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Category: Opinions

I Prefer to Build

Published by Paolo Gambardella on 28/09/2026

This post was originally written in Italian by Paolo Gambardella. It has been translated by an AI agent and may contain inaccuracies.

Se lavori a lungo per la stessa azienda, c’è sempre un gruppo di persone che si lamenta molto. Del prodotto, delle scadenze, dei capi, degli altri team. La cosa che mi snerva di più è che, di solito, non si raggiunge nessun obiettivo. La lamentela occupa il posto dove potrebbe stare il lavoro.

Complaining can serve a purpose: there’s a real problem, you name it, you try to fix it. When someone vents, there are three things they might be looking for:

  1. to be heard,
  2. to be comforted,
  3. to be helped.

Listening and comforting do little to actually reduce stress, whereas offering a solution or a different way of looking at things makes a real difference. If a complaint doesn’t lead anywhere, it’s usually just noise.

The uncomfortable side of building

In games we see this all the time:

  • An unfair boss should be flagged and, if possible, fixed.
  • A hard boss kills you, makes it clear why, and lets you try again within three seconds.

Healthy frustration points you towards mastery. Complaining is like sitting on the game over screen telling everyone who walks past how terrible the boss was.

Building has an uncomfortable side too. It can become an excuse to feel superior, and some processes are genuinely broken — in those cases, calling things out is already part of the work. Between a company where things can be changed and one where nothing ever changes, you can tell them apart by how people react when someone puts forward a proposal.

Before you slag something off

My rule, in the end, is simple. If I see a problem, I propose something. If I can, I do something. If after proposing and doing I still see things aren’t working, I leave. Staying somewhere that won’t change while I complain about it is the third option, and it’s the one I want to avoid. It’s happened, but with age and kids it gets harder and harder to go down that road.

Before you slag something off — who could actually change it? If the answer isn’t the person in front of you, that conversation is probably best left alone.

AI is not just a tool

Published by Paolo on 27/01/2026

I’m not convinced by this “AI is just a tool.” We’re wired for stories and narratives, in the sense that our perception is very attentive to them and our memory contains narrative sequences. A tool capable of creating a narrative structure ceases to be a simple tool for me.

It’s a bit like saying “movies are just a tool,” or “video games are just a tool.” Well, it’s certainly possible to use movies and video games as tools. How many times in school were we shown a movie to explain a story? Some teachers use role-playing games or even computer games to explain concepts.

However, these artifacts aren’t just tools. And AI isn’t one for me either. It can heavily influence the way we implement an idea, given that it’s capable of arguing (often bullshit) very well and could catch us at a stressful moment when it’s easy to give in to the temptation to trust. And this inevitably leads to missed opportunities.

Of course, you can cut off your finger with a knife. With Photoshop, you can gather a series of images and make a collage. But that’s a direct use during which you’re aware of the error, either before or just after.

AI isn’t just a tool; it can only be used as a tool, that’s true. But it’s designed, like many things these days, to capture our attention (so we pay the monthly subscription) in exchange for the feeling of being more productive.

And that’s not the case.

The ABC of personal branding

Published by Paolo on 27/06/2025

Days ago, on a private conversation, a LinkedIn friend of mine told me “you are the best game design influencer that I know”. I am thankful for that comment, also if I don’t consider myself an influencer. I prefer to use the term communicator.

I hold another interesting discussion on “personal branding” which together with that happening made me think… I don’t really believe in “personal branding”, and being an influencer, and stuff like that.

Branding is something manufactured, the risk with thinking in myself as a brand is to start perceive myself as a commodity, somehow.

I believe in ABC: acknowledgement, body of work, and character. I think I work a lot on that, more than branding.

And I worked it CBA:

1. Character building: this is something personal, everyone tackles this in a different ways and I cannot teach anyone how to do that. I can share one of my character built feature: I deliver, no matter what. I don’t say “I cannot do that in such a small time”. Of course, according to the time I can deliver something more or less detailed. But that’s on you that gave me that time, everything is pretty transparent. I wasn’t like that before had to build that. And that is just one thing among multiples.

2. Body of work: you will become better at the things you practice more often, simple as that. Many years ago, I decided to stop focusing on look for a job in games and started just practicing game design, every single day. Also small things, like listening to a podcast and taking notes, sketching my ways of working. Consistently I developed my body of work. Today I see something from my past and it’s so bad that I notice my progress and I am happy. Plus, thanks to these scrappy spreadsheets, today I have my personal way that brings me income.

