I have lost the password of this blog and I switched PC because I am traveling. That is why I wasn’t writing from a while. I am in Brazil now with my family.
I wish to all my readers a great 2025, with less things but more meaningful.
We are arriving at the end of 2024, and every year, we will get predictions from experts and prizes for the best games according to many different lenses.
Until now, I have seen a lot of AI in predictions, and China is the clear winner of the year. The underlying message seems to be that the industry is moving towards cheaper developments and removing the intervention of humans from simple tasks, at least.
The message is that the big-budget, high-quality human craft is not sustainable anymore, but is it? I think the main issue is greed instead. The idea is that 3-5 people in the World need to get stellar bonuses at the end of the year and grow and grow. This is unsustainable, for sure, not quality. Not craft. Not the participation of people also in simple tasks, which are the tasks that made us seniors.
I do not have predictions, as every year, I am a designer, not a marketer. I am a creative guy, and I accept that it’s impossible to predict anything, the World is made by interconnected systems and tomorrow a plane accident can easily unlock WW3 and disrupt the job market for many years.
But I do have a wish: to see great games coming from my continent, Europe. And I do have a dream to complete my game this year my game Pawtners Case. Wishing and dreaming are refreshing.
Maybe it’s because I started on a new project. Maybe it’s because a company that canceled the position when I was the last candidate republished the position again. Maybe it’s because I am tired of influencers. Or maybe it’s because they use content to train shitty algorithms to produce empty content faster.
Maybe it’s because I don’t want to constantly check out likes and notifications there. Or maybe it’s just because I got bored.
I decided to commit to (at least) a period of silence on LinkedIn. I will continue to write here and on my Substack, though.
Yesterday a client of mine hired me as lead game designer on a new game. I cannot say much about it, but it will be a Steam game, 3D, premium. The game will feature emerging narratives and I will care about the gameplay systems to support that.
Plus I will manage a team of game designers, which is something that I love. I am happy because I am trying to switch sector since quite a while.
Mobile F2P is broken, for now. A total race to the bottom with unrealistic expectations. Plus, the survivors are not looking at the future. They look at the past. They want people ex-<PutFamousCompanyNameHere> to repeat formulas. They hope the dramatic situation with distribution will change someday. It will not. They should look at the future instead.
I was happy to collaborate on f2p projects, but a little frustrated with this way of running businesses. Do you start a race following other runners? That’s wrong in so many ways.
That’s why I am happy to finally work on something truly creative. The expectations are not surreal. I am happy, thank you!
I am currently stuck in a limbo, and I will not come out easily from here. But I will do it.
I am preparing all the material needed to participate to the IndieDevDay24. I have hired a freelance artist to help me to the promotional material (one pager and pitch deck) of Pawtners Case.
For now, zero publishers accepted to meet me. I don’t know if this is normal because it’s the very first time I am willing to pitch to indie publishers. Anyway, the experience is worth to me. I am doing something different, at least.
For the rest, here’s the limbo: from one side I have companies that are offering very high positions to me, but then they disappear because I have never held that same position in another company. From the other side I am getting in touch with smaller realities that value well my work but they are offering too low compensation.
That’s a mess, and it’s hard to be patient with money running out of the bank every month. Wish me luck, if you read this.
What’s up readers? I hope you are good. As you can see, I am still recovering from vacation catching up with everything and I am not able to post daily for now. I will get there, just the time of closing a couple of deals…
I am studying intensively Unreal Engine because I noticed there is a growth in need for tech designers and I find it a great excuse to get better at that engine.
Today I wanna talk about my conception of social media use. I don’t have a proper strategy, I use it because I find it fun. And when I don’t find them fun anymore, I leave them. That’s it.
Someone may suggest you to write at least 3 times per week on LinkedIn to boost your engagement, bla bla. It’s all bullshit, believe me.
The main way of creating leads on social media is not by posting daily but interacting to other people’s content. Write them publicly and privately. You will get to know much more people like that, compared with sharing the little you know.
I post on LinkedIn and here because I freakin’ love life and my job. I have passion for game design and I love to speak about it loudly, that’s all. No strategy, no technique. Just pure fun. And when I don’t have fun anymore, I quit!
I am back from a relaxing vacation with my family. I have probably lost a possible client because I wasn’t available to have a meeting during my rest. I had an interesting interview with a big company that then decided that they prefer a Russian speaker (!!!).
I am back at my desk, ready to start a new working year. I have private challenges ahead, but I am sure I will figure everything out. I think I will use less LinkedIn, lately the trend is losing too much time on it and the return is low. I would prefer, this year, to engage more with Reddit and its communities. I would like to find a community to serve with small games, and show up regularly. I am on it!
I am also tired of many of the podcasts I used to listen to. They are a good resource to start, but they can also bring to analysis paralysis. So I will dedicate that time to more interesting activities.
Good to be back!
Hello and thank you for reading my blog. As you may have noticed, I wasn’t posting every day in the last 2 weeks. That is because I am closing my year and going off to vacations with my family.
I will return to post regularly on August, approximately. I need to enjoy a full disconnection and stay 100% with people I love. I need to read books and stay away from screens. My year was intense, full of work so I deserve that.
Have a great July and see you soon!
I remember staying in a very big room watching cartoons. My mother was cooking, but she was aware of what I was looking at. The story of a young kid with a monkey tail and a stick that extended at request. He seemed unaware of Bulma’s curves. “What are you looking at, Paolo?” said my mother.
Many years later, that room looks smaller. My mother still remembers Dragon Ball. I don’t think I understood the storyline at that time. I just enjoyed the visuals and colors. Everything was so rounded, as well as vehicles. That character was similar to me, he was a little kid but so strong. He wasn’t interested in adult things, just in his quest for dragon balls.
Years later I was buying my first manga comics, one of my favorites was Arale. The creativity was shaping in my mind also with these things. Today I am a game designer and I ask myself: would I be a creator without the existence of Toriyama-sensei?
I don’t think so. God bless you, Akira.
When you gain some experience, you happen to work with junior profiles. They are people who need to grow and it takes considerable management and mentoring work. At first, you are inevitably slowed down, but then you see the benefits.
It then happens that you work for clients and your client is the junior. It explains badly, it defines things badly. In that case, you cannot treat him as you would treat a junior in the company, as a subordinate. And that’s great because it helps you understand how to treat people in the best way possible.
I understand a lot of things that I could have handled differently in the past. Considering a subordinate as the expert, which we are forced to do when working with a client, opens the door to many learnings.