy to find software that supposedly assists with just that. You prompt your need in a chat, and the software mimics a human expert and gives you advice.

Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.

Frank Herbert, Dune

In that very moment, however, you have already lost the battle for creativity. You will have surrendered your uniqueness to a probabilistic algorithm that will spit out something random, and more importantly, something common and average. In this Age of Average we’re all living in, you’ll probably feel like you’ve solved your problems.

But you’ve lost because you gave up.

Today is a good day

Published by Paolo on 15/10/2025

Yesterday under the shower, I had an “eureka” moment. Now I can continue with a project I had put on pause, because I have a new vision to work on. This breakthrough was possible because I put hours into studying a tool– a completely different kind of task. My mind started connecting the dots, and after a couple of “let’s try this…” attempts, I got it.

I am happy; now I have renewed energies to work on this.

Beyond Nostalgia and Speed

Published by Paolo on 12/10/2025

I was exploring the stands of BCN Games Fest ’25 here in Barcelona and trying out a couple of indie games. Then I asked “WHY?” to almost all of their creators. The answers generally landed between:

“I think that the visuals are good, nostalgic, bla bla,”

and

“It’s something simple I can do in a small amount of time.”

Well, to me, neither answer is a good one, and I’m sorry to say it. For me, visuals are very important, but they cannot be the hook for a game. You need a fantasy to fulfill as the very first thing, in my opinion. That fantasy can be taken from the real world, from other forms of entertainment, or even from other games, but only if you genuinely think you can improve something.

Regarding the second answer, you need to be very ambitious if you want to make games. It’s good and necessary to put a time limit on your craft. But to me, that shouldn’t be the driver of your creative choices. As an indie developer, you should aim to deliver something meaningful out there.

Your time is now

Published by Paolo on 10/10/2025

Today is the first day of BCN Games Fest, probably the best gaming fair in Barcelona. I’ll be there to meet people, talk with young developers, catch up with ex-students, and maybe offer some advice, as always.

Speaking of which, for me, success in this industry boils down to two main pieces of advice.

The first is that having fear is losing time. Staying home, sending out CVs, and waiting for an answer (while maybe complaining on social media) means you are being ruled by fear. You’re losing your time to make games, which is NOW.

The second piece of advice I always give is that failure is unimportant if the journey is worth some small prize. There is no failure in doing things, and frankly, there is no real success either. I mean, you can make loads of money, and your face might appear in YouTube videos and things like that, but if you talk to the very few people who reached that level, they’ll tell you that’s not the most beautiful part.

So, enjoy the trip and don’t be afraid. Ask WHY you’re doing that—that’s what’s truly important. I will be asking this a lot these days.

Wolves in a Fairy Tale

Published by Paolo on 09/10/2025

The CEO of Supercell, Ilkka Paananen, released a message yesterday asking European legislators to consider European free-to-play game developers before approving new player safety measures.

I currently work mostly in free-to-play (F2P), and I’ve worked in gambling games in the past. I must admit that I see many common practices between these two sectors of the gaming industry. The F2P high-spending players are called whales, a term that actually comes from casinos. And these players are fundamental to the profitability of a game you give away for free.

Certain practices, often called dark patterns, surely influence people’s decision-making. Vulnerable people, like children, can be induced to spend too much. That’s why the regulator often comes in with an axe and suddenly cuts off everything. The same thing happened with the web; nowadays, the experience is completely ruined, and I have to close endless pop-ups for policies I will never read.

I don’t like to be treated like a child. My daughter will never have access to a connected smartphone as a child, full stop. It’s about responsibility. I am aware that many parents don’t have that responsibility, or aren’t capable of facing their children, though. That’s why we need regulations, but to me, it’s important to include everybody in the discussion and not treat developers like wolves in a fairy tale.