3. Acknowledgement: this comes only as a consequence of C and B, you need to find your people. Campfires are better than social networks. A campfire is a group of few people, it can be a reddit group or a slack channel. Interact with like minded people, find people to admire and listen listen listen. And send DMs to listen more. On the other end, you need to work on something. And on that point especially nowadays I cannot teach anything, it’s so hard. But I can say that if you have a job and tomorrow lose it, consider the juggler metaphor, from Seth Godin.

Juggler metaphor: manies believe that the secret of a juggler is the catch. Truth is, the secret is the throw!

Consider each job you had and lost not like you failed a catch. You were learning how to throw better, like a juggler! By flipping your point of view on this (very hard, I still hold consequences of that process), you will get more authority over time.

Mismanagement

Published by Paolo on 13/01/2025

I read an article on Bloomberg written by one of my favourite journalists, Jason Shreier. It talks about some of the things that make a videogame fail.

Mismanagement is the keyword for that article. Mr. Shreier shared the article and the reactions were critical with managers. Which makes sense, managers are responsible for the management.

The piece mentioned also an employee who declared things like: “I spent some days just watching Netflix“.

Is this still a manager responsibility?

As an Italian my ethics at work are different from one gal in Shangai or an average lad in San Francisco. So, take my words are mere opinions.

It is common to be in the situation “I don’t know what to do”. Not everyone has the drive to find always something to do even when nobody sent any task. In complex projects, and videogames are wicked ones, there is always something to do.

Part of me believes that there are no excuses for that behavior. If you are watching Netflix while the company is paying you a salary, you are behaving unprofessionally. Another part accepts that we are all different and one can be a talent, but have not enough drive in some moment.

Mismanagement is not always a fault of managers. It still is their responsibility. That’s why it’s hard to find the right managers for a project.

I like to write and design all by myself

Published by Paolo on 03/01/2025

I am noticing a trend against LLM platforms, coming from people that enjoy writing, like me. On the other side, enthusiasts explain how the performance improved thanks to these services.

It seems to me a case of beauty and intuition versus rationality and data. And this is something deeper than one can think at a first glance. Over the last decades the discourse around productivity and success got a huge boost. AI fits in this because it helps people build a storytelling that may feel credible with a quick read. And if you are not a creative person, this is a wonder.

There are consequences, on multiple levels. Internet today is a different place than 5 years ago, and I believe this is not right or wrong. It is what it is. I watch or listen anything and first thought is “let me check this has not been auto-generated”. Sometimes I fall in the trap, too.

Will AI boost “productivity”? Well, does it really matter at this point?

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.

A fact on career development

Published by Paolo on 13/11/2024

When you work for a company, full-time, you become skilled at working at that company. That’s all.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you will fit well in a similar project with a competitor. For creative jobs, like game design, you become skilled (or “talented” if you prefer) when you have the opportunity to interiorize, write, and develop your own strategic way of doing things.

That is hard to reach if you only work in a single company for years.

It’s the struggle, instead, the willpower and hitting your face against walls over and over (also with shitty and personal projects) that makes the talent.

Maradona came from a very poor situation playing at night with a broken ball hitting it against a dirty wall over and over.

The most talented people I know do not fit in the majority of corporations out there.

For a brighter future for games

Published by Paolo on 24/10/2024

The YouTube channel of popular game director Masahiro Sakurai has come to an end.

This will remain an outstanding document that hopefully will teach basics to generations to come. Thank you Masahiro San!

Regarding this last video above, I am impressed with the work ethic and discipline. I couldn’t never have this level of mastery because I have a different background and life. Still, there are something to learn not just on video production, but on content design in general:

  • Everything was planned right from the start: outline, scripts, footages. Everything.
  • Focus on 1 task at the time and cover the entire content length
  • Keep everything extremely organized in folders and find name conventions for easier queries
  • Collab with external partners only when everything is well defined, because you will have management overload
  • Use the email with bullet points for feedback and general comms.

Masahiro San says that he invested around $630k and got $0 as revenue. He did this just for the improvement of our beloved industry. I would like to see more Masahiros around here…

Inspiration and steal

Published by Paolo on 12/09/2024

I come to your house and I like your sofa, a lot. Then I can decide:

  • I’ll go buy one from my own apartment
  • I’ll steal it!

The first choice is similar to taking inspiration. Inspiration is doing my thing inspired by yours. It is different from stealing, which is taking your thing to do mine.

The current trend, I am sure it will end soon, is to use tools that take other people’s job and give it to you mixed with other robbed stuff. Which is worse than stealing, at least when you steal you know the victim. Here we’re talking on another level, completely.

It’s inevitable, they say. Well, it’s not. I am against that. You should too.

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