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Tag: inspiration

Game design consultants: hire who’s better than you

Published by Paolo on 05/05/2022

Some time ago I tried an experiment. I hired some people to try to teach them my way of making video games. My goal was not to earn money with those games. I wanted to train a couple of assistants because the number of clients of my consultings is increasing.

The experiment did not go as expected. My time is scarce, so I can’t invest it in training people. I quickly realized my choice was pretty dumb. However, I realized something very important.

If we don’t have time, it is better to delegate to those who know more than us. We will thus make a good impression on our clients. We will also learn new techniques.

When the market goes wild

Published by Paolo on 02/05/2022

Today’s news of the acquisition by Embracer Group, combined with other news of crazy investments in new products that have not yet proved anything in the world, led me today to make a fairly radical reflection on my personal LinkedIn. Radical and certainly full of bias.

Link to the original post

We tend to evaluate successes and failures in the video games industry in terms of cash flow. The impact of a game on the world is evaluated by stock market experts, who focus on business performance and growth opportunities.

Why then does this news bother me? To understand this it is necessary to understand why I do this job. I study and work as a game designer every day. I do it because I find the idea of ​​having people in the world who spend moments of fun thanks to the fruit of my work truly fascinating.

That’s all.

Does anyone get rich thanks to the fruit of my work? I am very happy for this person.

But that’s not my life goal. My job is to create experiences that are able to marry the fantasies of some people looking for happy moments. The rest is a consequence.

When I see disproportionate valuations for “nice to have” features such as transportable avatars to other games and then see deals made with the creators of epic intellectual properties such as Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider, my head is short-circuited!

I know very well which thing has the most value for the players, between a feature and an epic story. It’s not being able to use a 3D model in more than one game to make a difference in gaming experiences.

The skill that opens all doors

Published by Paolo on 29/04/2022

The job of the game designer basically consists in knowing how to communicate. Communication is a process that includes several parts. One of these parts is the production of documents. Creating documents consists of a fundamental skill: writing.

The skill that opens all doors is the ability to write. When you dominate the editorial office, you have a lot of career opportunities. It’s also one of the things most of us neglect when we’re young.

I notice a terrible demotion in recent years. Syntax, semantics and spelling are definitely at an all-time low. Someone says it’s the applications we write in, I’m not an expert. I just observe. People’s writing skills have been terribly low lately.

In my days I happen to hear people read aloud. At work, when I give lessons, or even in public transport. No tone, no points, no cadence.

Care of your editorial skills. Write every single day. Read aloud what you write. Listen again. The doors will open for you!

Everything a Game Designer must know

Published by Paolo on 27/04/2022

A LinkedIn contact shared a mind map that summarises, from his point of view, everything a game designer needs to know.

Link to the original post

His post was shared and appreciated by many professionals in the sector.

In my opinion, instead, the image is misleading. It just looks at one part of game development: free-to-play business. Free-to-play is only part of a very complex world ranging from board games to virtual reality. I know many people in Europe who are dedicated to the development of indie games and I can assure you that, for example, the “Data” part is ignored by them.

This mind map contains what free-to-play game companies expect from a game designer. Which is very different from the declared purpose.

A person with in-depth knowledge in all of these areas is very likely to feel the work of a game designer frustrating. If I know the game-as-a-service business like the back of my hand, I will continually make proposals that probably won’t be heard. Frustration leads many game designers to jump to other roles, such as product management. Pure game designers, instead, are dedicated to something else!

When you work in free-to-play you gain knowledge in all these areas, but a game designer who does his job well devotes himself to two main activities:

  1. Facilitate tools in the team to decide how the game works
  2. Involve the people who will be playing the games in the process

Facilitate game design tools

The game designers are those who help define:

  • the game systems
  • the way in which the story reaches the players
  • the experience in the game levels
  • the actions necessary to activate the mechanics.

System design, narrative design, level design and gameplay design. In the case of free-to-play: economy design, content design, level design and UX design.

It is good to know the business side and the data side to be informed about what to do, but it is very important to be able to realise the very experience you want to offer people in the game. The necessary qualities are of a technical, artistic and editorial nature.

  1. Create and use spreadsheets, touch JSON files and game engines (technical).
  2. Set up a process, help define the essence of your experience and study well the armony of all the elements of your game (artistic).
  3. Document everything and write stories both for internal inspiration and for the Players (editorial).

Involve people

Too often, busy with many daily tasks, team members forget the main component of a commercial video game: the Players.

Most video games in production will not be commercially successful for exactly this reason. The task of game designers is to involve real people constantly to test the assumptions you have about the players and the market. A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world. You need to go outside, watch people play the game and have meaningful conversations with them.

Product managers, programmers and artists don’t have the time to do this. It is up to the game designers to take care of this. If you don’t, the work comes down to constant deliveries over long periods of time and then comes to nothing. It happens very often.

