You are just making the game you would like to play.
You rarely speak with the Players of your competitors.
You already know what to copy, without knowing why it works (are you sure it really works?).
You feel confident that it will sell, without being backed by concrete data.
Many of us who start working in game development feel the urge of delivering something meaningful to Players from all over the World. We hear a call and we struggle in finding the right place to answer this call. We can humbly call this a vocation.
Do we understand all the components of our vocation for game design? It’s important if we want to find the right place to stay.
If we hear a call for game development, we should consider our dowries, our talents and the circumstances we are in!
Making video games is hard and it has a cost. That is why often we feel the need of building an universal system, capable of letting us creating more games in less time.
Players, instead, purchase and play video games for the experience that game has to offer. They usually do not think in systems, also if they are capable of understand what is similar to other games.
To me the best approach is to make a video game. The best is to focus on a concrete platform and a concrete experience having a great vision. Then if that system is designed to be custom, that is great for the production of next games, of course. But the priority is on the game itself, not on the system you are building.
If you think just in the system, I have to tell you, maybe you are not believing too much in your game. Which is completely normal, you should rely on data and results to believe in it from a business point of view. But from the creative point of view you should also notice that little spark waiting to become the next big IP.
Have a nice summer folks, this is the last post before of my vacations. See you soon!
I notice a tendency of show off everything on social networks instead than asking for help. Especially from Gen Z, I see that many times they are worried more with their personal brands that with building meaningful relationships. The few of them who ask will receive.
There was a moment in my career in which I found myself alone, without a job and thinking seriously of leaving the industry. Naturally, I started to speak with every friend regarding this. Also with new employers. I worked as waiter and as data scientist, always thinking in making video games someday. I also started a blog in Spanish in order to make myself visible, but there was a single activity which I was committed: asking.
I asked everyone I could for help. Most people will try their best, believe me. Asking is way more useful that put a screenshot of a Unity session on LinkedIn saying “first trials with new video pipeline!”. That is not useful at all, there is no polish in what you’are publishing and it’s only noise. Ask instead something to some expert of your field. Ask them everything you can, on all channels you can. Use comments but also DMs. Ask and insist asking for help. Ask is so powerful!
I work remotely for companies since 2016, more or less. I am very specialized in game economies and UX, so that for them is easy to deal with my tasks and responsibilities.
Game development, instead, is never so easy. You cannot rely just on freelancers to build successful products that potentially may last years. You need a core team fully involved every day. And in order to keep it working properly, you need to set up the proper processes. Also the companies that state that they don’t believe in processes, end up setting up (scrappy) processes in the end. To me, it is better to embrace the process as part of the development. In my opinion, processes are very important.
In 2020 everything shifted online. Remote work was forced by the terrible situation of the pandemic. We had no time to prepare, we had to act fast. In a lot of cases, the same exact process employed before was translated to the asynchronous remote work. Some of the most “boring” things were also eliminated. In their place, nothing new was developed. The new process, then, was like Frankenstein.
Nowadays, many are arguing that we need to return to the office because is not the same online. They are right, online is not the same. But, are you sure you did your job, testing and iterating alternative processes?
We want to create a new game, often times because we played one. So that we got inspired and somehow we want to make our own version of it. Maybe we are working for a company which spotted a market opportunity. So that we start studying the games belonging to that market, try to reproduce the best things.
Games industry is very endogamic. We tend too much to take inspiration from the inside of it. But if we see the best products out there, they take a lot from the outside and bring it to the inside.
Days ago I was talking about the TikTok of puzzle games. That is a way of looking outside. You just study the apps market and think in a better UX for some classic game. It often works like that. If you look at games like Royal Match, they took well known mechanics and the real twist is completely on the UX side.
Another great reference is nature. From nature many game designers created memorable gameplay experiences. Think in Japanese legend Shigeru Myiamoto and the story of how The Legend of Zelda was conceived. If you like to walk and you really start observing you notice that nothing in nature is wrong. Recent game The Ants: Underground Kingdom is another evidence of the power of nature. Especially if you want to get better ideas on gameplay and lore, nature is the way.
