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Tag: ideas

The problem with the “Microsoft Game Day Commercial”

Published by Paolo on 13/02/2024

I am European, so I don’t know if Microsoft made this commercial for the Super Bowl or what:

Many thoughts come into my mind, though. I can define the message as worrisome at the very least. I don’t believe in ghouls but I can see greed. Still, I tend to always find the good part in everything. Let’s go with the plot analysis

The ad starts with young people worried about their professional future. One of them wants to have a business, another wants a degree, and so on. The message focuses on an invisible enemy (“they say I can’t…”). My expectation for the rest of it was a revenge-based narrative. Something like “They say this, I show them I can do that”.

Instead, the protagonists accept what “they say” and start using a powerful AI to do the things they love. “Write me the code for my open-world game…”. My? Are you sure that game is yours? “Generate storyboard images for the dragon scene in my script…” Did you feed an algorithm that stole hundreds of artist’s works with your script? So lame!

The campaign perpetuates society’s renunciation of the growth of their future, young people. MS is saying that they should renounce their dreams and put them in the hands of the corporation. I know that they want to announce their service, but the cake is a lie. LLMs are very limited right now. The fact that they are trying to convince creative people to give up on their creativity drives me nuts.

I am also worried about the environment, how much energy and water are these services using?

Starting from UGC

Published by Paolo on 09/02/2024

Imagine you want to create a new team to develop video games. Imagine you have a team of veterans and people with less experience. One of the ways to start is Roblox or UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite).

They are walled gardens but allow you not to worry too much about thinking about the game to develop. Roblox has more players than Playstation and Xbox combined. So there is a solid community of players.

When you start a new project by creating a team of people who don’t know each other, it’s a good idea to start doing smaller tests. So why not try these systems that already have their basis? In my opinion, it is an excellent opportunity to start.

When the junior is your client

Published by Paolo on 05/02/2024

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.

Avoid the scarce mentality

Published by Paolo on 30/01/2024

Many talented people have been unfairly laid off. You can start thinking: “Hey, there are seniors from Blizzard open to work, they will never hire me. I am completing my engineering grade!”.

Let me tell you this is a fallacy. When we look at job openings we see very few positions for juniors or for people who didn’t work on a TOP game. Still, the possibilities are many.

The games industry is smaller than you think in number of people. But the games market is huge, opportunities are much more than you believe. Companies often don’t have to publish offers because internal employees know reliable people to hire.

You need to build!

Build your network, build your games, build your career. The job market is not meritocratic at all, it’s not the best that gets the job. The job market is a lot about being in the right place at the right time. Instead of spending your whole day doom-scrolling layoff news, build your future!

Skill-based puzzle games

Published by Paolo on 19/01/2024

Once there was Bejeweled Blitz! dominating the charts of free puzzle games. But then Candy Crush Saga brought many interesting changes that appealed to a broader audience. And you need that if you want to be profitable and scalable.

Still, when the business people see something that doesn’t work, the game designer sees an opportunity. And to me, there is an opportunity in skill-based puzzle games. Games where the rules impose the norm of not thinking too much. Tetris was maybe the first successful example. And it’s still there.

There is this game pretty popular online called Watermelon Game. It’s very simple and gives lots of space for the Players to think. Maybe a skill-based version of that would work? Like a Bejeweled Blitz! but with a merge mechanic.

I’m writing this in case someone does it and has success. It’s always good to feel “I said it!”.

We need a simple controller

Published by Paolo on 10/01/2024

Games should be simple to play, for everyone. They can also be difficult, and offer a challenge. But the play itself should be a very accessible act.

A gamepad with over 20 buttons is not simple. We need some courage and go back to the origins. With adaptation to the novelties.

8 buttons for NES pad were more than enough, but the shape was not optimal.

Oculus controller solves the ergonomic problem, but has too many buttons. I would save just the trigger and add a touchpad on top

The touchpads of Steam Deck are a good reference for the top part.

Can you imagine that?