Conclusion

Game design is a very complex activity, but the role of game designers is very practical and creative. It is about analysing the games and helping the team to define the tools to create the game. Then you will create gaming experiences using these tools.

It is good to know a little bit of everything. Of course, if you want to have a meaningful discussion with a product manager you should speak the language of the business. If, on the other hand, you want to have a conversation with the art director, learning about the history of art and the theory of colours can help you a lot.

But let’s never forget the fundamentals. We game designers do a very practical job!

A game is a language

Published by Paolo on 26/04/2022

A few days ago I said to a student “a game is, after all, a language to deliver a story”. He objected: “Not all games have a story!”. The student was right, but his objection is due to the semantic context of the term “story”.

A story can be a component of a game, generally expressed through its contents. By interacting with the game mechanics, players create a narrative. There are many games without a story, but the sequence of actions and events always creates a narrative. That piece you were waiting for finally appears and saves your game of Tetris. You were losing, now you have been saved by fate. If someone told the story of your match, this event would be part of it.

A story is also the path that brought your game to where it is. Your live game is constantly updated and this creates a story. The core of your player community will know your story through the various updates.

A story can also arrive absolutely asynchronously. A few years ago I discovered what was behind titles like Super Mario and Zelda. The creator of these games brought his personal childhood story to the players.

A story can also be created on other platforms thanks to your game. Some people use whole games, or parts of them, to create entertainment for other people.

Making games for the Impact Economy

Published by Paolo on 25/04/2022

Impact Economy, an economic model in which the main purpose for startups, businesses, investors and organisations is not only to maximise profitability, but also to improve their social and environmental impact.

I recently discovered the Ecosia search engine. Ecosia relies on Bing’s ad services and promises to plant trees based on the amount of searches you do on their engine. It installs easily, even on smartphones, and works really well.

The results are the same as those of other engines (I used DuckDuckGo before) and it is really a pleasure to know that you are doing good to nature just by browsing.

I wonder if it is possible to adapt this business to the video game. In fact, there are entire sectors that survive thanks to advertisements. See the hypercasual market.

Imagine being able to join the services that Ecosia relies on to plant trees and contribute by creating video games where, for each ad you view, trees are planted!

It would be beautiful right?

Player’s Advocate

Published by Paolo on 22/04/2022

The other day I was talking to a colleague. He tells me “you don’t have to worry about the decisions that come up, just think about doing your job. What they tell you to do. “. This for me is the best way to have mediocre products, designed for mediocre people with something to spend. Do your job right, just do what they tell you to do.

Game designers very often are exactly like that. True game design includes, instead, keeping promises to players. Game designers connect with players’ fantasies and offer them the experience they are looking for.

Game designers understand that a “daily bonus” is not gameplay, but simply a feature. They understand this and struggle to pass this concept on to those above as well. If your game as a service has been releasing only features and not gameplay for months, guess what: you have a problem!

If you are this type of designer, you quickly realize that the most important thing in your job is to make sure you create great products and services. Because a game is a language to tell a story. And this story must be true.

Your job is to get people to work on publishing a great game. Not garbage. No shortcuts.

If you are not the Player’s Advocate who will be?

Players may be tired of throwing their money at gem packs

Published by Paolo on 19/04/2022

According to the Sensor Tower service and some specialised media, the benefits generated by free-to-play smartphone games have decreased. Specifically, spending on the Apple platform is under 2.3%. On Android there was a dramatic decline of 13.8%.

Experts from around the world are also questioning Sensor Tower’s estimation capability. In short, these estimates could be wrong. As a game designer, I have one, single and simple doubt: are free-to-play games for smartphones losing novelty?

Historically, video games have always thought of pushing the limits of graphics and gameplay. If we look at the premium market, with a simple glance we can see how technological progress has supported the evolution of game modes in a superb way. Even there, however, companies have begun to bet on the safe side. That’s why we see so many sequels, remakes, etc.

I’ve been downloading and trying tons of free-to-play games every week for years. I remember when I started in this video game sector, in 2012. The Pareto Principle was applied in a more courageous way: 80% copying a game, 20% introducing new things. This trend has changed lately.

Free-to-play, in order to be sustainable, needs a huge volume of players. To make this possible, acquisition campaigns need to focus on finding a very large audience. Before Apple’s IDFA deprecation, it was possible to find audiences based on concrete actions. “I would like to have inside the people who paid in this other game”. “I would like people who complete the tutorial of these games.”

This led to a new application of the Pareto Principle: 80% copying from one game, 20% copying from another. You avoid risks, you play “safe” in theory.

The result: the games that we see in top grossing are, from a gameplay perspective, always the same. Human beings certainly do not want complete and revolutionary experiences. However, we need to see continuous evolutions, or we will no longer feel attracted to what the market offers us.