Art, toys and objects without purpose are also a great way of getting inspired. The history of videogames is full of examples like that. Think in the indie success GRIS or the mobile game Monument Valley. There is not a superhigh challenge, nor a specific deepness in their economies. The Players can just enjoy the overall game feel.
First you fail at getting a job in the video games industry.
Then you try to build your own project, but you fail at building a team.
Then you try to make a solo project, but you fail at managing well your time and you never end it.
Then you start teaching online, but no one cares because you have no real experience.
That is when you start considering buzzwords and trends, and join the downward spiral of events with drinks and lamborginis.
But you don’t belong there, and you never will.
I was playing Bloodborne, because my brother made me a gift. After a few hours I started arguing with myself: why is this game so successful? It is SO complex to me. It wasn’t hard, as everyone says. It was complex. It was complex because I didn’t understood it.
We believe that games can be simple or complex, but simplicity is in our mind, not in the games themselves.
When the mechanics that compose a videogame are understandable, we call the game simple. When the same thing is puzzling, we call it complicated. The combat system of Bloodborne is very puzzling, especially if that is the first game you get of From Software.
Good game design has to inspire, motivate, and be understandable. It is only when all three of these come together that we label the result as “simple.”. Bloodborne is very inspiring and the challenge definitely motivates you. But in order to really understand it you either deal many hours with absolute frustration or speak with your friends and watch YouTube videos.
The skill and knowledge may decay over time, but with well-designed systems, the recovery can be quick. Which is not the case of Bloodborne, if you leave it for a while you definitely lose your ability of beat it.
The future of games is made of better games. Did you saw the last Bethesda announcement?
Imagine Bethesda saying something like: “and then you can sell your space ship to other Players. You can earn money by playing our game!”
What would have happened? In my opinion, from one side core Players would have been explicitly against that. Also with ignorance, it doesn’t matter. Why? Because Players want to play a game. They want to invest their money to receive entertainment.
From the other side, that would be still a Bethesda game. And it seems a very well made one. So that, of course, some Player would definitely buy into that. What happens when you can earn money? All the motivation levers inevitably shift towards that. At least for the end game.
Some Player may start just playing and living the story with their character. After they complete the game, then, the game has the opportunity of becoming a revenue stream for them. A job.
Bethesda didn’t do that. They could, of course. But they didn’t. They are true game developers and they have clear their business. The future of games is made of better games, not funny jobs.
I am very outspoken and I work mostly remotely since 2017. Way before of the pandemic I was providing my game design services to many companies all across Europe. My specialty is game economy and gameplay design for free-to-play. Companies contacted me for three main things:
My main tasks are always been to become aware of a certain context, study a specific market and provide concrete solutions. All of that online, by remote.
I remember back in the days when I had to wait for the producer to call me after the internal meeting. I wasn’t allowed to participate to their daily standup because they were too lazy to set up a camera and connect with me.
Then the pandemic came and this is now the new normal. Now most of my work is online, but the processes are still the offline ones. I mean, I didn’t saw relevant updates to the game development practices. And that’s a problem.
Game development has many moments, good and hard ones. Especially the hard ones, when you need to tell the others your truth about something are getting always more complicated. Sometimes you notice that things are just not working out. So you should take the courage and speak with your boss and colleagues about that. You can do it by writing on a “public” slack channel or by contacting the leaders in private and have a virtual face to face with them. Still, with the remote something is missing. You always have that colleague with stays silent most of the time. And most of the time that colleague is one of the smartest. But they don’t talk, so you will never know. And possibly then they quit for a better job. And you remember that you never asked them directly to express themselves during meetings.
Like this there are a lot of stories. Remote work brought good things to the industry, but one thing is clear: games are not getting published in the expected volume.
We should update our processes at some point.