  • Connect it with any device, smartphone, PC or console
  • comes with a dongle to stream on any screen
  • takes gestures too

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is dead

Published by Paolo on 04/01/2024

Long live King Kardashian: Hollywood.

I remember this game took people like me in crisis. We read a lot of breakdowns to try to understand why this game was so successful at the time. Almost nobody understood the real value of that “exposed gem”.

The system was very simple and the economy was pretty aggressive. Only whales, VIP players, were treated with actual respect and that fit great into the game’s metaphor. Of course, for someone like me with my gaming background (as a Player) all of that looked like garbage. But hey, lots of people prove me wrong. People wanted to be entertained by that sort of point and click dating simulator with dolls mechanics.

There was a perfect marriage among a dominant mimicry and an alea. You performed actions using energy and in change you could get some special perk. Fantasy, narrative and expression were the main aesthetics.

We all learned a lot from Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. So that at the end it will pass to the game history, somehow. That shitty game!

Play Forms

Published by Paolo on 02/01/2024

If you want to learn how to play like a game designer and you don’t know how to start, the Play Forms framework is a good starting point. It is based on a classic book about play, called “Man, Play and Games“. I have never read it, but there is a lot of material out there if you know how to search.

The framework is based on the conception that play has 4 basic forms:

  • Agon means competition, it can be against the game itself, against virtual enemies or against other Players
  • Alea means chance, the random factor that the Player is not able to control
  • Mimicry means the imitation of something belonging to other contexts, such as real life or fantasy worlds or abstract concepts
  • Ilinx means the vertigo, the senses brought to their limits

Ask yourself these questions while you are playing:

  • Am I competing against someone or something?
  • Does my outcome depend on randomness at some level?
  • Am I interpreting some role or adapting to metaphors that I have already seen in other mediums?
  • Do I feel some of the moments are extremely exaggerated and exciting?

Future: remove uninteresting choices

Published by Paolo on 27/12/2023

An experiment I ran this year was TikTok. I made an account and started recording videos in Italian on game design. In a few days, I was completely sucked into the platform. I stopped playing my games for pleasure, TikTok was my unique source of mobile entertainment. I uninstalled that crazy demon from my smartphone.

The algorithm works just great, understands where I stay the most and keeps serving me what it considers to be the best. There were no surprises, every time I needed some fast stress relief I got it.

From a game design standpoint, the lack of uninteresting choices is a great thing when I am the consumer. This doesn’t happen when I run a social casino suite or a mobile RPG. Lately, it has not happened with Roblox and Fortnite either. It doesn’t happen with Steam.

I run these games and I have to choose: which game mode, minigame, or experience, do I want to play? Rarely did I decide this before running a game. So I spend 10 precious minutes deciding.

And in that context, this decision is not meaningful at all! I want to have fun and make meaningful choices in the game. Not on the main screen.

I am completely sure that the next mobile hit will understand this concept and serve the Players with straight gameplay, according to their tastes. With the possibility of swiping them away. And of course, leveraging content creation. 

Is China really that wrong?

Published by Paolo on 27/12/2023

I was reading the new policies from China regarding games and thinking that somehow I do agree with most of them.

I am not an anti-capitalist. I believe that (also if it has its flaws) commerce is the best way we find as human beings to make fewer wars. I am not in favor of the Chinese propaganda, too.

But I observe my society, I teach at local institutions and I can see the obvious drama… There is a battle for attention that pervades also video games. I see that many people have their attention completely sucked in super cool and engaging gameplay, as well as social networks and other forms of entertainment. Some of my students are completely immersed in “Clash Royale”, or other games, while I show them how to build their future. Is that even fair? Do they deserve that? Of course, it’s their choice… but do brilliant designs manipulate their will?

I did not choose to make games to trap the players’ minds. I choose to make games because I want to create interesting gameplay when they decide to step into the magic circle. It is completely different.

The games market is growing and more and more realities are competing to own the free time of people like my students, and others.

Is that what we want or it would be better to put limits to greed? My answer is that we have to put limits. Complete freedom when lots of products are carefully designed by top talent to keep the attention of people looking for their hourly endorphin doses is very dangerous.