A pop-up comes up with an affordable pack of gems, boosters, and some new heroes. The same type of package I bought in 3, 5, 10 games. The novelty effect of long-term gets lost.

How could we try to solve this?

  • Accepting that it is better to aim at a very large audience and, once inside the game, create different experiences for different type of player personas
  • At the same time, put at the center of your game experience something really fresh
  • Try to create games that can be accessed by multiple devices, not just smartphones, to ensure the service scalability.

My thoughts on seniority

Published by Paolo on 22/02/2022

I was talking to a friend and game designer about the future and our wishes. Sometimes I would like to dedicate to projects of a different nature than mobile f2p. Sometimes I would also appreciate to have different kinds of responsibilities.

Companies see my profile and normally contact me for:

  • virtual economies
  • tutorials and first time user experiences
  • game design documents for free-to-play mobile games
  • creative direction

I would love to be able to dedicate a couple of years to an action RPG for PC and Consoles at some point. Maybe I can be very useful in the level design of a moment-to-moment adventure games of the caliber of The Last of Us. I am absolutely convinced of it, even if companies of this type when my resume arrives they discard it in a few minutes.

“You should then start as a junior designer in a new reality if you want to do this. Difficult to be a senior designer there.“, my friend pointed out.

I disagree with this. For me, seniority does not depend on concrete experience in a specific type of game.

What it takes to be a good game designer

Raph Koster says that a designer must express quality in three fundamental fields: artistic, technical and editorial.

The artistic side is essential to have that sensitivity to observe what players are looking for in a certain type of game and offer them an experience that in terms of aesthetics and challenge makes sense. The game designer is a bit of an artist: is the game imitating real life, or do you want to create a game that influences real life in some way?

The ability to write is also very important, especially being concise. I believe that the best designers use the formula 60-30-10 when presenting their ideas: 60% images, 30% text and 10% multimedia references. 30% text therefore needs to hit the spot and inspire. For that you need experience and editorial skills. I’m not even an English native speaker, so I have to constantly update myself on this point.

Finally, there are the technical skills. Using a game engine, knowing how to use spreadsheets and other skills that vary depending on the designer. Personally I am proficient with Unity and Python and I create scripts that often make things easier for me and the team. Others are very good at photoshop and can also create basic concept art. Some level designers come from architecture and therefore are quite more comfortable creating structures that make sense. All technical skills can be learned, however. In fact, in 3-6 months at the most, it is possible to enter a new world and acquire what we need to be fully operational.

What is seniority to me

Senior game designers are people capable of understanding the context in which they move, constructively stimulating dialogues and setting up processes according to the project they are in. They are very aware of the gaming business, too.

While I’ve contributed to various virtual economies, that doesn’t mean an AAA game designer isn’t capable of studying competitors and preparing mathematical models and spreadsheets. These are things that can be easily learned. The design process has stages that are independent of the platform, genre and type of audience. It is a question of understanding which problems must be solved, analyzing how other realities have faced the same problems and defining solutions according to a certain context (team, budget, scope, time and quality).

Seniority is primarily dependent on age, in my humble opinion. When I read “senior game designer” and I see an age under 25 I already start to have suspicions. Being senior also gives you the self-confidence necessary to defend designs with superiors. Except in special cases, if you are 22 it is difficult to overcome certain filters set by the experience of 40+ years old leaders.

Age, previous experience and context make the seniority, for me. Having faced the same kind of problems in the past certainly accelerates, but it doesn’t make the difference between junior and senior. You can be slower at start but way more effective on the long term.

Some reflections on good professionalism

Published by Paolo on 18/02/2022

Lately for personal reasons I have been working at a much slower pace and I am asking myself many questions. Since work is a very important part of my life, I think it is necessary to ask the question “what does it mean for me to be a good professional?”.

Everyone says “be humble”. Humbleness, to me, does not only mean having a humble spirit, it also means having the humility to share the little that is known. It also means having the humility to try to inform ourselves as much as possible about what we disagree with. Humble basically means allowing knowledge to arrive.

Second, have the urge to study new techniques and areas that you don’t know. The video game sector and all technological sectors need constant training. Very often in a programming language course you can’t imagine you discover ways to save a lot of time! Give it a go!

Golden rule of the good professional: there is no free job. Work is always paid. I’ll give you an example: 3 months ago I started a personal project where I am training young people in the art of game design. I only decide to continue or cancel a project. I try to give these projects an exit. My greatest mission is to pass on my knowledge to people involved. I do not claim to generate benefits.

Should I pay or not? Shouldn’t they be paying me to pass on this precious knowledge to them? No. I expect weekly deliveries, updates and meetings from them. This is work and the work must be paid.